Where have we been lately?

We are heading back up the east coast of the South Island, making our slow way back to the Ferry Terminal.  Staying at Christchurch for a couple of days gave us the opportunity to catch up with son Michael again.  And I had so enjoyed our previous visit to Sign of the Kiwi Café on the Port Hills last time we were here, that we collected him from his home and went there for lunch.  It certainly was a long and winding drive up the road.  There were plenty of people there already there enjoying their lunches in the fresh air, and we ordered whatever took our fancy and found ourselves a table too.   Outside in the gardens seemed an ideal place for a few photos – “Oh, Mum, not again” said Michael, rolling his eyes.  But that’s what mothers do, don't they, take family photos when they can.

Michael and his Mum

While out and about we came across a large hollow metal ball – wonder what this is?  So we stopped to find out.  “Fanfare” was designed by Christchurch born  sculpture Neil Dawson and was suspended from the Sydney Harbour Bridge to mark New Year in 2005.  Then it was gifted by the City of Sydney to Christchurch City in 2007.  Fanfare is 20m in diameter, 24m high and weighs 25 tonnes, and is covered in 360 steel fans, each 1.5m in diameter and each one rotated by the wind.  It certainly is a mesmerizing sight.

“Fanfare”

With Cyclone Gabrielle wrecking havoc in the North Island, and not being sure if she would travel down south, we decided to stay in the Christchurch area for a few more days.  We moved from where we were staying as all those tall trees surrounding the property had me worrying if they would blow down on us in the strong winds.  So we moved 10km or so up the road to Kaiapoi.  The brand new  Kaiapoi NZMCA Park had just opened the previous day, so we were delighted to be one of the very early customers.  This new park is built on the substantial red zoned area, (previously a large subdivision)  from the massive 2011 Christchurch earthquake and all the badly damaged houses have been knocked down and removed. 

No more housing can be built on this red zoned land, so it is good that other low impact activities like sports fields and a large enclosed dog park are making use of the land.  Another great idea in this area  is the Food Forest, quite a large area built around many fruit trees.  Other items are planted in the gardens, I noticed many pumpkin plants spreading about and just starting to flower, and plenty of thorny berry bushes with not a single fruit on them.  I collected some apples and pears plus a few peaches from old mature trees to take back to the caravan.  All these trees would have been part of neighbouring home gardens before all the houses were destroyed in the earthquake.

I checked out the Food Forest

Kaiapoi was an important trading hub with the Maori people and the Kaiapoi River and surrounding waterways were used to transport pounamu (greenstone) from the Arahura River, and mutton-birds from Stewart Island.  These days the river is used by pleasure boats and cruise boats, including the Kaiapoi River Queen.  There was a trip scheduled in the weekend after we had departed.  So we will certainly have to return to this town and have a lunch or dinner cruise of the wonderful looking boat.

Doesn’t it look great

A couple of days later we drove up SH1 to Kaikoura.  Oh look – tunnels.  There are two sets of these tunnels, carved through the rock.  They may look tiny but plenty of large heavy trucks pass through them on a daily basis, so there was no problem that we would fit.

Two tunnels cut through the rock

Kaikoura township was buzzing with cars and campervans, the tourists had certainly come calling.  The car park at the Whale Watch encounter was packed with vehicles as the customers had climbed onboard the boats for a thrilling trip.  Down at the coastline the bleached white uplifted rocks from the big 2016 earthquake were ghostly white in the sunshine – all this coastline was originally under water.  There were several seals basking in the sun – some people walked over the rocks and got alarmingly close to them.

Seal basking in the sun

We finished off our sightseeing with an ice-cream.  Not a real ice-cream, the vendor was selling either Gelato or Sorbet.  We chose a gelato each and sat down in the sunshine trying to consume them before they melted in the sunshine and dripped all over our fingers.

Happy days

Then it was off to Blenheim.  Driving along the now repaired coastal highway, we reflected on how it was during our last trip to the South island when the road was still being repaired after the 2016 Kaikoura Earthquake.  This tore through fault lines, demolishing houses, ripping up roads and railway lines and causing massive landslides.  Kaikoura was cut off and isolated.  1700 engineers and workers toiled for over a year before Kaikoura was finally reconnected.  Two years later on  our South Island trip in 2018 we remember how the road on the hill side was lined with long lines of containers to keep further rock fall at bay, so work was still ongoing then.  There was not a container in sight this time as we drove along. No wonder New Zealand is called “The Shaky Isles”.

Gemma wasn’t the only cat in camp in Blenheim, there were two others.  A white cat with black markings was nicely behaved on his harness and lead.  And the van next to us had a “catio”, I had only ever seen this before on an American quilting blog, so went to check it out.  The older tabby cat enjoying the fresh air in safely has only recently been caravanning and hated the harness and lead.  So the owners decided that the catio was a great idea for their cat, and made one themselves which hooks on to the side of their motorhome.  The cat is free to hop in and out of the motorhome through the window, and really enjoys his room with a view, I was told.

Cat in his catio

I’ve been doing a little stitching on a rainbow lately, but nothing really to show just yet.  I was really impressed when I asked Robin if he knew the colours of the rainbow, and he rattled them off, no trouble.  Although I had a general idea, I would have asked Mr Google to get it correct.  Luckily I have all the thread colours  my bag, so I’m stitching merrily away.