I spent this weekend in Christchurch. The weather forecast looked good so it seemed like a great weekend to enjoy the local surroundings. Saturday morning started off at the farmers market at the Riccarton Bush. Lisa, an American friend of mine, and I biked over to the farmers market and spent several hours perusing the scene and sitting in the sun, chatting and getting to know each other. It was a beautiful sunny day; the dew was sparkling on the grass. There was live music-- a guitarist with a kiwi accent playing American music. The vendors consisted of bakers, fruit and vegetable farmers, several classy chocolatiers, and a few pie stands, one selling fancy pies like greenshell mussels with white wine. Savory pies are a staple here in NZ (the closest thing we have in the US is a pot pie). These pies are available at every corner market and in the frozen section at the grocery store. Typical fillings include mince (ground meat), steak, chicken or fish. A true New Zealand icon! I’ve actually never had one. It’s a must for this trip, but Saturday wasn’t the day. I opted for a delicious piece of carrot cake instead, baked by a woman from Oamaru, a town south of Christchurch.
After the farmers market, we continued our bike exploration to the city with a few stops on the agenda. The first stop: the Canterbury Cheesemongers. We thought there would be tours, etc., but it turned out to just be a shop selling really expensive cheese… $100NZ/kg. Wow! There was one woman in the shop who bought cheese and 4 baguettes. Her bill was $130NZ. Who can afford this? I meanwhile took this opportunity to learn about cheesemaking and started asking questions about rennet, which is an enzyme used to make cheese. It is responsible for separating the curds and whey. Wikipedia “rennet” for more details! I noticed that the type of rennet used to make each cheese was specified. There were three types: traditional rennet, vegetarian rennet, and microbial rennet. What is traditional rennet? Warning: Skip the rest of this paragraph if you love cheese and don’t want to risk letting the gory details jeopardize your enjoyment of it. I was then informed that traditional rennet is part of a calf’s stomach lining. The stomach lining of a calf contains the necessary enzyme to make cheese. This is how cheese has always been made. There are other glorious details of the process, probably inappropriate for a blog, but Wikipedia does a decent job, so “give it a go” if you’d like more info. Bottom line: Most cheese is not vegetarian.
A few stops after the Cheesemonger brought us to Map World, a shop full of maps, books, topo software, and $100+ compasses. So cool! Curtis, I wish you could have been there to see all these topo maps. Saturday continued on, exploring the city, and finished with dinner at Lisa’s flat.
Sunday brought more beautiful weather. But it was frosty! According to MetService, at 9am it was -3.1C (26F), but felt like -5C (23F). Brrrrrr… I had planned to spend the day biking out to Sumner, a suburb of Christchurch located on the coast. I started assessing the bike situation. My host family has lots of bikes, but they all seem to have issues with them. The bike I normally ride was way too uncomfortable to ride long distances so I decided to use their son’s old Giant mountain bike. Only problem… it had a flat tire from last week when their son was visiting. As his mom said, he didn’t fix it because “he couldn’t be bothered.” That is a theme prevalent in the kiwi way of life. I set out to look for a spare tube. Searching through an unfamiliar garage is not always the easiest. The dad finally helped me find everything. Turns out there weren’t any tubes without previous punctures. So I patched 2 tubes, put one in the tire, packed the other one in my backpack as a spare, along with a hand pump. The tire looked old and both tubes had been patched several times before... A sign… But this was my best option. I finally got going. The dad recommended what route I take. Luckily I had a map. It was a nice ride, but the route he recommended was way out of the way and wound confusingly along a river. I’m sure I consulted the map at least 10 times on the way out there. I spent some time in Sumner sitting in the sun by the sea wall, eating lunch, watching the sane kiwis eat ice cream and the insane kiwis surf. Then I headed home, racing the sun. There wasn’t much daylight left, but I did have my lights. About 30 minutes from home, pedaling began to get significantly harder. I checked the tire. It was losing air. I pedaled on for a bit, then finally stopped. I really didn’t want to change it. It was cold, the sun was setting. I had a pump with me so I decided to just pump it up as much as I could, then continue to ride. When I was about 10 minutes from home, it was getting low again. But I couldn’t be bothered! There was enough air to keep the wheel from getting damaged so I just keep pedalin’. I made it home. Fun day! Google maps revealed it was a 50 km (31 miles) ride. First time I’ve done that on a mountain bike.
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