Brisbane Part 1: Mount Coot-tha Botanic Gardens

Last week, J and I went to Brisbane, Australia to visit Sorenne, Amy, and Doug. It was amazing to spend time with them again, and I already want to hop on the first plane back, but we'll see when we can manage that. In the meantime, I took about a million pictures, of which you will be the lucky recipients.

On our first day there, while Sorenne, Amy and Doug were busy and J was resting, I had a delightful time wandering around Mount Coot-that Botanic Gardens. I have delightful tidbits of information (mostly from the helpful information plaques) on some of my many pictures, and others are just for your viewing pleasure.

Sorenne, Amy and I saw this amazing kind of spiky tree last time I was there, and wondered what it was. The Mount Coot-tha information plaques obliged:

"Why so spiky? You and the other monkeys won't want to climb me because I'm just too spiky. My spikes protect me from animals that might want to eat my bark, leaves and flowers. But I'm also a big softy of the jungle called the Floss-silk tree! I produce beautiful flowers and pods full of soft, silky fibre...mmmmmmmmmm."

(Note to Sorenne and Amy: I managed to forget to tell you about this discovery for the entire duration of my visit. Sorry about that.)

As you can see, these gardens have beautiful and engaging things for children, something I love, of course.

"Can you see the Sugarbag bees? These tiny, stingless bees are native to Australia. They are important pollinators of Australian flowers allowing seeds to form so new plants can grow. Sugarbag bees creates hives in hollow logs and branches. Can you see the pollen on their back legs as they come and go from their hive?"

This amazing creation is very mobile, and you can place the legs in various positions by unhooking the bottoms and moving them at the joints.

This is a statue of a water dragon...

... and this is the real thing. They were chilling out all over the gardens, and they're so cool!

 

I was delighted to see a little duck sleeping on this crocodile statue's head.

"Take a ride. Hold on tight! We are the Giant Aussie bush cockroach and the Rhino beetle. We have hard exoskeletons which protect us when we fight for a meal or a mate. We chew through the leaf litter and clean up the forest floor."

This is a Weeping Fig, and it was amazing. It also has a challenge on the plaque underneath, challenging you to find a wide variety of different animals (some of which are in the above pictures).

"Fishbone fern. Even this local native can behave like a week! Although native to south-east Queensland (and found worldwide), it's fast growth and ability to dominate areas can cause this plant to inhibit native species. However, this Fishbone fern is currently fulfilling a useful function in holding banks together and as living mulch - the aim is to eventually replace it. Suitable replacements: Rough maidenhair fern, Birds nest fern, Prickly rasp fern, Gristle fern."

"Japanese Garden

This garden, originally a feature of World Expo 88, was created here as a generous and lasting gift from the Government of Japan. The Japanese feel the ideal garden should represent nature. Only by the gardener's skillful ability to observe nature is he able to arrange his materials, stone, trees, and water to create a garden that soothes and refreshes the human spirit. Take time to sit quietly and notice the textures, tones and sounds of this garden. Please stay on pathways, off the lawns, and help preserve the qualities that make it a special place."

"Epiphytic ferns such as Staghorns (left in this picture) perch on other plants, high in the forest canopy, to benefit from better sunlight than is found on the forest floor. They are not apasitic upon their host plant, being litter feeders with their leaves arranged to collect debris and water. Other ferns (like the one on the right, I think) have a creeping and branching rhizome or stem and start life on the forest floor but grow as climbers or lianas."

Tropical Dome

"Our ark is the air, water, land and all the species of plants and animals, including ourselves are the crew. How can we be so blind as to continue our acts of sabotage." ~ Gerald Durrell

"You are standing inside another ark, a geodesic dome that encloses and protects the rare, fragile and exotic plants growing here. The dome is make of tinted acrylic bubble panels in an aluminium frame - a miniature spaceship Earth. Wet tropical plants need a humid, warm and stable environment to flourish. Climatic conditions and nutrient levels within the dome are monitored and corrected as needs arise. The dome is designed so that temperature ranges between 24-28C, humidity variation is around 2 percent. Even the soil is special, a sterile mix of sand, peat moss and soil."

These are the amazing Elephant Ear leaves I love so much. I take a picture of them every time I see them, but I never manage to capture their enormity.

Bird of paradise flowers are among my favourite in the world.

The gardens included an amazing bonsai house. I was tempted to take a picture of every single tree, but managed to restrain myself. But I do think that they are incredible.

Willow Leaf Fig, Informal Upright, Established 1960

Moreton Bay Fig, Root Over Rock, Established 1958

Flaky Juniper, Informal Upright, Established 1992

Swamp Cypress, Formal Upright, Established 1976

Sadly, I do not rememeber the name of this lovely bird, but I did enjoy watching it (and many other birds) wander around the gardens.

These plant are enormous, and remind me of how huge Harakeke (flax) plants get in NZ.

This is an Agave plant. It looks like a much smaller version of the gigantic ones in the last picture, except it has these amazing wavy leaves that I love!

Amy told me the name of this bird, and I immediately proceeded to forget it. She also told me it is a pest, which is a pity, because it was fun to watch as it hopped around.

Thus concludes my tour of Mount Coot-tha Botanic Gardens. I could have wandered endlessly (and taken an even more obscene number of pictures) but my knee does not allow such things, so I headed back. 

Rangiora Leaves

While walking in the Botanic Gardens with my children, we love to stop and explore, admire, or wonder about various plants. It is beautiful to hear children's theories about what is happening with plants, why they look the way they do, how they grow, etc. As is the current understanding of best practice, we encourage children to think logically and pursue their own theories using the information and experiences they have, but our goal is not to arrive at any kind of "correct" answer. This results in wonderful discussions, which I love. With careful thought and consideration of learning goals, we do suggest ideas or share knowledge as appropriate, of course, as learning is done in community.

One day, we walked past this plant, and a parent who had joined us for the day told us that it was called Bushman's Friend. When the children asked why, she showed us the white, smooth back of the leaf and explained that people used to use it for toilet paper when they were in the bush. I thought that was interesting and looked it up. I learned that in addition to its use by settlers as toilet paper, Māori had used it to wrap food, to swaddle babies, and as a medicinal poultice. 

Not long after, when I went for a walk with J, he told me that people used to send leaves as postcards, but they're not allowed to anymore, as it doesn't work well in the machines. This really got me thinking, and since then, my children and I have been collecting these leaves (when we find them on the ground, as we never hurt living things) and using them to paint on instead of paper. I am always trying to find ways to teach children about conservation, and my most recent focus has been on protecting trees by recycling and reusing paper, so this fit perfectly, and it's been delightful! I have also collected several dead Rangiora plants (which can grow taller than me), which I've brought to work, so we can hang our painted leaves on it.

When doing a bit more research, I found that there was an even more popular postcard plant, called Muttonbird Scrub. It's leaves are not as impressively big as the Rangiora, but they were more leathery and stayed flat when posted (unlike Rangiora which I have experienced curling up if I don't press it carefully).

Here is a picture I found of a Muttonbird Scrub leaf that was sent as a postcard. Unfortunately, in addition to now being banned from the postal service, Muttonbird Scrub is only found in the lower South Island and on Rakiura (Stewart Island), so I won't be using it much with my children. But I'm quite happy with Rangiora, which is prolific here and works just fine for painting.

General Update

Sorry about not posting last weekend - I had it in my head that that was my weekend to skip, but it wasn't. Oops.

I thought that for this week, I'd give you a general update on what's going on with us, rather than focusing on one specific event.

Work:
~  J's job is going well. He is a Biosecurity Response Senior Advisor, and over the last year has worked on a disease in cows, another disease in rabbits that causes hemorrhage, dog flu, and most recently, a disease in potatoes. He feels good about the contribution he makes to the team, and the impact of his work on the general wellbeing of New Zealand. He continues to be interested in management, as he finds that he can help a team of people to work together positively and efficiently.
~  I'm still teaching at Victoria University of Wellington (which will likely soon drop the "Victoria" and just be the University of Wellington), in Whare Kea, the preschool room. Work is very busy at the moment, because we have our annual Art Exhibition in a few weeks, and so we're getting all our projects finished and curated so that our families can join us in celebrating their children's creativity and skills with various media. I continue to focus on learning and speaking te reo Māori (Māori language) and am making quite good progress, although there is still a very long way to go.
~  Side note: I wanted to share my cultural experience of growing up celebrating Halloween in the States with my children, so I invited them all to dress up this week, and I dressed up as Elsa. It was a very fun day.

Bonus: Here is one of the pictures I shared with my children to demonstrate American Halloween. This one is of me and my sister Patty when I was around 3. (It is an amazing concept to my children that I was ever 3, so that was fun as well.) 

Leisure:

~  Snowboarding season is over for this year, and we didn't get up the mountain as many times as we would have liked, but we had a lot of fun when we did go.

~  We've found some places downtown that has lots of really fun and alternative shows most weekends, and we're having fun going out on Friday or Saturday evenings and taking advantage of the wonderful quirky vibe of this city.

~  I'm lucky enough to get to spend time with our good friends Christophe and Anaïs' 19-month-old son Marty on a regular basis, and he is a complete delight (as are they, actually). A few times a month, when I finish work early, I get to pick him up from child care and spend the afternoon with him, and it's wonderful.

~  Our friends Sorenne and Amy in Australia opened our eyes to the delights of Minecraft (the video game), and we've been having lots of fun playing that. I'm not usually into video games, but this one is very creative, innovative, and can be very social, so I can get into that.

~  Now that it is spring again, and we have a fabulous back yard, I am spending every moment I can reading outside in the sunshine. I'm still enjoying my French and English book clubs, and despite reading 6-8 novels per month, my book list never gets any shorter.

Health:

~  We are hoping to reach new levels of good health in our new warmer, dryer home, and I think we might be starting to get there. 

~  My shoulder injury from my bike crash in August is finally healing, although I'll be excited when I can spend a bit less time on physiotherapy every day. My wrist and knee injuries are continuing to be painful and unresolved. I had an MRI of my wrist this week (while dressed as Elsa) and hope to get some helpful results from that, although the initial report is not encouraging.

~  We are doing more cooking in our nicer kitchen, and are making sure to continue to eat healthy foods, which we're finding satisfying. (I am eating Sour Skittles as I type this, but you need to have treats every so often, right?)

~  I am continuing to stay fit by biking to and from work, and J does home workouts and is considering learning a martial art to support his physical fitness.

Dragons:

~  Kazul and Roxim are doing fabulously and getting to go outside again now that it is warmer. Did you know that Guinea pigs are never supposed to be in environments below 16C (61F) or above 25C (77F)? Neither did we until we got them, and we're doing our best to be obliging, but it does mean that they didn't get much outside time over the winter.

~  They turned 1 year old on Friday, and we gave them a present of a Guinea pig-style hammock. So far, they haven't quite figured out how to use it, but I have faith in them.

~  When J got me a GoPro for my birthday, I was excited to use it for snowboarding, but I definitely used it first to record the dragons going about their dragon business. You can watch the first video I took here.

~  Almost every night, we watch one of our shows (we're currently into The Good Place and Brooklyn 99) and cuddle Kazul and Roxim, and it's a lovely evening routine. They are so delightful and cuddly, and it's quite therapeutic. 

~  We will never buy such a thing, but I felt that I should share that the pet store sells Guinea pig harnesses. As if any Guinea pig ever has ever wanted to go for a walk on a lead.

Miscellaneous:

~  Our new house, like our old house, has a generous helping of black-headed jumping spiders, and while we will sometimes escort them outside, we're actually rather fond of them. They are fascinated by quick movements, and when they hang out in J's office, they'll often come out and watch him type, seeming mesmerized by his hands. This one has been hanging out in the bathroom for several days, getting braver as she realizes that we're friendly, and this is her newest spot (right in the middle of the mirror above the sink). 

~  We both voted in the Kansas elections, and were delighted (and surprised, given the issues with voting at the moment) to find that it was a quick and easy process and that the people who helped us were friendly and very intent on making voting a pleasant process for us. Which it was. How refreshing.

~  I continue to love sunrises and sunsets, and here is a pretty one I saw from work, looking out over the harbour.

New House

As I mentioned in my previous post, we have moved into a new house. We are very thankful to have found it, as it is very hard in Karori (and Wellington, and the whole country, really) to find warm, well-insulated houses. The climate here is much more mild than many places, but it gets plenty cold enough in winter to want good insulation and adequate heating systems. Unfortunately, the designs of many of the houses, especially rentals, do not reflect this, and we have spent a lot of time being cold in winter, even inside our own house. Uncomfortable as this is, the bigger problem is that uninsulated, cold houses are usually also damp houses, and this results in mould. Lots of it. As you can imagine, breathing cold, damp, mouldy air in your home does not support good health. It is a major public health concern in NZ, and something Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her government are working to improve. In fact, new regulations for insulation in rental properties will come into effect in 2019, which will be great. In the meantime (and knowing that even with improved insulation our old house would have problems), we have found a warm, insulated house with central heating (a rarity in NZ), and we are very happy with it. We moved in just in time for warm spring weather, so it was hard to notice the difference at first, but the last couple days have brought a cold snap, and we were delighted to discover that we noticed it was cold when we went outside, not when we got out from under the covers. Joy of joys!

Anyway, the house is better in many ways, and I'll show them to you.

This is the house from the driveway. I have always liked brick houses.

This is the view from just outside the front door. The mountains in the distance are actually on the other side of Wellington Harbour, and are called the Rimutaka Range. Of course it's hard to tell in the picture, but they're striking in person.

Also, notice that across the street is a green hill, which is very nice and makes you feel less like you're in a city.

This is that same view the other morning at sunrise. You can only get this view from the spare room inside, which is a pity, but it is pretty amazing.

This is a panorama of the back yard. It makes the deck look funny, but it captures the layout well. Our old backyard was pretty, but too steep to be very functional, so this will be greatly appreciated. I'll miss the stunning views from the deck, but the upside is that if I keep moving my chairs around, I can sit in the sun almost all day (this picture was taken in late afternoon). And the Guinea pigs will have lots of places for good grass to eat.

 

Just for contrast, this is earlier in the afternoon - I love the sun!

That's our garage in the corner. It is nice to have the car out of the elements, and have a easy place to store my bicycle.

This is around the other side of the house - good clothesline and a random little shed that I'm sure we can turn into something fun.

Moving inside, this is the spare bedroom. We haven't had an official spare bedroom in a long time, and never one this nice, so I'm excited.

If you come to visit, you can enjoy the beautiful views out your window. We do have a double blow-up mattress in addition to the single bed.

We now have a much larger, nicer bathroom. Also, a warmer bathroom is perhaps the best part of all, as I hated taking showers in a freezing cold room!

This is our bedroom. I am not a fan of the pink walls, but otherwise it is nice, and it's got two large closets, which is great. There is actually wonderful storage throughout the house.

This is one side of the lounge...

... and this is the other. I love the walls of windows and the glorious amount of sun that comes through! We've left that sunniest spot clear and it's where J and I do our exercises.

This is the kitchen...

... and the dining nook. It will be a tight fit when we have dinner guests, but it's comfortable for J and I, and we'll make do.

Behind those white doors are the washer and dryer and a laundry sink.

We also have a nice office room for J, but it's not set up yet (as his timeline for such things is different than mine) so if I think of it, I'll post a picture when he's arranged it how he likes it. So that's the house. We are thrilled with it. There is a downside, however, and that's the location. Well, downside might be an overstatement. There are positives and negatives. It is a 30 second walk from a bus stop, but that bus only runs limited times, and if you miss it, it's a 20 minute walk to the next closest stop (and very much uphill on the way home). It is technically closer to my work on my bike than our last house, but at a higher elevation, so more hills (remembering that my entire bike ride home is up serious hills). It's a similar drive to the grocery store, work, etc. So definite pros and cons.

Okay, so here's the real issue. The first time I rode home, I saw the the reason it was 5.9km (3.7mi) to bike instead of 6.7km (4.2mi) to drive is because there was a shortcut. How fun! Well... maybe not.

Here is what happens about halfway through the shortcut. Oops. Maybe I can push my bike up the side. No, too steep. Okay, I'll carry it - it's not that many stairs.

 Oh, there are more stairs around the corner, and then a switchback of more stairs. Well, I've come this far.

Oh joy, more stairs! But I can make it, I'm almost there.

No, still one more set. But look at the heavenly light at the top!

Just to be clear, that was a total of 72 stairs. Big ones. With my bike and all my work stuff on it. Fortunately, I am a beast, and I did it. And have done it almost every day since, in both directions, because I am NOT biking a kilometer extra just to avoid some stairs. I have to carry my bike exclusively with my right arm, because my left rotator cuff is still very upset, but that just makes it all the more exhilarating when I get to the top. At least that's the theory. Sometimes the exhilaration feels more like fury and/or desperation, but I make it, and I'm going to be stronger for it.

One day more recently, I was at my friends' house who live on the other side of us in Karori, so I approached the hills from the other direction. Again, I was happy to find a shortcut, and again, it turned out to be stairs. I had actually walked up them once before, and thought they wouldn't be a problem, as I was now used to the 72 on the other side. Little did I know, there were ONE HUNDRED AND TWO of them! But I made it, and felt like a hero (albeit an exhausted, sweaty one) at the top.

So while I am being fairly successful at considering this a fitness challenge, I will admit that a house that is closer to work and/or in a flatter area would not have been unwelcome.

To end on a positive note, however, our friend Christophe showed me that right behind the charming little playground that is only three houses down from us (and is a nice perk itself) there is an entrance to a beautiful hilltop walking/biking trail. J and I explored a bit of it the other evening, and it is stunning. 

I associate these colours with autumn, but these are spring blooms.

This is a different angle of the same views we could see when we went walking up in Makara Peak Mountain Bike Park next to our old house. I don't think this path is actually part of that park, but it's all connected.

It's less impressive in the picture, of course, but the pinkish hills you can see behind the dark ones are actually the South Island! I think that's pretty neat.

So that's the scoop on our new house. Nothing is perfect, of course, but we feel privileged to live here, and are delighting each day in the comforts of a warm, cozy, beautiful home.