Look, in the air, it's a bird, it's a plane...

As spring comes, some days get quite windy in Christchurch, resulting in airplanes changing their flight paths.  This means they fly directly over our house.  One day this week planes were going over every 15 minutes. 

Air New Zealand plane

JetStar plane

Also up in the air are the recent New Zealand election results – the voting ended September 23, but the ruling party group has not been decided yet because New Zealand has a coalition type government.  After the election, five out of seven parties got either a district representative or over 5% of the separate party vote.  Since no party got a majority of seats, the 3rd place party is the "kingmaker" or "queenmaker", as whatever larger party they form a coalition with will have enough members to be a majority and rule.  It will be either a National (conservative) + New Zealand First party coalition, or a Labour (liberal) + Greens + New Zealand First coalition.  This will be decided and announced within the next few days.

Some of the election flyers in our mailbox

We spent a weekend in Akaroa, a nearby coastal village founded by French settlers.  And since the village is French, of course we had to stop at the bakery. 

Mille feuille at the French bakery

We visited the Giant’s House, a garden mosaic installation by artist Josie Martin.  We are including some of our favorite sculptures.  

A couple we met on the north island live outside Akaroa.  We stopped at their farm and went tramping with them at Hinewai Reserve, a large park area.  

Page and Stuart

Tramping options at Hinewai Reserve

We met Hugh Wilson, a caretaker and character all in one.   Hugh helps build and maintain tracks in the park reserve.  He also figured out that if you just leave the gorse (a pretty but quite invasive plant), it actually protects the native bush plants and allows them to grow for about twenty years, and then the gorse naturally dies back, allowing the native bush to thrive.  Others were burning and hacking the gorse, only making the problem worse.

Hugh coming down the road

Paul, Stuart, Hugh and Page

Spring is here; we’ve seen pasque flowers, tulips and lilacs in the park, and asparagus at the farmers market.  

Summer isn’t far behind as you can see in the poster for summer school at the University. 

Tourist season is starting and punters are back giving tourists a boat ride on the Avon River, which flows right through the city. 

We continue to tramp on Thursdays with the small tramping group.  Some of the things to watch out for on the track are in the photos that follow:  

Rockfall hazards...

prickly plants...

sheep...

and sheep poo.