Monday 21st. Kiwis at last

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Christchurch Cathedral

Today was explore Christchurch day.  On her way to work, Ethel dropped us in town, having supplied us with maps, brochures and advice on how to enjoy the city.  The hub is Cathedral Square, dominated not surprisingly by the grey and white stone Cathedral.  Having not made it to church yesterday, we grabbed the chance to take communion there in a tiny side chapel, beneath a stained glass window now boarded up as a result of the recent earthquakes.  This theme will recur in today’s blog. 

Across the square, past a monocycle rider with a wicked line of patter, an older, slightly scruffy gent playing classical music on what looked like a carved bone, and a few market stalls selling warm woolly hats (it’s about 27 degrees today), we ate sandwiches in the shade of a wide spreading tree, as a man read the Bible to anyone who would listen.  And then into an exhibition of sealife and – yes – kiwis!  Real ones!  They are nocturnal, so their enclosure was largely dark, but it was possible to see them – two, a male and a female.  Imagine a round, brown fluffy football, with two legs at one end and a ping pong ball sized head at the other, from which a pair of knitting needles protrude.  They don’t look as if they could balance at all but they do.  They even balanced well enough to engage in a short marital row, one pecking the other and then a wild chase over the logs.  They are not doing so well in the wild at the moment.  Apparently dogs and cats find them tasty and as they are quite smelly they are all too easy for predators to find.



Tower on the pavement as a result of Spetember's quake

Tourist Tram

Getting around Christchurch was via a tourist tram, covered in flowers everywhere including the conductor’s hat.  It trundled slowly along, past all the sights, some of which were empty patches of ground where buildings used to be until the earthquakes.  Other buildings were shored up or scaffolded and wrapped in blue fabric.  One small church was in a bad way.  A crack ran down one side from top to bottom, heavy stone blocks having fallen out and crashed to the ground.  At the front, it had two immense blue girders angled at 45% to prop it up.  But the gentle New Zealand humour we’ve experienced ever since the boots-at-airport incident had risen to the occasion.  Life sized beige coloured dummies were climbing all over the structure – one cycling up one girder, while another canoed down the other.  At the top a mountaineer appeared to be trying to make it to the roof.  A bit further on, the top section of a church spire was positioned neatly on the pavement until the tower could be stabilised.  Some have expressed the view that it looks better there and should be left where it is.

The punt on the Avon

Interesting historical fact – New Zealand was the first self-governing country in the world to give women the vote – a memorial near the River Avon announced that this occurred in 1898 – a good 20+ years before the UK got round to it.  This River Avon is in fact named after a tributary of our own River Clyde, not Shakespears’s Stratford one.  And you can buy a cruise on a punt.  Which we did.  Shiny varnished shallow boats, with little settee-like seats, glided peacefully up and down the shallow river, a tall lad in white trousers, straw boater and green and white striped tie, poling from the stern.  We had the front seats, and I trailed my hand in the water as we drifted past immense weeping willows, grassy banks, and ducks that took our appearance so totally for granted that one collided with us and got such a shock that it’s suddenly beating wings threw cascades of water into the boat.  The river was so clear and shallow and the birds so tame that it was possible to see them swimming and foraging under the water, bubbles gleaming in their feathers.

Ethel and Ronnie's bungalow

The bus wended its way home to Ethel and Ronnie’s bungalow, which is surrounded with the prettiest garden in the area – and that’s official, because they have just won a prize for it. The house, of cream bricks, is spacious and comfortable and has a crack in the floor as a result of the earthquake.  The door to our room does not quite fit as a result.  This earthquake casts a long shadow.  Ethel is Bill’s mother’s younger sister’s daughter and so is our cousin.  She and Ronnie have been here, with a couple of gaps, sin

ce shortly after they married in 1969.  They are great fun and very easy to be with.  Ronnie barbecued Ethel’s home made hamburgers which we had with salad.  Yum.  And then family photographs and reminiscences.  We really are lucky to have such interesting and friendly cousins in both Porirua and Christchurch.