Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Election season

New Zealand has national elections in just two weeks' time.  Unlike in America where people are campaigning more than a year before the election, things here didn't really get into full swing until a couple weeks ago when the Rugby World Cup ended.  Naturally.

So we've been soaking up a lot of political news lately and trying to educate ourselves about the candidates and the issues.  As the Flight of the Conchords said, "We're talkin about the issues, but we're keepin it funky ...."

Basically, there are two main parties: National (right-leaning) and Labour (left-leaning).  John Key is the head of the National party and, as his party has the most seats in parliament, he's the current prime minister. 

Incidentally, how's this for the "Only in New Zealand" file?  I met the prime minister a few weeks ago at an outdoor mall.  Thank goodness we had our camera with us! 

me and John
I've never met a prime minister before so I was a little flustered and couldn't manage anything clever to say.  So all I said was, "I'm a new kiwi" and "this is Quinn" (he was on my back).  John replied, "that's nice."  I didn't tell him that I don't plan to vote for him.

The other major party, Labour, is led by Phil Goff, who we both find pretty irritating.  He lost my vote when he appeared on a current affairs/comedy show called "7 Days".  Although dressed casually in jeans and meant to be joking around with the panelists, he seemed totally stiff and insincere and not funny.  Our local MP is a member of the Labour party, but we've not heard anything from her or seen any sign that she's done anything for us in the nearly two years we've lived in her electorate.  So while I'm definitely a left-leaning person, Labour leaves me with an empty, unsatisfied feeling.

The third most popular party is the Green party, who are currently polling at about 10% of the vote.  This seems amazing to me.  Compare the American Green Party, whose candidate for the 2008 presidential election didn't even get to be on half the states' ballots, and who managed to win only about 160,000 votes (according to her Wikipedia page, anyway.  Honestly I'd never heard of the woman until I just Googled this).

I'm leaning Green this election.  Apart from their policies, of course, I like that a Green party representative handed out packets of organic lettuce seeds at our local farmers' market instead of pamphlets. 

I like that the Greens call their website "the frog blog".

Although not an official act of the party, I also like this billboard stunt one of their members pulled.  This was all over the news just today.  Someone (or, more likely, many someones) defaced hundreds of National party election posters by putting stickers on them.  The stickers said "The Rich Deserve More" or "Drill it, Mine it, Sell it."  It was done to look like part of the poster.  Of course I don't condone vandalism, but I thought this was cleverly done.


Then there is a buffet of other, smaller parties.  None are polling at more than 5% of the vote right now.  That means the only way a smaller party can be represented in Parliament is if one of their members wins an electorate seat. 
One of those little parties is New Zealand First.  I understand they're pretty far-right-leaning.  They've got a guy running in our electorate.  His name is Dennis O'Rourke.  He recently parked a van outside our house and started talking through a a megaphone.  Two of our neighbours stood nearby, listening politely.

Lonely campaigner
We were out back doing some gardening when suddenly we heard a loud voice delaring, "I'm for educating our children!"  But who isn't for that, really? 

Monday, November 14, 2011

Hokitika

Friday was Canterbury Anniversary Day, a public holiday for those of us living in Canterbury.  (All the provinces have their own anniversary day, which is their special day off work and no one else's.)  Since it was a 3-day weekend, we decided to get away.  We had not gotten away for some time, and considered we were well overdue.

Deciding where to go was a challenge in itself.  We wanted to take both the boy and the pup - this would be a holiday for the whole pack.  This means we (1) need a bach/holiday home that allows pets, and (2) need it to be within a reasonable driving distance.  We wanted to go far enough away that we felt "away", but not so far that Quinn had a meltdown in the car.

The west coast is perfect for us.  It's about 3 hours by car, with a perfectly placed tea/lunch/potty break halfway there in Arthur's Pass.  And I was able to find a cheap 3-bedroom holiday home in Hokitika, about a block from the beach.  All good.

So you expect a bach to be "rustic" and this one certainly met expectations.  I think the house was quite possibly made of cardboard.  Not that it blew over or leaked or anything, but you could see seams in the walls and it just didn't feel altogether solid.  But that's ok; it was shelter.  And it had a mighty heating device:
Provider of heat
This monster is a "multi-fuel burner" - it burns wood and coal.  Even though it's late spring here, we fired this baby up our first night in the bach.  There was some smoke.  The smoke alarm sounded.  We had to open all the windows, and the back door.  It was good fun.

Incidentally, I never saw such a thing before moving to New Zealand, but wood burners are quite common for heating houses here.  Lucky for me, Gareth comes from a country that is also into archaic forms of heating and was able to work the thing. 

So we've never heard anyone rave about Hokitika or anything, and the west coast in general is kind of the butt of a joke most of the time.  I guess that's because there aren't many people who live there.  It's kind of the wild west of New Zealand.   But despite this (or maybe because of it?) Gareth and I are really drawn to the place. 

We were a bit slack with the camera during this holiday and didn't take any pictures of the town itself.  Imagine a small, tidy town, situated alongside a beach, with a cute clock tower in the middle.  That's Hokitika.  No McDonald's or KFC to be found here, but it does have a Millie's Cafe (good homemade almond slice!).

On Saturday, we took a drive to see some of the sights.  There was a helpful map in our bach that highlighted all the local attractions.  One of them was called the "Kowhitirangi Incident Memorial".  This piqued my interest.  A memorial for an "incident"?  Tell me more.  We included this on our brief itinerary.

Gareth had heard that the Hokitika Gorge was also worth a look, so we planned to stop there as well. 

Off we went.

Driving around westland is awesome because there is almost no one else on the roads, and when you do see someone, they usually wave hello.  We got waves from other drivers and from one cyclist.  Usually they wave as you pass each other coming out of a one-lane bridge, as if to say "Thank you for yielding and saving us both from a head-on collision while crossing this crazy narrow bridge, mate!"

These are the kinds of things you see while driving around westland:


farmy

rural rugby pitch
We got to the Incident Memorial and accidently drove right past it.  One quick 3-point turn and we were there, ready to learn about this Incident. 


Turns out the Kowhitirangi Incident involved a mass murder in 1941.  A guy named Stanley Graham went nuts and shot 7 people.  There was a huge manhunt for him which lasted 12 days.  There's a plaque at the memorial that tells the whole story, which we read with interest.  If you want to learn more, you don't have to travel to the west coast of New Zealand; you can just read about it here on Wikipedia.

Having had our fill of information about the Incident, we carried on to the Hokitika Gorge.  It was quite nice.  Here are some photos:




"maximum capacity 6 persons"


Isn't it pretty?  It's that same impossibly aqua-coloured water we saw at Lake Tekapo.  Something to do with glacial run-off.  The result: Hokitika Gorge puts the gorge in gorgeous :-)