On Saturday 24th October Hagley Park held an Indian festival. In all honesty it could have been better. It was unfortunately 95% food stalls with no real fun. There was a sound stage with people singing songs for minutes at a time with only the two words "Hare Krishna" as the lyrics. Ergh. We walked around and drank a Mango Lassi each. At least the weather was nice.
We've been to the beach a few times. Not much to say other than its nice being on a sandy beach.
We were stopped by a woman at Pac N Saves car park one day. She saw us with Mioni and ran towards us with a bunch of knitted woollen hats for babies, insisting we took a few. She apparently had them handed to her from a a member of her church and didn't know what to do with them, so she had them on her to give to random parents with babies.
We visited Victoria Park. Its on a high hill to the south which overlooks the city. We took Mioni on the swings and slide for her first time. Also the fantails were friendly and close to us.
On the 30th we visited a cafe in a cool yet old looking building. Its called 'The Sign of the Takahe'. Apparently it used to be a meeting place over 100 years ago, and is 1 of 4 similar buildings in the area related to travellers going to and from Akaroa / Banks Peninsular. This cafe was being decorated in a Halloween theme. After that we visited The Sign of the Kiwi, a smaller cafe this time, located way up high on the hill, kinda near the radio tower. We spoke to a waitress and she told us the location for The Sign of the Bellbird, so we visited that. Unfortunately it's a ruin, and it used to be a house apparently. Yet it overlooks two views, one of Christchurch and one of the harbour of Lyttelton. Back home I Googled the location for The Sign of the Packhorse. Its in the middle of nowhere somewhere in Banks peninsular, yet it is used as a DOC Hut for trampers. It kinda makes me feel bummed out even more that the Bellbird place is a ruin. It's not that far away from civilisation. Maybe it suffered from a fire or something? This afternoon we went back to the beach, this time a bit more prepared than before.
New Brighton has heated pools on the seafront, big enough to dip into and enjoy their warmth, so we did that one day.
On the 1st of November we went to this private garden in Governors Bay. Called Ohinetahi. It had many art installations around which were quirky, supposedly to fit the landscape around them. Fair enough. The gardens were very well kept too. After that we visited a nearby cafe, which took 40 minutes to serve the food :/
On Friday the 6th we were awoken by an earthquake. 4.6 on the Richter scale. This was my first earthquake I felt since living here in NZ over 30 years ago. It felt like a mixture of a truck passing by and being in a swimming pool, but it woke me up, so I wasn't fully awake. I woke Sabine up during it; she would have stayed asleep otherwise.
On the 7th we moved from Wigram to Papanui. Our expensive but new build place in Wigram was really nice and I got too used to it being our home. Such a shame we moved. :( The new one is a lot cheaper and is much darker due to lack of windows. Its a downstairs granny flat.
On the 12th we went swimming at the Jelly park pool. Sabine took Mioni to the small child pool and I did some lane swimming.
On the 14th we drove along Arthur's Pass and stopped at the Castle Hill, which has limestone boulders. Pushing the pushchair up the hill was tricky but doable. On the way up we passed a family where a little girl stopped at Mioni and wanted to make a huge fuss over her, holding her hand and talking to her. Next we attempted the first two parts of the walk to The Devils Bowl waterfall, but it was too tough holding onto Mioni. We got to the second swing bridge then headed back. We stopped in the village cafe and saw a Kea. On the way back we briefly stopped to look at Cave Stream Scenic Reserve but wasn't there too long. This evening we went to the bar/restaurant at Wigram. They had the live rugby match on. Argentina won their first ever game against the All Blacks. The fans in the bar were complaining at all the bad passes etc during the match. lol.
On the 15th we visited the nearby run-down zoo. Not many enclosures open to be honest. The kiwi exhibit was okay I guess. The place needs an overhaul. Its very large and has highly under utilised space. Its also very expensive. We wont be going back there any time soon.
