I saw the Mountain

The clouds finally lifted yesterday and Mt Egmont/Taranaki stepped out of the landscape. This is the view from my room at the hospital hostel.

First day at work

Just a quick update.

Arrived in New Plymouth on Sunday evening. Met by the accomodation manager for the hospital, Graeme. He then showed me around the hostel which has pretty much everything one could ever need - including golf clubs. There's a gym with a pool and squash courts.

There's supposed to be some very beautiful mountain right next to the town, but it's been overcast and raining since i've arrived. Apparently the weather improves by the end of december.

Had the first day of work yesterday. Induction (introductory talks) til one o'clock, when I got to meet some of the other staff starting that day. There's a good vibe, people are keen to go surfing, sailing, etc...

I then met with Diane, my supervisor, and she sent me to cover for a doctor who was sick til 4pm then on-call til 11pm. so, pretty busy, all in all. it was a good way to get back into the swing of things. i'd forgotten how cumbersome the bleep (they actually have pagers here) can be.

So... I also found out about my job description. I fill in for junior doctors doing surgery or orthopedics who are on leave or off sick. So when neither happens, I get a day off!! Which sounds good, but I don't think it'll happen too often. Today is one of them so I'm gonna do a little bit of housekeeping, buy some shirts, board, running shoes.

Alrighty then, so that's about it, overall, very happy to be back at work with a renewed enthusiasm.

Hope you're all well,

Sancos

End of the Meandering

We drove up the fast and straight road from Dunedin to Christchurch, only stopping to check some very curious sedimentary rock formations on the beach (see pictures). They were very old rocks... There we found a hostel, dropped the car off and set about enjoying our last night as a foursome. Which we did with stoical enthusiasm into the night, at the local Irish pub. There was a ridiculous live band - with an overexhuberant guitarist, a kurt cobain lookalike, and a strange looking drummer - and a table football. During the last game of 'fooseball', we were joined by a Kiwi dude who was completely off his face, not very helpful, but very keen. He also fancied himself to be a bit of a psychic, so we let him guess where we escaped to...

We got up early the next morning, said our short emotional goodbyes to the Canadian Girls and took the plane to Auckland. On arrival, we wasted no time, went up the Sky Tower, the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere, which provides a splendid vista of Auckland, the Harbor and surrounding hills. We then got straight on a bus for the Bay of Islands, 4 hours North.

Auckland Harbour and Bridge from the SkyTower

There we spent a couple of big nights and a relax day. Sampling the local backpacker pubs and clubs. We also took the ferry to Russell, which is the site of the first European town in NZ, once dubbed the worst town in the Pacific as it was frequented by sailors who jumped ship, Australian criminals and such like. It was also the site of the early Mauri rebellion after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840 something. This treaty which is generally accepted to be the foundation of Mauri/Pakeha (european) relations still provides plenty of food for debate...

View of Russell from Paihia Lookout Point

Then I headed back to Auckland, leaving Alex in Paihia for an extra night. On the bus journey back Parnell, I reflected on what had been been good times traveling around NZ with this Genevois as a travel buddy/wing man. I checked into the Lantana Lodge, the original landing site, and went out to sample the Auckland nightlife with local connaissances.

I've now caught up with today... I'm about to get the bus to New Plymouth where I'll be checking in to the hospital accomodation before starting work tomorrow. I spoke to a Scotsman yesterday who still played rugby - loose head prop, at the age of 51. He summed up my feelings when he described the feeling of anticipation with a good word that escapes me as I write these. Anyway, so the meanderings end and work begins soon.

Cool

South Island ... La suite...

We arrived in Queenstown after a scenic drive over Haast Pass where the melting snow makes for some very pictoresque waterfalls.

Becky, Caylee and a waterfall

The weather was finally starting to feel like summer: Warm, clear skies, nice sunset. We met up with a friend of our two Canadian travel companions at an open-air bar concert. The band had only been together 2 weeks but put together some really mellow instrumental tunes which, much to my delight, often switched to DnB. One of the members use to play with Salmonella Dub, a well-known, Enzed (NZ) dub reggae group. So it was my first glimpse of local music royality. Great stuff. We then went on to a some crazy themed night in one of the clubs til early morning.

The next day, summer had left. and it rained and rained and then rained some more. So we just had a day of chilling out. The highlight was a delicious burger at Fergburger's. This was a spot that had been recommended to Alex way back in Geneva. All the produce was sourced locally and the result was probably the best burger I can ever remember eating.

Fergburger, Queenstown... Hit

We continued the evening in some bar which had Guitar Hero - which is actually quite an addictive game, and the World Bar where cocktails were served in teapots with an optional straw. As a local put it to me, in NZ teapots are meant to be downed. Lesson learnt. The other cool thing about that place was that payment was decided with the roll of a dice (if you rolled 5 or more, it was free). So, many free drinks and a merry time.

We left Queenstown the following morning. But not without sampling the local speciality. The Kawarau Bridge Bungee Jump. It is the longest running bungee site in the whole wide world - 20 years and no fatalities. Three of us (Caylee, Alex and myself) signed up, got our weight written on the back of our hands - to adjust the bungee cable, and then got ready to jump. It was pretty chilly outside but the anticipation pretty much blanked it out of mind. I chatted to the crew as they tied my legs tightly - the dude had recently been to Lausanne. Got up, hopped to the end of the board, and pushed out as hard as I could, shouting 'BUNGEEeeeeeeiiiiiiiihhh' as loud as possible. It was like taking a dive from a high spot. Exhilarating, over quickly, and as soon as it was over I wanted to do it again. I didn't and we left for Dunedin.

Queenstown on our departure, soon before Alex jumped off the Hawaraubridge for some Bungee Action

In Dunedin, I had a couple of 'connaissance' from the UK I was keen to see again. Leanne from the DTMH course and Kiren from Medical School. I was lucky enough to catch with both of them which was great. We drove up the Otago Peninsula stretching out next to Dunedin to check out the local Albatross colony, the only one in the world on mainland. We got sight of these magestic birds as they took advantage of the strong wind on the peninsula to glide effortlessly around their nesting areas. We did not get very close however as the observatory normally used to view the birds was closed for the nesting/mating season.

A shot of the great birds in flight, this was a close as we got.

East side of Dunedin Peninsula

Albatross gliding against the strong winds.

Next up was the Cadbury Chocolate Factory tour, which was so boring that Alex and I decided to do everything the tour guide suggested (such as 'Why don't you eat this Moro - candybar - now and we'll give you another'). This was a good game until I got the lady to ask Alex to finish the bag of chocolate that came with the tour. It was now a great game... 15 minutes later, Alex was left feeling a little ill but mightily triumphant.

Alex, the tour guide, and me on the old Milk Truck. Alex eating a bagfull of nauseatingly rich chocolate bars in one go. No umpalumpas were sighted.

The slightly dissappointing chocolate factory tour was followed by the Speight Gold Ale Brewery Tour which was much more fun as the guide made us we go all around the brewery before unleashing us onto the free sample bar. We made sure we had a good taste of each of the six different types of beer, several times.

Speight's Brewery tour, making sure we really tasted the beer

I then met up with my UK contacts near the town centre which is known as the Octagon, because it is shaped like .... an octagon.

The most photographed building in NZ on the Octagon, Dunedin. Just thought I'd add to the stat.

But it wasn't all good, I managed to completely mess up a booking for flights back up to Auckland. The lady at STA travel understood 25th when I said 21st of November. So she proceeded to make a booking, take payment, and almost issue the tickets before I noticed the misunderstanding. The changes cost us money and the next cheapest ticket was a day earlier, thus cutting short our time in Christchurch to one night only...

The South Island

- A billboard in Wellington, for Mo-Mite. All in the spirit of Movember, a growing your moustache during the month of November to raise awareness of prostate cancer. A kiwi thing which is quickly spreading to many places around the world, including Cornwall... -

So we got up early, got to the ferry, found out i'd booked for the wrong direction, but this is New Zealand and they were quite cool about it. Wellington we left grey and cloudy, but we were soon basking in bright sunshine as we made our way across the Cook Straight.

Grey Wellington

Here comes the sun - Welcome to the Malborough Sound, South Island

The ferry takes a very scenic route through the Malborough Sound, to Picton. This town was named after one of Wellington's officers, a particularly brave one at that - according to Alex. We then traveled to Nelson and had some mexican food and a few beers on Trafalgar St. I think there's a theme there.

The menu at the Mexican Resto, you tick boxes to order your food.

There we met a couple of girls from British Columbia, Becky and Caylee, one of whom was on crutches as she'd broken her foot in a tragic and somewhat freakish surfing accident. They quickly challenged us at table football, which we figured was a mistake - as we demonstrated with our superior European technique -, but they were good banter and we offered to drive them around the South Island which they accepted. A little more about Nelson, it's a pretty chilled out town with a very nice beach and some nice cafes.

The next day we visited the Abel Tasman National Park, the smallest in NZ. This park, named after the Dutch captain who discovered New Zealand, boasted some pristine forests and diverse wild life. The main attraction is sea kayaking, whence one can observe penguins, seals, cormorans and many other species whilst perusing the wild coastline. Alex and I booked a boat to taxi us up the coast so we could walk back. We'd planned for about 20kms but the walk was extended by 8 or so kilometers as I mistakenly lead us in the wrong direction for about 1 hour as we looked for a 'legendary' suspension footbridge. So after after 6 hours of walking we made it back, tired, sweaty but feeling like heroes, to our car. The walk was made all the more memorable as we were able to take a shortcut along the beach which had been uncovered by the low tide.

We picked up the girls - who'd been chilling by the beach all day, and drove 210km (in 4 hours, it was scenic) to Punakaiki. Although we arrived at the hostel around 11pm, the manager, an eccentric German fellow, waited for us and we all settled down for a well earned rest.

Punakaiki - blow holes and cliff erosions

Alex doing what he does best...

Punakaiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punakaiki) is famed for its rock formation which is limestone which looks like a stack of pancakes (aka Pancake Rocks) and its blow holes, one of which doesn't really blow but makes a very deep guttural sound as water pushes air through it. From there we went down the sinuous West Coast towards the Glaciers, Franz Josef and Fox Glacier. These are tiny towns, right next to... glaciers.

There is also a lake which when the conditions are right (no wind, clear skies) provides a 'calendar' picture of Mounts Cook and Tasman. We got up early the next day (6 in the morning), walked to the other side of the lake. The wind was nowhere to be felt. The surface of the lake was as still as a monastery. But the clouds were low and the calendar picture evaded us. Maybe next time.

From there we went to Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand if not the World. There are over 400 different activities from the usual sky diving to jet boating up a narrow gorge. There are also about one hundred bars and restaurants for a town of 13'000 people. So it was going to be quite intense.

The lake near Waitanga - just before Queenstown

To be continued...