KIWI CAN DO

REMEMBER THIS ROCK

It was auctioned online at Trade Me. It raised over $60,000 with a final last minute bid by New Zealand Ski Lodge and the Rock, estimated to be more than 25 ton, will grace the car park at Mt Hutt ... when they can move it. All the proceeds go to the the Earthquake Fund and the seller, past owner????? plans to take the comments from the TradeMe site and Face Book to make a book. Rocky's earning capacity knows no bounds.
















Earthquake news has been the main feature here for more than two weeks but there is plenty of humour amongst the grim reality. It dominates my thoughts and as each day dawns I think of my son and his wife who live in Christchurch. Their home is livable but damaged. They bought a chemical toilet early last week. Their business has stalled. Amanda was also a part-time Nanny but her family have taken the children to Auckland, but Wayne has a job which will last forever. He's one of the road safety contingent employed by Fulton Hogan, a road construction company. He does lollipop duties but is also responsible for much more. It carries a lot more responsibility and stress than meets the eye.

10.000 homes will probably be demolished. Some areas may never be built on so the Government is possibly looking at building a satellite town.



Sewerage is a problem throughout much of the city. People who do have water are being asked to flush as little as possible. Imagine tens and tens of thousands of people without flush toilets. People are being very creative with their solutions. There is a website dedicated to photos and one of the TV channels is running a competition for the best longdrop or Dunny.

Enjoy this sample and go here for more and here. Reminds me of when I was a child. Both my grandmother and a great aunt had longdrops, or outhouses, (wharepuka in Maori), down a garden path surrounded by trellis and flowering climbers. They kept them spotless and the smell of creosote based disinfectant (Jeye's Fluid) was strong, along with the other stinky smells.

Christchurch has apparently stripped the world of porta-loos and chemical toilets. China is making chemical toilets and delivering them as fast as they can. (See note at end of post). There are tanks being planted in the street for people to empty their chemical toilets into. About 1500 portaloos and nearly 5000 chemical toilets have been distributed. There are more on the way. Even the ground tanks are having to be manufactured as all available are being used.

It sounds like a nightmare both for the authorities and the residents. Bathroom humour is at it's richest in Christchurch. A common topic of ribaldry is being caught sitting down when an aftershock hits.

Columnist Vicki Anderson says it all in yesterday's Christchurch Press under the heading It's Time To Dry The Tears. She has written some amazing articles including this one on the night of the Big Earthquake. Vicki Anderson is a powerful writer and while her passion may be with music she is far too talented to remain a music critic. Not that I think being a music critic is light weight but that there will be many more opportunities for Vicki to exercise her talent beyond her chosen field. Surely her career will move forward with the possibility of a global audience. A positive result from a terrible event.

Meantime we are enjoying a beautiful early autumn day with brilliant blue skies and crisp cooling breeze. We are preparing our house for weekend guests who will be going to a wedding tomorrow. We get to sleep 2 or 3 nights in The Purple Bus. It's becoming routine but it's a lot of work. We take extra care with cleaning and tidying as we think our guests deserve the best we can offer for their money.

Lunch calls and I can't leave everything to John.

There has been an earthquake in China in the last 24 hours. I'm not sure if this will affect our supply. There are supposed to be many porta-loos and chemical toilets coming from USA and many have already arrived from Australia. So much going on it's often hard to keep the facts reasonably accurate. We do know some USAR teams have gone home although the search for bodies continues as the rubble is cleared and dangerous buildings demolished.

STOP PRESS 2.30PM TODAY

The number of chemical toilets in Christchurch has doubled with 5000 additional chemical toilets arriving from China.

They're being distributed today to Avondale, Westhaven and Bromley.

Another 7500 chemical toilets are due in the next few days and 5000 are due next week.
In all, more than 30,000 chemical toilets have been ordered for Christchurch residents.