Tramping and Planting

It’s been another good week here.  Cherry blossoms are in peak bloom and everyone is taking photos of them. 

Last Sunday we attended Operation Nature Day at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens and went on a guided walk with the curator of the New Zealand section of the gardens.  

Our guide showing us the lancewood tree

The small tree on the right is a lancewood tree that has very long spiky leaves when young to discourage predators from eating them.  However, when it grows older and taller it starts generating regular roundish leaves.

One of the Operation Nature Day display tables had stuffed possums and stoats, two of the non-native mammals that destroy native bird eggs and kill the young birds. 

Australian brushtail possum - about 3/4 of the size of North American possums

Stoats - they're like our weasels

We’ve been tramping with Cindy’s group on Thursdays.   Last Thursday was a beautiful sunny spring day to be on the Crater Rim trail in the hills around Christchurch.  

View of Lyttelton harbour from the rim

Cindy and her tramping group

Cindy has been volunteering at the Harbour Food Co-op in Lyttelton one day a week.  The co-op is tiny and is like co-ops in the states used to be years ago (bags of beans with scoops, buckets of bulk items, funky wooden shelves and floor.) 

This Saturday we took part in a Plantout day as part of Conservation Week.  We joined a bus load of people and spent the day planting native plants at 3 locations.  At the end of the day we met up with two other bus groups for a dinner and music to celebrate the planting of about 4500 plants.  This is part of a “Greendot” project organized by the Kakariki Trust to establish a corridor of native plant areas on public and private lands which will also aid native birds.

One of the empty plots before we started planting

Planting in progress with protective sleeves put around each plant

The end result - over 1000 native plants at this location

And for cuteness factor – this little boy was helping his parents plant, and found a worm which he proudly displayed.  

           

Penguins, Poo and Puppy

Kia ora –  (Hello) this week is Maori Language Week in New Zealand.

We took the French Connection van to Akaroa on the Banks Peninsula last weekend to go on the Pohatu Penguins tour that we had to reschedule from last year.  Pohatu Penguins is a penguin and habitat conservation project started by Shireen and Francis Helps to aid the population of little white-flippered penguins (Korora), as well as a working farm and tour business.  Thanks to the Helps’ work, the Pohatu colony is the largest Little Penguin colony on mainland New Zealand with over 1000 breeding pairs.  We met our guide in Akaroa and were driven in a 4 wheel drive van to see sights on the way to the penguin colony. 

We were dropped off to hike the 1.5 hour forest hike to Flea Bay for our penguin visit and overnight cottage stay.  We shared the tramp (the hike) with cows and sheep, and encountered lots of poo in the paths. 

 This is why we had to clean the soles of our boots later.

The track was quite slippery due to recent rains so the adventure turned into a 2.5 hour tramp. 

Notice we're not both on the bridge at the same time

We arrived at Flea Bay to meet up with another couple who were going on the evening penguin tour.  First we got to feed a bottle lamb who had been rejected by her mother. 

Our home for the night

The Helps have built box shelters for nesting penguins, and other penguins dig burrows on their own. 

Penguin burrow in the side of the hill

We peeked in on some penguins as the staff monitored their nesting sites.  

We also viewed some penguins coming in from the sea to return to their mates. 

We had scheduled kayaking for Friday morning, but the waves were too high for us to go out on the water safely, so we hiked up to the head of Flea Bay.  We returned to Christchurch Friday afternoon, just in time to gather with our friends for folk dancing with Farandol, the local folk dancing group.

Saturday we walked again to the Farmers Market and sampled some delicious Indonesian food. 

Tempeh-based food at the Indonesian stall

Christchurch has a variety of nationalities in its population and this is reflected in the food stands.  We also like it that this market has lots of buskers and we enjoyed listening to two young people playing classical music. 

Walking home, we saw a small white dog running down the busy road after a car.  Two cars stopped and a man tried to get the dog, but the dog ran down the sidewalk and straight to us.  Cindy was able to grab it and hold it by the collar.  We were going to call the number on the dog’s tag, but then another man stopped and knew where the dog’s owner was, back at a car park.  The man carried the dog down the street to its owner, and everyone lived happily ever after!

We happened upon a science fair at the University for middle school students and watched demonstrations by University staff of how to lie on a bed of nails, how to generate high-voltage electricity using a Tesla coil and the effect of magnets on different metals. 

Yes, that is electric current flowing into his thumb.

And we will leave you with a bit of Kiwi humor seen in the photo below. 

Haere ra.

We're Back in Christchurch

The last time we left you, Paul and Cindy were headed home after 4 months in New Zealand.  Cindy had both arms in casts after falling into a stone wall, breaking both her wrists.  Once back in Wisconsin, she was also fitted with a back brace for 3 months due to a fractured vertebra, and was diagnosed with a concussion.

Fast forward to September 1, 2018.  Cindy has healed quite well.  Paul and Cindy arrive in Christchurch on the first day of spring.  Paul will be filling in for half a semester for a university professor who has a partial appointment to the Dean’s office.  He shares an office with two other visiting academics.

Paul hard at work in his office

We’ve been assigned to a lovely recently remodeled house near the university.  The house has just about everything we need – except a laundry basket.

     

We left 80 degree temperatures in Eau Claire for temps in the 40’s in Christchurch.  The online weather advised four clothing layers including 1 windproof layer because the actual temp of 8 degrees Celsius (46 degrees Fahrenheit) feels like 2 degrees C (35 F), with wind gusts of 59 kilometres per hour (36 mph).  Then to top it off, we’ve had all day rain.

We are excited to be back, especially now that we have caught up on sleep.  We’ve been to the Farmers Market, the food co-op in Lyttelton, our favorite Buddhist temple restaurant and even to Briscoes to buy a laundry basket.  Since we don’t have a car, we walked all through town taking turns carrying the basket. 

A stroll through the reserve (park) - with our laundry basket

Christchurch is known as the garden city. The daffodils and magnolias are blooming and the bird life is active.  

Magnolia tree

The polyanthus are even prettier in the rain.  

So far we’ve seen or heard a nice variety of native and non-native birds: wood pigeon, fantail, chaffinch, silvereye, tui, bellbird, magpie and grey warbler.  

A grey warbler

We're heading out tomorrow to Banks Peninsula for a few days before classes start.  Stay tuned for future installments.