Jan 10 Willowbank

 

Today we went to the Grocery store AGAIN!  while Mommy had class.  Then we spent the afternoon at Lincoln doing laundry and stuff.  Tonight was really fun though because we went to Willowbank for a visit to the wildlife park and a presentation by a Maori heritage group.  They told us about the history of their people and shared with us some of their old customs.  They then sang and danced for us, and the men (who have really scary tattoos on their faces) taught us how to do a Haka.  Pop-pop and I got up on the stage with them and learned the Haka that the All Blacks (the NZ national Rugby team) do before a game.  After dinner, we had a guided walk through the wildlife park.  We got to see some native birds and animals and some of the plants and animals that were brought here by the English settlers.  We got to see real live Kiwis!  Miranda likes saying "Kiwi Bird, Kiwi Bird....."  We went in a big aviary where a cheeky Kia (native green parrot) got up on Daddy's shoulder.  I got to feed some slimy eels right out of a spoon, and some sika deer came up to me and ate food out of my hand. 

Jan 9 Botanical Gardens

Mommy took the students to Christchurch today to visit the Chch museum, the Chch botanical gardens and the Arts Centre.  It was a beautiful day weather wise, and we spent most of our time in the Botanical Gardens after a lunch in the ethnic food court at the Arts Centre.  We then proceeded to laze the day away in the gardens, renowned for their beauty and age,  some of the trees are hundreds of years old, and they are really big.  Check out the picture of me eating my ice cream - have you ever eaten ice cream on tree stump that big?  Mommy and Mom-Mom especially liked looking at all of the flowers, but I couldn't wait to get to the swimming pools!  Miranda and I had a great time swimming even if it was cold enough to turn her skin blue (I thought her skin matched her eyes quite nicely).  It was a fun day - I'll let the pictures tell the tale.

Jan 8 Acheron Station

Today was the first 'big' field trip.  Mommy took her class up to The Acheron, a hill country sheep station she has been visiting since 1999.  I won't go into great detail about the station itself since it was covered in depth in a 2008 blog post.  If you are a new reader, or would like to refresh your memory about this station, please go back through the '08 posts and read about them.  Some of you will enjoy hearing how the McFaddens are doing.  Isla is doing quite well, she is healthy and full of cheer and still maintaining her glorious gardens.  Scott seems to have really settled into his position managing the farm quite nicely and his confidence in talking about it has grown. He still has his dad's twinkle in his eye and his ever-ready smile, and has some new business ventures that seem to be coming along nicely.  His side business of renting out wool balers has grown, he now has 5 of them and is considering a couple more.  He says he will need to get a larger trailer soon if he is to keep delivering and picking them up himself. He is a contract grower for SmartWool and was quite pleased to see that both Mommy and Daddy were wearing SmartWool socks.  The other half of his wool is contracted to IceBreaker and New Zealand Merino.  He has begun to shift his breed of sheep to a hybrid of his own making by bringing in some sort of ram that Daddy has never heard of.  He has been able to make the grade for micron of Merino without the health hassles associated with Merinos on his type of land.  Syd is still working the farm. Daddy can remember when he was just a pup, and Scott was first teaching him how to work the yards,  now he is taking it easy and making sure all of the young dogs are doing the job right.  That's Syd next to me in the top picture, and the next one is me petting Syd in 2008 (we sure have gotten old since then).  Scott has what his mother referred to as his 'partner' living with him now!  We did not get to meet her and I have forgotten her name, but Isla seemed quite pleased when talking about her...  That's about it for updates, I'll leave you with a few more pictures of our visit.

 

 

Jan 7

  

Today was a free afternoon after Mommy was finished with classes.  We decided to go to Sumner Beach for lunch where we ate at this nice little restaurant with outside seating right on the beach.  After we ate I got to swim in the Pacific Ocean and climb on a large pinnacle of lava rock at the water's edge called Cave Rock.  There is a giant cave at the bottom of this rock that you can walk through when the tide is out.  We explored the cave and took some pictures then went for a ride in the van through the Port Hills.  The Port Hills are on the southeast side of Christchurch and are so-called because on the other side of them is the port town of Lyttleton.  Lyttleton is called the 'Gateway to Christchurch' because it is the nearest deep water port to the city.  Christchurch (Chch) is situated right on the coast, but is at the edge of a giant alluvial plain (the Canterbury Plains) and so is socked in by shallow mud flats.  The port hills are comprised of several calderas (collapsed volcano craters) that were flooded by the sea and provide the opportunity for a deep water port.  The closest is Lyttleton, which is connected to Chch via a large highway and train tunnel.  In the past, goods had to be shipped over the mountain through Dyers Pass.  We drove up to top of the hills and traversed along the Summit Rd. which is a hair raising drive right along the crater rim. 

Jan 6

Today was the first day of farm visits for Mommy's class.  We went to the Lincoln University dairy unit and got to see them milk the cows.  This is a neat thing to see no matter your level of interest in cows.  The cows all come up to be milked twice a day, and it takes about 2 hours for two workers to milk 600 cows!  My favorite part was seeing the cows get on the rotary platform.  This thing is a giant merry-go-round for the cows.  It holds about 30 of them, and they step on the thing, have the milkers attached to their udders, and by the time they have made one complete ride around the circle, they step back off and head back out to the pasture.  I couldn't believe it, and Miranda liked just watching the cows

Next, we went to a nearby farm owned by a fellow named Hamish Reed.  He grows sheep and vegetable seed crops.  His talk focused a lot on the expense of irrigation - which is crucial for his type of farming.  Miranda really like seeing all of the sheep on this farm, but I was still tired from traveling I guess, and decided to take a nap on the bus.
Tonight we all loaded into the van and headed into Chch for dinner.  We ate at a cool restaurant called the Coyote Cafe, which is situated right along the Avon river in the heart of town.  After dinner, we went for a stroll through Cathedral Square and listened to some live music by a band that was performing in front of the Cathedral.  We didn't see any buskers (street performers) tonight.  I forgot to tell you that the World Busker Festival is taking place in Chch while we are here.  We saw a Busker yesterday named Hefty Jeff.  He's a big fat hairy Scot who wears a kilt and juggles knives, flaming torches, eats fire and swallows swords!  Can you believe that.  He also says funny things apparently, because Daddy and Pop-pop laughed alot when Hefty Jeff was talking. 

Jan 5

Mommy had a free day this afternoon after classes were over.  She and Tanya teach their classes every morning (unless there is an all day field trip) then, if there are no afternoon trips scheduled for the class, we can usually head off to do something.  Her classes are finished shortly after 11:00, and then she usually has other stuff to do for work, handling trip logistics, responding to emails for a couple of hours.  Today we went to the grocery store again (I guess you have to go to the grocery store every day when you are in New Zealand) then we went into Christchurch and had lunch at the Dux de Lux.  It is a popular restaurant next to the Arts Centre in the center of town.  Then we strolled around and toured some of the shops in the Arts Centre and Mommy bought some really neat New Zealand childrens books for Miranda and I.  Daddy surveyed more earthquake damage around the city.  The Arts Centre did pretty well in the quake, but the main spire (looks like a church steeple) had to be removed via crane and placed on the sidewalk for repairs. Also, the decorative stonework has fallen down in many places, especially at the eaves and along roof lines.  City wide, there are lots of infrastructure repairs still taking place, fixing roads and repairing damaged underground pipes.  A lot of buildings are surrounded by scaffolding and there are entire building sites that are completely bare, most of the rubble is gone now and the city is well on the mend - but the damage is there if you know what to look for.  Lots of homes have damaged roofs where the chimneys fell and smashed the slate and tile roofs to bits.  Also, a number of buildings that survived the big quake in September but were damaged and had not been repaired yet had to be condemned and brought down after the Boxing Day (the day after Christmas) aftershock. 

Seeing old friends...Jan 4

Our first full day here was spent recovering from our travels, going to the grocery store to fill the fridge and cupboards, and soaking up some summer sun.  We went out the back door and watched some cricket being played, and Pop-pop talked to some kiwis (the nickname for New Zealanders, not the bird).  We walked around the Lincoln campus and visited the beautiful rose garden and went to the bank to get some of the funny New Zealand money. It comes in lots of different colors like blue, orange, pink and green - and it is made of plastic and has little clear plastic windows in it.  Daddy really wanted to have a look at Memorial Hall, which is a beautiful old building on campus that is right next to the beautiful Lincoln University Library.  Both of these buildings were built with the same materials and architecture, but the library had just finished an earthquake renovation the last time were visited in 2008.  Well, it worked very well because in the big 7.1 earthquake which hit here on our Labor Day weekend last September, the Library sustained no damage, while Memorial Hall was hit quite hard.  There are lots of cracks in it, and large concrete moldings and ornamental pieces have fallen off.  It is quite sad, but is repairable as long as a major aftershock does not do more damage before repairs can be completed.  The day concluded with the welcome dinner for Mommy's group.  Pop-pop Neil, Sweet Kate and Uncle Errol were all in attendance.  It was great to see them, and Mom-mom and Pop-pop were excited to finally get to meet Miranda's namesake (for her middle name).  Unfortunately, Uncle Errol's wife Margaret was unable to attend because she had fallen UP the steps in their house that morning and dislocated her shoulder and broken her arm. We hope she gets better soon, and will be seeing her later in the trip.

Half way 'round the world in 38 hours

This years journey to New Zealand took 38 hours door to door from Mastens Corner to Farm Road flats.  Our point of departure for the airplane rides was out of Baltimore.  No complaints with the TSA nor the airlines this year, everything went smoothly.  Our first leg took us to Phoenix, which was a big deal.  The memory of Mommy's recent business trip to Phoenix was still fresh, so it was really neat to visit this place that was only real in our imagination!  We switched planes and flew to Los Angeles for our connection to our international airline.  We were very lucky because our domestic flight came in to the adjacent terminal to our international departure.  Anyone who has ever been to LAX knows how harrowing it can be if you have to collect bags and make a connection via the airport shuttle service, and we were apprehensive with a party of five that included two small children.  Our international flight was on a new airline - V Australia, which is an entry into the trans-pacific market by the Virgin airlines group.  We flew on a brand new Boeing 777 which was a first for all of us, and we were really impressed by everything from the cabin staff, the amenities, the meals, etc. 

I got my very own seat this time, and really enjoyed my private viewing monitor for playing games, watching movies etc.  We got to sit at a bulkhead where we had so much leg room that I could get on the floor and play, Mom-mom could stretch her legs straight out and not touch the wall, and even Daddy had plenty of room for his long legs!  Pop-pop was very sick with a cold, and it only got worse during the long flight, so it will take hime a couple of days to recover. Miranda got her very own bed to sleep in, it was a bassinet that attached to the wall in front of our seats - that was pretty neat, and made everyone more comfortable.  Fifteen hours later, we landed in Melbourne, Australia.  We didn't get to see any kangaroos, which was disappointing, but we were only there for a couple of hours before we were off on our last leg to New Zealand.  We flew directly into Christchurch, which was the first time that Daddy had cleared NZ customs outside of Auckland.  It was great, because there were no lines, no wait. We breezed on through and were delighted to find a Scot named Alex waiting with a sign that said GAREY on it.  He was there to pick us up in the van that the owner of the bus company that the Mommy uses for all of her excursions is loaning us for the month.  We installed the car seats for us kids and were off - driving on the wrong side of the road with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the van.  Daddy is okay with that, it's a good thing he lived in Australia for so long, so he will be our driver for the month since we don't have Uncle Allan along this time.  So, we have made it here, and are all moved in to our 'chicken house'.  That is what I called the little wooden cabin that we stayed in when I was two years old.  Lincoln University has built 6 more units at the Farm Road flats, so now there is a whole little village of chicken houses. 

2011 New Zealand Trip - Late Beginning for the Blog

We will start with an apology for the delay in getting the blog up and running for this trip.  Daddy has been busy with the kids and was lacking the necessary enthusiasm to spend the time required to get the blog going.  Everything is set now, so we will see if he can commit a couple of hours a day to catch us up now that the trip is half over....

Departure

We are terribly sorry we did not have the chance to share more of our adventures on the West Coast nor our final week here with everyone. We were so busy with trying to squeeze last minute things into the time we had left that we simply could not find the time to post to the blog. Hopefully we will have the chance to share some of this with you in person.

Aidan and I leave tomorrow morning, and Susan will be departing tomorrow afternoon. We had a wonderful time - and as always we are left wanting so much more. This is good, because it gives us an incentive to return - with or without a UD sanctioned trip.

We will be home soon, and we hope to find everyone well. Now, back to trying to figure out how all of this stuff fits into so little space....