New Zealand, Part 10: Christchurch

We took a quick drive to Christchurch after our whale-watching adventures. After spending quite a few days in the country, I was looking forward to being in a city. We had heard about the Christchurch earthquake in 2011, but I was not ready to see all the aftermath.

I'm not sure what I expected, but the city center was still a wasteland. There was an "earthquake tour" run by a few kids with rickshaws...that did not feel right.

One of the very inspiring results of the earthquake, was a city-wide art event, where artists and community members filled empty spaces. Voids in the heart of the city, where buildings were demolished and cleared, were filled with scenes. We saw a paper beach, a mini-golf course, a fire pit and a few others. Each night for a week, Christchurchians and visitors were encouraged to explore the city again.

There were also a lot of mixed media art pieces made with recycled materials, borrowed from the rubble. There was a community center where locals could go to rebuild furniture from wood scraps. Although I was a bit disappointed by the lack of infrastructure and general feeling of a construction zone, were I to move to New Zealand, this is where I'd want to be. The process of renewal and rebuilding creates a community spirit that I find inspiring. I think it would be hard to be without a cause in that city. It's an opportunity to create a city--welcome to Utopia, eh?

 Memorial near the cathedral.

 

 Know any engineers? Send them to Cristchurch.

New Zealand, Part 9: Boats and Whales

We left the North Island on a ferry. It was very cool to travel on the water, having grown up in a desert.

Here we come, South Island. 

I took this picture of a ferry from the deck of a ferry. While I took it, a German guy told me all about how this ferry company had recently tried to expand one of their boats by cutting it down the middle and putting in an extra peice, which cost about $54 mill NZ. This kind of construction works better in the lego world, apparently because in the middle of a trip, they ferry broke a shaft and lost it's massive propeller. Passengers had to be rescued. While we were in NZ, they recovered the propeller--it was 123 meters down!

Luckily, the propeller stayed on for our journey. The only thing that was a bit unnerving about the journey, was being asked repeatedly if I was carrying bees. Yep, bees. Staff members repeatedly questioned, "Do you have any firearms? Do you have any bees? Does your husband have any bees? Are there any bees in your bag?" This made me think "Do I have any bees?" Then I had to remember that I have never, at least knowingly, had bees in my luggage. I later learned that, as a country, New Zealand, is bring their bee population back and they are trying to keep things regulated. Conservation efforts all over the place. Whenever Michael and I left a hotel room or packed up our tent for the rest of the trip we were sure to question each other, "Do you get the bees?" or "Don't forget to bring the bees."

We picked up a new car and traveled south along the coast to Kiakoura. We got to drive through wine country, which was beautiful. No, it was beautiful. Look--this is what the parking lots look like:

We ate lunch and wandered through the vines. 

 As we got closer to Kiakoura, we were driving right along the coast. We started to wonder what the fuzzy dots on the rocks were. Sea lions. They were baby sea lions.

We thought that was impressive marine life, until the next day. We set up our tent, and read into the sunset. 

Not a bad view.  

The next morning we woke up, ready to hit the water. Actually, Michael was pretty convinced that he would be throwing up off the back of the boat, but we were still excited. This area is Maori-owned and the gift shop had some sort of natural seasickness suppliment, that cost about $1 and which Michael claims worked 100x better than Dramamine. I'm not so sure. Michael's the guy in the drug study that gets better while taking the placebo.

I think whale watching was amazing. I've been lucky enough to do this in Oregon, but these whales were huge, and because we traveled quite a few miles out into open water, I was left with a feeling of utter tininess. We saw three different sperm whales and watched each one breach for a few minute before they dove down to spend thirty minutes or so deep underwater.

Michael was thoroughly impressed with my whale watching skills and, frankly, so was I. An older British couple told me that I should switch professions. Sounds pretty appealing, actually. There aren't too many times in my life when I've flat out gasped in surprise and awe, but at least half of those times were on this trip.

This is what I am very good a seeing. Maybe it was all those Where's Waldo books. We tried to limit the exclamations of "Thar she blows!" Check out the video at the end of this post. I love that you can hear Michael say, "Wow."

As we headed back to shore, the guide told us were were going to go look at some sea lions. I was a bit sealioned out, so I was about to head inside, when a pod of dolphins burst out from under the boat. They jumped around and made loops under water. They were so fast. I let out another gasp or two.

 These are dusky dolphins, which have a large population in the area and are only found in the Southern Hemisphere. 

Michael was running around the boat, chasing dolphins, when he saw a little penguin swimming in the water. What an amazing thing that is--to see a penguin swimming in the ocean.

 We spent the rest of the day hiking around the inlet. Now, that, was a pretty memorable day!

Cottage on the coast anyone? Hope these people don't mind me taking a picture of their house--which will someday be my house.

Oh man, let's go back.

New Zealand, Part 8: Wellington

After a great first afternoon in the capitol city, we spent a beautiful day in Wellington. Although I liked downtown and the coastline, I was pretty antsy. After seeing so many beautiful places in our first week, staying in Wellington felt a lot like staying in any city--although Wellington was a lot more charming than average--and parking and walking through shopping malls seemed silly, when we could have been running through the wilderness.

 Most of the city runs along the shoreline. The water is bright blue and smells wonderful.

We visited the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tnogarewa. We had a lot of questions that our cheesy guidebooks couldn't answer, so exploring the museum was very interesting. I liked the natural history section, with all the volcano and earthquake exhibits. The natural history section with the sometimes sad, sometimes inspiring history of the Maori's interaction with colonial settlers was probably the most interesting thing to me. These early people, from varied backgrounds often raised havoc on the landscape. They wiped out species of bird and seafood for food, and fought each other in bloody wars that didn't end until the 1800s. I think all the early violence contributed to the current attitude about their landscape, which is one of active conservation. We heard countless stories of species conservation, where people go to extraordinary lengths to grow populations of birds from 10 members to 100, for example. They also had a no-nuclear policy in the century, which I think is a testament to their somewhat gruesome past and a move toward peace. It was refreshing to meet an entire country full of people, who have such a pride for the place that they live and an ownership of their, sometimes unflattering, history.

I have to say, one species that I didn't miss was the Moa. Huge bird. Don't like birds. Not a huge fan of the giant eagle, with the 9-foot wingspan either. 

Here's a picture of Michael and the Moa, for scale. He looks a little worried too.

The view from the top of the museum was not too shabby. 

 We hiked to the high-point of the city, where there is a beautiful park, to take a look around.

Here's a windy video. If you listen closely, you can hear two local kids asking German tourists to meet them in town later. International love.

They did some filming for the Lord of the Rings in the big park at the top, so Michael and I took the shortcut to mushrooms to visit one of the first filming locations.

I had my eye out for black riders, but the coast was clear.  

We stubbled upon a beautiful rose garden. That seemed to happen to us, quite a bit. It was a holiday in the city, so the rose garden was full of picnicking families and teenage couples.

That night, we went to the Hobbit. The theater was pretty amazing. It was the location for the premier of all the other movies, which was very cool. although we were disappointed that their was no formal premiere for this movie. The theater has looked pretty impressive in the past:

It was 400 seats at least, and felt more like going to the theater, than the movies. There was a restaurant and a lounge and no one was wearing jeans (luckily Michael and I were out of casual clothes, so we accidentally looked pretty nice too). It reminded me of France, where they have enthusiastic paper airplane contest before the movie starts.

We were pretty excited:

Overall, I disliked the 3D and longed for fewer visual effects and more shots of beautiful New Zealand, but the whole experience made for the best trip to the movies that I've ever had.

New Zealand: Part 7, Wetawesome

We left Stratford (and it's strange Shakespearean-themed architecture) as quickly as we could, for an herb garden that had the best water. in. the. world.

This is one of the only food pictures I took. This veggie benedict and fresh herb water deserved to be documented.

Michael, posing with the aloe vera. The volcano did not erupt, but we did get scorched on Mount Doom. Sunburn city. We were roaming around pharmacies earlier that day, hunting for aloe vera. An hour later, we found this giant plant.

"So, when do you get off tonight?"

We made it to Wellington! 

First stop? Hobbit feet and trolls: Weta Workshop!

Michael, convinced that he's taller than Gandalf. I'm not so sure. 

I am pretty sure that I'm not as tall as Lurtz though. We couldn't take pictures inside the studio, but we got to see all kinds of leftover props and learn about the process. There were two artists working nearby. One was gluing tiny palm trees onto a miniature island--she was on tree 600 of 10,000. Crazy! It was fun to see artists of all varieties with creative jobs. The tour guide furthered my Aragorn-appreciation, by reminding me that this clip (with the 40 second dagger throw) was done in one take, with real blades. He also let us play with the mace that the Witch King used on Eowyn. Are you nerded out yet?

Michael caught me playing with the trolls outside the workshop.  

 Weta is nothing if not realistic...even under the loin flap.

Michael didn't really want to touch them.

So fun!