Paul and Cindy, New Zealand 2018: 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.