Summer in the City

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Flew to South Island without much hassle - 45 minute delay. So it was good bye to wild and windy Wellington hello (hopefully) sunny Christchurch. Were met at the airport by Christine our host for the next week while we helped her get her garden sorted as a first step towards becoming organic. Christine is bubbly blond in her early fifties and made us very welcome.

We spent the first afternoon chatting and looking round her garden working out what we would be doing (lots!). She lives on the edge of Christchurch with her 5 cats and her garden backs on to the Avon estuary (named by "a Scotsman after a small stream back home"). Lots of typical estuary birds - herons (at least 2 different kinds, white throated shags, black and pied oyster catchers, Siberian godwits, black swans etc, etc ( I'm becoming a bit of a twitcher as well as a tree hugger).

Friday AM started into the garden - pruning her vines and weeding - weeds grow as well here as everything else that is big and fast. After lunch ( vegetarian as were all meals for the next week though the variety and quality was superb (especially the lasagne I cooked on the final night and the absolute piece de resistance was a tarte boudelaire (an almond and pear flan Wendy made earlier in the week from a french recipe book (Christine had a young frenchman Ben staying with her, who had started as a WWOOFer with her but since got a paying job in Christchurch).

Christine is in the process of renovating her house, and intends to use part of the garden to build her a smaller house for herself, then sell the oroginal and use the proceeds to travel. Her sister is currently building an adobe house further north - we were invited to visit and help with the building but dates didn't fit. Still - we talked a lot about building!

All in all we had a most enjoyable week Christchurch is a surprisingly pleasant & attractive city with a pretty laid back feel, a fabulous Art Centre with various galleries selling work by local artists - while we were there there was an exhibition of stainles steel sculptures of birds including 2 beautiful pieces one of an albatross in flight and another of 3 gannets diving. The Botanic Gardens seemed to feature in all our walks - more beautiful big trees set beside the River Avon and of course it being early summer here everything was coming into bloom. The one downside was on our first trip to town on the Friday afternoon, whilst cutting though an alley Wendy stepped in an uncovered manhole badly injuring her leg. Fortunately due to the miraculous properties of tee tree and arnica she made a remarkable recovery. (Minor cuts and bruises - and a certain amount of shock, cos I just stepped right into it with one leg up to my knee and then fell over. I've told Willy before that I can't read street maps and walk at the same time - now perhaps he'll believe me!)

The whole week went remarkably quickly gardening in the morning and afternoons exploring the delights of Christchurch et surrounds ( on Weds Christine took us for a drive round the coast stopping for delicious ice creams in Sumner - a little resort some 5 miles from Christchurch facing out into the Pacific).

By the time we left today, we had made a pile of weeds taller than me - I'm sure we'll post a photo of it.

We're now in Kaikoura - a couple of hours north of Christchurch - we have booked into a small camp site for the night and tomorrow we're off on a whale watching cruise!

It's tomorrow and we've been whale watching. Yesterday the weather was perfect if somewhat windy, today has been wet, dull, misty and cold. Had a rubbish night's sleep. The camp site is located between the main road, which was full of lorries all night and the railway which was full of freight trains. The tent seems to have been pitched under a street light - and to cap it all it started to rain quite heavily and noisily about 5 AM.

The trip to see the whales was fun, as the waves were kind of choppy and kept breaking over the boat - we were inside under cover or we would have got very wet. About ten minutes offshore, we passed the edge of the continental shelf and the water suddenly got incredibly deep. One of the other boats had spotted a whale so we raced over and got about 5 minutes viewing before it dived. Then the captain decided the weather was too bad to stay out longer and we went back to shore. On the return we saw 2 albatrosses they made the other bbirds (shearwaters and skuas look tiny as they glided through the air. On our return we were given a 60% refund due to the trip being curtailed. Once back on shore we had a quick brunch (brerad and chees then went for a walk round the coast - although a bit windy and somewhat cold it was nevertheless enjoyable - saw various seals, shags, yellowhammers, goldfinches, couple of herons and the inevitable gulls.
As the afternoon wore on the weather deteriorated with really heavy rain - the mountains which looked magnificent with their frosting of new snow this morning are now lost in the greyness.

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Photos

Botanic Garden - silver birch
This tree is less than 150 years old, but look how gnarled the bark looks

Diamond harbour
From the rim of the extinct volcano above Christchurch

Christine's deck and house
and the tiny bed to the left of the house is one that had been knee deep in grass before our visit

Weeds
Alan Titchmarsh eat your heart out

Estuary of the Avon
Behind Christine's house

Botanic Garden - redwood
Trees grow very quickly here - it's huge, but only about 150 years old

The spit in the Avon estuary
Christine's house is just behind the pine trees at the left of the photo

Sunset again
Willy took this one and the colours have come out really well

Kaikoura beach
When we arrived it was sunny and you could see the mountains. The campsite is just behind the beach

Whale tail
just before it dived and disappeared for the next hour or so

Kaikoura in the rain
New Zealand weather at its most typical

Comments

[alan]

stunning
The reports and especially the photos are absolutely stunning. Willie you don't look stunning but in saying that I have never seen you look so healthy. I have enjoyed looking at some of the beaches you have snapped and it helps me forget about the hellish weather outside here. Keep up the good work the both of you.

[Lorraine]

home sweet home
Kaikoura sounds very like Threemiletown, on a good night, minus the railway and whales although I'm expecting to start seeing herons and other waders in the field next door from the amount of rain we're getting.

[Lorraine again]

Sunset over the Avon
Would make a beautiful print. Who's been practising photography?