Shaky Times

I have been rather busy these last few weeks - planning holidays, working followed by more work and occasionally getting out into the garden to try and bring order into post winter chaos.
The extra wet spring has been welcomed though now both my lawn and garden are totally saturated and the water tanks completely overflowing through most of the last few months. We have the main set of tanks hooked up to one toilet but were unable to do more owing to house slab constraints.
The Christchurch earthquake caused a bit of a stir with the geologist in the family bringing out his "Geology of NZ" book given to him by a great aunty. There is a great website visualisation of the quake and >700  aftershocks suffered by the people of Canterbury since the quake - check it out at http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/.
I've been in NZ when a 5.5 quake hit and it was quite an experience. Trying to put your clothes on while the earth shakes is difficult (the quake hit at night like this recent one) and scary. Christchurch residents described the sound as like a train going through their living room.
Like other quakes and extreme rain events in New Zealand questions will be asked regarding building standards and development of unsuitable land. Some of the worst hit housing was on estuarine silt land which liquefied once all shook up.
But the earthquake is probably the only >7 Richter scale earthquake not to result in loss of life, which is an enormous achievement. New Zealanders can be proud of their building standards as well as their quick response to the crisis. If the same quake hit here in Melbourne, more than 4 million people would be homeless and I would suspect a very large death toll. Newcastle, NSW, is a warning that the earth does sometimes throw up the odd quake.

Whats in a name? North, South, Aoteoroa

This week I heard an article about the Geographic Board of New Zealand investigating changing the names of the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Te Wai Pounamu, relates to the veins of beautiful greenstone found in the South Island. Much prized by Maori and Pakeha alike this deep greenstone is synonymous with NZ. Aoteoroa is also a name associated with the Maori discovery of New Zealand, denoting it as the land of the long white cloud.
It is interesting to note that the common usage of North and South is not legitimate so I suppose the Board's process over the next year to talk to Maori Iwi and then to the rest of the population will bring up all sorts of names and traditions. "Mainland" being one of the well known names for the larger South Island (anyone for cheese!)
Perhaps it is easier just to let sleeping dogs lie and use the "kiss" principle

(keep it simple stupid)