Christchurch to Journey's End

Changeover day....unpacking then packing. Off to Convergence and off line for a week.

Foraged blackcurrants from the Papanui HS garden

The dirt pile needs weeding

Taylor's Mistake

Boxing Day

Christmas is all too quickly over and we head home. Nic drives me to Queenstown and I have several hours to kill so I walk to Uncle Owen's for a chat and a cup of tea. He was married to my mother's sister, Ray, and at 92 is the second oldest in the family. My mother's family, the Morrises, grew up in Invercargill, 4 girls and a boy, but everyone has moved away. Most of us are still in the South Island and many in the Central Otago area. The south is home for me and I've worked four summers in Queenstown, two in the early 80's and two a decade later at Gibbston Valley. The Queenstown Basin was a lot quieter then and it was possible to find somewhere to live. One of my flats was an old house in Henry Street. We were three university students two others, all working in hotels. The old wooden house had gaps in the floor and disappeared some time in the 90's. I also lived with Ray and Owen, biking out to Gibbston Valley Winery in the early morning. Twenty years ago the only vehicles which passed me were a tourist bus and the bungy bus. 
I head for the lake to swim. Mountain lakes are notoriously cold and I'm the only swimmer. Lots of  people in boats and jet skis though. The water level is high but Wakatipu is clear and I can see the lake bottom.  Owen takes me to visit my cousin Sally who has a houseful. A gin and a cup of tea later I'm on the plane. It's good to be home.

Queenstown Airport- Debbie from Clyde

The Remarkable backdrop for Queenstown airport

Morris family Christmas in Invercargill, 1976

Home again

Lionel's 100th Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone

Hats for Christmas

Christmas Spirit

The busiest day for Santa Claus and I find him all over Alex. The day starts with a bike ride and ends with a swim. I drop in on friends with a relatively new build near Alex. It's a modern design which blends into the landscape so well Bill is constantly waging war with the rabbits. I also visit Gitty in the Hospice Shop. I've come to know her over the years I've been trauling through recycling centres in Alex....Wastebusters, the Salvation Army and now the Hospice Shop. She's also met Lionel when eh was on a quest to find a vacuum cleaner. Gitty's an enthusiastic recycler and excellent at organising and finding new homes for rubbish. She's in awe of Lionel's approaching centenary and comes out to the car to wish him Merry Christmas. I also take Lionel to visit Tui in the cemetery
As I do I stop to pay respect to the Chinese gold miners of Central. There were about 2000 Chinese people in New Zealand by 1869, mostly miners in the goldfields of Otago and the West Coast. They made an immense contribution but suffered the indignity of racist immigration policies. These days many Chinese are making their home in New Zealand.

Bill and Lynne's house

Memorial to the Chinese miners

Gitty, Alex's recycle queen

Round Roxburgh

We go on a family outing to Roxburgh: Grandad, three sisters and the grown up Southall kids. To the uninitiated Roxburgh is in the Teviot Valley on the banks of the Clutha, 40 kilometres south of Alex. Our first stop is the hydro electric dam, begun in 1949 and opened in November 1956. Today the spill gate is open and the water is coming down so fast there's spray going in all directions. So much rain in the mountains this summer and it's swelling the mighty Clutha River. Next stop, Jimmy's Pies, world famous in the south and bursting with eager pie eaters today. We follow signs to Frog Rock Cherry Orchard and fill a bucket. The ripening season has been cooler than normal and the flavour of the cherries is less intense, but they're juicy. It's hard to find ripe raspberries, there just hasn't been enough sun.
Last stop is Mitchell's Cottage. A remarkable example of stonemason's craft, it was begun by gold miner Andrew Mitchell for his brother John in 1880, and not completed till 1904. The cottage is set into the hillside on existing rocks and is so well sited it disappears into the landscape but has a commanding view of the valley as far north as the St Bathans Range. The stone work is so neat the finished edges of the schist slabs form flat and even walls. These are thick with wide sills and the cottage's insides are snug and cosy. No building consent, no resource consent, no traffic management plans, no engineering reports, no scaffolding. Just two skilled men using what nature provided. It would have been welcome shelter from the hoar frosts and the hot, dry summers for John, his wife Jessie and their 10 children. Andrew and John were gold miners who left the Shetlands to make their fortune. They arrived in Gabriel's Gully in the 1860's and didn't strike it rich but put down roots in Fruitlands. As well as the house, Andrew planted holly, spruce and made a sundial chipped out of a solid block of schist.
Today's swim in Lake Dunstan is slightly warmer than yesterday but a freezing dip for the North Island rellies.

Tidy lawn- thanks Greig

Overflow from Roxburgh Dam

Me and nephew Lachie

Mitchell's Cottage

Snow on the hills

Lake Dunstan

Lionel's first home "in town"- Alexandra

Homeward Bound

I stagger out of bed at 5:15. Booking early flights always seems like a good idea at the time....Chris heroically drops me off at the airport. The landing in Queenstown triggers PTSD. The plane comes down steeply along the lake from the west. My trauma started with a car crash in 1991 and came to a head during an aftershock of the 5.7 Valentine's Day earthquake in 2016. I leapt out of bed at a small quake one night with a muddled head feeling anxious and unsteady. Up until then I had been ok, but that quake was the straw that broke the camel's back.
I gradually calm myself on the walk down the road to Frankton Cemetery. It;s got a layby so is good  for hitching. My sign is for Cromwell and it's only 15 minutes before a Scottish newbee picks me up. On the road through the Kawarau Gorge he tells me he's planning to settle here and I learn about a few of his past jobs. We part and I wait another 15 minutes before I'm picked up by a Peter Lyons shearing gang van. Last time I hitched from Cromwell to Alex in 1995, I got a ride with shearers racing home after a week's work down south. I was visiting from an OE with my boyfriend, David, and we were on our 9th ride from Christchurch. We waited underneath a light at the turnoff to the Cromwell Gorge. Quickest trip I've ever had down that road. They could smell their Friday drinks and had their foot down. Hitching can be like that- some relaxed rides and some that get you there.
I'm home in time for breakfast. At lunchtime an old friend, John, drops in on his way to Invercargill. Later, my third sister and whānau arrive just as I'm leaving for a swim behind the dam. There are patches of snow on the hills; no-one wants to join me. In fact the water's freezing. There's been a lot of rain in the mountains and the dam is pumping water. My summer motto...any water is swimmable, you just have to get used to it.

2

First ride with Ryan

Lionel, 99, and John

Family dominoes

Snoopy's Christmas

I head off early to do some gardening while there is shade in the back garden. I pull out weeds along the back of the house. Essential as they are seeding and, if left, will be a mission to get rid of. When I get to the electricity box I put the big fork down. Mowing is essential too and I call in a few favours. The neighbour across the road is happy to mow the berm and, when I visit Greig and Anjie for a coffee, Greig agrees to mow the back. Loose ends tidied up for Christmas.
I visit the Cardboard Cathedral It's a light, airy building and feels churchy but chilled. Designed by Shigeru Ban pro bono in collaboration with Warren and Mahoney in 2011, it was intended to be a transitional home for the ousted Cathedral Anglicans. It incorporates 86 cardboard tubes of 500 kgs each atop 6 metre containers. Construction began in July 2012 on the site of St John the Baptist Church, the first church to be built in permanent materials by Anglicans in Christchurch in 1864, but demolished due to earthquake damage in 2011. Once the decision was made that the building would remain for the St John parish, the CC achieved permanent status. Ban, characterised as a disaster architect, asked that the Cardboard Cathedral be available for community use. I've attended Pecha Kucha and an interview with Elenor Catton there. The pervasive white light and peaked ceiling reminds me of a tent and it is an easy space from which to contemplate life.
On the drive home RNZ features an interview about the mysterious popularity of Snoopy's Christmas in New Zealand and virtually nowhere else. Released in 1967 by the Royal Guardsmen, it became world famous in Aotearoa and reached No 1, charting again in 1987, 1988. 1989 and 2013. It was also voted the worst Christmas song of all time in 2007 by readers of the New Zealand Herald.  I have a 7 inch vinyl copy somewhere but am a little over it myself now.

Anjie and Greig

Merivale Mall

Merry Christmas

We have a flat expedition to Tayor's Mistake to swim off Thursday drinks. The waves are booming and there's spray coming off the tops as they break into the southerly wind. The water is cool, it knocks the breath out of Chris, but refreshing and I get some fast rides. Heathcote Valley residents have decked out their hood for Christmas. The valley is near the Port Hills fault line and they did it hard in 2011. Their word tree is specially Christchurch, sitting as it does in front of traffic cones.
Back at College Ave I venture into the back garden and start transplanting plants I saved from the demolition. I reduce the pile of dirt and, while I'm weeding it, realise what a big job maintaining the section is. I drop in to see an old friend, Karen, to wish her happy birthday. She's a decoration queen. Last stop Pomeroys, one of the first pubs to open after the quakes. Restored with care, this old brick building is one of only a few of its kind left in Christchuch. And they brew a variety of lip smacking beers.

Progress at Scoff's place

Karen

Pomeroy's