Christchurch Pettys in May

Winter has come
A cold miserable day today – and our fire is not yet operative!

William is still in the Far North, so no doubt considerably warmer than we are.

On Mothers’ Day, we got a phone call from William. Actually that isn’t quite true. He rang on the Saturday to say he wouldn’t have time to call on Sunday, so we arranged for him to call on Monday. He seemed fine. We chatted for two hours, partly talking about a course he can do when he gets home.

Expeditions
For three Saturdays Mark and I went for longish walks on the hills to build up stamina for the rogaine at the end of the month. The views from the Port Hills are amazing. We are so blessed to live in such a truly spectacular place. We ate our OSM bars for lunch (One Square Meal) sitting on the old gun emplacements above Lyttleton harbour, from which we could see Mt Herbert, Lyttleton Harbour, south past Birdlings flat and North over the city to Kaikoura. (It is about 400m high, or 1200 feet, and we walked up from Sumner, which is at sea level.

We thought we would try geocaching, using the gps-like facility on the I-phone, but it was less than satisfactory as it lost signal from time to time, and was only accurate to about 20m, which is a bit loose when one is looking for something the size of a Just Juice packet. However, we can see lots of potential there for exploring, especially if we get a proper GPS unit.

On the third Saturday we went early in the morning so that we could pick Jonathan up at Goalball afterward. The sun was rising as we reaching the top of Mount Pleasant, where we visited the gun emplacements for the third time in three weeks! Our routes just seem to take us through there.

Stake Conference
Like all of New Zealand we watched General Authorities talking to us at Stake Conference by satellite feed. it was pretty cool to know that William was watching the same broadcast up at Kaikohe. The first talk, by Elder Baxter, was pretty ‘straight-down-the-line’ about the role of culture compared with the gospel. I did wonder what aspects of our palagi culture is a problem that we need to work on, because, as part of the dominant culture, it can be easy to point the finger at others, and ignore the gaping gaps in our own lives.

Jonathan played the organ for the Saturday evening session of Stake Conference. I was at a potluck dinner at work, where lots of people talked about Rogo and our potential to do well with it. Mark had to be at Stake Conference though, so he missed out. And I missed out on hearing Jonathan play, but he did just fine as usual.

Wanaka Rogaine trip
Mark and I went down to the rogaine in Wanaka in the last weekend in May. We drove down on Thursday and stayed at Omarama at a place reminiscent of Hotel California (“You can check out any time you like – but you can never leave!) It was a Budget Backpackers, and the host was a retired farmer, keen National Party supporter and loved to talk. I had holes in my tongue from biting it. My favourite remark was to the tourists, also staying there, that NZ was a lot safer in the last two years since the National Party got into power. I thought that was a pretty impressive claim – they get into power and immediately the crime stops. But I held my tongue.

Over night it snowed, and the Lindis Pass was closed, but we escaped, I mean left, at about 10.30am anyway in the hope that the Pass would be open soon. It was, and we were happy to drive through. We were carrying chains, so weren’t too worried about the snow. That was Friday, and the rogaine was for Saturday, so we did a little explore in the car of the Bendigo area. It is an old gold-mining area, with lots of old stone house ruins and signs EVERYWHERE saying that there are hidden mine shafts, and not to let children loose. There was snow up there, too, and it was snowing, so we didn’t stay outside too long.

We made our way up to Wanaka, where we checked in to a Bella Vista motel. It was pleasant enough, if rather tiny. Best of all it had a spa bath, ready for after the rogaine. We had a very nice meal at the Wanaka Ale House. I had braised lamb shank on mashed potatoes. Mmm comfort food.

Then on Saturday, it was still a bit cold and damp, but at least it wasn’t really raining. We got down to Bendigo station (the one that Shrek the sheep comes from) about 11.00 am, and got our maps about 11.30. They set us off at 1.00pm and we arrived back with a few minutes to spare at 6.55pm. The first few hours were pretty hopeless, getting about 50 points, then at 4.15pm we realised we were on a different track from the one we thought we were on. We then realised we were well on our way (we hoped) to a 100 point mark, and decided to keep going until 4.45. We got up to the deer fence about 4.40, found the mark and took heart from that. We could have headed back then, but decided to try for a 40 point, a 90 pointer we had already tried for twice, and then over the Logantown to the battery for a 70 pointer. I had worked out that if we left Logantown by 6, we would get back on time. (Remember everything after about 5.30 was in the dark, using head torches.) And we did! We got a total of 360 points, which is way better than we thought. And we came 7th out of about 20. They had a nice dinner of soup and pie and potatoes when we got back.

Sharon stayed with Jonathan, and that all went well. Mind you we went over our internet limit this month, and I thought it was from me and my iPhone, but I’ve since discovered that Jonathan is watching stuff on TVNZ on demand. It is 50 years since television came to NZ, and as you can imagine, he is pretty excited about that and all the retro shows.

The drive back on Sunday was as beautiful as ever, with the sun shining on freshly fallen snow. We marvelled again at the amazing natural beauty which surrounds us in the South Island of New Zealand. Mark took some photos, and we listened to classical music from my iPhone. I had made bacon butties for lunch, which were wonderful for a saturated fat-filled occasional treat.

And that is our adventures for May.
Best wishes to all, and especially Ellen and Dylan as they approach their departure on missions. Maybe we may even see Dylan when we go up to the temple.