I’m especially proud of my 7-year-old daughter, who raised more than any other child at our church, and was 4th overall. And at something over $8600 we apparently raised more than any other church in New Zealand.

But I’m not competitive.

Just the other day I came across an old book of maps on TradeMe. It was issued by the A.A. quite a while ago — long enough ago that it predates publishers annotating maps with the date they were drawn. The maps inside are in good condition, although the cover shows evidence of a life in a grubby glove box.

Although there’s no direct evidence of the date of publication, there are enough clues in the maps themselves that I could probably pin it down reasonably well. These are artifacts that someone from New Zealand, especially the areas I’m familiar with, will be aware of. Here are some of the things I’ve noticed:

• The road through the Homer Saddle to Milford Sound is shown as being under construction.
• A dotted line indicates where there are plans to build a road through the Haast Pass. When I first learned to drive this was the last unsealed bit of main highway in the country.
• Another dotted line shows an intended road from Haast down the coast to Milford Sound. What an engineering feat that would have been!
• There are railway lines everywhere. I’m especially sad about this — I have fond memories of railway trips around the country as a child, but recent governments have made their business supporters rich by allowing them to profit from selling of state assets like railways. Railway lines include:
  • a line from Rakaia to Methven
  • the Middlemarch → Clyde line, now the Central Otago Rail Trail. The map’s a bit unclear, but it appears to go even further upstream from Clyde.
  • the Otira tunnel is shown (see note on cars over Arthur’s Pass, below)
  • a line from Waipara to Waiau
  • the line from Nelson down to Glenhope. Next time you’re driving through the Lewis Pass, stop at Kawatiri (the turnoff to the Nelson Lakes) and take a walk through the abandoned railway tunnel there. It’s a sad reminder that with a little more effort at the time, we could have had a passenger rail service from Christchurch to Nelson.
  • another line I never knew existed runs from Tinwald through Mt Somers
  • the line from Hornby to Lincoln splits. One leg runs to Southbridge, the other to Little River. The latter is now also being developed as a cycle trail.
• At the Waipara river, the road is shown to the west of the railway line (the old road lines are still visible).
• In Christchurch:
  • the metropolitan area runs from Papanui in the north to the Heathcote River in the south, and from Linwood in the east to somewhere short of Riccarton in the west
  • Brougham Street runs from Antigua Street to Waltham Road, no further
  • the airport isn’t important enough to rate a mention, but routes to the old motor camp in Addington are clearly marked
  • one left town heading north on Papanui Road — the route out on Cranford didn’t exist
• There are interesting notes at Otira and Springfield. At Springfield it says “Cars trucked here for West Coast” and at Otira it says “Cars trucked here for Canterbury”. I’ll have to consult with those more in the know to find out what was going on here.

Regardless of how old this map book is, I’m really enjoying it. I haven’t aquired old maps since I was a teenager — it’s clearly about time I started looking again.

Carved eggshells. Like nothing I've ever seen.

Slovenian (I think) Franc Grom carves these eggs using a small hand-held electric drill. His more complicated pieces have literally thousands of holes.

Franc Grom works on another egg.

There are a few more photos here, but precious little else that I can discover about him online.

It’s a great story book, and the beautiful pictures really make it. The monsters look just right in the trailer. I can’t wait to see it on the big screen.

The Resurgence roastery

On our Christmas break I was very pleased to come across a small coffee roastery I’d previously never heard of. I was going to call it “boutique” but that sounds terribly pretentious. Nevertheless, Resurgence Riwaka Roasting is run out of a converted garage on the outskirts of Riwaka (just out of Motueka) and does seriously good coffee.

The roaster — that’s William on the right — has a long history of roasting in Christchurch, and has now set himself up in Riwaka. His beans are all good quality Organic and Fair Trade. He knows his stuff and roasts them well. There’s a (very) small café run out of the roastery where he can make you the best short black you’ve ever had. Seriously.

You can find their coffee in some of the local stores or buy through the web site (like the rest of the web site, the online shopping experience is nothing to write home about, but it’s there). However, if you’re anywhere near the roastery it’s well worth dropping in and seeing for yourself. They’re on the North side of Riwaka, on your right as you leave town heading for the Takaka Hill or Kaiteriteri.

If you’re coming some distance just for the coffee it might pay to call ahead — they’re not always there, and there is talk that they might be moving soon — but it’s worth the trip. I’m always keen to support the small business taking on the large faceless corporates, and in this case it’s an easy choice — the coffee is some of the best I’ve tasted in a long time.