Wool for the Lambs

A couple of weeks ago we went for a drive through some of the nearby valleys and farmland. In one field, we saw this lamb wearing a little wool jacket! Apparently it is just to keep the little guy warm on these chilly spring days.

New Zealand is definitely full of sheep, but it is also full of many unique native birds. One of the most common is the Tui; it is a dark-coloured bird with a tuft of white feather at the base of its neck. It has a very distinctive song because it has two voiceboxes and can make a huge variety of sounds. At the flat where we were staying, there were lots of Tui in the surrounding trees, and we took this video to give you an idea of the songs we hear (click on the triangle in the bottom left of the picture below to play the video).

Earlier this week, we moved from the flat with the ocean view to a townhouse a few kilometers closer to town. The first flat was a short-term sublet and the couple who live there have returned, so we said our goodbyes to the cat Falafel and moved on to our next sublet. Through someone at Steve's work, we found out about this townhouse, owned by a woman who spends part of the year in the UK. So we will stay here until we find somewhere more permanent... hopefully that will be soon!

Mt. John Observatory

Hello all - Steve here. Thought I'd give AK a break and give a quick update on my trip to Mt. John Observatory at Tekapo on the South Island. We'd been to Tekapo on the Easter weekend, but it's such an amazing area I was happy to return. One of my advisors was there for two weeks using one of the telescopes, so I joined him for a week to learn how to drive a big telescope and run a spectrograph.

My flight out of Wellington left just before 7am. The flight followed the east coast of the South Island down to Christchurch, so I had a great view of the Southern Alps out my window at sunrise.

Going to Mt. John in the middle of winter, I was hoping to find the summit covered in several feet of snow, and experience something akin to a Canadian winter. But the summit was completely bare - the mountains surrounding it were covered in snow, but none was to be found at the observatory. I stayed at the closest building, and used the telescope in the attached dome.

This is the telescope we were using - it has a main mirror 1 metre across. The green part is the mount that moves it around the sky, and the white disk on the right contains the many weights needed to counterbalance the telescope on the mount.

Here I am next to the telescope at the start of a night, moving it to the first star. The telescope is all computer controlled, but it's more fun to move it with the hand paddle.

These days professional astronomers can spend a whole night observing and never have to look at the sky because everything is controlled by computers. Mt. John was no different; these are the computers that run the telescope and the spectrograph. Luckily though, a lot of it was automated, which meant I could sneak outside now and then and take a look at the stars. And I'm glad I could - Tekapo has been in the news for being an International Dark Sky reserve, and I can see why. The Milky Way arching overhead, from one side of the sky to the other, was a spectacular sight.

This was the view outside during the day - the distant mountain ranges surrounding Mt. John and the brilliant blue colour of Lake Tekapo.

And one last picture from town, of the famous little church on the edge of Lake Tekapo.

Maple Syrup!!

There aren't too many food items we haven't been able to find over here, but pure maple syrup is one. There are a lot of "flavoured" maple syrups, but the pure stuff was harder to track down. In Ottawa, we regularly had pancakes on a weekend, but this was the first time in NZ that we've been able to re-live our tasty tradition. Sadly, the bottle is now more than half empty.

Our first Kiwi pancake breakfast.... yummy!

Steve continues to enjoy his work and even brings home some of his favourite books, like the one pictured above. He is flying to Christchurch this Friday, where he will take a bus to Lake Tekapo to spend 5 days at the Mt John Observatory. One of his advisors will be there and this will give them a chance to discuss the project in more detail, and also for Steve to use and examine a working spectrograph. It's a bit strange to think of us being in different parts of NZ, but it is great that he will have this chance to be down there again. It will probably be all covered in snow, so he will even get a taste of real winter!

Today was my first day of work on the Pediatric Ward at the Hutt Hospital. They are giving me a full six weeks of orientation since I have no nursing experience in pediatrics. I am really looking forward to learning about a completely new area, and I think I will enjoy working with families. I'll be on a full time schedule, working a variety of 8 hour day, evening, and night shifts.

I went to the Wellington Botanic Gardens last week and enjoyed seeing a surprising number of flowers in bloom. These snow drops were definitely my favourite.

Winter in Wellington

Even though we've been in Wellington nearly three weeks, it still feels like we have a long way to go before we are settled. We are enjoying this flat, but knowing that we have to move again at the end of August keeps it from feeling like our own. Steve has been commuting by bike to work most days. I drove him today though - it is a super stormy day where the wind is gusting, rain is lashing, and the waves are crashing over the road leaving behind driftwood and seashells. It's fun to watch from the indoors, but not the best for cycling. It may be stormier here in Wgtn, but overall, the temperatures are noticeably milder here than in Nelson and it feels much less like a true winter.

Here is a little map to show you our current whereabouts (like the pictures, click on it to see a larger version).

It is about a 25 min drive to Wellington; there is a little ferry that goes from one side of the bay to the other, but it is $10 per person each way, so not the most economical.

The hills behind us are filled with trails and I went exploring one day last week. This is a view from one of the trails, looking out towards Lower Hutt.

This is the view from our current flat - the hills are on the other side of the Wellington Harbour, and on clear days you can see some snowy mountain peaks in the distance. These are the Kaikoura Ranges, on the east coast of the South Island.

Here is Steve with his new best friend, Falafel. Much to our dismay, she is quite cuddly and loves to snuggle when you are reading on the couch.

It's hard to believe we have been here nearly 7 months already. While here we have often commented on the things that seem uniquely Kiwi to us. We always mean to get pictures, but rarely remember. However, we do have a few pictures of things that have stood out to us. The first, is the hedgehog.

Now, I know there are hedgehogs in other parts of the world, but this is the first place we have ever actually seen them. This little guy lived at the cottage in Nelson and could be heard foraging through the leaves at night. They look quite cute, but we've heard they're covered in ringworm and fleas! Another infamous imported pest is the possum, and although we have heard them and seen many as roadkill, we haven't seen one alive yet.

The mailmen here are called "posties" and of course, they deliver the post, not the mail. In some parts of NZ they ride these red bikes, in others they ride around on little red motorcycles.

We've always been amazed and impressed with the selection of dog food at grocery stores. This is one example of the many yummy doggy meals. The big beef bones on the bottom left are about $3.

The other thing that stood out to us in grocery stores is that the eggs aren't in a chilled section, they are just on aisle shelves with all the other baking supplies.

We will continue to keep our eyes open for all things Kiwi-esque, but not all can be captured on film. Many expressions and pronunciations are new to us and either leave us totally confused or laughing our heads off. We'll have to start writing them down...

Goodbye Nelson, Hello Wellington

We have to apologize for not blogging in nearly a month! For the rest of June, we were both putting in a lot of hours at work - I picked up a lot of shifts at the hospital and Steve put in full days to wrap up the projects he had on-the-go with his Ottawa boss. The last week in Nelson, we celebrated Canada Day with our recently-found fellow Canadian friends - Alex and Andrea. Andrea is a nurse as well and it was fun getting to know them a bit before we left Nelson. They are getting settled in Nelson for the forseeable future, so hopefully we will cross paths again. I also spent some more time with the refugee family I've gotten to know and the eldest daughter taught me how to make some delicious Nepali dishes. Needless to say, it was a bit sad saying goodbye to all these new friends, and to our cozy cottage.

The ferry ride to Wellington was rocky as usual, and Steve slept beautifully through all of it while I caught the seabreeze on the decks. We had a week in Wellington before we could move into our new flat, so we lived at a hostel downtown - one of the few with parking available. We did some back-to-school shopping for Steve, since he can no longer wear his pajama pants to work every day. We also spent a day at the Victoria University library, where Steve immersed himself in optics books (not all catalogues at the library look like this!).

We also stopped by the National War Memorial on our way home.

On Wednesday, Steve went out to IRL (Industrial Research Limited) where he will be working on the PhD project. The first few days were mostly housekeeping and getting set up, and of course, getting used to the morning and afternoon tea breaks where everyone floods to the cafeteria to chat over tea.

I spent two days meeting with various nursing managers at both of the main hospitals in the area, and have to admit that I am overwhelmed with job options. There is such a demand for nurses here, especially since it is winter and the regular flus and swine flus are putting added pressures on the hospitals and staff. I am following up with a few managers this week, and will try to make some decisions by the end of this week so that I can get started soon.

Our new flat is lovely and so are the couple that we are housesitting for. We met them the day we arrived in Wellington, and they showed us around the flat. It is across the street from the ocean, looks out across the bay at Wellington, and is about 5km from Steve's work. We will be here for 7 weeks, and hopefully by then we will have found something just as lovely for longer term.

Our new flat, after sunset. Steve gets to use their guitar, and note the TV in the window reflection! It has been over 6 years since either of us has had a TV - hopefully we don't get addicted.

Here is the view from the living room this morning - a typical grey and cloudy day, but still nice to see the ocean.

This is the kitchen, and the bedroom and bathroom is around the corner - too cluttered with all our bags and bikes and boxes to be blog-worthy.

This is Falafel. She came from the SPCA and belongs to the couple who live here, and we agreed to catsit while they are away. The couple offered to take her to a "cattery" (very popular here, although we hardly ever see kennels), but caring for her gave us a slight discount on the rent, so we agreed, although neither of us are cat-people.

Road trip!

Now that we know our time living on the South Island is limited, we decided it would be a good idea to do a road trip. We spent 7 days on the road and clocked over 2500km. On the first day we drove to Karamea, which is on the west coast but as far north as the roads will take you. The climate is more tropical and among all the dairy farms are hills covered in natural forests, long beaches, and rocky bluffs. This was our first night in our new, very water-proof tent (mailed to us by Mom and Dad in BC) and we were thankful for it as it poured rain all night.

The next day we continued driving down the west coast, which is well-known for spectacular shorelines. We had beautiful sunny weather and got to make the most of the beautiful views.

Further down the west coast are the glaciers that are just a few kilometers away from the tropical ocean and beaches. Both the villages around the glaciers are extremely touristy, so this was a good time of year to avoid crowds.

Each day we would get up with the sun around 7:30 and enjoy beautiful dawn light as we started the day. Similarly, we tried to get to a campsite by dusk so that we didn't miss any scenery. It also meant trying to read for as long as possible to avoid going to sleep at 6:30pm!

The farthest south we went was Invercargill, and a nearby town called Bluff. From there you can see Stewart Island, which is off the southern coast of NZ, and a place we hope to visit someday. After getting to the southern tip, we started our way back north along the eastern coast. We stopped in Dunedin to hunt down some used books and really enjoyed the classy architecture of the city.

It felt like a bit of a whirlwind tour of the South Island, but at least now we have identified some places we would like to visit in the future. We didn't go to Milford or Doubtful Sound, so that could be a trip in itself. We would also like to go to Stewart Island, and also spend more time exploring Dunedin. But, for now, we are back to work for the next 3 weeks to save up as much as we can before the move back to Wellington.

We've put more of the South Island pictures in this web album: 

South Island

In search of the Blue Whale... and other news

This past Sunday we drove north to see Golden Bay and the northern tip of the South Island. The drive takes you up over a famously long and steep hill, and this is the view from the top.

On the way, we picked up some decent-looking hitchhikers who turned out to be locals. They told us that there was a beached Blue Whale on one of the beaches outside Golden Bay. After dropping them off, I couldn't stop thinking about the Blue Whale, and so we decided to head in that direction. After 1h on a gravel road we saw a bunch of parked cars and asked if this was the starting point of the path to see the whale. It was, so we started walking through beautiful green hills of a sheep farm and after 45 min we arrived at the ocean.

With no whale in sight, we went left, and continued along the rocky grassy shore for another hour. Only after turning around and meeting more people on the road did we find out that we should have turned right. At that point, it was nearing dusk and we still had a long drive home. So we left, without having seen the big floating blubbery mess of a shark-eaten and rotting Blue Whale. Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed and if I have another free day, I may drive back up there. However, our time in sunny Nelson appears to be coming to a close...

Steve has stumbled into a scholarship to do a PhD in astronomical instrumentation, based at a lab in Wellington. He was helping out at a public viewing astronomy night here in Nelson a few weeks ago, and while showing little kids the moon and Saturn, he got to talking with a kiwi 30-something guy who had done his PhD in NZ, now works in Texas, and was visiting his Mom in Nelson. This guy heard about Steve's work and immediately said "want to do a phd?" After learning more about it, Steve is pretty excited about the project and we know it is a unique opportunity for him.   Ironically enough, it will mean we have to move back to windy Wellington in a month or so. The scholarship is for 3 years, and although it was not an easy decision to be away from family and friends for that long, we are excited for this new step. We'll still be back in Canada for a visit this December since our original tickets were non-refundable.

Last week Steve flew to Wellington to attend a workshop hosted by the lab where he will be working. I told him to take pictures of Wellington but apparently the weather was so rainy and windy that there were no good pictures to be taken. Instead, he took a picture of his soon-to-be office.