On billboards, helicopters and sphagnum moss

Standing at my bus stop in Portland used to make me feel like I was witness to a living breathing organism that was the city. I would watch the city come awake each day. I watched the comings and goings of the Flexcar parked at my bus stop for the eco-friendly car sharing folks. I watched delivery trucks dropping off kegs and breads and other supplies at the mix of restaurants up the street. I watched novice bus riders repeatedly check their watches and compare them with the posted schedules to see when the next bus would come. I watched the muffler shop across the street open its doors for the day. I watched a lone protester with his “They do bad work” sign march back and forth in front of the muffler shop during rush hour for days.

Gratuitous and unrelated photo of New Zealand’s native bush.

It's beautiful, eh? This is a creek near Oparara Arches at the northern end of the West Coast.

And I watched with interest as the billboard over my bus stop was routinely changed every few months. Somehow before that I thought that billboards were painted on or pasted up like wallpaper, but here at least they seemed to be some large pre-printed canvas stretched and clipped over the corners of the frame. Sometimes there were tidbits that had to hang over the edges, a giraffe’s neck stretched up above the top of the frame, or an umbrella poking out beyond the edges. These required extensions to be added onto the framing, so I'd see the crew up on scaffolding around the billboard working their magic.

The hanging of billboards was done in relative obscurity. Just a regular part of the city’s morning routines – the garbage being collected, people collecting cans from the recycle bins left at the curb, storefront sidewalks getting swept, people lining up for their morning coffee fix. About the only time I even consciously thought about billboards was when some friends were in one that we produced at my old job - pick up the poop, for all you dog walkers out there.

Recently our billboard (I think there's only one here in Greymouth) changed and it was front page news in the local paper. I admit to a discreet smile over this fact. How 'small town', I thought. It’s hard not to make comparisons – that’s part of the fun of moving overseas, experiencing new places. Thinking back on how routine billboard changes felt in Portland made me think how truly far Greymouth is from big city life.

The billboard that was being replaced was an image of some coal miners decked out in their helmets and other gear, a few coal smudges here and there, with a pitch for how the coal company is part of the community. I’d noticed it before. I would have guessed the photo was staged, with models. It was an advertisement after all. But it turns out they were real miners in the photo, as the article discussed how this was the end of their high profile existence. It listed each of them by name and in which mines they worked. I didn't know any of them, but certainly others in town must. They were famous apparently.

Well, the new ad is by the same coal company featuring the rescue helicopter they sponsor here in town. The new advertisement was in honor of rescue helicopter awareness month. In fact, this weekend they're having an open house to kick off the month. Stop by, if you're in town.

Now I didn't know there was such a month - but I must say that on the coast here helicopters are a critical part of the infrastructure. If cities are indeed living breathing creatures, then in Greymouth choppers take their turns as muscle, adrenalin and red blood cells, keeping things alive here. There aren’t that many things in the air at this edge of the island on the edge of the earth, so I notice whenever anything flies over head.

There’s a daily flight in and out to Wellington (run by the local reclusive Christian community/not-quite-sure-its-not-a-cult/story for another day), and a few helicopters buzzing around. The choppers are particularly busy now with the fall rut on (or the roar as they call it locally), as hunters all need to be flown into their favorite backcountry hunting sites. In my job we use helicopters all the time to schlep gear and people to and from back country sites for servicing huts, doing track repairs, that sort of thing. They’re such a key part of the work that we know each of the local pilots by name. We know their strengths and weaknesses, their preferences for how to string up gear or which weather they’ll be willing to fly in or not. I've flown with two of them, and been to a safety briefing by the third. While the local miners may not be high profile in my life, the pilots certainly are.

Not too long ago one the pilots, Paul, hit an overhead cable when assisting with a police search of the coastline for the body of someone who had gone missing. He ended up with a bit of cable in his spine, but maneuvered the helicopter to a safe landing spot above the rocky shore before the crash. Everyone survived, but he was in the hospital for some time. His recovery and the investigation about the accident was a frequent discussion around the smoko table at work.

Following that incident, Paul was required to provide a refresher safety briefing for some of his regular customers – including us. So our whole crew went out there one day for an hour-long inspection, safety briefing and tour of his new helicopter. Every mistake these pilots make is dissected and discussed, as New Zealand is extremely safety conscious. (Maybe that’s just DOC, but it seems to be a theme here.) So there will continue to be discussions about why that cargo door hadn’t been secured that one time, or when a first time passenger wasn’t given a proper pre-flight safety briefing. But to me, this guy really knows his stuff. Everything had been thought through. The detail that sticks with me the most was that windows are to be washed only with an up/down motion, so if any scratching does occur, it won’t be confused for power lines during flight.

What I found most interesting that day, however, had nothing to do with helicopters. It was a story Paul’s father told during the special smoko feast they served after the safety orientation. One of his new ventures, now that he had handed the piloting over to his son, is growing, harvesting and drying sphagnum moss. Others in the world do this as well, primarily for the horticultural market. Think hanging flower baskets. But he's arranged to be the exclusive supplier for a US-based entrepreneur who is developing new markets for our local moss which apparently has a unique bacteria or something in it. This American businessman is working to patent a new eco-friendly product which will use a dried derivative of our moss as a non-toxic replacement for chlorine in pool filtration systems. This is going to revolutionize swimming pools. There are also some medical applications in wound care that will reduce the use of toxics in the medical industry. I forget the details on this one, but that's to hit the market in the next few years as well.

Paul and his father aren’t on the new billboard. They're not getting that sort of high profile exposure. Yet in hearing these stories, Greymouth didn’t seem so disconnected from the world. Small town? Definitely. It may be far from big city life here, but it isn’t as isolated as I would have thought.

An unsettling quiet

Standing on the bow of the Fiordland Navigator in one of the side channels of Doubtful Sound, the water was as smooth as glass. All motors had been turned off. As I stared at the glacier-carved rock covered with a thin layer of life clinging to the shallow soil, I was struck by the silence.

View from the deck at our quiet place
(taken after our quiet time, when cameras were back in action)

In part I was impressed that the entire boat load of 80 some souls stood motionless, no cameras clicking, no fidgeting, a collective moment of stillness to appreciate the grandeur around us. But the silence was also striking for what it implied.

The trip my friends and I were on had begun the afternoon before. It was blessed with sun, which is not the norm for an area that measures rain in feet, not inches. That first afternoon we motored our way out to the open ocean to visit a seal colony on the rocks. On the way back, there were kayak explorations along the edges of the fiord, with a larger tender boat for those of us not up to kayaking.

A string of kayakers exploring the fiord

Throughout the trip we were lavished with food, and a fantastic naturalist sharing tidbits on local natural history and geology. On the morning of our second day we had dolphins visit us, before we pulled into that narrow arm of the fiord for our moment of stillness.

View from the bow heading up the fiord

The captain had told us we were in for a treat; that he needed our help to make that moment special. Aside from the fidgeting of a few kids, we all complied, sitting, listening, and appreciating the stillness. The quiet brought a mixture of feelings.

I was in total bliss at being in such a remote and wonderful place; at sharing that quiet moment with friends who had traveled around the world to spend their holidays with me. The place just feels old. It is about as unpopulated by humans as any place in the country. We were tucked away inside the World Heritage Area of Fiordland National Park, which covers 10% of New Zealand’s land mass. These forests have been growing here (and falling down and growing back again) since the time of the super continent of Gondwana, millions of years ago. To be there surrounded by the stillness of the emerald hills, I felt like it could have been anywhen.

Sunrise on a timeless landscape

Yet it also brought sadness. The quiet we were hearing felt almost unnatural, wrong. There should have been countless birds singing their odes to summer, courting new mates, shattering the very silence we were trying to appreciate.

The quiet was reinforcing a feeling I’d had throughout the trip. As full of life as the waters had been, the forest somehow felt empty to me. In part, this was because I know there are no native mammals out there (except for a few bat species), and to me knowing those endless forests had no mammals just made them feel incomplete. But that isn’t the whole story, for today there are mammals out there, all introduced, all wreaking havoc on the native bird populations. It is because of their presence that the bird life here has suffered tremendously, and that was what made the silence so palpable, so painful, that morning.

There are efforts to turn this around. I was reminded of this when I came across a publication on the shelves of the library in my office at DOC titled Restoring the Dawn Chorus. It was a serial title, repeated every few years, with updates on collective efforts to do as the title implies. There are countless non-profits harnessing volunteer energy to do the same thing – control introduced predators, restore habitat and raise and release endangered species. All are important and all are making a difference. These positive efforts are what I hold on to, what make me smile, what renew my faith in our future on this planet.

Yet when I think back on that moment of stillness in the side channel of Doubtful Sound, what I most recall is the bittersweet feeling for what was missing in the unsettling quiet.

Can a country have a color scheme?

It sounds crazy, but I think that New Zealand might have a color scheme. Either that or they are all hiring the same advertising agency.

Across the spectrum of businesses, from the kiwi versions of e-bay and amazon.com to banks and insurance companies there’s a thread running through their branding that projects a youthful, modern image that seems at odds with the reality of life on the coast. See, before I arrived here I was told by several folks that coming to the west coast was like stepping back in time several decades. In many ways this has been true.

Take the sinks for example. When I was looking for a place to live, I found virtually nowhere with the modern-day single-faucet style of sinks. Everywhere is still operating on the older separated hot/cold faucet regime. It sucks. Truly. My mom thinks of them as nostalgic, as this is what she grew up with. I think of this as the exquisite 'scald or freeze' method of torture. Not to be the princess and the pea here, but to wash my hands or do dishes, I have to plug the sink, and run a science experiment until the water approaches a reasonable temperature to put my hands in. I know, it’s not a major hardship in life, but it just seems to me that the world’s modern features are passing us by down here. And it lends to the stepping back in time theory of coastal life.

Why else do I think I’m living in the past? Well, we still have door-to-door salesmen here. Didn’t they die out with Willy Loman? I guess not – as folks stop in our office with some frequency. The OfficeMax sales rep came through with a hot special on office chairs, conveniently timed to when I started and was looking for just such an item. (The nearest OfficeMax is over in Christchurch, three hours away, so trying out different chairs involved weeks of waiting for delivery of trial chairs...) Then there was the unfortunately nick-named “toilet lady” who came through on her South Island circuit to let us know about the latest and greatest in hybrid flush toilet tank systems. A strange one to me is the periodic delivery of a pile of books to a table in our conference room. This is a completely random selection of cookbooks, kids books, calendars, whatever, which are left with an envelope for orders and cash. Next delivery day if there is an order, they take the money, leave the book and a new stack of a dozen or so random treats for us to consider.

But my favorite roving salespeople so far have been this pair of 20-something engineering students who stopped by a week or so ago, making the rounds to the city government offices, highway department and us, at DOC. They were quite snazzy, with one wearing a tie and sweater, the other dressed like a cowboy heading out for a night on the town – with fancy silk shirt, tight jeans and snake-leather shoes. They dropped in to sell us – trash cans. For real. They hadn’t quite designed their new trash cans yet, they had no brochures or drawings to share. They were just curious if we’d be interested. After letting them know we support a pack-it-in pack-it-out ethic and therefore avoid having trash cans in most of our sites, I put them in touch with the fellas who collect the trash where we do have trash cans to see if there were features we might want them to include in their revolutionary new designs. Far be it from me to squelch their entrepreneurial spirit.

Another way the coast is a bit behind is in the commercial sector. Greymouth pretty much shuts down after 5 on work days, and by noon on Saturday. Don’t even try to do much on a Sunday here. Granted some of the restaurants and the grocery stores are open a bit later, and the library keeps long hours until 8 pm one night a week, but overall it does feel a lot like Mayberry here.

So – how does all this relate to the color scheme? Well, when I first arrived here, it was a major shift from big city, big office, to small town, small office. The pace slowed down. I really was entering Mayberry, in a way – not just the town, but the time zone. But at the same time, I was struck by brand logos for companies here that were full of lower case fonts and bright monochrome colors. To me, they felt new, young, fresh, modern. I’m not sure why that is – ask a marketing specialist – the folks who design color schemes at McDonald’s to make you want to eat and leave quickly. Whatever the reason these colors and fonts made me feel this way, there were so many that fit the pattern that I started to take note.

It’s not as if I pay attention to branding or advertising consciously, though if you ask anyone I’ve ever been on a road trip with, they’ll tell you I read signs everywhere. And yes, I’ve been taken with several adverts here in NZ, even shared them with you on this blog. That’s because they were funny. Others that I’ve seen here have outright pissed me off – the one for a product that will make a woman’s underarms more attractive to her partner comes to mind, as if people should be worrying about that in this crazy world.

I suppose that the youthful, modern feel of the all the branding struck me because they imply we’re in the 21^st century, when so many of the signs here in Greymouth were telling me the opposite. Is there really a national color scheme trying to convince me or others that kiwi culture is modern? No. But having picked up on this pattern, I’m going to keep noticing more examples. I can’t really help myself. And as I wander down the street this afternoon (it’s Saturday here as I write this), when I see the Kiwibank and AMI insurance storefronts – they'll be closed. I'll feel both connected to and conscious of the distance of the modern world that exists over the mountains and elsewhere in NZ. Here in my little town, I’ll content myself with stunning views and friendly folks. And perhaps soon, spiffy new trash cans.

Things I love about NZ

Sometimes it’s the little things in life that make me happy. Like a good pair of scissors. A phone call from a friend. Snuggling under the covers and going back to sleep as I listen to the sound of rain on my tin roof. Beyond the beautiful scenery, the clean green image, and the feeling that I’m living in Middle Earth itself, there are lots of little things that are endearing NZ to me. First are the things that make NZ feel like a compassionate place, a civilized place. Take the grocery store parking lot, where there are designated parking spots near the front door for families with kids, or perhaps, based on the graphic, it’s for those expecting kids. I’m not sure. Either way, I don’t park there.

Another way I find NZ fosters compassion is the right hand rule in driving – basically this requires you to let others turn across your lane of traffic if you’re also turning. Imagine you are driving to the grocery store. Or simply approaching an intersection where you plan to turn right (for those who drive on the right – here we drive on the left, so it’s the opposite). As you approach what will be an easy right turn, you see others trying to turn left across your lane. Well, here, under those circumstances, you would be required to let them cross in front of you, before you turn, even if you are in a designated right turn lane. How civilized. Imagine the reduction in road rage, with people making it easier, rather than harder for others to get where they’re trying to go?

Then there are some fun kiwi-speak terms that I find endearing. One that caught my attention early on was how they verbalize internet addresses. Just go to “Dub dub dub dot” whatever. I’m also quite amused by the way they refer to groups of people when ‘flicking’ them an e-mail. I’ve heard groups of guys referred to fellas and lads. One person I get group e-mails from addresses us rather bluntly as “People”. But my personal favorite was one from a friend in the office who wrote to us all as “chaps and chappesses.” She’s from England, if that helps explain it in any way? I suppose my referring to groups of people as ‘ya’ll’ or ‘folks’ or ‘gang’ is just as endearing (or strange) to them.

Another endearing habit I’ve noticed is the inappropriate reading material I’ve seen in several small restaurants and cafes. By inappropriate I mean – wrong publication for the wrong audience. In several places I’ve eaten – including my favorite Indian place here in town where I’m now a regular – they have a stack of trade journals out for folks to read. Admittedly, if I go somewhere for takeaway I might appreciate some reading material while they prepare my meal. Perhaps an issue of Forest and Bird, or NZ Geographic, the local paper or even North and South. But reading up on the latest trends in cash registers in Hospitality? No thanks. Do I really want to learn how to open my own franchise, or get a product comparison of commercial espresso machines, or learn the actual price of tea in China by reading Tea and Coffee while waiting for my moccacino? Not really. I’m not sure why they think I would, but I find it quite a kick that they do…

Then there’s the habit so many people have of walking around bare foot. Mind you – it’s just coming out of winter here, not the lazy days of summer. Yet I’ve seen moms with kids in tow, teenagers, and regular ol’ adults strolling in and out of shops, grocery stores, everywhere – all bare foot. I’m not sure why it’s such a big deal in the US, but it’s just not allowed there in so many places. A friend here at work told me he was told to leave a grocery store in the US because he was barefooted. I always assumed it was a health code thing – though why I’m not sure. Would you eat off the floor in a grocery store? Isn’t most everything packaged (or over-packaged) so there’s no worry about germs? The risk of stepping on broken glass was the reason my friend was given. I think the solution there is to SWEEP IT UP. Oh well. That worry seems not to have made its way here, so people stroll around as they see fit. In fact my friend told me most of the kids in his elementary school ran around barefoot. Bravo, I say.

All of these things amuse me. But the thing that I find most endearing about New Zealand is its ability to not take itself too seriously. I get this sense both from talking with people, and from the media. The epitome of this is seen in a national campaign on by the local Automobile Association to come up with the 101 best things about NZ. They’re planning a TV show and a publicity campaign based on the results. Right now they’re having a think about it, as they say here, by asking the public to share what they love about NZ. They’ve got a wonderful commercial on that you have to go watch. (Click here, then click on the AA logo at the bottom of the page, where it says “AA 101”.) It illustrates perfectly their ability to adore their country and laugh at it, at the same time. There’s the beautiful scenery, mixed in with the local folk and strange sites. They go on and on about New Zealand, with tongue firmly in cheek. “As beautiful as a toilet and as green as the kids after a coastal road… We live in the best country in the world – well, for miles anyway.” At the end, the announcer, all choked up, says “I love you New Zealand.” I’m starting to agree.

Just one more reason to love NZ...

I'm a resident!

This is just a quick post to say "I'm a NZ Resident" now. The paperwork was gathered, the documents reviewed, the hoops jumped, the fees paid, the passport stamped, so now it's official.

A friend at work says getting residency, rather than just my work permit, is the difference between "I work here" and "I live here."

I'm glad to say that I live here now. Here's a photo of where:

Lovely Greymouth, New Zealand
with the Grey River spilling out into the Tasman Sea

An unwanted gift… Calling all cat lovers

Help! There’s this cat, a likeable enough critter, who is trying to win me over. It’s an uphill battle, as I’m allergic. So I tend to avoid cats. Therefore, they love me. Even the most anti-social cats find their way to me, to seductively slink around my legs, letting their tails casually curl around my calves. Sometimes I can be won over. I’ll scratch them a bit, always mindful to wash my hands before scratching my eyes.

But this one, my neighbor’s cat, wants into my house as well as my heart. That just can’t happen. I call it Spook – and I guess he’s a he. Apparently he adopted Mr. Lalor and his brother, who lived in my flat before I did. Mr. Lalor fell to his charms, but never went so far as to name him (or determine if he’s a boy or not.) When I was checking out my flat, before moving in, Spook was in the bedroom, on the bed frame that had been left here. So I know he’s used to coming in. But I just won’t go that far.

At first, he was just curling up on my front door mat, outside my sliding glass door each night. Surely I would notice his persistence and give in, right? No. He warmed my heart a bit, but my line is drawn. I’m standing firm. So then he started to bring me gifts, trying to persuade me. But this was his mistake. See, his gifts are dead birds.

Spook delivering one of his gifts.

The first time I heard a constant meowing outside the door. I wasn’t sure what was going on, so I looked outside. He was sitting there patiently waiting for me to ooze praise and welcome him into my home. I stared at him, and then went back inside. Huh. I wasn’t sure exactly what to do. I didn’t want to encourage him – and have him kill more birds. But I wanted to let him know I appreciated his effort. I left some leftover salmon paté (don’t ask – it was a mistake) which was gone in the morning. But that didn’t work. It only encouraged him. There’ve been at least half a dozen ‘gifts’ now. Spook is single handedly disrupting the local breeding season.

And such nice birds too. The Silvereye, a cute little green and peach thing, with a ring around its eye.

So I’m asking your help. What do I do? How do I get Spook to stop bringing me gifts?

_________________________________________

For the birders in the crowd, here’s a link to the Silvereye’s bio, and it’s song.

Smoko – not just a tea break

Each day at 10 am and again at 3 pm is smoko (rhymes with loco in Spanish). Originally a smoke break, it has become the universal term for tea (or coffee) break. Now this is not just a time to run across the street to Starbucks, grab a coffee and head back to the desk. First of all, the nearest Starbucks is 3 hours away. (Do I hear weeping out there?) It’s more about the break than the tea. And it’s mandatory in a way. It’s considered odd to stay at your desk and skip smoko.

I’m not sure if every work place in NZ is so consistent, but DOC certainly is. When I spent time touring around looking at other DOC sites, I found the crew at Franz Josef Glacier Visitor Centre all heading back to work as I pulled in just after smoko. At Nelson Lakes I joined the gang for smoko under the eaves of their staff building for a cuppa – all of us lined up on benches looking at the rolling hills surrounding Lake Rotoiti. This is where the Southern Alps lose their elevation, coming down to join the rest of us here on Earth.

View of Lake Rotoiti - this is a duck's perspective -
not quite the view from the Nelson Lakes smoko room. But close.

In my office, we aren’t blessed with such a view. The smoko room is nothing flash – just a kitchen with a conference table and some windows looking out on the street. This is fine, as smoko, for me, is more about the chance to learn and share stories. It has the feel and noise of a big family holiday gathering crossed with the workaday discussions of small town diner. This is where I’m learning to speak, and understand kiwi English, and Maori place names.

Our smoko room in Greymouth.

Twice a day we head down to the smoko room, cordless phone in hand to respond if the outside world intrudes, to read, snack, talk and drink. The drink of choice is tea, though I prefer coffee. My choices are two variations of instant. (They had a French press up at Nelson Lakes – I’m planning to introduce one to my office soon.) Tea, coffee, milk and sugar are all provided by DOC, as the employment contract negotiated by the unions for all DOC employees requires that it be provided. In fact, we can get reimbursed for the lost opportunity on days we are out working in the field. Not because we don’t take smoko break, mind you, but because we have to bring our in a flask (think Thermos, not vodka).

Smoko outdoors on the shores of Lake Brunner.

The conversation during smoko ranges from local politics to national, most often based on whatever is in the local paper, which lives on the smoko table. I’ve learned about the recent scandal in Parliament, as the National party leader was outed for having an affair. (Seventy percent of kiwis apparently think this is no cause for resignation.) News at the local level is equally interesting. There’s the coal company’s plan to reroute their truck traffic through a small town, rather than down the more distant and appropriate state highway. Then there’s the activist dressed up as a giant snail to protest the treatment of endangered snails being rescued off a mountain top and stored in ice cream containers inside large refrigerators in the regional DOC office about a half hour south of here. I’m not kidding – click here to check it out. (I’m pretty sure these are different than the fridges in their smoko room…)

Smoko is the time for the guys in the biodiversity team to unwind and share stories from the front lines of enforcing the rules during the craziness that comes with whitebait fishing season. It’s when we’ve discussed the unseen arrival of Safety First signs all around the office, as well as retirement schemes, and reimbursement for ‘wet time’, which is working in the field when you get soaked through. Smoko is also when I’ve heard some scary stories about tractor roll-overs, ATV mishaps, and chainsaw hazards.

When the week comes to a close, smoko turns into the Social Club. At the end of the day on Friday is ‘beer o’clock’. In the fridge, just awaiting our arrival, is a variety of beers for members of the social club. Membership is easy – just drop money for your beer in the container provided. Or scribble your name on the IOU sheet in there. That’s fine too. Several folks stick around to swap more stories, plan for the week ahead, or the weekend. Happy hour comes to us. I have to join in. It’s all part of my education as a kiwi.