When cows fly

Being a farming nation, NZ is breeding a lot of livestock. NZ didn't really manage to produce flying pigs yet, but flying cows have finally seen the light of day today.

After the biggest cloudburst in living memory (almost half a meter of rain in 24 hours) a part of the North Island has been heavily flooded yesterday. Living on the South Island we are at about a 1500 km (1000 miles) distance so we didn't notice anything ourselves, but the people over there are really in dire straits, with houses that have been swept away completely by the water.

Then there are the cows of Hikurangi. They are all standing on flooded paddocks, and are becoming extremely exhausted. If they are not rescued they will drown. People have tried to drive them to higher ground using water skis and kayaks, but those small water vehicles are no match for unwilling cows in the water. So now a helicopter transports them to higher ground, which, sad as the event by itself may be, provides for some pretty hilarious images too.

(images and footage by one news)

City2Surf

When we were looking out the window this morning enjoying the view of the river, a skeeler came riding past. Nice. Hey, another one, how funny. Yet another one. Probably a family outing. Yet another one. And another and another and another… probably the skeeler club then. A pretty large club, if you ask me. What the… runners??? A whole lot of them, at that. Looks even like a marathon. But if it's a marathon, then why are skeelers racing past too? And bikers? And a guy in his electric wheelchair? And what about the juggling clown on his one-wheeled bike??!! And the heel-and-toe walkers? And the leisure walkers? The flow of people past our house just did not seem to ever come to an end, it looked like half of Christchurch was taking part. The atmosphere was pretty nice, too. At one time a little boy of about ten years old rang at our door, he asked if he could use the toilet because he needed to go do his #2 very badly!! :-)

The whole exercise turned out to be the City2Surf run, an annual charity tour. Its course starts at the city centre and runs for 12 km (8 miles) along the riverside towards the beach. The entry fee is 10 dollars. When you take part, it doesn't matter how you travel the distance (biking, skeelering, running, walking), as long as you get to the finish. Very nice initiative, I think we will be running or walking the course ourselves next year!

Flushing the volcano

NZ has a real active volcano located in the middle of the North Island. Well, active... about once every decade it does something. In 1995 the last real eruption took place, which formed a crater lake that slowly but surely started to fill up. The NZ authorities were afraid that the crater rim would collapse, which would invoke a lahar (a mud flow). If this would happen the road past the volcano had to be shut down over a length of 30 km (20 miles) to prevent anybody from being hurt.

A few policemen were assigned the task of closing the road when a lahar would take place. Question was: WHEN would it take place? They couldn't predict that accurately so they just started driving from the start of the track to the end of the track continuously. All day long they were driving to and fro, up and down, from one side to the other. And back again, too. In fact, you could call it a kind of a paid obsessive-compulsive neurosis. The policemen were not at all amused by the whole exercise, but what to do? Safety of the civilians above all, right?

However, all the waiting has come to an end now, because the lahar has taken place today. Finally!! Due to all precautions taken no one was hurt, and only minor damage was done. Good work! I just think that the policemen might need some post-stiffly bore-disorder-counselling now… ;-)

(photo by Thor Thordarson)

Water?

When I walked over to our brand new washing machine to take out the laundry, it displayed the profound message 'E10'. What the …?? You mischievous brat, barely bought and already throwing errors at me?

Like in many lovers' quarrel, this little darling also gave me a cryptic hint that I wasn't able to understand if my life depended on it. However, in this case I had the luxury of being able to actually look in a manual to see what the sent message was meant to convey.

E10 meant water error. I didn't forget to turn on the water, did I?? Nope, the tap was wide open. Reset the washing machine and turned it back on. Loud hum. They usually do that when they cannot get any water. Turned on the tap above the sink to check. No water! Not a single drop! Just a bit of a gurgling sound, that was all.

In NZ the main water tap is located in front of the house, underneath the side walk just outside the property. Everyone can reach it. I suspected that some joker wanted to haze the new Dutchies by turning off the water tap. But also that tap was wide open. So, what to do now? I just wanted to go take a shower, and, even more important, Emma just wanted to make herself some coffee. That thus became a washout.

Checked the mail for a card like "Sorry people, Saturday the water will be shut off". Well, nothing. To at least be notified when the water came back on, I turned on the tap at full blow, so the water would start running violently as soon as the water pressure came back. It still took two hours before that happened.

In Holland the water company would be sued stiff if they would pull such a prank, but here in NZ it is just a matter of "don't whine about it". In Ashburton my father gets a letter once a year that there is maintenance on the power exchange so on a given date they will shut off the power between 10 AM and 5 PM (!). Shutting off the water for two hours apparently isn't even worth mentioning. The residents will notice themselves if the water is shut off and when it comes back on, won't they?

Hoarding up some water bottles isn't exactly superfluous here :-)

Chinese lantern festival

Last Saturday the Chinese in Christchurch celebrated their New Year with a Chinese lantern festival. That sounded pretty appealing so we went to take a look. In the small park of Victoria Square a large stage was built up, on which many Chinese performers were strutting their stuff. Some acts were very nice, others looked like an Idols audition. On another stage a Karaoke show was going on. Between the stages a lot of lanterns were put up, and on the ground they had placed paper animals. The lanterns were not lit though, because when the event started it was still light outside. It all looked nice, but not really special. Until the sun had set. At that moment the lanterns were lit, and the scene became very cosy. Oh, and I sang Karaoke, too :-)

Children's Day

Like in many countries, in Holland they celebrate father’s day and mother’s day too. However, children’s day doesn’t exist over there. As a child I always asked my parents “how come there is no children’s day? That is not fair!”. I, and many a Dutch child with me, always received the very unsatisfactory answer that it was children’s day every day. In hindsight I can understand the answer, but as a child I always thought it to be very unfair.

Well, here in NZ the children can eat their heart out, because tadaaaa: NZ celebrates children’s day! This year it was held on March 4. All kinds of small events are being organised on children's day, like a picnic with free bouncy castle in the park, family-discount on a boat trip around the Christchurch harbour, the library takes part, the museum takes part, you name it, they do it.

Children’s day is not about presents; it is about spending quality time with the kids. Quality time that is also well overdue for most kids here. A few weeks ago there was a Unicef report about child well-being. On certain aspects NZ was on the very bottom of the list of developed countries! Especially the time parents spend talking to their kids received a very low score. Child abuse is also a very big problem here.

But at least they have Children’s Day! Yes! :-)