Christchurch Cathedral

Christchurch has two cathedrals, one Anglican and the other Roman Catholic. We had never been to the Catholic cathedral before, but the conference people had arranged a guided tour of the stations of the cross there. They are unusual, and I'll put one of them below for you to see. The cathedral was built in the late 1800s, and I was as fascinated by the architecture as by the stations of the cross.

Trip to Christchurch

The first weekend of June is a three-day weekend in New Zealand. We went to a three-day conference in Christchurch on the arts in congregations. On the drive up, we took highway one for the first three hours, then cut over to the inland scenic route, which is much prettier than highway one. What would have been two more hours on highway one turned into two and three quarter hours on the inland scenic route, but it's worht it. Right before the trip we had heavy rains and low temperatures, so the snow level was lower than we had ever seen it.

The inland scenic route crosses the Rakaia River gorge. In the first photo below, you can see the bridge across the river. The second photo shows the view to the left of the bridge, and the third photo shows the braids in the river visible to the right of the bridge. New Zealand is famous for its braided rivers, which are supposedly found only in New Zealand and somewhere in South America.

The conference was held in a Baptist Church in downtown Christchurch, built in 1881. It's right on the Avon River, on a street called Oxford Terrace. The street on the other side of the river is called Cambridge Terrace. After living in Dunedin, with a strong Scottish influence, it's amusing to be in Christchurch, which was settled by English immigrants and who branded their town like the Scots branded Dunedin. Right in front of the church is a little memorial park commemorating September 11. In the fourth picture, you'll see some pieces of metal from the twin towers.

One of the unexpected highlights of the weekend trip was the Christchurch marathon, which was being held on Sunday morning. The course went right by the church, so we had to dodge runners on our way to the conference that morning. It was fun to be part of the energy of the event. We knew two people who were running. A new lecturer in my department, who arrived from Canada in late May, is an experienced marathoner. It was Chris's 24th marathon, and he viewed it as a great way to dive into life in New Zealand. Dave's good friend in Dunedin, Nick, was also running it, his first marathon. Dave met both men at the finish line and really enjoyed being a part of the excitement of the finish. Below are Chris and then Nick right after they finished.

The runners had to deal with steady rain throughout the race. The next morning it cleared, and we saw a rainbow from our motel.

winter solstice

As a follow up from my post a week ago about the season lag here, I've taken a photo of our flowering cherry tree on the winter solstice. I can't remember leaves hanging on trees at the winter solstice in Portland, Seattle or Vancouver, which have similar temperatures to Dunedin.

A trip to Central Otago

This past Saturday, Dave took an outing to Central Otago to scope out a house that is being lent to him for a retreat for his international student group. The retreat will be held during mid semester break in two months. (Our second semester starts at the beginning of July, and mid semester break will be at the end of August.) It's finals right now for first semester (finals last three weeks!), and some of the students in his group wanted to come with him on the outing. Three of them are Malaysians who have hardly ever seen snow. Close to the town of Cromwell, they stopped at an overlook and saw this cool view of Lake Dunstan.


Below is the house they are borrowing, with the four students. Then the rest of the photos are views from the house. It's winter here, and I don't know what the yellow stuff on the bushes is in the last three photos. Perhaps it's yellow fall leaves.

Season lag

It's the middle of June in the Southern Hemisphere. We live in a city with temperatures that are similar to Seattle or Vancouver. So the weather now should be somewhat similar to mid-June in either of those cities. But there are still leaves on our flowering cherry trees. I took this picture today.

I've noticed what I call season lag here. Every season seems to come later here than it would in Vancouver or Seattle. It's cold and wintry now, but a month ago it still felt like really nice fall weather. At Christmas, which should be like June 25, it still feels like spring. Warm summer weather doesn't really arrive (if it arrives at all) until February, which should be like August, but then it lasts for several months. The only conclusion I can arrive at is that we have giant freezer sitting just to the south of us. Antarctica. And perhaps that freezer makes all the seasons come later.

Yellow-Eyed Penguins

The beautiful beach in the photo above is located on the ocean side of the Otago Peninsula, and yellow-eyed penguins come up on the beach and roost in the bush just inland from the beach. The land is privately owned, and the owners have developed it into a wildlife refuge. They build cute little huts that the penguins use for roosting, and they built a blind so tourists can walk among the nests. We had houseguests a month ago, and I took them there. It was my first time. The next two photos show the nesting area from a hill nearby. The second photo zooms in so you can see the funny green tunnels made of netting where we walked to get to the blinds. The light green vertical boxy things in the second photo are protectors for trees that had just been planted.

When we were there, the penguins had already given birth to their young and had gone back out to sea. Only a few young were left, the ones who were a bit late to go to sea themselves. The only adult penguins who were there were moulting. The adult penguins come back year after year, so the people at the refuge name them. The in the two photos below was named Lynne (I assume it was spelled right!), and you can see how rough her feathers are as they moult.

While they're moulting, the stand or lie down for days, and live off their stored fat. They can't go to sea and fish while they moult. So some of them were standing, like Lynne, but others were laying down.

That blob beside the pond in the next photo is a moulting penguin.

In the next photo you can see the cute little huts where they nest.

Only a very few adolescent penguins were there, late to go out to sea. Juveniles lack the yellow patch around their eyes that the adults have. The juveniles are banded but not named. When they go to sea in their first season, they can end up nesting somewhere other than where they were born.

The penguin refuge also runs a little hospital for wounded penguins from all around the South Island. One of the penguins in the hospital (named Dave) had been mauled by a shark. Others had different kinds of injuries. The next batch of photos show the penguins in the hospital, which was a fenced area with a cement floor. The first one is fjordland crested penguin, and you can see the crest. The rest were yellow-eyed penguins, one of the two common penguins on the south east side of the South Island. Yellow-eyed penguins are found only in New Zealand and are one of the rarest kinds of penguins.

We walked up on a headland beside the penguin refuge and saw a bunch of New Zealand fur seals. Some of them were frolicking in the water and some of them were sleeping on the top of the headland.

Another highlight of the penguin refuge was a batch of pukekos in the pond. The two outer birds are adults and you can see the blue on them. The middle two are juveniles, and the blue hasn't appeared yet.

A paradise shelduck was also there, munching on grass. They have such lovely coloring.