Life as a Hobbit

Did you know that Australia has more than a dozen types of pigeon?  This seems highly unnecessary, but also delightful.   Rock Pigeon White-headed Pigeon Crested Pigeon Spinifex Pigeon Squatter Pigeon Chestnut-quilled Rock-Pigeon White-quilled Rock-Pigeon Wonga Pigeon Christmas Island Imperial-Pigeon Torresian Imperial-Pigeon Topknot Pigeon Aaaaand there's even the Common Bronzewing, which is a gorgeous rainbow bird who is a pigeon in family but for some reason not in name? Bronzewing photograph care of Leo/0ystercatcher on Flickr. Australian animals are in a whole other level of striking.  I got to see some wild koalas sitting in trees at the roadside, and some "wild" grey kangaroos grazing on a golf course, but I was most struck by the incredible variety and incredible onomatopoeia naming conventions of the birdlife.  Yes, Australian marsupials rule, but have you heard of these bad birds? There isn't just a Beach Thick-knee but also a Bush Thick-knee.  Th...

     New Zealand public toilets are plentiful - most often unisex single stalls with strong flushes. A lot of the toilets have water saving two button flush system, but the signage for which is the large amount of water flush vs the small amount is usually obfuscated, incomprehensible, or simply unmarked. Hallelujah, it's labeled! Relatively few places (less than half) have gender-assigned toilets, mainly large institutional bathrooms like schools and airports.  Most toilets are single-stall cubicles with narrow walls and narrower sinks. The long drop toilet is likely what you'll encounter at the more remote trailheads. This is a lovely and succinct way to describe what should go in the toilet, point three really hammers it home. This toilet in my Wellington Airbnb was unhinged, it opened its lid every time the bathroom door opened.  Unnecessarily evoking a real "Feed me, Seymour" vibe.  Look at all those spray pattern options, you could really make art w...

Akaroa is a small town on the Banks Peninsula, remnant of a failed attempt of the French to get a toehold into the "Let us Europeans colonize the South Pacific!" game of the1800s.  A French whaler doctored a deed in 1838 saying he owned the Banks Peninsula, and on this flimsy piece of paper he was able to raise enough money back in France to outfit a whaling ship with a few colonists to return.  So in 1840, 57 settlers survived the Pacific passage (some died on the voyage) to found Akaroa, in Akaroa Harbour.  The settlers were mostly French but 12 of them were Germans.  I'm sure there was something Catholic going on with that, and a quick history skim shows there was some crackdown on practicing Catholicism and inter-religion marriages in the 1830s-40s.  Of course as soon as there was a village they built a little Catholic church, and some of the settlers had some specifically to be missionaries, with a plan to proselytize and convert the native Maori, who also ...