Kaitoke

We hopped in the car last Sunday and headed about 40 minutes north of Wellington to visit Kaitoke national park. Kaitoke is widely advertised as being the setting for Rivendell, the city of the elves in The Lord of the Rings. I promise we planned to visit the park before I knew this (aside: the LOTR tourism is embarrasingly huge here. I liked the movies, too, but you wouldn't believe the people who flock here just to check out where the movie was filmed). This area is also where Wellington gets its drinking water, which explains why it tastes so good.

The park had a lot of older trees, some dating back a thousand years or so to the time when moa roamed the land. This leads me to present your bit of NZ paleontology for the day: NZ originally separated from Gondwana about 85 million years ago and subsequently developed a completely unique set of flora and fauna which resemble that of Gondwana more closely than anywhere else on earth. That's why the plants and trees here look like drawings from dinosaur books (viz. tree ferns). There were no mammals; large, flightless birds took over the role of major land predators. When humans arrived about a thousand years back, they found this quite amusing. They clubbed the moa to death and ate them for dinner and now there are only a few species of flightless birds here which you can find in a few remote and heavily protected locations.

Here's Amy hanging out in front of one of a very old tree with a very long name:


The forests here are dark, cool, and completely covered in moss and lichen. When you combine this with the prehistoric flora, it makes for a very unique hike.

Amelia has been worrying about me lately because I apparently get too close to the edge of cliffs for her liking. Here we are next to a small dropoff, as she keeps a close eye on the situation.


After the main hike, we walked the 10 minutes from the parking lot to the site where Rivendell was set. It was nice, but a bit underwhelming given the surrounding scenery.


I'll leave you with a picture of Quinn, who thinks it quite mundane to take pictures with a closed mouth:

We're not gonna take it...

I've had the chance to listen to some Kiwi radio by now and I've found it to be an interesting smorgasbord of sound. The 80's evidently made their mark here in NZ because I've been treated to more than my fair share of old school rock and I've learned something about myself in the process. For example: I hereby confess that I like many of Bon Jovi's songs. There, I said it. When they were first popular, I was rocking to Guns N' Roses, dude, and I wouldn't have admitted that I liked this guy for a million bucks.

Other blasts from the past: remember the theme song to "The Greatest American Hero?" Heard that bad boy on the radio the other day. Twisted Sister is still as catchy as it was back in '84, and Phil Collins holds his own but only in small doses.

Re: modern music; they really like Coldplay. As in really, really like it. Hit the "scan" button on the radio and you'll probably just switch from one Coldplay song to another. This is a very effective form of torture and I often prefer to simply drive in silence rather than being Colplayed into oblivion.

On a very positive note (for me, anyway), they are also infatuated with The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica. Incidentally, all of the above music can be found on the same radio station.

Editor's note: please pardon the dearth of postings. We haven't been up to much lately. Should the weather hold, we'll spend a day this weekend hiking in the spot where Rivendell (from The Lord of the Rings) was set.

Eau de Zoo

It turns out that people weren't lying when they told us that the weather was unusually nasty when we first arrived. It's clearly improved in the last few weeks and while it's not rare to get clouds and drizzle, we're no longer surprised by nice weather. We had another beautiful weekend, so we headed to the Wellington zoo. The zoo wasn't huge but it was well done and quite worth the trip.

The highlight of the day was an up-close encounter with the giraffes. These are one of Amelia's favorite animals and we both got to feed them. Amelia loved this but did not appreciate the smell, as you can see (It's not immediately obvious, but there's a giraffe behind the fence in the following pic.)


Other highlights included spotting a kiwi (bigger than expected, with a body the size of a volleyball) as well as seeing a few animals we'd never heard of such as a sun bear. Quinn had a particular affinity for the zebra, as demonstrated below:

Oh, and it's official, if unrelated to the zoo trip: the boy is walking now. It took him about a week to figure out and he can now make it across the room unassisted. His favorite hobby has become pushing things across the floor, so it's easier to keep him occupied. Pics to follow at some point.

All Blacks v Wallabies: a Haiku

Collisions and pain
Cleats dig into my kidneys
Victory is ours!


Well, the Boys in Black pulled off a big one the other night. With their 28-24 win over Australia's national team (the Wallabies), the All Blacks managed to win both the Tri-Nations and Bledisloe cups. The Tri-Nations is a yearly competition between South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Since these countries are traditional rugby powerhouses, the Tri-Nations is a big deal.

The Bledisloe is a bragging-rights trophy (a familiar concept to college football fans: think Paul Bunyan's Axe, the Golden Boot, etc) which changes hands between Australia and NZ on those occasions when the Aussies actually manage to beat NZ more than once in a year.

The match itself was phenomenal and completely lived up to its billing as the biggest match of the season. The Aussies dominated us during the first half, scoring tries just before and just after halftime to take a 17-7 lead. After that, the fantastically aggressive Kiwis poured on 21 unanswered points for a thrilling come-from-behind victory. It wasn't a match for the squeamish; more than one guy ended up looking like our man Rodney So'Oialo (above).

Unfortunately, rugby season is drawing to a close. I'm hoping to catch a live match when the local team (the Wellington Lions) plays here in a few weeks. Amy is quite distraught that rugby will be over soon, but I've consoled her by pointing out that college football is just getting started.

In an unexpected but welcome turn of events, I've discovered that ESPN actually broadcasts great college football games overseas (unlike back home, where the major networks get the good stuff). Next weekend's game: LSU v Auburn. I'm actually going to get the Tiger game live, even if that means I'm watching it on Sunday.

AB captain Robby Deans, left, and Rodney So'Oialo. Deans is half Jedi and half Pit Bull.

Photos from: www.rugbyheaven.co.nz

Why I Love My Job

If you've followed this blog closely you could be forgiven for thinking that I like my job here because it's easy. While I love the fact that it's a pretty straightforward 9 to 5 affair (i.e. no call or weekends) I wouldn't go so far as calling it easy. The patient load is lighter than what I'm used to but I'm kept pretty busy during the day as the people I do see are typically quite unwell.

The reasons I really love this job are a bit more complex. It's just so different than what I'm used to. For example, I was signed up for "mental health orientation" the other day. Given my experience with orientations in the past, I was less than enthusiastic about this as I searched for the meeting area ( an aside: I've noticed that directions here are typically much more vague than what I'm used to. For the orientation, I was given the date and the city, but not a time or specific location. The really weird thing is that these directions are usually enough to get you where you're going).

I eventually learned that the meeting area for orientation was on the sidewalk in front of the local marae, or Maori meeting house. We had to wait on the sidewalk because entering a marae is a formalized procedure. Let me stress that this isn't some tongue-in-cheek deal, either. What followed was a full-on Maori greeting ceremony complete with a haka (that's one of those greeting dances that looks pretty threatening; see the All Blacks post below). Sure enough, the guy leading the haka was acting rather agitated but everyone seemed quite welcoming once the haka was over. I say "seemed" because the first 45 minutes of the ceremony was held entirely in the Maori language (this wasn't the first meeting I'd been to where English was the second language). The meeting had quite the tribal feel to it as the men sat in rows directly opposed to one another while the women were seated on cushions behind us.

I think you'll understand me now when I say that this wasn't what I was expecting when I arrived for orientation. It was a hell of a lot more informative and interesting than any other orientation I've ever attended, and I finished the day with a much better understanding of my Maori and Pacific Islander patients.

Another reason I've enjoyed working here is that this country is far, far less litigious than the good 'ol U.S.A. Combine this fact with an incredibly underserved patient population, et voila- you've got a huge amount of autonomy on your hands. I don't spend much time second guessing myself here and I can do whatever I think is best for my patients. Someone's OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) is too severe for them to leave home? Grab their therapist, jump in the car, and visit them at home. Not sure if a hospitalized patient will be able to get by on the outside? Send them home over the weekend and see how it goes. It's not that I'm taking big risks with my patients, it's just that I now realize that I've never been able to take smaller ones.

I think I'm scheduled for fire safety training next. I had better go have a look at my life insurance policy...

Martinborough, Cape Palliser, and the Pinnacles

We took off on another trip this weekend, this time a two-night affair over the local "hills" to the quaint town of Martinborough. The drive was invigorating as it involved the most precipitous cliffs and hairpin turns we've yet experienced. Words don't really do it justice so I'll just shut up about it.

Martinborough is located smack dab in the middle of the local wine country. It's a quiet little town organized around a cute town square. The main activity is checking out the local vineyards and olive groves before relaxing in one of the many cottages. We spent a day and a half taking it easy here before setting off on a road trip to the very bottom of the North Island: Cape Palliser. Here's a pic of Amy and Amelia at the southernmost latitude any of us have ever reached (41 degrees and change):


Near the cape lies a small fishing village. My kin back home in Louisiana will be interested to hear that I've learned a new method for launching boats: hook 'em up to a bulldozer.


The locals must have grown weary of getting stuck on the beach because there are about 20 or 30 old bulldozers hooked up to the boat trailers. Many of them are painted, named, and adorned in various ways. The pink one above was named "Babe," naturally.

From the Cape it was only a short hop to the Pinnacles. These are some interesting rock formations created by about a dozen million years of erosion (pictured at the top of the page). Amelia got hot during the hike and decided to cool off by dropping her pants (photo removed as we reconsidered posting our daughter's bare bum online).

On the way out of the park we were treated to a nice sunset looking out over the Cook Strait, with the South Island barely visible in the distance (zoom in if that seems confusing).



Coming soon: why I love my job (it involves a haka) and the All Blacks take on the Aussies...

The All Blacks

I caught my first full-length All Blacks match last night, during which the All Blacks beat the living hell out of Samoa 101-14 (in football scores, this would be like beating someone 73-3). Amy joined me for a pint down at the local pub to watch the match, which really touched my heart as this was our date night for the week. I am a lucky man.

Rugby happens to be the national sport of New Zealand. Now that I live here I realize that this makes perfect sense because people are of the hardy sort down here. Don't believe me? Last week I ran into two deer hunters while tramping in the Otaki Gorge. They had just finished hiking (oops, that's tramping) seven hours back from their hunting spot. I thought about this for a minute, then asked how they had planned to extricate the deer if they got one. They said, simply, "On our backs."

Seven hours through the mountains with 50 pounds of deer carcass on your back, for fun.

Right.

Anyway, there are a few different professional rugby leagues here. The All Blacks are New Zealand's national team and they are the highest ranking rubgy team in the world, which is pretty amazing given that there are only around 4 million people in this country. They are composed of the best players from all of the professional teams in NZ, so they're a bit like the rugby equivalent of the American Redeem Team (our handpicked olympic basketball team). Ergo, they have a winning record against every other rugby team in the world.

These guys are really impressive to watch. They are very fast, very strong, and very aggressive. They also perform a pregame haka which will make your hair stand on end; it makes the Hawaii football team's imitation look like a preschooler's tantrum. Check out this link to see what I mean (highly recommended if you are male, liked Braveheart, etc.).


Next week there's a huge test match against Australia and I'm not missing that one. Perhaps Amy and I will have to have two date nights, one of which doesn't involve rugby...