Road trip Blenheim and Christchurch

Over to the South Island on the ferry again. Big swell leaving Wellington harbour  but it was an exciting ride to be outside with the waves and, below, nearer the South Island, albatross and petrels. Another ferry on the horizon, heading for Wellington. Those wrist pressure bands for sea sickness - they work!

Heading into Marlborough Sounds. These guys just came topside. 

Car looks little down there - with bikes on.

First stop, Blenheim. Lovely cycle along the river paths and a night at the theatre watching Dan sing in Les Miserables. Next day, a bit of work picking olives for oil pressing. The trees are around Sue and Phil's house. Beginning the stripping of branches and dropping olives onto sheets of plastic for Phil to collect. He kept just ahead of us laying out sheets. That's guide dog in training Lincoln sniffing runaway olives.

Harvest about 100kg; made about 19 litres of oil and we scored a jar on the way back through Blenheim.

On to Christchurch, down the coast through Kaikoura and obligatory stop to watch baby seals and collect circular white stones at mint imperial beach (Kekerengu).

Mish got us an airy light-filled air B&B for six nights just out of the city and we had a good look around the city and environs.

First up, an organic fruit and veg market where a guy told us about the panoramic view up on the Port Hills. Bought some veg and headed up into the hills. He was right.

The Port Hills are a large area between Christchurch and the port of Lyttleton (which sits on the edge of an old volcano). We did get a terrific view west to the Southern Alps.

And east over Lyttleton harbour which formed from the crater of that volcano many years ago. A beaut day, the hills full of walkers and bikers and one butterfly expert who showed us a rare one.

And then down narrow roads into Lyttleton for lunch.

Jase came down with a cold so Mish and I headed out without him and cycled around some of the residential red zones of the city. Red zones are areas where houses were so damaged in the 2011 quake that part of the rebuild process has been to demolish hundreds of them in big grids. They now look like parks and are acres of old gardens and roads and footpaths, with just walkers and cyclists allowed. There's a bit of foraging going on. All that remains to show that houses were here are the overgrown driveways.

Hardly anyone around. Eerie to stand in an intersection where no car will ever drive again.

Wrecked footbridge that used to be over the Avon, now left by the river, as is where is.

In the city, the rebuild goes on. There are lots of new buildings and street art, and still lots of broken buildings and work to do. The cathedral is being rebuilt in the same style - after 10 years of debate about that - and it has a wonderful banner on the square. Here it is, from across the road inside the new library, which is a great space.

Walked down the road one night to trivial pursuit at the local pub (we came 11th out of 14 teams, but dinner was nice). 

Cooled off in the Antarctic experience, including being shut in an ice room while they turned the wind chill up, and a ride in an all-terrain Hagglund vehicle.

Saw our old Newlands neighbours Robyn and Sean and went for a walk on their part of the coast, with oystercatchers. 

New Brighton pier is there too.

Drove out to the French settlement of Akaroa on Banks Peninsula for the day. Very quiet there, no cruise ships and hardly any tourists. It was just us when we got out of the car at about 10am so we walked up a hill to earn lunch.

So, we saw some of Christchurch and loads more to see. We'll be back before another 20 years have passed. Headed back to Blenheim after six days, with a lunch stop at Kaikoura. 

The view from the pub:

More cycling at Blenheim, going in a different direction this time. 

 

And home on the ferry. In Picton for a waterfront walk with Sue before the afternoon sail. We're looking for rays.

 That ferry ride was a cool but calm trip with albatross and orca and a rusty dog. Can you see it?

The works are beginning in earnest

 One of the front planter boxes is built. 

Interior view of the bracing and side

view from the driveway.

Mish and our handywoman pal Paula sorting their stuff to begin bending and cutting the Corten steel to place it around the concrete free area ready for the tree arriving in a couple of weeks. Change of plan for the tree; we did buy an ornamental cherry but have swapped it for a much more productive and pretty crabapple.

Woman with a power tool. Sparks flying

And woman with paint, spraying the plastic house letterbox installation.

Our small metal letterbox was nicked last Christmas so we had the bright idea to remodel our failed fire as a letterbox. It had been sitting outside since the end of winter 2021 waiting to be either scrap metal or art work.

When we found an actual house shaped letterbox in Napier the vision solidified into using the old fire as the base and plastic house as letterbox on top.

Here it is before painting, in disgrace out in the yard. A little Mish carpentry on top to attach the letterbox house.

Trolleyed it down the drive, blimmin solid iron thing, and worked it into position. We tried to place it over the base of the old letterbox but someone (this writer dear readers) had miss-measured the base  😕 and we got a bit stuck. Heavy! At that point a car pulled up and a beefy grinning neighbour jumped out and gave us a hand. We sort of got it into position and he shot home and came back with a reciprocating saw and took a bit off the old base to make it fit. So now we've met John and Diane who live around the corner. 

Painted, in position, and getting a touchup where we scraped some paint off.

House letterbox is on and ta dah!

Meanwhile, in another part of the yard...

We have to do ground testing to build the extension, so the builder knows how deep to drive the piles in  our sandy soil. A geotech team came this week and did miscellaneous engineering stuff for hours involving 10 metre deep drilling and a soakage test where 5000 litres of water was pumped into a hole (and disappeared - gosh, it's sand). And of course, a liquefaction test to see if the backyard will turn to mud in the vibration of a big earthquake. 

Funnily enough, we did have a good shake this morning, haven't had one for a while. 

A 4.7 quake centered 25km west of us in the sea and 28km down. 

Several hours and thousands of dollars later, findings are pending. No probs expected.

Post Kaikoura 'quake - Wellington building demolition

This is recent progress on demolition of part of Queensgate Shopping Centre. This corner had to be urgently demolished as it had failed structurally after the Kaikoura quake on November 14.

Wellington demolitions

Several buildings in the CBD are coming down after the shake a few weeks back.

This is one of our biggest shopping malls, Queensgate in Lower Hutt.



Part of it is coming down, the cinema complex and the car park underneath. It's on the way to work so stopped this week and looked at the work done the day before. The crane is clawing the side out.
Two months to complete this job, they must have to move pretty slowly.

Our little house has a few more cracks outside. Nothing worth worrying about. Timber house; she just moves a bit.

House and yard duties

Last night we went to a concert in town, Orchestra Wellington playing two new pieces and Holst's Planets, with visuals from the observatory. That was pretty cool - film and animations from Hubble and NASA.

Four rows back from the stage, we looked up into a timpani. The white table centre of photo is a glass box that pivoted to roll pebbles, so it sounded like waves rolling pebbles on the shore. Ooh ahh, experimental.

Saturday food markets in the street next to concert hall fed us dumplings after the concert, then a 5 minute walk to car and a 10 minute drive home. Little city; fabulous.




Mish finished two projects this weekend: pots and pots of cuttings for me to take to work tomorrow and sell as a fundraiser, and a shelf /hanging system at the front door.

Almost there, everything in its place. Much measuring, drilling, levelling, etc.
Another good shake down south this afternoon (rated severe as it was shallow), just a tremor here.



So let me take you on a guided tour of the new system. From the bottom: twisted cutlery on a coat rack, shelf  over top; cap hooks on those great hooks that open and close with one action; shelf system remade from junky piece bought in op shop; hats on top. Mish chuffed. Much more room at front door - and she's added a book shelf in the walkway.







Out to a nursery this morning, took mum for a jolly jaunt with lunch, and back to potter around the yard. Mostly grey day, but calm and warm and I got  a widdle sunburnt.

Mish made burnt butter sage pasta for dinner - mmm mmm. Got a week's supply of fruit and veg at the local farmers' market this morning (nice big dark green broccoli $1; same in supermarket Friday, $3). Love the Sunday market: the first apricots are here from the South Island and sweet as, plums and cherries just arrived too, and paw paw are back. Yum! Aussie mangoes slowly coming down in price but still $4 each - won't have a bar of the Mexican, Ecuadorean, Filipino, Peruvian ones - we get them all and they are scrawny and fibrous and ugh unluscious. Saving myself for Kensington Pride in Sydney.

More repurposing. Latest pot totem - looking back to house.



Looking down from the house, Leunig driftwood bird in a busted concrete post, the latest pot totem, and the old Hills Hoist now doing good duty as a bird feeder.

Wellington Botanic Gardens

A rainy Friday walk in the gardens. With picnic and blow the drizzle. That's why raincoats were invented.

There's a storm coming up from the south, so thought we would get a bit of outdoor activity in before the weekend disappears in wind and rain.

Mish under a big linden tree.

We scoffed our lunch out of the rain in the rotunda next to the lake. Bloody pigeons kept harassing us wanting a handout (I don't like pigeons) but we did enjoy watching the duck derrieres - looking silly as they upended to hoover the bottom of the pond. And we did see a large rat - bold as you like, looking for food on the terrace.

Earlier in the week we had lunch at Oriental Bay and from our outside table looked across the harbour to the wharves and saw stacks of containers that have jiggled about in the Kaikoura earthquake. The logs on another part of the wharves look like a pickup sticks game.

Latest tally in the city is five buildings to be taken down ASAP and the structure of a few more in doubt.

Settling...

Chance of another big one in Wellington receding! But have rethought water and food supplies, radio, access, etc. all the things we are supposed to have ready if we are tossed out into an earth broken winter's night.

Spent yesterday stacking firewood.

Drizzled a bit, but we got through a stack of fallen pine, split and chainsawed and stacked in woodshed. And man some of those rounds were big buggers. Go the power splitter.

Water break

Sunday is lovely, warm, sunny, calm. Very pleasant. Doors and windows open, washing on the line, cleaning the house. Mish back tonight.

The navies are in the harbour (Aussie, American, NZ). Must have come up from Kaikoura to finish their NZ navy 75th celebrations.

Wellington update

Thursday: shaky, wet, southerly blowy, and cold.

We're feeling several shakes a day here; but this evening the count is 2600 since 12:02 Monday, so most aftershocks are being felt in the top of the South Island. We're told it will go on for months, hopefully with nothing big. (I'll be pulling the bedcovers over my head again, going - stop!)

And it's raining again. What next - locusts, a plague of boils?

Flood waters have gone down so we don't need any more rain, thanks. Landslips everywhere around town, mud pushed off roads into piles to be cleared away when things settle, roads closed, diversions round the world. More buildings identified in the city as being at risk of falling, so tape is up and areas cordoned off. Some are new buildings, so questions being asked.

Rescue work in Kaikoura hampered by this lousy weather. Trucks can't get in. Water, food and sewerage are major issues.

But the navy has sailed into Kaikoura, and sailed out with a shipload of tourists to Christchurch. An American ship and an Aussie ship visiting for NZ navy 75th anniversary are also sailing to the rescue. They get to do good works!

That's the end of the working week for me - yay.

Back to work after the shake and...

...flooding.




This is Waiwhetu Stream today, the stream that runs alongside the old school where I work. Twenty minutes later we got sent home. More to do with flooded roads than flooding at work.

Still raining. Weather is stopping the Kaikoura recovery - and who knows what shake loosened land is going to come sliding down over the next few days.

So am working at home, drinking coffee and eating fudge (see below), and looking out at the clouds.

Several shakes today.

What's next?!

Midnight quake November 14

Wow, violent shaking that went on for AGES.

12:02, woke me up, thought hmm earthquake, ooh, big rolling shake, bathroom windchimes going like crazy, something falling...jaysus, monster shake.

Got up, heart pounding, checked house, picked up a few things, checked GeoNet and realised we were having a national event. Called mum, all good there. First quake coming in at 7.5 and only about 15 km deep. Then...quakes everywhere. About 1 am, the tsunami alert.

So sat up in the kitchen and drank tea and listened to Radio New Zealand and followed Twitter until 4 am. People on the streets in Wellington and tsunami sirens getting people out of bed and up to higher ground. Alert was from Dunedin to East Cape. Guy from work tweeted to me he could see the harbour from his place and the tide was high when it shouldn't be and the sea below looking 'odd'. Lyall Bay surging. Aftershocks up and down the country.

But no tsunami, phew.

Some building damage in the city, road cracks, rail out, liquefaction on the reclaimed dock area, lots of broken glass, people evacuated to higher ground. People told not to go to work in CBD and Lower Hutt today. I was too tired to go anyway.

Quake centred on Kaikoura, north of Christchurch, major damage to roads and buildings in and around Kaikoura. Hundreds of people displaced there today. Lots of slips on the main road Blenheim to Christchurch. It's not just the dirt on the road, it's what is sitting above it that has to be dealt with. Many landslides. One bit of rail line shifted 20 mt. Houses destroyed and two people dead. Not many injuries - NZ very lucky.

Looks like first quake triggered another so two quakes went off together. Many faults from lower South Island to mid North Island, so many aftershocks. We've had over 100 shakes since midnight throughout the country. Getting a shake every so often here. Geologists say aftershocks of 5-6 would fit a typical pattern after a major quake and will continue for days. Chance of another doozy currently about 10%.

PM on radio now saying cost of rebuild not an issue, he estimates a couple of billion, but 'massive clean up job' will take months.

Arlene, Alex and Lizzie dropped in. No school.



Everyone in slow mode today with the jitters...need fudge.

National earthquake drill day

Today!

On the whistle: drop, cover, hold. And laugh.

Three shots from the floor.

Rainy days and Thursdays

Oh wow, did she come down!

Floods everywhere, major slips, roads closed, no trains, no buses - Wellington came to a very soggy halt last Thursday. Took me two hours to get home (usually 25 minutes). Ran a guy from work home, picked up his stranded kids at school - commuters slept in the city library and all over the city where people put them up for the night cause they had no way to get home.

Crazy. Glad we live on a hill - and not one that is going to end up on the houses below us.

Now we just have 100kph wind gusts, temperature has dropped pretty dramatically, and even a jolly jolt on Friday. haha. Never a dull moment in the coolest little capital.

Another good shake

Half an hour ago, wo. Came home early from work and was reading on the couch. Froze, it got worse, said bad word, much shaking, thought about taking cover and after 30 seconds it faded. Lots of aftershocks. Pretty continuous movement now. Seems little damage in city but businesses evacuating and power going on and off. No tsunami warning.
Wo, another one..........
minor.
Blimey.

6.2
8km down and just across the strait.

Five major shakes so far. Much movement. Dramatic shaking but little damage, no injuries coming through on radio. Shaking over most of the country. Continuous. Rolling.

Lights over table have been moving for 30 minutes.

Wind(less) shaky Wellington

Having one of those days where it pours, it's cold, then it gets warmer, now clearing, low cloud goes through, sunshine!, mist, pouring, blowy, calm - etc. Never a dull weather moment.

Can't wait to have working hands again...

Here's a couple of news items from Wellington:
Last Saturday was so calm, a Virgin flight to Brisbane couldn't leave Wellington airport  until 20 people got off. Hilarious! They got everyone on, and then the crew had to bribe people to get off - which they did - to cheers and applause from the other passengers. Fancy. We have had some very still days. That's due to change this weekend: forecast is icy and strong southerlies.

We're still having lots of small shakes following the biggie that has cracked buildings in the CBD. Lots of red stickers around town (unsafe and will probably have to come down). Most aftershocks are too weak to feel. Heard yesterday that they felt the main shake on the ferry, which was in the strait at the time, apparently it shook the ship and the captain came on and told passengers they'd just ridden a quake.

In one of the local pools they were having a 5 year old kids' party, which was going swimmingly until the quake caused large waves in the pool and the kids are going under and mothers are jumping in! Exciting.

Seismic swarming

We had a decent rolling rumble last Friday and then a walloping good shake Sunday afternoon.
We'd had a lovely frolic at the beach all afternoon and were on our way home at the time, so we were driving and didn't feel it. A wee while after it happened Carol's sister texted us to check everyone was OK 'after the big shake'. We were a bit mystified at first: 'big shake? What big shake?'  We'd completely missed it.

There's some damage in town, cracks in buildings and roads and glass on streets and the sea claimed back a bit of reclaimed land. One container went in off the wharf (and wouldn't you be pinged if it was yours?)  All the office workers were told not to come into the city until lunchtime, just to be safe and let the engineers and emergency crews check buildings. I'm sure there won't be too many  employees complaining about a sleep in. Nothing major but they'll be putting books back on shelves at Victoria Uni library for weeks. What a mess.

Carol poodled off to work (in the opposite direction to the CBD) on her little 250cc this morning  and I've just done a shop to stock up on things for the emergency kit. All's good.

Thank you all for your calls and texts. For most of us it's business as usual. I did have a good laugh though when a worker in a big store in Wellington was interviewed on TV. He said he was high up on top of a rack, stacking rolls of toilet paper, when the quake struck. He said he didn't know whether he was going to need the toilet paper at the time..I loved his droll humour.

The geologists tell us we'll be getting more shakes for a while, and that some could be 6+.
We're all glued to Geonet.
It is an amazing website that shows you what and where and how deep and how strong - before the chandelier has even stopped swinging. On an average day NZ has about 20 shakes - we're getting a few more than that since Friday!

 Don painting away outside late today. On the chill right now as we have to leave our lounge door open to dry the paint. Under strict instructions not to close it until we go to bed.. jeez who's brilliant idea was it to paint in the middle of winter? 

NZ day: shakes and a hongi

Ramere! (Friday)
We've had a good shake today, 5.7 and 25km down, centred just across Cook Strait. I was at work talking to a pal in her office and the two of us froze (there's the freezers and the runners, brother Greg's theory of earthquakes). We got talking to another woman a few minutes after and she'd been on the phone to her father in Otaki during the quake, so we got the fascinating info that he got the shakes 30 seconds after us (Otaki is about 60km north of here). Ripples up the island.
Mish was here reading the paper and our painter (yes he is still here) was up a ladder, so we have wavy bits on the window frames. Mum heard it rumbling up her hill like a heavy truck.
Had a reasonable jolt this afternoon too, so the earth she is amovin'.
Apart from that, what a gorgeous, spring-like day it has been. Warm and calm.
My work singing group had a gig this morning at a formal welcome for some government people who were onsite for the day. There was oratory, we sang, they sang, then we all hongied! The hongi is the traditional Maori greeting, foreheads and noses touching -my first time in a real context (very closely followed by an earthquake), wow, what a morning.
Don, our window painter, is working around foul weather on our exposed site, so he is moving slowly. He's put a coat of gloss on late this afternoon, so we are here tonight with windows and back door open. Thank the Lord Harry 'tis a nice night; a light breeze and currently 14 in the living room. Mish has gone out to get us some nourishing curry, I've got the mulled wine mulling, and we'll have the windows open all night. Warming up the 'dining room' with candles (sort of).

A red admiral butterfly, supposed to be hibernating in winter, having a rest on the house late this afternoon. Probably thrown by today's warmth, she's come out for a look - hope she lasts the night.

Waitangi Day 2013

NZ's national day.

Mish spent it cleaning like a good house frau: a little dusting here, a little mopping there, a bit of pottering all about...

I spent it with brother Greg as he fixed my motorbike's carburettor and front forks. She goes beaut! (After it conked out on the way home and he had to come and do a roadside redo of carby.) All good. I'm going for a blat tomorrow to test the GN250 (a powerful machine).

Mish and I decided about 6pm that there was hours of lovely daylight left and we should get out. So we drove to the west side of the harbour, about half an hour to the end of the road over there, and had a smoked fish picnic with wine and cider and home made pita crisps and blue cheese and fruit. Yummy.

Had a little fish but the wind threw the line back so gave it away and had a paddle and collected some seaweed, rocks, shells and driftwood instead - for garden and art spaces.

Wandered home just before dark, while the penguins were thinking about rafting. They'll be coming ashore now (10pm) over there.  Having a nice cup of black caramel tea and am thinking about a quick game of scrabble at Just words online...

The wind has dropped to a breeze and we suffered no major damage. Fine warm days ahead. Heard on the radio there's a small tsunami (less than a metre) headed our way from the Solomons tonight, they've had a big shake today (8).

THAT was a good shake

NZST: Tue, Jul 3 2012 10:36 pm

Magnitude: 7.0

Depth: 230 km

Details: 60 km south of Opunake (170km NW of Wellington)

Wo. 7! Lucky it was deep. Working in the kitchen tonight, Mish drawing and me fiddling with the biz website, and we heard a low, long rumble. Not a plane, not a car idling - a suspicious noise; it went on for about 8 seconds, then the house she was ashaking. Mish rooted to the spot, standing in the kitchen. Me, ditto, sitting watching the lights swinging. We have one thought as we discover later:  how bad is it going to get?

But, nothing falls off shelves and she stops after a long (15 second odd shake). Fades away slowly; we   felt a wee movement underfoot for about a minute after the walls stopped moving. I'm amazed at the long intro sound - we heard that coming from a long way off. Was it coming up from 230km? Or travelling down the country? Or both?

Sometimes you do; sometimes you don't hear them coming.

Minutes later, the GeoNet website has the report that I've pasted above.
Too hyped now to head off to bed!

Christmas Eve eve

The latest shake in Christchurch - 6, today - has left lots of people stranded. I picked up some family at Wellington airport this afternoon, they'd flown in late from Auckland. Flights were being cancelled, delayed, diverted all over the country as - hullo?! - the national air coordination tower is in shaky town and it has been damaged. Ironically, the tower was built there as it was deemed an earthquake safe area. Wellington's domestic arrivals was fairly calm, but departures was a shambles. People everywhere, going nowhere on Christmas Eve eve.

When does it stop?

Mish's first shake

And it was a good one! 5.7 and about 60km down - a decent rattle all over Wellington and  Marlborough. But it only went on for a few seconds. NOW she realises why I keep telling her 'just push your precious breakable things back from the edge of the shelf, dear'.

That quake has made us think about the emergency kit again. The one where I had carefully packed the meths camping burner, without the meths. Our house is still in unpack/renovation mode, so we have stuff everywhere, and still more to come from storage. The emergency bag is currently on the bottom of a pile in the guest bedroom, fat lot of good it would be there. By Christmas, which is coming up faster than a sleigh on wet ice, we are going to have reno complete and everything out of storage and at the house, so everything will have a place.

It will be good to have a tv and decent sound system again. It's been weeks of crackly radio...