Ali Hassan

This is the cathedral that sits in the centre of Christchurch. I think it’s obligatory that I post a picture of it.

In other news, I spent some time at the Avon/Heathcote River estuary today, so I had another opportunity to reacquaint myself with the local wildlife. Here’s the list for the day:

Black scaup, pied stilt, eastern bar-tailed godwit, spur-winged plover, pied oystercatcher, pied shag (successfully catching a fish!), white-fronted tern, white-faced heron, pukeko, Canada goose, paradise shelduck, black swan, mallard duck, red-billed and black-backed gulls.

The godwits are the most interesting of that lot. There weren’t a whole lot around today, but a lot more will probably arrive in the next few weeks. They fly in direct from Siberia in spring, then fly back via East Asia in autumn. That’s a long haul for a little bird — they’re probably not much bigger than a baby chicken.

Cornish pastie for lunch. Delicious.

Took a trip out to the RNZAF museum at Wigram yesterday. It’s a pretty nice little museum with plenty of rare and interesting planes to look at. The lighting is very poor though, so very few of my photos came out. This one, of a Spitfire Mk XVI, was about the best of the lot.

Ham, cheese and pineapple sandwich for lunch. Though it was at a more upscale establishment so it was called a “Ciabatta Melt”. Tasty either way.

I reckon Steve Irwin (RIP) would have liked this photo. They’re Eastern Painted Box Turtles. The day I took it was about the only time I’ve ever been really happy I had my cell phone with me.

Why on earth don’t they sell these in the U.S.? Why?

Sausage roll for lunch. Tasty.

Went to see Canterbury defend the Ranfurly Shield tonight. It was a close game, but the home team came out on top in the end.

About two minutes from the end, my mother and another guy in the crowd performed CPR on a fan who passed out. We left when the St. John’s Ambulance people arrived and took over so we don’t know whether he was OK or not, but it didn’t look good.