A Day (not) Named Tsu

(written Thursday May 4)
Although many of you heard reports of an impending tsunami hitting New Zealand's shores this morning, we slept peacefully through the night and only heard that there had been any threat when we listened to the morning news. In fact, the hint of a threat was to the Gisborne area, on the east coast of the North Island, and we are at the far southern tip of the South Island, plus the threat was downgraded before NZ Civil Defense even felt it necessary to warn people here. It seems that the BBC and CNN kinda jumped the gun a bit--but plenty of sparks flew on NZ TV tonight in criticism of NZ's Civil Defense and their slowness to post a bulletin to the media! We are very sorry that so many of you were made anxious for no reason, and that the time difference meant that you heard warnings before we did, so you had to wait hours before we assured you we were ok. We got to the internet cafe to email as soon as we could! We did have an exceptionally dramatic sky this morning as you can see below (colours not changed!), and heavy cloud that didn't lift all day, but otherwise the weather was unremarkable.



In contrast to the early morning drama, we had a very pleasant day touring airfields and gardens. First we went to the Croydon Aircraft Company at Mandeville airfield, where they restore and make parts for de Haviland biplanes. We had a warming and delicious lunch in their award-winning cafe, then I stayed by the fire with a second cup of tea while Frank toured the collection. He was given the key to the hangar and told to make himself at home! Here are a few photos: a 1910 Pither reproduction that actually flies; a de Haviland Fox Moth that was NZ's first airliner; and a Beechcraft Stagger Wing.



Afterwards we made a quick stop at nearby Hokunui Alpines, where they specialize in alpine plants and hypertufa trough gardens. Too bad they are too heavy to carry home!


Our final stop was Maple Glen Gardens, an incredibly beautiful private garden of 10 acres, all developed from an empty site by the Davison family (over the past 36 years) and maintained by only the three of them. As is typical here in NZ, we were the only visitors and so had the chance to wander through these lovely grounds at our leisure.
When we emerged an hour later, we had a great chat with Muriel and her son Rob. We were also very entertained by Muriel's hundreds of hand-raised exotic birds, including these parrots that now fly free yet still come to her to be hand-fed tidbits of walnuts.

Tomorrow we go up to Milford Sound for an overnight boat cruise among the fiords! Hope to have some spectacular photos to share in a few days.