Portland Vagabond goes Kiwi

On billboards, helicopters and sphagnum moss

2007-04-20T12:10:00.000+12:00

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

2007-03-31T23:21:00.000+12:00

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?

2006-10-14T14:07:00.000+13:00

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

2006-10-01T19:29:00.000+13:00

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!

2006-09-24T11:30:00.000+12:00

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

2006-09-18T23:44:00.000+12:00

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

2006-09-17T22:51:00.000+12:00

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.

NZ Costs!

2006-09-10T13:08:00.000+12:00

I’m about to go on a bit of a rant. You see – I feel like I’m being nickel and dimed to death. Though really I can only be dimed to death here in NZ. See, they’ve done away with the nickel. Who knows how long ago they did away with the penny, but when I arrived a few short months ago NZ was in the process of changing its change. For the better – they say. This may be true – as the new coins are a bit more logical in their size/weight vs. value. There are $1 and $2 coins as well as 50, 20 and 10 cent pieces now. Prices are rounded up or down at the cash drawer, to the nearest 10 cents. Being new, I’m able to make the shift rather easily. That’s not what has me fired up.

It’s the fees and pricing of things that has me rather peeved. The ones that gets me the most are the bank fees. For example, there are fees every time one uses a debit card (called EFTPOS here. Really. People say “Is that EFTPOS or credit?” when you pull out a card to pay for something. EFTPOS stands for Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale). That fee depends on the type of bank account (or credit union account) one has. With the bank I chose it’s 30 cents per EFTPOS transaction. ATM withdrawal = 50 cents. Withdrawals in person at bank = $1. Discussing issues on the phone with a bank representative = $1. Text banking (balance request via cell phone – 5 free, then 50 cents each after that/month). The list goes on and on… And I chose the bank that seemed to have the lowest fees, and was actually a NZ owned bank – as most of the ones here are owned by Australian based banks. Supporting the local economy, you know…

The internet is the same. For high speed broadband (what I called DSL via the phone lines in the US) costs based on the volume of upload/download usage. If you go over your predicted amount, the service slows down to dial-up speeds for the duration of the month – unless of course you upgrade to the next increment of service.

200MB per month = $29.95

1GB per month = $39.95

5GB per month = $49.95

10GB per month = $59.95

Who knows how much one is going to use?

I suppose, on the good side, these crazy fees have lead to some rather funny commercials. One of my favorites has an elementary school teacher calling her kids together in the school yard. Each has a hoola hoop. “Now what I want you to do,” she instructs her students “is to tell me how many minutes you are going to use your hoola hoops each month for the next two years.” The looks of confusion on their faces are precious – especially as they try to do the math. “If you guess over, you will be charged. If you guess under, well then that’s just a waste, isn’t it.” This one is for a new flexibly priced mobile phone service.

Another ad that I particularly like is for a new fixed-fee bank account. It shows people at random shops buying things, with others coming by while they are still at the cash drawer to take their small cut of the purchase. A person buys a coffee, then someone comes over and takes a sip. “Hmm, that’s quite good,” comments the intruder. Someone buys a new book, only to have someone come rip a few pages out of the book, before it gets put in the bag. A guy buys flowers, but not without someone coming to snag a few from his bouquet, before he leaves the florist… It’s quite funny, and really gets at the point of how one feels paying a bit here and there. Getting dimed to death.

Lastly, just because I find it so amusing, I wanted to share one of my favorite commercials with you. (Click here) The brand apparently has a history of really creative and funny ads, many of which you can find on the internet, if you are so inclined…

Meanwhile, you owe me 32 cents for taking the time to read this.

More another day...

Bryan

Small town expectations meet suspicious Americans attitudes

2006-09-09T22:05:00.000+12:00

I generally think of myself as a trusting guy. Sure I lock the car all the time. But that’s an old habit from my Park Service days – never leave a car unlocked in a visitor center parking lot, or rest stop… There are folks who prey on such trusting souls. But in general, I think I have faith in others. There was that time someone came by Rosenstock, the house I lived in at the Marin Headlands, who was hungry, so I invited him in for a bowl of cereal. There was my complete faith that the Peace Corps, Winrock and the universe would take care of my when I went overseas. Shoot, there was my trust that moving here to NZ was going to work out nicely.

So last weekend, I sort of surprised myself with my suspicious nature. I’d heard my neighbor Mr. Lalor talking with someone for some time in the garage, which abuts my bedroom wall. He’s a sweet old man (94 – same age as my grandma) who seems to have locals buzzing around with some frequency, painting, cleaning, visiting, bringing food. I didn’t think a thing about it, until there was a knock on my door, so I went to say hello.

The guy at my door tells me that they are coming to extend the driveway sometime soon. My car, which is parked in my driveway, is in the way and needs to be moved. ‘Do I have a spare that I can give to him?’

To explain a bit, I share a driveway with Mr. Lalor, as it runs the length of the property past his house and garage, to my front door. Our homes and the garage in the middle are basically all one long structure. There’s a tall fence that runs along the property line next to the driveway. Where I park, at the end of the driveway is the same place that Mr. Lalor used to use when he backed out of his garage to turn around and head out the driveway facing forward. This is no small feat as the space is quite narrow. The fence has dents and scrapes, both fresh and old, to illustrate the challenge turning around here poses.

So the property management folks, and my landlord, Mr. Lalor’s daughter, planned to extend the driveway to set my car free from imminent danger. I’d seen him back out the driveway into the mailboxes one of my first days here, so I expected my rear bumper to be dinged sometime or another if we didn’t stretch the drive a bit.

Now that the time had come, I didn’t quite expect it to come with a request for my keys. While the guy at the door and I had introduced ourselves and shaken hands I wasn’t quite ready to hand him a key to my car. He said the company doing the work was a local road contractor which would send some guys over in between jobs sometime in the next few weeks. My car being parked in the driveway was a problem. ‘So did I have a spare key he could give to them to move the car when they showed up to do the work?’

I came inside to get the key, before thinking about it. When I got to the door, I fibbed a bit, feeling the need to think this one through. I told him I’d have to make a copy, but that I was uncomfortable with giving these road contractor guys a key – (not him, as we were old chums now, after all of 15 seconds of conversation at my front door).

He seemed genuinely put out that I didn’t see the wisdom and simplicity of his solution. I said I didn’t know who or how many guys were at this firm, or what they’d do with my keys. But my biggest concern was that the Subaru Legacy is the most stolen car in the country – which every insurance company told me, when I first got the car. So this wasn’t entirely my suspicious distrusting American attitude. It was based on fact and genuine risk. My increased insurance rates prove it.

I offered to leave a key with Mr. Lalor, but we both realized he’s not around often. He’s a busy guy for his age. Off to church each morning, then to visit his wife each afternoon, who recently made the move to a retirement home, here in town. So odds were he might not be home when they came by…

He said they were good fellas, it’s an old company, been around forever, nothing to worry about. There would probably be more risk leaving the car on the street… Still, I chose to park on the street and hoped I would beat the national odds for Legacy theft.

Now, a week later, the driveway is finished, and my car is still with me. But I’m sure I’ve spread the notion that American’s are distrusting souls. I can live with that.

What do you think? Would you have given the guy a key? Does small town trust have its limits?

West Coast Tour

2006-08-28T21:20:00.000+12:00

My first projects include upgrading a few small campgrounds in the Greymouth area. As I discussed in the previous post, upgrading campgrounds to the new standards (just approved last week) is new to DOC. As part of my orientation to see what types of features, facilities and amenities are offered at other campsites, I took a trip to see several other DOC campgrounds from Greymouth all the way south to Haast Pass.

Sunrise in the Haast valley, heading east into the Pass.

All I can say is – Wow. New Zealand deserves its reputation as a stunningly beautiful country.

Sun setting over Ship Creek.

While I won’t bore you with the photos I took of picnic tables, toilets, retaining walls and fee stations, I do have some photos of the scenery that I’d like to share. Here are a few of the lakes where you can stay in one of DOC's campgrounds.

Lake Mapourika has two campgrounds and several boat ramps.
The campgrounds are set to be upgraded (by someone else,
as they're in a different district) in the next year or so.

Lake Ianthe has a cozy little campground that invites you to stay for days.

Special thanks go out to all of my friends at PP&R who blessed me with a nice pair of binoculars (my old ones never seemed to line up properly, so these are great). Ron, you picked the right pair. Thanks!

So, for the bird nerds in the crowd, I saw a few fun birds on my driving tour of the coast. I have pictures of the brilliant environs in which they live, but sorry - no photos of the birds themselves. For those, click here.

Along the shores of Lake Ianthe, I saw many Tomtits and Fantails, as well as a pair of Black Swans. Further down the coast, while enjoying the alpenglow of sunset wash over the mountains, I heard the shrill cries of the rather uncommon Variable Oystercatchers as they ran in and out with the tide.

View of the Southern Alps from Haast Beach.

Driving the coast road, I wound my way from one valley to the next, crossing creeks that spilled out of the native bush, which covers the flanks of the mountains.

A view into the NZ bush, or temperate zone rain forest,
near Lake Matheson and Fox Glacier.

On the shelf of flatlands between the mountains and the sea were farms, sprinkled with sheep, cows, and one of New Zealand’s odd-looking native birds, the Pukeko, or Purple Swamphen.

A bit of farmland at the foot of the mountains,
graced with a rainbow.

The largest of the tourist attractions along the drive are the two glaciers - Fox and Franz Josef, which are some of the only glaciers still advancing anywhere on Earth. Nearly 500,000 visitors a year come to see the glaciers, crowding the small villages that serve them. As part of my training, I spent a day being introduced to the art of trail building from one of the masters.

View of Fox Glacier in the mist.

Regardless of the traffic on the coast road, one is forced to practice good manners while driving, as the 200 mile stretch from Greymouth to Haast features nearly 30 one-lane bridges, including the longest in the country, featuring two turn out bays to allow passing.

The entrance to one of the shorter one lane bridges.

I found that crossing these bridges was not a problem, as the scenery along the road inspires patience. Tempted to come visit, yet?

More another day.

Bryan

The Cave Creek Tragedy

2006-08-27T17:36:00.000+12:00

There is something that lies in the collective psyche of everyone I work with, of everyone who works for the Department of Conservation (DOC). It shapes the way DOC operates, the way people view their work, the way safety consciousness permeates the agency. I speak of the memory of Cave Creek, a national tragedy that took place in 1995 at Paparoa National Park, just up the road from where I now work. Fourteen people – 13 Outdoor Recreation students and a DOC employee – died with the collapse of a viewing platform hanging out over a cliff overlooking Cave Creek.

Several of the people I work with worked for DOC then and nearly everyone knows someone affected directly by the disaster. In a country where any murder or kidnapping makes national headlines, the scope of this tragedy was huge - leaving the name Cave Creek in everyone's memory.

Even before I arrived here to begin my new job, I’d heard about Cave Creek several times. One of the managers from Portland Parks & Recreation – originally from Australia – had been part of an international group of park managers reviewing what had happened to help learn the lessons of Cave Creek. I heard more about it over dinner with my boss my first night in country, and again over beers with my new co-workers the Friday before I started work. It’s not a raw memory shared with tears, but it’s definitely high in the collective conscious.

Acting on the lessons learned DOC developed a comprehensive system of managing all the ‘visitor assets’ throughout the country, ranging from more rigorous inventorying and inspection for safety, to standardising features. Every bridge, sign, kiosk, platform, toilet, hut, raised walkway – every single human-built structure has been inventoried, tagged and evaluated to determine its condition and its lifespan. Each is regularly inspected by staff, as well as checked by a DOC engineer.

Beyond the engineered structures, standards were developed for assets such as tracks (trails), campsites and huts, based on studies of the people using them and the services they might expect. For example there are three categories of campground: basic, standard or serviced, each with its own set of standards that must be met. The variety of types of tracks is wider, ranging from short stop walks to unmaintained backcountry routes with markers every 50 metres. All of these have been inventoried, assigned a certain category, and are slowly being brought up to the new standards. Most have been minimally maintained all along, but many have suffered from some neglect, as attention was paid to inventorying and maintaining the built structures.

Now, new money has been set aside to upgrade some of the areas that have been neglected for some time. It is to help with planning and implementing projects such as these that I was hired.

Here are a few websites that discuss the details of Cave Creek:

The DOC website.

The Christchurch Library’s website.

Life in a small town

2006-08-21T19:36:00.000+12:00

I've lived in my share of small towns before now. Point Reyes Station, Bolinas, Port Angeles, and Denali Park all come to mind. But somehow in each of those it was different. Perhaps because I was seasonal, I didn’t get to know people so well that I started recognizing folks as I bumped into them from one place to the next.

During my first week here, I had a nice long talk with the folks at the local paper, as I was putting my ad in the classifieds, trying to find myself a flat. One of them called me back as soon as they’d taken an ad for a flat available, before it ran in the next day’s paper, just to be helpful. Then I ran into her at a store later that day, where she asked me if I’d seen the place yet and if it had worked out. (I had. It hadn’t.)

The property manager dealing with rentals told me her colleague was moving to Oz (Australia), and I should see if she had any furniture for sale. When I spoke to her colleague, Lisa, she told me her family had all claimed things. Later that weekend, as I was poking through things at a garage sale, Lisa came out of the kitchen to say hi – having recognized my voice…

These sorts of things happen every day. Pretty soon, I’ll know everyone, and they’ll all know me. A curse and a blessing, I suppose.

Have you ever stayed sitting in your car for a bit, to hear the end of a story, or a song you like? No need for that here. The local radio station stitches us all together with a musical thread winding in and out of shops, homes, and cars throughout the coast. There are other radio stations, but only one local to the west coast. Lucky for me, it’s music I enjoy, so it’s playing in my car as I drive around town. As I leave the car to go into the video store, it’s playing in there, so I hardly miss a beat, or a news story. As I walk next door to the dairy (read bakery/café), it’s playing in there as well. The same goes for the gas station, grocery store and just about every where else.

One of my favorite things about the small town – or perhaps its just New Zealand, but I find that hard to imagine – is the level of trust for everyone. When I was looking at cars to buy, each of the dealers in town let me take out cars for a test drive, without so much as looking at my license, or any ID. “I work at the local DOC office.” “Ok, good as gold, mate.” They know where to find me. When I was unsure about buying the Subaru, they let me take it for the weekend, see if I liked it, have it looked over by a mechanic. No money or ID changed hands (though I had already dropped nearly $600 renting a car from them for two weeks). I took it to ChCh (Christchurch) for the weekend, and they were fine with that. Then when I wasn’t able to muster all the cash right away, they signed the car over to me anyhow, and said come back in a few days when I had the cash. “No worries mate. Good as gold.” And so it was.

The same goes for the smaller shops. I was looking at some pillows for my new couch the other day, but wasn’t sure which ones to get. The store told me to take all three sets home, see what I thought, and bring back the ones I didn’t want. They wrote down what I took, the prices, and my phone number, gave me their business card and let me walk out the door.

While it may all seem like Andy Griffith-land here, I should tell you DOC (or the Department of Conservation, where I work) has been the victim of theft twice in the last week. Last week someone broke into one of our camping lodges and stole the hot water heater and our washing machine. Then over this past weekend someone stole the tractor we’ve had parked for weeks at the foot of a trail we’re upgrading. Seems hard to imagine someone can go about using that locally without explaining where they got a new tractor… We’ll see if it turns up.

Settling in

2006-08-07T23:27:00.000+12:00

I flew across the Soupthern Alps from Christchurch as the final leg of my 26 hour journey from LAX to my new home. My boss had found me temporary accomodation here in a local guest house, catering mostly to hospital staff and a few others. It's been a good landing spot, but it isn't where I want to stay for too long. I want my own space, so as soon as I arrived I began looking for a place to live. Greymouth is the biggest town on the coast, and it is somewhat of a booming town, with new mines opening in the hills nearby. So the housing market is tight. I've seen many places over the past few weeks, some pretty remarkable, some remarkably not pretty. But patience and persistence paid off, and I'm moving into my own place this week.

So yesterday I drove over the hill, from Greymouth to Christchurch, through Arthur's Pass, one of only 3 ways through the Southern Alps, crossing from the west coast through the Canterbury plains to the south island's biggest city. Another way across, Lewis Pass, is within my office's jurisdiction. There's a campground and trailhead there that I'll be working on in the next few months. But more on that later.

Arthur's Pass is a National Park, and justifiably so. It was stunning. It was hard to stay focused on my mission to Christchurch - to visit the used car lots and see if the '93 Subaru I was driving was the deal I thought it was. In the end it was, and I've bought it.

But along the way I had to stop to take a few photos, as so many of you have been telling me I needed to do so I could prove that the rumors were true: that my move to NZ was not a fools errand, but an inspired life choice. I hope it was.

Here's some of why I think so... A small pond frozen over at the summit of Arthur's Pass. This place begged me to get out and hike... But it will have to wait for another day. For I had to continue on to the big city of Christchurch (300,000) to check out the car yards, and furniture stores...

More another day.

Bryan

Getting started with this blog

2006-08-07T21:49:00.000+12:00

So I don't really know what I'm doing here in terms of making a blog, yet... But I have wanted to share some stories and some photos with folks since I've arrived here, so I'm jumping in.

So before I get to the photos, here's a bit of an update on how things are going. I must admit that picking up my life and moving to somewhere I've only been to once when I passed through the train station is a bigger deal than I'd really anticipated. There's the usual stuff with getting started in a new place. Finding a new place to live, anew car, filling my new home with everything from plants to a bed to silverware... I brought very little.

Then there's moving to a place where no one has known me any longer than the day I got off the plane. And then there's learning the new language. True - they speak English here. But I forgot how different their accent and the local idioms can be. I sit around during smokoh (our twice daily coffee/tea break) and find myself as lost as if folks were speaking Portuguese, at times. I suppose they find my accent as hard to understand as I do theirs, but as some have pointed out, they've got the advantage of having grown up listening to American TV and movies, so at least they're somewhat familiar with my accent.

Greymouth is my new home. It's the biggest town on the West Coast, where us Coasters live. It's the commercial and urban hub for the 35,000 folks who live on the coast, with less than 10,000 total. The rest are spread from Karamea to Haast, which is several hours drive in both directions. It's got a branch office of all the major banks, several large grocery stores, equivalents to a K-Mart, Home Depot and small department store, a few cafes, and yet for the life of me I spent a week in search of a lamp that would hold a bulb brighter than a refrigerator bulb and couldn't find one that I was happy with. I wasn't being too picky, really. I found one that held a 60 watt bulb (the largest capacity I could find for a free-standing desk lamp) but it took a style of bulb I'd never seen (pins at the bottom rather than a screw in type) and so didn't buy. Frankly it was pretty dim anyhow. I couldn't read by it, which was the reason for buying it to begin with. Reading from he light of bulb hanging 10 feet above from the ceiling is rather a challenge, without sitting upright in one's bed.

Anyhow, I'm learning to appreciate Greymouth's charms, including it's natural beauty. For example, Greymouth is famous for the 'barber', a cold winter wind that whips down the Grey river valley to the sea, keeping parts of town noticably colder than others, and bringing with it a beautiful fog some mornings. I took this picture on my way to work one morning. The next day the front page of the local paper had a similar photo. I guess I'm not the only one with a bit of civic pride.

More another day...

Bryan