A Country Church

I came upon this cute little country church - St Mark's Anglican at Greenpark - when I was driving back to Christchurch from Selwyn Huts recently. There's nothing I like more than driving aimlessly, with no real destination, through the tangled web of quiet country roads that criss-cross the Canterbury Plains.

A Merry Country Christmas

Christmas in the Country

Springston South Hall

Canterbury

December 2009

Plains Patchwork

Canterbury Plains and Waimakariri River. Jan 2009. Ajr

I flew to Dunedin yesterday and this is the aerial view taking off from and coming in to land at Christchurch airport - showing off that marvellous earthy patchwork of the Canterbury Plains, stretching away from the Port Hills; and the intricate braiding of the Waimakariri River, just to the north of Christchurch.

In the Club

Top: Ellesemere Brass Band Hall, Leeston, South Canterbury. Ajr

Bottom: Temuka Boxing Club Hall, Temuka, South Canterbury Ajr

I think one of the loveliest things about exploring the little rural villages that spot their way across the Canterbury Plains - or villages anywhere in New Zealand actually - is the discovery of charming old club buildings. These are two I found the other day - the brick Temuka Boxing Club hall in Temuka; and the old Ellesmere Brass Band Hall in Leeston, nearer Christchurch. They say so much about the nature of rural communities; and in many instances, they are the remnants of a whole other social era.

When Days Were Sunnier

Canterbury Plains near Oxford. 2008. Ajr

The last twenty-four hours have been so cold and icy and wet and filled with hail, rain and wind that I prefer to think of warmer times. So here's a blue-skied day from the Canterbury Plains - a dairy farm photographed near Oxford, about 40 minutes from Christchurch.

Plains Roaming

I was in my element again today. Armed with car, camera and time, I did the 120km loop from Christchurch to Rangiora, through the pretty autumn-flushed Ashley Gorge to Oxford and then home again. I had all the time in the world to enjoy those ruler-straight roads, the blocky hedges, the table-cloth spread of fields, the big Canterbury skies and strong coffee at Jo Seagar’s popular Oxford Café. It was 26-degrees and rising as I drove back to Christchurch, stopping to take photographs along the way and I couldn’t help thinking that when Canterbury puts on a blue sky it does so on a grand scale.

Marketing Madness

Mon Dieu! Whatever next? Now we have Christchurch & Canterbury Tourism promoting Canterbury as "the new Europe!" It's bad enough that Akaroa flaunts itself so brazenly (and misguidedly in my opinion) as being French. Okay, so the French discovered it before Captain Cook but they missed out on claiming it as legitimate French territory so why why why, over 150 years later, does CCT keep making exaggerated claims that it is a French village. As the ever-witty Joe Bennett quips in today's Sunday Star Times: "Le Mini Golf is about as far as it gets......you could fire a scatter gun around Akaroa for four days and not find anyone whose French vocabulary was in double figures." I agree wholeheartedly - a French restaurant, a few cafes and a few French street names does not a French village make. And now this latest embarassing claim that Canterbury is "a little slice of Europe." CCT chief executive, Christine Prince may be right in saying that "you have to find ways to cut through and engage people and get them thinking about things differently," but let's keep it in perspective - let's keep it 'in New Zealand' in fact and let's stop making wildly fantastic claims that leave most of us cringing in embarassment.

A Day on the Plains

Hedges, Canterbury Plains, Feb.2008,Ajr

It's a cliche to liken the huge spread of the Canterbury Plains to a patchwork quilt but that's exactly what they're like. I was reminded of that last week when I flew over the multicoloured landscape on my way home from Invercargill - multiple shades of green, brown, chocolate, yellow, ochre - all hemmed in by a complex grid of deep green hedges. Yesterday I drove out on those long, arrow-straight roads to visit the country garden of New Zealand opera singer, Dame Malvina Major and, having completed the interview, I dawdled home, stopping repeatedly to photograph those big 'blocky' pine and macrocarpa hedges that shelter everything from the plains' howling winds. I find something reassuringly solid about those hedges - and I think I might be the only person in the world who responds to hedges as if they were animate objects.