First off, a picture of Naomi smiling. Naomi is always smiling. Or if she’s not, her needs are very simple–food, sleep, removal of Milo from her chest. This is in direct contrast to Milo’s needs as a three-and-a-half-year-old, which I haven’t quite figured out yet.

The day started out bright and early with Daddy-made eggs and oatmeal. Hot chocolate is packed as a treat for the hike.

On our way to Mt Oxford, one of the foothills of the Southern Alps closest to Christchurch, Milo announced that he wanted to go to the beach. “Well now, Milo, we can go to the beach another day, but today we’re going to the mountains.” Whinging starts. Jeremiah got the pleasure of carrying him, with the constant complaints in his ear. “I’m too hot!” Hat removed. Ten seconds later “I’m too cold!” “I want to go to the beach.” “I want to get down.” “I want hot chocolate.” A peanutbutter-and-jelly buys us a few minutes of quiet. 

We should acknowledge, for the record, that he did move under his own locomotion, for a few minutes. We were walking through a beautiful beech forest that cloaks the lower reaches of the Alps. Nerdy tip: These beeches are a different family than those we’re used to from NY (Fagaceae). Called “Nothofagaceae,” the family name means “bastard beech.” I guess the taxonomists are from the northern hemisphere. Nothofagaceae have tiny leaves and there are members in South America from the bygone days before continental drift.  Jeremiah wants to bottle the musty-sweet smell of the beech forest and sell it as a men’s cologne, he likes it that much.

Half way up the mountain the beech forest abruptly ended and the tussockland took over. All the grasses are decked out in their finest frozen water gems. On the south side (shady side) of the mountain it stayed below freezing all day.

A bit higher up the rain must have been freezing as it felt to build these sharp crystals along each grass stalk.

As we climbed up out of the shadow of the mountain the warmth of the sun abruptly greeted us.  You could feel it first on your hat, then face, then shoulders, then knees.  The mountain was outlined in a sparkling halo.

This is why we hike. You can see for miles up here, and looking north or west all you see is more wilderness.

Last time we hiked Mt Oxford (November 2012) there was new snow on the mountain, even though it was nearly summer. This time, in the dead of winter, the snow is still confined to higher up in the mountains.

We met another group of hikers at the top and Milo perked up–he likes people. He hasn’t got a shy bone in his body, and is happy to share with total strangers whatever happens to be forefront in his mind. Plus, one of the hikers retrieved his mitten that he dropped half way down, and over which he had been worrying. Two mouse mittens, Mommy’s warm puffy vest, and another shot of hot chocolate brought out the smiles.

Miss Naomi, for the record, was still smiling.  She actually got a bit cold on the way down but we didn’t know until we felt her hands at the car, since she didn’t make a peep.

Aw, family photo. With each family member that we add it’s exponentially more difficult to get everyone 1) looking at the camera and 2) smiling.  The Canterbury plains stretch out below us, and if the haze under those distant clouds wasn’t hiding it, you’d be able to see the sea.  Despite the Milo Whinge, it was a glorious winter day.

This weekend marks the winter solstice, shortest day of the year in the southern hemisphere. For some reason, Kiwis think winter starts June first, probably because it feels like winter as we’re huddling in the not-so-warm houses, hugging mugs of tea while the condensation drips down the window panes. But I prefer the solstice date because it seems more elegant and less arbitrary.

In honor of the “dead of winter,” I made Naomi a couple new pairs of thick wool tights. I wore the soles out of my beloved Smartwool socks but hadn’t had the heart to toss them since the rest of the sock still seemed perfectly serviceable. Good thing, because now they’ve got a new life on an 8-month-old’s legs.

To be fair, Christchurch winters aren’t really dead, and we get some glorious days that are even beach-worthy, especially if your companions are Brits who consider anything better than a downpour to be beach weather.

To find snow, you have to drive over to the mountains. Here’s the view from Foggy Peak in the foothills of the Southern Alps looking back over the Canterbury plain to the bump of the Banks Penninsula.

Here’s what you see if you look the other direction, southwest, towards Arthur’s Pass. What a stunning day. We could see wind on the lake down below, but hardly a breath stirred on Foggy Peak.

My hiking companion, a colleague from work, laughed herself silly over my snow shoes. Look at that shiny hard surface–snow shoes would be the quick ticket down the mountain, and it wouldn’t be a comfortable ride. We wore Microspikes. They worked like a charm, but we still watched our steps carefully as the bits of loosen ice skittered down the hill below us.

There must have been a good dousing with freezing rain at some point during the past week to get this thick buildup on the tussock grass.

Yup, not a kid hike this one. Thanks for having the kiddos for the day, Jeremiah!

Jeremiah spent the day with the kids. Milo’s request was to ride the bus, so they took a ride into center city to check out the rebuild progress. Much of the area still looks like a war zone, but I think it’s turned a corner. Buildings are starting to go UP now, where before all the work was leveling the munted ones. 

Oh my, is that a tower crane and a boom crane in the same photo? Not to mention that big hammer thing. All the heavy machinery a little boy (or grown man) could want. A new building is going up.

Some of the empty lots have temporary art pieces to improve the space until it’s used for something else. I like these ones, and so did Milo.  Those spikes up top look like they’re meant to prevent giant pigeons from perching there. 

“Can you put this picture on blog?” Milo queried as we drove out to Lake Clearwater last Saturday morning. He wanted to post all his photos of smudgy car windows with blurred fields beyond, but we told him he’d have to be a little selective, and this one of Naomi’s tongue-out grin was my favorite. We’re just starting to see the potential for a two-kid family, where one child amuses the other and they’re happier together than separated. Well….sometimes.

“Baches,” the Kiwi term for a water-side shack, started being built next to Lake Clearwater sometime in the 1930s. This was one of the originals. It’s a no-frills cabin, improved little by little over the years through the lumps and bumps of hovely additions. There’s a sink with a tap but the rainwater connection tank hasn’t been hooked to it yet. The old coal range looks nice but fills the place with smoke. There’s a girls’ outhouse and one for the boys out back, as well as a new “bathroom unit” that will someday be connected to a septic tank and a water source. If the weather was cruddy it wouldn’t be that cozy a spot to hole up with a book, but it provides a decent place to lay your head after a day outdoors in the Canterbury high country.

One of the newest improvements is a wire looped across the ceiling….if we had brought light bulbs and a car battery we could have had electric lighting. Our friends Damien and Anna know the owners of the bach, so we got to go as their guests for the weekend.

Triple-deckers! This tiny bach packs in beds for 10 people. Sleeping in one put me in mind of submarine berths.

Milo woke up before the crack of dawn and accompanied Damien out looking for rabbits. No bunnies stirring, but a beautiful sunrise, disturbed only by Milo plunking rocks into the lake.

Jeremiah and Damien spent a few hours Saturday looking for chamois, but saw neither hide nor hair of them. This Canterbury high country is naked, I wouldn’t live their either if I were a chamois. No trees, and the tussock grass does little to hide the scars of geological history. You can see the wide valley carved out by an ancient glacier and the deep gravel deposits etched by old river paths. This time I noticed the jumbled lumpy gravel hummocks that spew out of the clefts of the mountains where the brittle rock dribbles down with each storm, as well as the smoother alluvial fans near the valley base.

Before we left we drove a bit further up the road to Potts Station by the Rangitata River. Mt Sunday is the low hill in the foreground where Lord of the Rings (capital of Rohan, King Theoden’s realm) was filmed.

Damien and Mimo (Italian friend) spotted some spawning salmon in this fast-moving creek, but we didn’t try to catch any. I’m not sure where they actually lay their eggs, we don’t know of any lakes in the headwaters. That water is MOVING, it’s hard to imagine swimming upstream any distance, let alone all the way from the ocean.  I wonder how long it takes them.

Does every kid want to drive a digger? These two boys certainly did! When the orange cones went out on our street yesterday we knew we’d be in for some excitement. Turns out that Total Drainage was digging up a blocked sewer pipe and that they have LOTS of time on their hands while waiting for the truck to return with more gravel. Look at Milo’s smirk–he’s so pleased with himself. William was too much in awe to even mess with the levers.