Recent Exploration Expeditions

During the days it still feels like summer, but we can tell autumn is on the way by the chilly mornings and dewy windows. We have yet to see a lot of fall colours, but it's still relatively early.

A couple weeks ago, I pulled out all the overgrown and unidentifiable plants in one part of the garden, and planted rows of vegetable seeds. We have noticed that the majority of homes have some kind of vegetable garden, and often an apple, orange, or lemon tree as well. We have always wanted to grow our own produce, so this is our chance! We'll see how the seeds survive the 'winter' here, and how enthusiastic I remain about gardening...

Despite my pestering phonecalls and the nursing shortage, I am still waiting to hear from the hospital. In the meantime, I have started volunteering for the Refugee Services in Nelson. I just finished the training course, with about 20 other people, and in a few weeks we will welcome several Bhutanese families. Over the next 6 months, we help them with enrolling in schools, finding health care providers, learning English, setting up a home, etc. Not only is it a way for me to learn more about NZ and pass it on, but ever since seeing refugee camps on the borders of the Congo and Rwanda, I have wanted to work with refugees.

An evening walk during low tide at Tahunanui Beach, near Nelson.

A pretty shot that makes Steve look much more reflective than he was. 

This past weekend we drove to Lake Rotoiti, in Nelson Lakes National Park, about 1.5h away. A few of Steve's astronomy friends were going for a night of observing, so we went along. One of the guys had his boat there, so he and his son Tom gave us a little cruise around the lake, which was so much fun! We also learned that there are eels in the waters of New Zealand. They are protected from fishing, but hung around the dark shadows of the dock and were very curious and keen on coming up to the surface to see if we had any food for them. There were nearly a dozen of them, all a few feet long and at least 4-5 inches around. Sadly, none of my pictures of them turned out.

Here is Steve packing up his telescope. He stayed up until almost 4am and had a great time exploring the southern night sky. We realized that in the month we've been in Nelson, he's been out observing almost as many times as a year in Ottawa. That is largely due to the great weather, but also thanks to a finding a convenient site only 20 minutes outside of town. 

The field where we observed and camped was covered in beautiful mosses and lichens.

After a few hours of sleep, we headed off exploring in the area. We drove to Lake Rotoroa, the larger of the two lakes in the national park, but did not walk around for very long since the sandflies were terrible. Sandflies are like blackflies - small, buzzing little insects with a nasty bite. We drove on to Westport, a small town on the west coast.

Roads like this one make you hope that a) there is no earthquake and b) you don't meet a milk truck at the corner!

Near Westport is Cape Foulwind - a windswept cape with a walking trail leading to a seal colony. It isn't the season for seals to be around, but I have heard they can get quite smelly, so maybe that is the reason for the name of the cape.

We followed the path around most of the cape and took in the beautiful views.

On one side was the ocean and scraggly bushes lining the cliffs, and on the other was a humongous horse pasture with 10 beautiful horses grazing and chasing each other. I was pretty excited, to say the least. I just had to include one of my horse pictures.

This is a picture of Gibson's Beach - once a popular Sunday picnic destination for locals from Westport. There were signs warning people about getting trapped on the beach near high tide - I guess the picnics had to be timed just right!

Catching Up

Here are a few more pictures, to fill you in on some of the sights from when we left Wellington. Below is Steve next to our fully packed station wagon, after parking on the ferry to go to the South Island. The bikes were inside the car, not inside the bike boxes on top. We couldn't quite capture the rocking motion of the ferry, but it definitely made us appreciate the quiet ride between Vancouver and Victoria. 

After being in Nelson a few days, we drove a few hours to see some of the surrounding countryside. When we came upon this scene, where a young dairy farmer was preparing to have his cows cross to a field across the road, Steve immediately pulled over and jumped out of the car to go talk to the farmer. If there are any subjects which can turn Steve into an extrovert, it's astronomy and farming. 

On our way back to Nelson, we drove through Murchison - a small rural community about an hour away. This beautiful rainbow appeared in front of the mountains and we had to stop to enjoy it. 

A view of the hills and farmland near Wakefield - about 30 min from Nelson.

This is the main beach in Nelson, called Tahunanui Beach, and the tide was almost all the way out when I was there.

These black, white, and orange-beaked birds are Oystercatchers. They work relentlessly at low tide, putting their long beaks into the sand to pull out oysters. The seagulls hover impatiently and when the Oystercatcher finds something, the seagull immediately starts to chase them down to steal it. 

A Stick Bug, hanging around on the outside of our house. We've also seen them in brown, camouflaged on tree branches nearby.

Steve took this picture of the nearly full moon, using his telescope in our backyard. 

The view of the hills surrounding our neighbourhood, taken last weekend on our hike to explore this area. You can see a section of forested pine trees on the middle hill - they really start to stand out and unlike forested areas in Canada, the trees are planted in perfect rows, which makes them look very out of place. 

A huge bumblebee feasting on a pohutukawa bush in our backyard.  I would have liked to put my finger next to it to give a better idea of the size, but I decided not to risk disturbing it!

The Cozy Cottage

It has been two weeks since we moved and after many frustrations with the IT company, we finally have internet and phone connected. We moved from the small closet of a room at the Nurses' Residence, to a cozy one bedroom house in a quiet neighbourhood called The Brook. The Brook is a cute little neighbourhood we had admired on our drives exploring Nelson. There is a small stream, or brook, running through the middle of a valley and all around us are hills and mountains with biking and hiking trails weaved throughout.  The house is owned by a Kiwi couple who live a couple hours away, and is managed by an American woman who has lived in Nelson over 6 years. During the summer it is rented out as a holiday house, and over the winter they are happy to find longer-term contracts. 

We decided to take the house the same evening we viewed it. “It” was quickly donned the “cozy cottage” and it has proved to be just that. It is a simple box of a house, with the bedroom in one corner, the bathroom in another, and the open concept living room and kitchen on the other side. There are as many windows as possible, and a sliding glass door off the lounge while the main entry/exit door is off the kitchen. For the first week, we played the role of first-time house owners and found it fun and rewarding to work in the garden, clean the nooks and crannies, and arrange furniture to suit us. We will have 9 months here, and it is just enough to make it feel worthwhile to invest some time into maximizing the potential of this cozy cottage. 
The sliding door off the living room leads to a wood patio with a table and chairs under a sheltered area, and once the sun comes over the mountains in the morning, this is flooded in light and warmth. Yes, that is an old red claw-foot bathtub on the edge of the patio...

The living room, with the sliding door that leads to the patio. Steve's telescope is in the far right corner, where we hope to put a little table for the computer to live on.

Opposite the living room is the kitchen, which came with all the cooking supplies we will need.

The bedroom is off the door to the far right, and the bathroom is in the middle. Next to the kitchen door is a nook with the washing machine and fridge/freezer. A shelf above these holds all the dishes.

Off of the patio and around the kitchen side of the house there are two grassy sections divided by an overgrown garden that is a mix of plants I’ve never seen and herbs that have grown so large I have to pinch and smell them to recognize them. This picture is taken from the patio, facing one of the neighbour's sheds.

A view of one end of Nelson, with the hospital visible in the lower right. This is from a lookout area just a 30 minute hike from our house.

So far, Nelson has definitely had better weather than Wellington, although it is starting to feel chilly and we can tell autumn is on the way.  The skies are also considerably darker and just two nights after arriving, Steve was out observing with some of the local amateur astronomers who he'd been introduced to through his Wellington contacts. He has been out as much as possible and I go along most of the time. I have nearly perfected a warm nest in the trunk of the station wagon where I can see the stars, read, sleep, and occasionally hop out to take a look at something through the telescope.

Like most places, the hospital here is in need of nurses. I spoke with a few people last week to get a better idea of the different units, and have sent in an application for a casual position for the medical/surgical/rehab units. Steve continues to enjoy working for his boss in Ottawa, and either works from home or the public library.

Now that we are finally settled in Nelson, we will probably focus more on doing short weekend trips in the area, rather than jumping into more long camping or road trips around the South Island. There is so much we want to see, but we will wait awhile before heading off again.  The surrounding area has three national parks, lots of beautiful beaches, vineyards and farmland, mountains and hiking trails... so I think we will find lots to do around here.

more to follow

Sorry it's been so long since we wrote on here! We have finally found somewhere to live and yesterday we moved into a little 1 bedroom house. We should have internet connected there this week and then we'll be able to post some pictures and stories.