A Bit of Everything

Hello all!

We wrote this post last night and went to bed - but just after midnight were awakened by a 7.5 magnitude earthquake with rocking and rolling that lasted for a minute.  We are fine but there is damage and two deaths north of Christchurch.

This post contains just a variety of photos/notes we haven’t included earlier.  You know you are in New Zealand when you see a truck like this:

We haven’t shown a photo of one of our favorite New Zealand birds, the tui.  The tui is a mimic, having varied songs/clicks/sounds, even sometimes sounding like R2D2 from Star Wars.

And of course, another one of our favorite birds is the kiwi.  Cindy got to meet 39 day old Wisp, a Rowi Kiwi chick being raised at Willowbank Nature Reserve where Cindy volunteers.  Newborn kiwi in the wild are often killed by predators.  Wisp was taken from his nest on the west coast and brought to Willowbank to grow till he is large enough to defend himself, then he will be taken back to the coast and released.

Wisp being held by Kristina, Willowbank staff

Tuatara are another animal at Willowbank.  Tuatara are an endangered reptile found only in New Zealand.  They are the last survivors of an order of reptiles from the age of the dinosaurs. This 16 year old is named Hudson, and he is being held by Nick, one of the staff.

Cindy has been volunteering at Okeover Community Garden on campus.  Last week volunteers of all ages helped stake the broad bean plants.  Earlier this spring they harvested the last of the cabbage.

A photo we didn’t show from our travels is of a bike counter on the bike lane in central Auckland.  The counter is a great way to count how much bike travel is used, which helps show the effect this can have on reducing pollution and travel costs.

We enjoyed this beer ad poster at our bus stop.

Another travel photo we are sharing is of shells and rocks on a beach on the North Island.

Christchurch continues to work on rebuild after the earthquakes.  Through our apartment window we watched these men work as a team to move scaffolding as they repaired a parking ramp.

We saw this tiny car with a crowd of tourists around it.  It's smaller than a smart car and we don't know if it can be driven on a road.

We’ve joined a local tramping group on their tramps and this week shared a potluck lunch at Diamond Harbour, a Christchurch suburb accessed by a ferry ride.

Yesterday we attended the opening ceremony for a traveling exhibition of Xutong Tian’s paintings.  Tian is from Bejing, China and traveled to Christchurch for the exhibit opening.  He demonstrated how he uses ink and water to create his Zen-inspired paintings on rice paper.