Paul and Cindy, New Zealand 2015: Tramping and Movies and Kiwis, Oh My!

Since we last wrote, we’ve been to some films as part of the New Zealand International Film Festival, have been back to Lyttelton (a port suburb of Christchurch), have experienced rain, snow and hail (all in the same day), and visited Willowbank Nature Reserve.

The film festival presents 114 films, most with two to four showings each, in a two week period at two different venues. We’ve seen the Best of New Zealand short films for 2015, "Amy" (a biographical film about singer Amy Winehouse), "How To Change The World" (a documentary on Greenpeace and its founding members), and "Umrika" (a story about a younger brother leaving his village in India to search for his older brother who has gone to America ("Umrika" as the people in the village say.) Tomorrow we see "The Art of Recovery", a film about the artwork and murals in downtown Christchurch made as part of the earthquake recovery. On Sunday we see "Awake", a documentary about Yogananda, one of first teachers of yoga. Half of the films are showing at the Isaac Theatre Royal, a historic theater that has recently reopened after repairs from earthquake damage.

NZIFF brochure, with drawings of characters from some of festival films

Isaac Theatre Royal - recently restored and reopened

We’ve been to Lyttelton for their farmers market. We like spending time in Lyttelton, as it's a small but tightly knit community with interesting people and a beautiful setting on a mountain-edged bay off the ocean.

Coffee shop with a bit more

Singing and playing piano in front of the Harbour Co-op

The hills across from Lyttelton were covered in snow recently.

Cindy went hiking with a local tramping club at Diamond Harbour across from Lyttelton.

Just to remind everyone here that it is still winter, over the weekend the temperatures dropped, and we had snow and hail.

We visited Willowbank Nature Reserve and Cindy has started volunteering there every Monday. She gets to help with feeding the kiwi birds. One of the newest kiwi, Ngawari (nicknamed No Worry) is a bit ill, so is being given meds and special feedings. Cindy was lucky to be able to see No Worry as most people in New Zealand have never seen a kiwi in the daylight (though Willowbank has a nocturnal house with six Kiwi in it that people can go through). We’ve included photos of Ngawari and some of the other birds.