Rugby, Rooster and Rain

Winter is slowly transitioning to spring in Christchurch and more flowers are starting to bloom. 

We stopped at the Christchurch Museum to see an exhibit on Japanese tattoo.  Some impressive work, but, “ouch, that’s gotta hurt” to have it done. 

The Crusaders are a professional rugby union team in Christchurch.  They recently won the Super Rugby title by defeating the Lions from South Africa.  A crowd turned out to welcome them home with a victory celebration.  The Crusaders walked through their fans, signed flags, rugby balls and shirts and posed for numerous selfies. 

Our Thursday tramping was in the port hills – Christchurch was fogged in, but we walked above the clouds.  From our vantage point, the city had totally disappeared.  The fog lasted almost until noon.   

Christchurch, seen from the Port Hills on a normal day

Today Christchurch was invisible, hidden under the fog

Lyttelton harbor, seen from the Port Hills on a normal day

Lyttelton harbor covered in fog

The area we were tramping in had been burned extensively earlier this year but is starting to come back thanks to local restoration efforts.

Scorched vegetation along the Crater Rim track

We heard about a stray rooster who had been living in the hills – people didn’t see him after the fire and thought he had died.  He is still alive though and struts around happily eating apple cores or other lunch leftovers given by trampers. 

Over the weekend we took the bus to New Brighton, another Christchurch seaside suburb.  We wanted to walk on the large pier before it is closed for repairs.  

We also visited with Derry and Elizabeth, both retired university professors who know of Paul’s mom through mutual friends.

Derry and Elizabeth

... and their very friendly puppy

We attended a cultural fest at Lincoln University in Christchurch.  Lincoln has the highest percentage of foreign students of any university in New Zealand.  The students and staff served a great multicultural meal plus showed off in a variety of performances.  The shaking dancer is from Java. 

Sunday we attended the Christchurch Go Green Festival where lots of environmental and food businesses had displays.   We’d never seen a wooden bicycle before. 

And it rained all day again on Monday.  The only good thing was that the wet ground made it easy for Cindy and Willowbank Wildlife Reserve staff to find worms for a treat for the kiwi birds.

Ships and Politics

We’ve been out to Lyttelton (a suburb of Christchurch, on a bay connected to the ocean) to the Saturday Farmers Market.  It’s fun to see ships in port to pick up logs and to see the stacks of logs – we don’t get to see ships of this size anywhere near us at home in Wisconsin.

Paul was disappointed that his favorite food vendor, Sherpa Kai, wasn’t at the Lyttelton Farmers Market, but as we left to walk to our bus, he spotted the trailer that had moved to a permanent spot away from the market.  Yea!

Friendly folks serving Nepalese and other Asian food

Back in our Christchurch house we planned to make Leek Cheese Flan, but didn’t have a rolling pin.  A wine bottle came to the rescue and worked quite well.  Cindy made the crust, Paul made the filling and the result was excellent. 

We both went on the tramping outing on Thursday, but the tramp was around a hilly residential area since the hill tracks are still closed because of so much rain.  The Cashmere section of Christchurch had plenty of hills to walk up and down though.  Some of the sights were a set of stairways numbered in Roman numerals, an “elephant tree” with roots popping up, a fishy manhole cover and a gorgeous protea bush.  “Gorgeous” is an adjective that is frequently used here to describe everything from babies to tea cakes.

 

Protea bloom

The Antarctic Society sponsored a talk by Anthony Powell, an award winning filmmaker.   His film “Antarctica: a Year on Ice” produced in 2015 would be good to check out at your library (Eau Claire has it) or on Netflix.  Anthony and his wife Christine (from California) shared stories and photos of one end of the world. 

Christine and Anthony Powell

Politics have started to become more evident in New Zealand as the elections for MP (members of Parliament) occur in about 50 days.  New Zealand has a multi-party system, with seven parties currently represented in Parliament - National, Labour, Green, New Zealand First, Maori, ACT, and United Future, and government is generally by coalition as no single party gets a majority of the Parliament seats.

The Green party has been prominent because Metiria Turei, co-leader of the Greens, wants to increase benefits to low income parents, but she disclosed that in the 1990’s she misrepresented her living situation when applying for benefits as a single parent.  Two other fellow MPs in the Green party have quit under protest, but the other twenty MP Greens have stood by her.  

James Shaw and Metiria Turei of the Green Party

Breaking news though is that Metiria is resigning because of the scrutiny her family has been under.

Meanwhile Andrew Little, leader of the Labour party, resigned when recent polls showed the party has been losing support among voters.  The former Deputy Director, Jacinda Ardern, is now taking over as leader, and Labour appears to be regaining support in the last few days.

Jacinda Ardern and Andrew Little of the Labour Party

Posters are not updated yet.

Saturday we attended a Vegetarian Society potluck and got to hear Mojo Mathers, another MP from the Green Party.  Mojo is the first deaf member of the New Zealand Parliament.  She is a spokesperson for conservation, animal welfare and disability issues.  

Mojo Mathers and partner

Fine and Frosty

The weatherman describes this week’s weather as fine and frosty -  meaning it is sunny and cold with freezing nights.  This is better than last week which was rainy and cold – either way it’s a typical Christchurch winter.   

A frosty flower

Hagley Park, near Christchurch Botanical Gardens

The tramping outing was cancelled last week because heavy rain closed the tracks on the hills.  Instead we walked around the city and parks.  

  

We also take lots of buses to get around Christchurch.  

The 100 bus, right on the road we live on

Christchurch has several good farmers markets and we have already visited two of them.

Christchurch Farmers Market at Riccarton Bush

Makes sense to us...

Halswell Community Market

Cindy met some cute animals up close, including Merlot, a ragdoll cat who belongs to one of the walking group women.  

Merlot

This Kea or mountain parrot lives at Willowbank Nature Reserve where Cindy volunteers.

Kea from Willowbank

We like the efficient color-coded rubbish bins – everyone in Christchurch has the same bins and the same rubbish hauler (the city).  Red is rubbish (landfill), yellow is recycling and green is organics (everything organic except flax and cabbage tree leaves, dead animals and sawdust – we don’t know what you do with those exceptions).  Green is picked up every week and yellow and red on alternate weeks.   

Our three bins

Paul checking to see if the bins have been emptied

The contents of the organics bins are turned into compost which is used on all public green spaces and is also available for sale by the bag or trailer load.

We’ve discovered a new (to us) vegetable called tatsoi...

... which Cindy got at the Okeover Community Garden on campus when she weeded on Friday.  

Tatsoi can be eaten raw or cooked similar to spinach or bok choy.

We’ve seen the little fantail bird, which is one of our favorites – this one didn’t fan his tail all the way though.

And we’ve been out to eat a few times – once was to Sakura, a Japanese restaurant with great tempura, and another time to a grand opening at Pocket Full of Spices, an Indian restaurant in the Christchurch suburb of Rolleston.  

Vegetable tempura at Sakura

Yalini and Paul at A Pocket Full of Spices

These restaurant visits are thanks to Yalini, a colleague of Paul’s who loves to show us her favorite Christchurch restaurants.