New Plymouth - a well-kept secret

New Plymouth don't get no respect. It's never mentioned as one of the must-see places in New Zealand. Visitors tend to end up there by chance rather than by design. It's a blue-collar sort of place with a jet-set sort of view - and the locals aren't quiete sure how they feel about that.

There's a bunch of them who are quite happy being a well-kept secret, who enjoy the gentle isolation and are perfectly OK being left alone with their people. There is another group who want to build tourism business and bring more prosperity to their shores.



All I know is that New Plymouth isn't what I was expecting. I mentioned a couple of posts ago that it reminded me of Aberdeen, South Dakota. What I meant by that was that it was a hard-working town filled with decent people and surrounded by glorious nature.

It's one of those wonderful places where everyone seems to know everyone else. Stories abound. Walking down the street with people, it's so and so did such and such and such and such did so and so. A newcomer can get the feel for the town and its people quickly. And it's a town with a rich history filled with real characters. People are from New Plymouth, not just passing through. Their stories are in the bricks and stone of the place.



I heard so many wonderful stories when I was there. This one is going to need some explaining, spoiling the punchline by definition. There used to be a huge flightless bird in New Zealand, called the Moa. The largest of the eleven species of Moa could reach more than 500 pounds. Now that's a big chicken (see two posts below, to see how I feel about chickens). They were hunted to extinction by the Maori a couple of hundred years ago.

OK, so that's the background. Here's the story. There's a wonderful New Plymouth character who does chartered boat tours around the little islands off the coast. A long time ago he left an old John Deere or some such lawn mower on one of the islands. When he takes his passengers close to one of the islands he intones in hushed voice that, if they look carefully, they might very well realize that they see the "last surviving mower" - pronounced Moa - "in New Zealand."

Nice.

During my time in New Plymouth I heard half a dozen wonderful stories like that.



New Plymouth, founded in 1841 and now with a population of around 70,000, is named after Plymouth, England, from where the first English settlers came. It is known as the Energy City because of its oil and natural gas industries. Like only a few places in the world, you can surf and ski in the same day out of New Plymouth.

It became a fortified garrison in the 1860s and a few traces of the British Red Coat army still remain.


Pukekora Park.

At the heart of the city today is the glorious Pukekora Park with fine gardens, a zoo, and more than 20 miles of running trails. When you're in there, you feel as if the outside world has gone to sleep. A real nice peaceful feeling.

I apologize for my low expectations of New Plymouth. But, if you don't occasionally have low expectations, you'll never be pleasantly surprised.

A damn fine stadium

Yarrow Stadium in New Plymouth, apparently voted the third most beautiful Rugby stadium in the world. With Mt. Taranaki in the background, it's certainly hard to beat the view. The U.S. Eagles play two games there during September's Rugby World Cup, against Ireland and Russia.

Attack of the killer chicken

I am not a brave man when it comes to animals. And they know it. I can't tell you how often I've heard, "Oooh, he's never done that before," from a dog owner after his or her pooch has just taken a nip at me. My friend Thom's dachshund, an allegedly peaceful creature her entire life, leapt six feet to take a bite out of me for no apparent reason. Cats claw me. Horses buck me off. Even swallows dive bombed me today.

But I had never been aware of the potential threat of chickens - until I met Amy. Her harrowing tale of being attacked at a young age by a vicious chicken still haunts her. She has regaled me many times with the disturbing - and deeply frightening - story.

Coming back from New Plymouth today I drove passed a couple of rest areas and noticed seemingly wild chickens at a couple of them. It didn't really resonate with me until I pulled over to stretch my legs. I was wandering around minding my own business when three chickens approached me at a rather intimidating pace. Not to worry, I thought, they just think I'm going to feed them. A couple of threatening gestures from me will send the little rascals on their way.

But they kept coming and coming and even made themselves tall and flushed out their feathers. Not wanting to create a scene, I gave them the moral victory, hopped in the car and drove to the other end of the rest area, about two hundred yards away. Luckily there was no one around to see my pathetic retreat.

I had, apparently, emboldened my fowl enemy. For, when I got out of the car to stretch again, I saw them coming over the hill a second time. Charging me. Like the bloody cavalry. I decided to hold my ground, not show fear, and film them. As you can tell by the video, my nerve forsook me. The one on the left was trying to outflank me. Then the one in the middle picked up the pace and came barrelling at me. Hearing "break it down," from the Scud Stud in Desert Storm in my ears, I beat a hasty and ungainly retreat. Stiff legs be damned, these were some mean chicken.

Facing up to the old demon

This is a volcano. It is a very large volcano; this picture was taken from about 40km away.

I just lost the whole blog that took me three hours to write and I now have 30 minutes of internet time to recreate it. Ah, the &&*%ing joys of being on the road.

No place is ugly on a day such as this, I believe I began writing. Glorious sunshine. Not a cloud for a thousand miles. Seventy-eight degrees and, I kid you not, grasshoppers whirring when I stopped at the side of the road to take pictures of Mt. Taranaki, the place that roughed Morgan and me up the last time I was in these parts.

I was telling you, before I was so rudely interrupted, that I am currently in New Plymouth, the home of two of the USA Eagles' Rugby World Cup games. It's a strangely beautiful city, muscular and busy. A little like Aberdeen, South Dakota. It combines an energy sector, agriculture, and a gorgeous oceanside perch.

It's last claim to fame was that Taranaki was the featured volcano in Tom Cruise's "The Last Samurai" movie. He hung around here for a while. Now that the USA is going to be playing Russia at Rugby here, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said that he's going to be attending.

That's kind of a big deal. The problem is that the U.S. also sees this as a game they can win. So it's all the chips in and a showdown in New Plymouth.

My time is running out, so I promise I will write more tomorrow and apologize for the wonderful anecdotes that were lost when my time ran out. I will try to recreate them tomorrow.

You know you're from Chch when ...

Laughter can be the beginning of the end of pain. If that is the case, then a facebook site called "You Know You're from Christchurch When" could be the first sign of spring in the long winter of suffering for the people of Christchurch.

And if that is reading too much into it, then at least it is a place where people can air the things that are driving them nuts, but about which they can do nothing. The site has amazing traffic, so it is apparent that there is a sort of communal purging going on.

The ridiculous new normal that Cantabrians find themselves in after their world was turned inside out can either get them down ... or be laughed at. And the comments following the pithy observations must at least let people know that they're not the only ones going through difficult times.

The site reads like a confessional, followed by a blessing from fellow sufferers without the Hail Maries. Just for context, GeoNet is the website people go to check out where, when and how strong the aftershocks were.

So here goes, in the voice of Cantabrians:


Low Rider, Christchurch style.

You know you're from Christchurch when:

• Every house on your street is a crack house.


• "Munted" and "buggered" have become technical terms.


• You ask friends how their piles are, and no one giggles.


• You start admiring different colored porta-loos.


• You no longer have a city centre, just an epi centre.


• People are drinking more booze because the other options are either chlorinated or urinated.


• You get diarrhea and everyone calls it luiquefaction.


• You have dust mask tan lines.


• Your doctor recommends having a few stiff drinks before bed.


• When you go away on holiday and start getting home sick when you see army trucks and helicopters.


• When GeoNet is your home page.


• You didn't bother to take part in earth hour because the days you've spent without power in September and February seem to make up for it!


• Your 5-year business plan has been reduced to "I wonder if I am allowed to get into the office today.
  
  

  I knew I shoulda moved into the other lane.

And, finally, "Q. What did the September Christchurch Earthquake say about the February Christchurch earthquake? A. “It’s not my fault!”

Kia Kaha, Christchurch. And, yes, it is OK to have a little laugh once in a while.

The Accidental Triathletes

As part of his Wellington Marathon training, Morgan is running the course in installments. Today's leg ran smack dab through the middle of a rather large triathlon race. There were dozens of different contests, apparently, ensuring waves of cyclists overtook us. My Achilles is still buggered, so I'm riding alongside Morgan, looking like anything but a triathlete in my neon yellow traffic warden shirt and a teeming backpack and drinking a large long black coffee. Throw in the camera around my neck and you've got a weird and slightly creepy groupie. I felt as if people were judging me.

Still I received rousing encouragements and applause from the various race marshals. I needed it. This not being a professional triathlon there were a lot of part-time duffers sweeping passed me on their bicycles, bums in the air. Entirely too many speedos. Also, I was pretty much pinned to the wrong side of the road, not wanting to interfere with their race. So it was either dodge traffic or hairy speedo man.

This part of the course contains the only hill on the marathon course, ensuring there was plenty of wheezing in my ear as the weekend warriors clawed their way up and over it into Breaker Bay. Morgan finished shortly after the competitors switched to the run. It was a nice morning and I even got to watch a little surfing.

The Scotland of the South Pacific

From Dark Lochnagar
"Years have roll'd on, Lochnagar, since I left you
Years must roll on ere I see you again
Though nature of verdure and flow'rs has bereft you
Yet still are you dearer than Albion's plain
England, thy beauties are tame and domestic
To one who has roamed over mountains afar
Oh! for the crags that are wild and majestic
The steep frowning glories of dark Lochnagar"

It is usually true that the place you were born will be the vantage point from which you see much of your life. Having been born in Scotland, that is certainly the case for me.

My senses, to a certain extent, go through a Scottish filter. There are sights, sounds and smells that pass others without notice that transport me to far-off times. A rain-filled wind, the sound of meadowlarks across an empty day, the damp smell of soil - all are gateways to a genetic, automatic nostalgia.

It's not just the physical world that is experienced through the lens of your background. It's a mental frame of reference. Englishmen, for example, always have to work twice as hard to win my trust and respect, just as I am inclined to give Irishmen and Welshmen - except Dylan Thomas - the benefit of the doubt. I have a long and unforgiving memory, too, that I received, rather than learned.

That's a long by the by about a little stroll Morgan and I took in the hills above our house today. We left a little suburb of Wellington and within a few minutes were back in my childhood Scotland. Soon enough the fine mist of the windswept rain had worked its way into my socks and was inching its way up my trousers. That pervasive sense of dampness could last for weeks in Scotland.



And yet now that sogginess is an almost pleasant reminder of the days gone by, of the long enforced moorland marches at our boarding school that reduced us to a pervasive misery. Pleasant simply for the reliving, because they say you can't go back. And yet there I was.

At one point we rounded a corner and were gone from all things New Zealand. There was nothing but gorse bushes and the persistent peevishness of the weather and the rock-strewn mountains, and I could imagine coming down out of the mist and into the Inverard Hotel for a pint with the mates I haven't seen for 20-plus years. 'Tis a form of time travel, indeed, this internal - and infernal - sense of association.

It's no wonder the early immigrants to Aotearoa from Scotland felt at home here. Yet still they wanted more of Auld Scotland by their side. They brought the gorse - and are still resented for it - the Highland cattle and the sheep. They made Dunedin for themselves in this magnifiencetly reminiscent place on the other side of the world. But the truth is, much of the work had already been done for them. It is bizarre to see images like the picture at top, or below, and realize this is the South Pacific, which, by its own form of instinctive association, makes you think of Gaugin and palm trees and long, white beaches.





It was wonderful taking this stroll through memory's gorses with my son. Not that he knew what was going through my head. And, should we ever be wandering the Highlands of Scotland together, he'll be thinking nothing except that they remind him of New Zealand.

Obsession: Of Pelicans and Cones

A week after I moved to Florida I was invited to a lovely beach party. I was enjoying the sun and the sea breeze when somebody did something horrible to me.

He sidled up to me, knowing I was a foreigner, and put his arm around me. Then he pointed to the sky.

"You see those pelicans?" he asked.

I did, a squadron of them. They were flying low over the breaking waves, like fighter planes strifing enemy territory.

"The odd thing about pelicans," he said intoning like an old shaman, a truth speaker, "is that they always fly in odd-numbered groups."

The bastard.

For six years - still to this day, in fact - everytime I saw a brief of pelicans (yeah, dude, it's a brief, not a group) I had to count them. I found out very soon, within days, in fact, that what the shaman had told me was untrue. But I still can not see pelicans without counting them. Whenever there's an even number of them, I curse him, though he's been dead three years now.

I’m glad to say I’ve been able to begin repaying the debt of ingratitude here in New Zealand.

I seem to have noticed something here that most Kiwis are not aware of. There is an over-abundance of traffic cones in this country. A plague of them, actually. And a rather irrational reverence for the orange blighters. They are everywhere. Forget all the expected times when cones are really needed. No, it's the truly bizarre usage of cones that obsesses me. And an obsession it is. One, I'm glad to say, that I've passed on to a lot of Kiwi friends and colleagues.

"You know where I saw cones today?" they will ask, sometimes proferring photographic evidence.

Paybacks are hell. I smile the smile of a pusher who has hooked another junkie into an unhealthy lifestyle. Hey, nobody likes to suffer alone.

I have written about the abuse these cones suffer at the hands of Kiwis. Since doing so, I must have taken photographs of a hundred oddly placed cones. The other day a guy outside my office was painting over some graffiti that had been sprayed onto a billboard. Now, the billboard was at the corner of a parking lot. The graffiti rectifier was safely ensconced on the sidewalk, far from any danger. Yet he saw fit to surround himself with four orange cones. As if someone might walk into him and be harmed.

Or does this one make sense?



This not insubstantial boulder was dislodged by the recent quake in Christchurch, rolled down a hill, through a house, and come to rest beside the street. Why the hell would someone place a single orange cone beside a 15-ton boulder? Can you truly imagine someone running a long at a good clip straight towards a chunk of mountain and come to a stop only because a 1 1/2-foot cone caught his attention? Thank God for the cone.

Here's an artist in a public park - during a festival, no less - creating a mural. Why the cones? Did organizers fear that small children could run up to the wall and be whiplashed by sticky tape? Be blinded by paint spatter? Something worse?

Or was it the ladder that was a danger? Or in need of protection? What is it with painters in public in New Zealand? Do they fear their critics? Is it some sort of weird status symbol?

As you can tell, I have more questions than answers. Secretly I'm just hoping for some Pelican payback.

It's not just human creatures in New Zealand that need to have conal order enforced upon them. No, the fishes in the sea too, apparently.

Forget, for a moment - if you can - why there's a cone underwater. How the hell does it stay down there? I mean, it should float, right? This leads me to believe it's actually been attached down there somehow. For some reason.

I know, obsession makes you see life differently. Taggers understand this. The graffiti we blithely ignore, speaks to them. Junkies know this. They see life as one big scavenger hunt between scores.

And I am beginning to understand this. Most of you don't really see orange traffic cones. They are part of the scenery to be ignored. By normal people.

Most of you would probably not even notice this cone randomly placed behind this perfectly functioning car. I not only wonder why it's there, I have to stop and take a picture of it. Since coming to New Zealand I think about these things. I'm hoping there are answers out there, because this country sure has a lot of cones. They're everywhere, and I'd like to get back to something more productive. Like counting pelicans.

An act of madness or of civic logic?

It's funny how people behave in a crisis. When all hell is breaking loose around you, and there is nothing you can do to control your world, you can either panic - or tidy up. Amy said something to me way back in the immediate aftermath of the Christchurch that, I must admit, I wrote off as a bit of traumatized gibberish at the time.

But I got to thinking about it recently, because, if true, it seemed gloriously surreal. Slightly nuts even. Now that things have settled down a little, I did a little bit of researching. And buggered if my delusional wife wasn't right.

Still, her story is a little spooky. I'll tell you it briefly, and then show you the videos.

As you know, Amy was in Cathedral Square in Christchurch when the Feb. 22 quake hit, and hit hard enough to bring down the spire of the landmark Cathedral. Obviously she and I have talked a lot about the catastrophic things we saw that day, all the devastation that surrounded us so randomly. In the thick of the cinematic images haunting our inner eye, Amy mentioned that she thought she'd noticed something that made no sense.

As if anything that day did.

But it was this: Cathedral Square hosted a very large chess game, which people would play over their lunch hours. Amy, who was standing by a tree in front of the Cathedral, saw out of the corner of her eye that the first big quake had knocked over all the pieces. It was a barely noticed reality that flitted across her mind for a milisecond. By the time she was moved out of the square by the cops, minutes later, she saw that the chess pieces were all back in their places. It didn't register for quite some time. There was so much horror around her, how could it? But when we talked about it later, I thought she must have imagined it.

But if you look right at the beginning of the first video, which was taken seconds after the initial earthquake, the pieces have been knocked over.



By the time the second video was shot by a different person, just minutes later, the pieces are clearly back in their place. Normality, briefly, restored. As if by magic, or madness.



During my long voyage back into town from AMI stadium that day, I was amazed by how quickly the citizen volunteers had taken to the streets to help out. Even as the aftershocks were rolling in one after the other, there were people with brooms sweeping dust from the streets, there were people picking up bricks. One guy was even rehanging his banner from scaffolding. But what, during a massive natural disaster, possesses someone to pick up and replace the chess pieces of a public game as the very namesake of the square lies collapsed to the ground?

I could profer a hundred different, psycho-babble laden reasons. But I believe the act speaks much louder uncommented upon.

By the way, the eagle-eyed amongst you will be able to spot Amy by her tree toward the end of the first video.

A small reunion, a simple little joy

If there’s one thing I learned from the Christchurch earthquake, it’s that stuff is just stuff. It’s people and spending time with them that is important. It’s doing something meaningful with your life that counts. It’s not allowing the flotsam of daily routine to dominate your moods and drive your emotions. These are lessons I’ve taken to heart in the month since Feb. 22.

So I’m not really sure why the reappearance of my tatty black briefcase, last seen in the AMI stadium before the quake, made me feel good. Truly, there was nothing in there that I needed. Truly, it’s seen better days. The handle's fallen off twice; it's torn and ragged. In fact, even a charitable appraisal of it would deem it to be a piece of shit.

Yet it was mine. I schlept it in to work every day, and then schlept it right back. When the quake hit, I didn’t give the bag a second thought. It contained nothing but papers about a meeting cut short by mother nature. So why the warm fuzzies when it was delivered back into my possession today?

Who knows? It’s certainly not sentimentality or materialism. Perhaps it’s just the filling of a gap that wasn’t there before Feb. 22, the hoped-for return to normality?

I don’t know. I do know that the rest of my stuff is still entombed inside the security cordon in downtown Christchurch. One visitor who had the chance to look at the area around the hotel said it looked like London after the Blitz. And that is stuff that I would like back: computer, i-Pod, clothes, running stuff and medication. I’m not complaining about that, though. So many people have lost so much that it would be unseemly to complain. I’ll get it when I get it.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t understand the sentiments of business owners who on Monday tried to storm into the Central Business District to recover records and other vital business-related materials from their companies. Their lives are truly in limbo and getting back to work would be one way of moving forward. I understand, too, the concerns of authorities that there are still really dangerous areas and that they don’t want to put other lives at risk. Too many have already been lost.

So, I get the perspective of the bigger picture, and yet it still felt nice to have my briefcase back. Nice, that’s it.

An old word gains new currency

Munted. It sounds quite dirty. Actually, it sounds really dirty.

It's long been Australasian slang for wrecked, as in having imbibed too much of an intoxicating substance. By extension it also came to mean damaged, unusable or stuffed up.

It's been around a while, but has never really been mainstream. That is, until Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker now famously declared that, after the recent earthquake, "our main sewer is seriously munted." He then added, "I believe that is the technical term."

Well, it is now.

Still, nobody seems to know how bad the word was before Parker gave it street cred. One official, being interviewed on TV, used the word, then stared sheepishly into the camera to ask if he was allowed to say that on TV.

According to Parker, it's not only OK for TV, it's also OK for royalty. He was kind enough to explain the term to Prince William upon his recent visit to the munted city.

In fact, munted is not only socially acceptable, it's running the risk of serious over-usage. Parker has now issued three levels of muntedness - the minor-munt, medium-munt and the mega-munt. That isn't enough for one punter, who suggested an upgrade to ginormunt.

There is no official etymology, but an online slang authority hypothesizes that it may be a combination of mullered - very helpful I know - and the really bad word that, admit it, was the first one you thought of when you heard "munt."

There's even a facebook site - isn't there one for everything? - which you can see here.

I suppose it's a healthy sign that some of the gallows humor is going mainstream, even if it may still be too early for some of the folks still trying to rebuild their lives. I suppose that should be, "their munted lives."

A Day in the Life ...

Morgan and I rose early. He's training for the Wellington Marathon in June and had an 8-miler this morning. With my bad Achilles tendon I have assumed the role of trainer and merely pedal along the glorious bays occasionally shouting motivational things like "stay strong," "looking good," and crescendoing with the highly inspirational "finish like a pro."

The wee bugger did, doing negative splits and finishing in under eight minute miles. Great coach, no doubt. I never once yelled, "Eye of the Tiger, boy."





From there it was on to yet another Christchurch fund raiser. It seems as if every New Zealander is devising a way to help their suffering brothers and sisters on the South Island. This one was at the boys' school, Scots College. What made this event so amazing was that the school is currently undergoing a $14-million building project and is looking for money in every nook and cranny. Yet they still decided to turn over their big annual money drive to Christchurch.

Amy womaned the Scottish tent. Yes, those are the boys' wee kilts floating in the breeze. There were Scotch Eggs and shortcake - for Christchurch. That sounds like entrapment. I succumbed like a generous mug.

Ewan really sacrificed for the cause. First he spent $10 to pour a bucket of water over his school's principal.
Then, as if he hadn't done enough already for Christchurch, he volunteered for a Segway ride, which he manfully put up with for almost 15 minutes. Hey, everyone's got to do their bit. The gala was a sterling event, with entertainment, amazingly diverse food, garage sales, book sales, used clothing sales, games, raffles and auctions.


Morgan is in two bands and an orchestra at the moment. His band, artfully known as the "Year 11 Band," took to the stage late in the afternoon, fronted by a kid who'd been evacuated to Scots College from Christchurch. He received a nice round of applause. Because the pipe band played late, the Years, as I call them, could perform just one song. Considering Morgan was moved up to Year 11 only three weeks ago, they did remarkably well.

The band could play in street clothes, the orchestra not. So, after his masterful rendition on the guitar for "Stay here," Morgan had to run off to Amy's car for a quick change of clothes - doesn't that just have the ring of theater about it? - and sprint back for a performance with the Studio orchestra. These kids could play. Morgan had only had one practise with them, so he turned his amp down low and just enjoyed the music, looking suitably artistic while doing so.

It was a busy, marvelous day when Wellington once again showed off a bit, damning the critics of her weather with an autumnal aria. Judging by the size of the crowd, Christchurch will benefit tremendously from the event. Here's a little sampling of The Years.

The U.S. Marines - a friend in need

Photo by Wellington Museums.

Kiwis and Americans have known each other for a long time. They worked together in the Gold Rush days of the 19th century. They worked side by side - as well as against each other - during the whaling and mining days.

But nothing cemented the friendship more than the large presence of U.S. Marines in New Zealand during World War II.

The Kiwis has always played an outsized role in the military events of the world, beginning as far back as the Boer War, when they sent thousands of troops to South Africa. New Zealand declared war on Germany early and, in 1940, sent her army to the Middle East. Then came Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the Japanese capture of Singapore in 1942. The Brits, on whom the Kiwis had depended for protection, were now otherwise engaged. The Japanese were on the march and New Zealand was virtually undefended.

So the arrival of the 1st U.S. Marine Corps in New Zealand in 1942 was a welcome development. Over the next couple of years, tens of thousands of Marines were stationed in New Zealand - and wove themselves into the fabric of a generation of Kiwis.

The Marine presence and the relationship it strengthened was marked in a simple but lovely ceremony in Paekakariki today. A permanent exhibit, entitled "A Friend in Need," was opened and dedicated in the little train station where many Marines stationed on Kapiti Coast disembarked.

For many at the ceremony the U.S. presence was just a footnote of history. But for some it was part of their lives. There were a number of Kiwi widows who had married Americans. One man told me of the American Marine who had befriended his family, only to be killed at Guadalcanal.

Thousands of Marines rotated through New Zealand, many of them on the way to or from various jungled hellholes. Many of those returning from the fight were riddled with disease and trauma. Those camped in Kapiti on a spot of heaven known as Queen Elizabeth Park, below, must have thought they had died and gone to paradise - especially on days as heartbreakingly beautiful as today. For many of those who left from here it was, indeed, the last happy place they saw.



When "A Friend in Need" debuted in Wellington, the director of Wellington museums said, "This show’s a little cracker. It reminds us that the Marines left more than a few broken hearts. In the brief times before they were hurled into battle they introduced jazz, coca cola and more sophisticated standards of behaviour. Wellington would never be the same again."

Most Kiwis took the Americans into their homes and their hearts. Naturally, there were some tensions, especially with some of the local lads who were not part of the fight. But for the most part, the friendship was deep and mutual.

There are few places which today mark the presence of the U.S. Marines in New Zealand. There's a waterfront plaque in Wellington harbor. Tarawa Street in Paekakariki was named after one of the Marines' infamous battles. In Queen Elizabeth Park, a God-kissed spot, the buildings and barracks that housed the leathernecks have long since been deconstructed.

At one point there were 20,000 Americans stationed near Paekakariki, a place with a couple of thousand local inhabitants - if you cast a very wide net. There was much training, but more socializing and relaxing before the dread of war.

It was the socializing, of course, that led to some ill feeling. Most eligible Kiwi men were themselves at war overseas. As in Britian - where the Yanks were said to be oversexed, overpaid and over here - the relative wealth of the Americans and their luster as mysterious foreigners put the local bachelors at some disadvantage. Things worsened when one of the New Zealand military detachments returned home. "The battle of Manners Street," in 1943, saw a couple of hundred servicemen from the two countries duking it out.

But for the most part, the U.S. presence here was an overwhelmingly positive one.

To tie today's events to the long line of history, four current day U.S. Marines were at the presentation. They must have been proud by the many tributes to their former brothers in arms.

Grief is the price we pay for love

Tens of thousands of people attended Christchurch's highly emotional National Memorial service today.

The nationally broadcast service was watched in offices and hotels around the country. At a busy restaurant in downtown Wellington a bell was rung at 12:51 p.m. to mark two minutes of silence. The patrons fell into a dead quiet. The waitresses stood in the aisles, their order pads in hand. One man, his cellphone to his ear, stood mute, obviously on the line with someone else from New Zealand. Even the traffic outside seemed to quieten down. People were remembering, feeling, not just marking time.

Prince William spoke briefly, but powerfully. The bravery, determination of the people of Christchurch, he said, had been an "inspiration" to all.

"My grandma once said that grief is the price we pay for love. Here today we love and grieve," he said, adding later, "I count myself extremely privileged to be here."

Before the memorial began, a long line of firemen and rescue workers, coming straight from work, walked onto the grounds at Hagley Park. They were not announced, as a video was playing on the screen. But one by one the crowd spotted them and rose to their feet, breaking out into a loud applause for the people who were trying, day by day, to put the city back on its feet again. There was gratitude and love in their applause. The TV announcers covering the event struggled to contain their emotions.

The weather, which has been flirting with winter recently, put on its best face and the mourners were bathed in warming sunshine.

To be honest, it was an odd time for the memorial, coming just more than three weeks since the quake unleashed its devastating force on Christchurch. The task of identifying the dead is still not complete. The precise number of those who perished is not even known yet, though the death toll stands at 182. People are still struggling to fix up their houses, some still do not have water or sewerage. They are still rebuilding, still grieving, still lost. And, of course, their is the unfolding tragedy in Japan.

And yet, there was a cleansing to the ritual, to standing together. The ceremony was clearly about the people of Christchurch, their spirit, their loves, their fight. And that was good, for the shock and horror of February 22 is still all around them. They are living it in their heads, with every aftershock, every rumble, every sudden noise, and with every shocking image coming out of Japan.

The terror and trauma induced by the first large aftershock on February 22 is captured by this video below. The strains of Friday's laments are but a blanket against the long coldness of an icy winter.

A broken heart for Christchurch

The AMI stadium, minutes before the earthquake struck. The Basilica you can see through the gap in the stands also sustained heavy damage.

In a cruel, if understandable, blow, Christchurch was stripped of all seven of its Rugby World Cup games, including two quarterfinals. The rugby minister announced that the earthquake damage to the stadium and the city's infrastructure was just too severe.

Mayor Bob Parker - the face and soul of the city in the wake of the earthquake - said his head understood the decision, even if his heart didn't.

The opportunity to host a part of New Zealand's proudest moment would have made Rugby-mad Canterbury sing, given it a goal to shoot for, brought it together for a few moments of unthinking bliss.

It was not to be.

Sad as it is, I can't say I disagree with the decision. Would I, with a clear conscience, invite my closest friends and family there for a Rugby game? No, and not just because I was at AMI stadium during the earthquake. It did its job, after all, bending with the movement of the earth until I thought it would snap, but didn't. No, not because of that, but because if, God forbid, something happened to them while they were there, I could not reasonably say that it was something unforeseen.

I would, to an extent, be responsible.

Sure, that was not the reason given. There was a lot of talk about infrastructure and hotel rooms. Well-meaning talk to make the folks in Christchurch feel a little bit better. To explain a difficult decision.

The reasons, though, aren't really important. The bottom line is that it makes Cantabrians feel a little as if they're being abandoned. As if the outside world is wishing them well - from afar.

That is why the visit today of Prince William meant so much to so many. One firefighter said that, being in New Zealand is being a little cut off from the rest of the world. I'm sure he could have added that being in Christchurch felt a little like being cut off from the rest of New Zealand. To see the prince in Christchurch, he said, was a big deal.

Prince William coming and listening and saying sorry for the pain was a powerful embrace from the outside. When he arrived at the airport, it seemed as if everyone - everyone - said, "Thanks for coming."

Thanks for coming. A small phrase that says so much. Gestures matter at times like this. They matter a lot.

Extreme Kiwis 2

Kiwi Edward Dawkins in an AP photo.


When I asked my son, Ewan, if he'd had fun during his week-long camp near Mt. Taranaki, I was expecting a gushing of enthusiasm.

Instead, I got, "It was hard, Dad." And, from his description of it, that's precisely what it was. It sounded like a cross between boot camp and survivalist training. They were up before the sun, running. They had to build rafts to ferry themselves across swamps. They had to carry an "injured" team mate across an obstacle course. This was not the sort of roasting-marshmallows-by-the-fire, singing "Michael, row the boat ashore," sort of camp we - and he - had been expecting.

When I told a colleague about it, he said, "these Kiwis are nuts." Then he talked about the paces he's seen some five-year-old New Zealanders put through at a local park. "Hard core," he said, shaking his head.

I've written about this before, at Kiwis vs. Wild and about the hard-core exercisers.

The latest offering comes in a newspaper article out of England about a recent Track World Cycling race in Manchester.

Kiwi cyclist Edward Dawkins was in a pursuit race at a Velodrome in Manchester when someone hit him from behind, causing him to wipe out. He hit the deck hard, and face first. After the race he was approached by a medic, according to the Metro newspaper in England, and was asked: ‘Where do you hurt?’

He replied: ‘I’m from New Zealand.’ When the question was repeated, he said: ‘I heard you, mate. I’m from New Zealand. We don’t feel pain.’

This was three days before the Christchurch earthquake. I hope many Kiwis in Canterbury share that attitude, because they've got a whole lot of pain ahead of them.

Chillin' through the Apocalypse

You know it's not going to be a good day when the headline on the lead story of the newspaper reads simply, "APOCALYPSE NOW."

The accompanying picture, indeed, looks like the end of the world, a mass of twisted destruction that used to be an orderly neighborhood in Natori in Myagi prefecture.

The world, frankly, seems to be losing its bearing, its normality. The picture below from today's Dominion Post, shows the kind of day a local was having. This is the bay where Ewan and his classmates go wharf diving.



That's him "being escorted" in to shore by two Orcas. The picture was taken by Shannon Thomas with her i-phone - while screaming at the swimmer to get out of the water.

I mean, really. Life has become a horror movie.

Today could have been the beginning of another day of sensory overload, of the brain seeing things it can not deal with, of logic and control being tattered by the world around me. It's been three weeks since Christchurch; four days since Japan.

But today was a day to fight back. My synapses have been firing like Roman Candles and it's exhausting.

Having a rare day off, I decided to head down to the Bays, the place that makes my soul sing. And to chill. I took my bike, but wasn't going for the exercise. I decided to just putter, staying in the same gear so I could absorb the scenery and breathe like Ben taught me.

It was a moody day, ruggedly marvelous with strong gusty winds ripping open the sky to reveal stark blue sunlight one minute, then casting it shut again leaving deep dark patches on the roaring water. A Rorschach of a day.



This is an extraordinary ride. One minute it is little cozy villages, the next it is wild barrenness. There are lovely, sandy beaches followed by rocky inlets. And the long views across the water remind you of all that is splendid in the world.

There was no traffic today, so I could trundle along, breathing easy, looking for whales, thinking of nothing with "Nessun Dorma" magnificently stuck in my head.

Then I came round the corner where a driver had been killed two days ago. And life was in my face again.

Stop. Breathe. Keep everythying away. Clean air. Seaside smells. Chill out. Calm.

Onwards I pedal, deeply breathing, trying to let the beauty of the world be what it is, be all there is.

For a few minutes it works. I'm in a pleasant zone of nothingness, feeling only wind and the thin mist of the waves in the air.

But then round a corner I came - and see the island where a diver drowned a few weeks back.

Stop. Breathe. Try to keep the world at bay.

I push on, trying to force out tangental thoughts. The gusting air off the bay rips around me. It is good. There is no traffic, so I focus on the water and the fragments of light playing across it.

Then I'm wondering where the water will go when the tsunami rips in through the points to Wellington Harbor. Which houses will it take? Could I make it up the cliffs in time?

Stop. Chill. Breathe. Empty my head of thoughts. Look at the spray of water shooting upwards as waves hit the rocks. Breathe. Calm.



Eventually it takes and it is just me and the good world.

The wind is with me now and I can pedal gently, looking at the waves playing with the wind in the bay and breathe the crisp air and smell the smells that remind me of a hundred seaside days, but mainly Scottish ones today, with my grandparents and the little sailing boat they bought me. Even the seagulls take me back. The wind is pushing me now and I'm breathing and the views are good.

And I am calm. By the Bays. My Bays.

Welly turns out for Christchurch

Wellington cricket fans on Sunday turned the Basin Reserve red and black - the colors of Canterbury and Christchurch.

In an extraordinary coming together of sportsmen, politicians, celebrities and every day folks, hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised for the Christchurch earthquake recovery. Almost equally amazingly, a good deal of fun was had, despite the twin tragedies of Christchurch and Japan.



The all-star cast for the special cricket match included Sir Ian McKellen, Russell Crowe, Prime Minister John Key and the All Blacks captain Richie McCaw, as well as some of New Zealand's finest living cricketers.

It was a glorious, sunny day and perhaps that lightened the mood of New Zealanders. The atmosphere inside the packed ground was almost festive.

The highlight came after the Canterbury side finished its inning. The Australian Shane Warne, perhaps the best spin bowler in history, had offered his services to the fund-raising effort. He agreed to bowl an over to Prime Minister Key, who had never played cricket before this week. Fujitsu had said they would donate $100,000 to Christchurch if Key hit a boundary. On a normal day that would be an impossibility.

But this was not a normal day. Witness Warne throwing Key a daisy cutter to begin with; that is, he basically rolled the ball across the ground and Key teed off on it. It didn't have the speed to make it to the boundary - until Canterbury celebrity coach Russell Crowe bounded out from the sidelines and kicked the ball over the rope. Not cricket, Russell. And no $100,000. Try again, Mr. Key.

There was a bit of smack talk - referred to as sledging here - between the legend and the politician. Somebody said something about Liz (Liz Hurley is purportedly dating Warne.) But then the wild man from Australia delivered an easy ball to Key, who smacked it for four - and $100,000 - across the boundary. The crowd, already standing, roared its approval. You're a good man, Shane Warne.



Patrons could donate $3 by texting a number and their message was displayed on the big screen scoreboard. It was a smart way to raise a lot of money. Morgan's message almost brought tears to my eye. The one that said, "Christchurch, Imma let you finish, but Japan had the biggest earthquake of all time," made us laugh. Well, it didn't make us laugh until Morgan explained the Kanye West/Taylor Swift reference. It was a bit irreverent, but seemed to perfectly capture the double earthquake situation and the awkwardness of raising funds for one while another disaster still unfolds.

The cricket wasn't half bad either. At one stage, four sixes in a row were hit - that's the equivalent of home runs - two of them falling within feet of us. It was a slogfest that gave the crowd plenty to cheer about.

The patrons turned out in red and black and opened their wallets whenever asked. People were going through the crowds and literally handing around the buckets. Russell Crowe, who was born in Wellington, had had a hand in organizing this amazingly successful event. He was gracious in signing autographs and taking time with the kids. Ewan even bagged a Crowe autograph.

For me, though, the sentimental favorite of the day had to be Mayor Bob Parker of Christchurch. He's done a Guiliani-like job - again - of keeping his city together. He's everywhere, and his calm demeanor and made-for-TV voice have been the rock of strength in the spinning storm. He even wore his Antarctic Center Parka, for which he has now become famous, even though it had to be over 80 degrees on Sunday. Nice one, Uncle Bob.

I realized that I have been in New Zealand long enough when I found myself wincing every time Richie McCaw ran from one side of the wicket to the other. He was a celebrity umpire for the game and, as everyone in New Zealand knows, he's just had some pins inserted in his foot. He's supposed to be resting in time to captain the All Blacks for the Rugby World Cup. I physically cringed seeing him moving so energetically. Perhaps I am going native.

Sir Ian McKellen, known as Gandalf around these parts, had a much less stressful role for this match. He sat regally in a chair as the guest umpire for the John Key/Shane Warne over. He was bearded, and looked like he needed a cup of tea.

In the end, the glorious day reminded all that life goes on and that it is important for New Zealanders and interested friends to continue to do all they can to help rebuild Christchurch. The disaster in Canterbury didn't get any less severe because of the horrific tsunami damage in Japan. The need everywhere is great.

The people of Wellington really stepped up to the plate today - or, rather, the wicket. It warmed the cockles of one's heart.

Obliteration on the Ring of Fire

I don't know when this turned into The Blog of Doom. I only know that I don't like it.

But we have seen nothing like this before. The obliteration of large swaths of Japan beggars the mind. The magnitude of the earth's anger right now is horrendous.

I used to enjoy writing about the lovely Kiwi quirks and the soft clash of cultures that make up our life in Aotearoa. In the last few days life was trying to creep back to a semblance of normal after the Christchurch earthquake. There was a story yesterday about a Member of Parliament "traumatizing" a woman by walking back to his residence from the public swimming pool still in his trunks. There were giggles about that and I had a very funny (though I say so myself) blog written on this important subject.

But then came the horrific images of the tsunami strike on Japan and the marauding waves headed out across the Pacific. And so we went back into the "Breaking News For the Rest of Your Life" mode and, though we know we shouldn't, have been watching the heartbreaking and terrifying images from Japan.

For a few hours we were under a tsunami watch here, and the siege was on and the Blackberry was exploding. But, happily, it looks like nothing very bad will happen here and no coastal damage is expected.

The Japanese have no such luck. Now they're talking about problems with a nuclear plant and a possible meltdown at the core of its reactor. Experts are wondering, with climate change, how close we will be able to live to the coast in the future.

Coincidentally, and not very helpfully, the Dominion Post devoted its whole "Insight" section to our catclysmic future. One full-page article imagined what Wellington would look like after a massive quake. All my favorite cafes and many of my favorite buildings will be gone.

Just as I was about to go into the shell of denial that we as humans must inhabit to stay sane these days, I caught sight of a full-page article about volcanoes in New Zealand, titled, "A country of living dangerously."

Because we don't have enough to worry about.

Mt. Ruapeho, a little ways up the road and which we have not seen twice as we drove passed it, coughed and spluttered back to life this week. Nothing to worry about, we were told. As if you can say something like that and have people heed your words.

The writer of the article, Michelle Duff, takes an almost sadistic pleasure in saying, basicallly, that there is no place safe in New Zealand. Auckland is surrounded by 50 volcanoes, the Bay of Islands by 60. Wellington is susceptible to tsunamis and has four major surface faults in the region. Also, landslides.

She sums it up by saying, "If it's not raining it's shaking, and if it's not exploding, it's flooding. On the upside" - now that's a famous line - "it's made us a nation of battlers, with a fiery spirit." Well, that should keep nature's wolves at bay.



All this apocalyptic talk would have been scoffed at a few months ago. But this part of the world has been battered hard. Australia has been flooded and hit by cyclones. New Zealand has had its earthquakes. For those of you thinking bibilically, yes, there has been a plague of locusts. Last year in Australia.

I used to think the Ring of Fire was just the name of a cool song. Not now. Not to get too melodramatic - you've seen the images from Japan, right? - but some of the scenes from the movie "2012" just don't look quite so far-fetched anymore.