Thursday evening there was a tornado warning. I couldn't have been more surprised when my fun Indian house mate told me if she'd said there wasa moa in the kitchen. Are tornados even possible in the winter?? At least up in Northland, apparently they are.
New Zealand is divided by speech into 4 distinct units. In addition to North Island and South Island, which are pretty self-explanatory, there are Northland and Southland. Those are the extreme bits at the top of North Island and the bottom of South Island. There are of course plenty of regional divisions as well, but you don't hear their names tossed about anywhere near as often. I'm told that the weather on the North Island is, though warmer in general, much worse than it is here thanks to a phenomenon called the 'roaring forties'. According to wikipedia that's 'a name given ... to the latitudes between 40°S and 50°S ... because of the boisterous and prevailing westerly winds.' The North Island, incidentally, is also on a major fault line (the Pacific 'Ring of Fire', which also includes the San Andres Fault in California and the fault beneath Japan which wreaked so much havoc in Kobe), and so is prone to frequent earthquakes.
Here on the South Island we didn't get the tornado, although the winds rattled every window in the house right through the night. I was snuggled under so many layers of heavy blankets on the bed that I barely noticed it. Lovelock House has been standing for the last 150 years - it seems unlikely that it will come down any time soon. By morning the wind had blown itself out, but it had swept the rain clouds down from the hills and all over town. For the last 2 days the deluge has not let up once, though it does occasionally shift from torrential downpour to persistent drizzle just to keep everyone guessing. It is not expected to stop until at least after the weekend. Which makes this a perfect weekend for working.
Since I arrived here two weeks ago (the time is going so fast!), I have seen very little of Dunedin outside of the narrow 3 km swathe between myroom and the yoga studio. I have been shockingly devoted to my research and writing, which is coming along. Perhaps not as quickly as I wouldlike (I am a very good procrastinator, as this message testifies!), but coming along nevertheless. I am hoping to get a first draft of this paper out of the way this weekend, and then won't feel guilty about going further afield next week if (when?) the weather clears up.
I am most eager to get out to Taiaroa Head, the tip of the Otago peninsula (technically part of Dunedin), where the albatross, sea lions and penguins all live. My excitement over penguins needs no explanation - who doesn't love those? Albatross in pictures, on the other hand, look suspiciously like seagulls and so are harder to get excited about. But imagine a seagull with a 3 meter wingspan...that must be something to see! There are also the amusingly named 'Spotted Shags', known locally as 'flying bricks' because of their ineptitude in high winds, to keep my eyes open (and my head down) for. What fun!
According to the very helpful man at the tourist information center in the Octagon, it's not difficult to get out to Taiaroa Head by city bus. Unfortunately, according to the same man, it's not so easy to get back. Busses, it seems, have a nasty habit of only going to the end of the line if there is a passenger aboard wanting to go to the end of the line. Otherwise they turn back towards the bulk of the city half way, at Portobello. And at 33 km from the heart of town, on narrow, windy, unlit roads, it is definitely not a place you want to walk back from. An adventure to look forward to!
Most of the wildlife here at the university is of the gull variety. My favorites are the 'black-backed' gulls (whose backs are in fact pale grey), with their neon orange beaks and a pair of black stabilizers that cross jauntily across their tails and are spotted with a single neat row of white diamonds. They are definitely more stylish than their counterparts in the north (though I'm told are equally persistent about stealing food when the weather is warmer)! There were precious few of them around the farmer's market this morning, so I gather that they like the rain about as much as the rest of us do.
The farmer's market is a quaint little affair in the parking lot of the railway station, that goes every Saturday morning from 8 until noon. Another grad student in my department, Sue, was kind enough to pick me up this morning not long after the start to take me down. Considering it's just starting to get light at 8am, I am impressed by the devotion of all the vendors in setting up so early (not to mention all the shoppers, who don't have the benefit of the rain-proof tents that the vendors sit under to stay dry and relatviely warm). Cheeses, cut to sample in generous wedges, so distinctive in their variety of flavours that locals could tell which flock of sheep produced the milk for them. Spicy honey gathered from bee hives set in the neighbouring fields of thyme. Fish caught here, just beyond the harbour. Every kind of smoked meat (free range, from our 'happy pigs'). An endless array of sinful looking baked goods (and the equally sinful looking young men who bake them). And, reflecting Dunedin's thriving international scene, Asian dumplings doused in fiery chili oil, French crepes filled with anything under the sun, Greek stuffed grape leaves, Otago olives marinated by an old Lebanese woman who prepares all her other many delicacies by hand. Sue has been a faithful devotee of the market for a LONG time, and knew nearly every one there. As it seemed did most of the other people wandering about. In a place where I have found it relatively difficult to meet people and make friends (something I am happy to say is starting to shift), it was especially fun to see the easy camaraderie of small-town life play out.
And now, though I haven't talked about any of the entertaining kiwi-isms that are trying hard to muddle my mind (and my accent), nor any of the entertaining characters about town, it is definitely past time for me to be getting back to work. And so I will cut this off for today and save a few notes to share on another rainy afternoon. In the meantime, I hope this finds you all well and happy and, most of all, warm. You are loved!
