The Busker’s Festival is in Christchurch this week, so Friday night we went to see the Kiwi Campground Circus. It’s a humorous (irreverent) hour-long acrobatic show poking fun at Kiwi culture. Set at a DOC campground, there’s a straight-laced DOC officer, a bogan (beer-drinking hillbilly), an acrobatic Maori, a camera-toting French hiker, and a bbq king. It was a hoot! Milo even stayed awake and attentive during the whole performance, clapping on cue. As much as suburb life isn’t our style, the Busker’s Festival is just one of the many perks of living in a city.

This week an amateur theater group put on Robinhood in the park, so we packed our picnic dinner and camping chairs and went out to enjoy the show. It was definitely an amateur performance, but the play is written for 5-10 year olds, with players asking them questions and getting them involved, and the kids just ate it up. It was a fun time.

We weren’t sure how Milo would do, sitting down watching a play for 2 hours, but there was music and dancing and he was surprisingly attentive. Our choice of food helped, I’m sure. For dinner I packed a noodle salad for dinner (salmon from Mark and Maria in Alaska, thanks!). Milo’s packing contribution was a jar of peanutbutter. And he ate it by the spoonful, not bothering to waste time even licking it off a pretzel. He diversified to include a peanutbutter cookie at the end….Oh well, it was a treat. At least we managed to get his teeth brushed before he fell into bed.

I was a little surprised how keen on blueberries Milo is, since they can be a little tart if not completely ripe. But needless to say, the pie version was an even bigger hit. He didn’t make a peep all the time it took him to spoon up his piece, dabbing it on his belly and cheeks and forehead in the process. He even liked the crust, but no wonder, it was made with lard. We can’t find Crisco here. and I figure lard is no worse for our health than hydrogenated vegetable oil. The lard crust’s perfect tender/crispy flakiness even elicited a special compliment from Jeremiah, so perhaps it’s time we again embrace this maligned fat. The happiness hormones (neurotransmitters??) will surely counteract the hardening arteries, right?

I took Milo blueberry picking this morning at a you-pick place within biking distance of our house. It’s completely bird netted, the whole field, which I’m guessing is around 2 acres. Thankfully the owners are happy for kids to eat the berries as they pick, because every berry that entered his bowl got eaten, and he’d often help himself to handfuls out of my bowl. Just like Blueberries for Sal, minus the bears. I expect him to poop purple tonight.

Friday evening we packed a picnic and headed out to Birdlings Flat, a long rough beach of flattened stones half an hour south of our house. Molly’s ulterior motive for the outing was to collect little stones for a mosaic, and Jeremiah decided that a barbeque would make it worth his while. There’s plenty of driftwood at the beach, but Jeremiah had to get creative with the other details, since we don’t have a grilling grate. That meat is suspended on a coat hanger propped up by driftwood, finished off by searing on a hot rock. It was really good!

This lovely little parakeet is staying at our house for a few weeks while his family is in Tasmania, a short term pet for us. Jeremiah agreed grudgingly, but Milo and I like him. He’s cheerful, in a noisy brassy way. He’s kind of like a cat in that he doesn’t seem to care if you’re there or not; I hear him chattering and whistling away when we aren’t in the room. What sunny optimism!

No, this warning wasn’t posted on any of the huts we stayed at. It was tacked up at a tiny hut down near Queenstown. Other bogus DOC notices have instructed hikers against defecating in the national parks and blamed the current prime minister for lack of hut maintenance. Some jokester sure has a good sense of humor! (And NO, we haven’t conceived any more children, in a hut or anywhere else.)

We spent the night at Bealey hut, a dingy little 6 bunk hut just 5 minutes walk from an obscure sheep-pasture carpark. Built in 1960, its chimney had crumbled so there was no wood stove, and it was built before bigger windows were popular, but it was a handy little spot to know about. It could be quite useful if we leave Christchurch after work and just need a place to perch for the night before starting a longer hike the next morning, and you don’t get your feet wet walking to it.

The battle scene in the 2005 filming of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe were filmed here at Castle Rock. Limestone outrcrops weather in fascinating shapes with lots of nooks and crannies to explore, all surrounded by soft green grass. We stopped here for an easy walk on our way home, and I think it was probably Milo’s favorite day of our whole trip.

Just Chillin’. Smooth little divots in the rock are warm and inviting in the sun, though I’m sure on an overcast day they’d make a convincing Stone Table scene.

Where’s Daddy? Milo found him, and climbed through this peep hole to join in.

Mama, I want to be up there with you! Clamoring and scrambling over these rocks, it’s a two-year-old’s dream. Actually, we thought of the Johnson boys (roughly middle school) and how much fun they would have here, and Jeremiah declared it the perfect venue for laser tag.

The road up from Greymouth to Arthur’s Pass hugs the steep mountain sides with a raging river below. After half a meter of rain in the past couple days (that’s right, more than a foot and a half of rain), the rivers were full and land slides were being cleared by road crews. This is a clever solution to water and gravel pouring down onto the road–make a water bridge! The big bird is a parrot, a Kea, native to New Zealand. They seem to like posing for photographs.

The west side of the mountains were still spitting rain, but as soon as we crossed the divide, the eastern side had blue skies and fresh snow on the peaks. We could once again feel the warmth of the sun. What a relief!

I’m not good at guessing heights, but this is a no-nonsense waterfall, several stories high (Jeremiah, feel free to comment here). All over the mountains were sniveling and dribbling with water, like giant runny noses, if you’ll excuse the analogy, shedding rain and melting snow from the past few days. All over were fresh gravel deposits, mountains crumbling slowly into the valleys, rivers moving the gravel down, eventually, to the plains.

We chose a day hike and started climbing.

There’s a little glacier, cradled up in that mountain.

We followed this no-joking-around “trail” up a steep ridge with loose scree drop-offs on both sides. Bravo Jeremiah for carrying Milo sure-footed up that path. When we reached the top my first inclination was to crouch down to avoid falling over the side.

Aw, another family portrait. Milo’s in that blue lump on Jeremiah’s back.

Milo could actually see out believe it or not. Down in the valley in the sun was short sleeve weather, but it was still spitting a little snow up here, so we had him bundled away and he seemed happy with that ride.

These Kea parrots are inquisitive and naughty, not at all too shy to steal your shiny possessions if you but turn your back on them. I saw one take a bright green cup and drop it over the side of the mountain, apparently just for fun. When they fly they flash the bright orange feathers under their wings.

Slightly battered but in amazingly good condition considering the fierce wind and snow over the past couple days, this ranunculus was probably glad to see the sun again.

A classic view of the southern alps from Avalanche Peak.

Doesn’t this orange moss look like 70’s shag carpet? Probably smells about the same too–musty.

The forecast was for rain, rain, rain, the tail end of a hurricane to be exact, so instead of heading back into the woods we decided to take a driving day from Nelson Lakes to Arthur’s Pass via the west coast. Someone had recommended the Punakaiki pancake rocks and blow holes to us, especially on a stormy day, so after a couple hours of pelting rain and windy roads (and miraculously no up-chuck!) we stopped at Punakaiki. The wind had whipped up sea foam and as waves crashed on the rocks it puffed up into the air like confetti and got blown about. We returned salty but not too wet, thanks to our gortex gear.

Wave spray is forced up into rock fissures and plumes up like, well, like a whale blow hole I guess. Hence the name. The rocks are a flavor of ocean sedimentary rock, but apparently geologists are still guessing at the exact mechanism of striation formation.

The rocks are always changing as they’re being beat down by the ocean.

We arrived in Greymouth to discover that the road to Arthur’s pass was closed due to flooding, and a bridge on the highway further south had washed out as well. Consequently our search for a room at a hostel was fruitless, they were all filled to capacity. So we shelled out a bit more money for a hotel room that Jeremiah found, probably one of the last ones in town, and turned on the heaters to dry out our gear. Then we returned to a cool brewery we had seen in town to pass the time.

New Zealand wineries and breweries do a better job than those in the states of accommodating children. There was plenty of space for Milo to chase his ball and explore, and we only lost the ball into the kitchen once.

At the brewery we chatted with a Kiwi couple who had left their 15 and 10-year-olds with their ipads in the hotel room and come for a tour at the brewery. It seems like a long way away, but I guess babies do eventually grow up to become semi-independent, and some distant day in the future, even fully independent. The nice couple even gave us their free beer tokens as they were leaving, so we splurged for a snack of potato-leek quiche.