Log 7

Faffing – wasting time, goofing around, procrastinating More from the Brits than the Kiwi’s

Dippy – being a ‘blonde’ or doing sometime stupid.

Monday of our Easter weekend we had booked white water rafting on the Rangitata River. I had never been rafting before due to my younger minds sense of fear, but these days It seems that fear is gone and I’m game for anything adventurous and crazy! Even bungee jumping and skydiving have been added to the list of things to do. Laura and I, recouped by a hot shower and a good nights sleep in a real bed back in Ashburton, headed up the back roads of mid-Canterbury to the Rangitata River gorge. On arrival we were greeted with a made your own sandwich brunch and coffee. Calories and a hot drink were highly recommended by our hosts. They gave us the run down in the back and how to put on all the gear as it was a chilly day and the water was going to be even chillier. Wetsuit, booties, polypro, fleece sweater, orange windjacket, life-jacket, and the all important helmet. They split us into groups and loaded us onto a slightly damp bus, still wet from a pervious trip back from the river. We were guaranteed to get wet. YESSS! At the rivers edge, we took before pictures with our raft guide, Cameron, Cam for short. We met the blonde surfer-esque with dreds at the brunch, who as it turns out, grew up on a dairy farm in the Waikato up north. Always reluctant to talk about our profession due to certain attitudes, we were quite happy to talk with someone that knew the routine and didn’t want to give us their version of the evils of farming. Loaded smiling and giddy into the raft, Cam took us through exercises on steering and explained what would happen when we hit the rapids. With mounting anticipation we finally made it to our first rapid, a grade 2. Into the white water, a huge splash of water into the boat and all over us, some whoop whoops by our brave leader and it was done. AWESOME!! This is gonna be fantastic! Through a few more various 2’s, 3’s, and 4’s it was the same. More water on the

rafters, paddles paddling in organized fury, jumping into the middle to keep all occupants’ IN the boat. Then came the 5’s. First they beached the boats, and took us up a rocky ledge, in wet wetsuits and slippy booties, to view the Grade 5. At this point they allow you to bail out and walk past the 5 as the rest who want to go down them manage without you. NO WAY! I just got more excited! Laura and I pumped up the rest of our crew and back in the boat we went. Paddle, paddle paddle, jump in the center, a drop and a huge wall of water and we were through. High fives all around, and across the

boat to Laura, laughing and cheering, we were already ready for the next one. More rapids and another Grad 5, and we were taken to the jumping rock. The first jump was into a fast moving narrow gorge that takes you through a whirlpool and you have to swim around the corner and give the rafting guide interns practice at saving you with the throw rope.

Now to give you a perspective, that last time I did any kind of jumping from a height into water was when I was about 12 and our Dairy Quiz Bowl team (yes that really does exist) went to the MSU pool and jumped off the high dive platform. I think I was so scared I was shaking and probably closed my eyes tightly and plugged my nose on the way down. This time was no different except I wasn’t scared and I let out a good ol’ yeehaaa! as I jumped off the rock. It was amazing, very very cold, and I was dutifully 'saved' by the interns with the throw rope. Back in the boat we were off to the next set of jump rocks, 3m and 9m due to the water level. 3m jump was successful with another yeehaa and a good a pretty goofy face upon

surfacing. The camera guy on the rock was documenting the trip for everyone. The boat full of army dudes were first to reach the 9m rock ledge, and all of them started whinging and getting scared. Laura and I both decided right then and there that we were jumping off that rock no matter what! Laura told one to get on with it as he faffed around, he yelled back, well why don’t you go then. Laura, not going to miss an opportunity, sidled up to the ledge and off she went. I was next and I just had to keep focusing on the bush across the gorge, look at the bush, look at the bush… A step off, free fall and more free fall, then a splash of icy cold water, I surfaced with both thumbs up and a really retarded face. As evidenced from the picture.

On the calm part of the river, nearing the end of our journey Cam suggested a capsize which many of us were game for except a few that were very cold and didn’t want to get wet again. Pansies!! So instead we did a balancing act with the boat. We all loaded on the back and Cam attached a rope to the front of the raft. We then tipped the boat up on its butt end and balanced it there without capsizing and let the wind use the raft as a sail and turn us around. It was pretty sweet!

Back at the lodge we ended with a big barbecue; sausages, roasted kumara (Kiwi sweet potato) and potatoes, bread and salads, and a review of the pictures featuring our boat with the option to buy them of course. As cool as they were and fairly bargain priced compared to other tourist traps, we purchased a CD and split it between us. Well worth it I think.

A hot shower and a dinner movie ended the day and a really really amazing weekend. I’m really loving the New Zealand outdoors!

Easter Tramping Trip!

G’day all! I’m going to attempt to keep this one shorter as sometimes I get a bit too wordy and it takes too long to read the entries. I left you with promises of more exciting adventures to read about so here it goes.

First, new words I’m learning:

Whinging: complaining

“Sweet as” and “good as gold”: yup sounds good, general acknowledgement that you understand and compliance of directions will be attempted

pugging: when a grazing paddock is muddy or has been chewed down far enough that the stalks are to the ground.

Equally, the Brits are starting to use ‘cool’ and ‘awesome’ because of me. YESSSS!!!

Laura, one of the British locum vets, and I had planned to head off for a tramp for the long Easter weekend. They give you Friday and Monday off of work here for Easter so a good opportunity to go on one of the many many multi-day tramps that New Zealand is famous for. Another vet we work with is a tramping guru and was very excited to give us maps and directions for a 3 day tramp. He was very excited to send us out and I think over estimated our abilities a bit. I think we overestimated our abilities.

We set out on the Cameron River bed, a glacial fed river that is quite cold, near Lake Heron in the Southern Alps. The first day was a 17km hike through the river bed, and up over a bluff where the river gorge was impassable. We started out layered up but quickly realized it wasn’t going to be a cold journey with all the walking and heavy packs. About mid-day we decided shorts and t-shirts were more appropriate. This being my first multi-day backpacking trip ever, I was still trying to figure out what I needed to bring and what could be left behind. However the bottle of wine Laura brought and the bottle of hard cider I had was deemed necessary. There’s always an excuse to carry alcohol. It was also weight we could diminish as the days went by. The walk was quite easy at first, zig-zagging amongst the bramble trees and rocky river bed, dodging the cow poos. That is one thing about New Zealand tramps, they are usually contained within somebody’s pasture land or grazing station so you just have to close gates as you open them and walk through varying species of animal feces.

After lunch, and 4 hours of walking our feet were getting hot and sore, since we spend most of our days in gum boots ( rubber boots) or sitting in the clinic. So seeing the refreshing glacier river next to us we stopped for a foot spa and lunch. In reality it was so cold that you could dip your foot in for about three seconds before it went numb and painful. But after roasting in hiking boots and 27 C (80 F) heat, if felt damn good. I know, I’m whinging about 80 degrees, but hey hot feet are hot feet.

Now, technically we did have topographical maps, and had I paid more attention 8 years ago when the Irish were explaining to me how to read topo maps, we wouldn’t have missed the ‘up and over’ bit. It looks all innocent and logical to read but I’m terrible at estimating distance traveled so instead we carried on along the river bed where we quickly realized the reason for the ‘up and over’. Rapids, rocks, and some very fast moving EXTREMELY COLD water. Right. So Instead of finding the correct trail up and over we foraged our own up a steeper part pulling ourselves up with the long grass as handles, through the brambles, gorse, and dagger bushes. Yes, dagger bushes. The fronds looked soft enough and bendy but they were not, if you grazed the tips they go INTO your leg leaving a bloody wound. They are also well hidden by long grasses and otherflora. By the time we reached the top, our legs were a mess of pin pricks. Thankfully at the top though, we found the trail again marked by T-posts with white tops. YEAH!!

As the light was fading we finally found the hut nestled back in behind hills of rock. The proposed 5-6 hour hike took us 8 hours but between our lengthy lunch, foot spa, and the missed trail we did pretty good. Though, I was never happier to see a wooden cot and a porta-potty. The Cameron Hut is classified as a basic hut, so 9 wooden bunks with plastic mattresses, a water collection barrel, a fancy electric light, and an emergency radio that broadcasted the weather at specific times. On arrival the German hiker that had started out the same time as us was just finishing his supper. I still maintain that he ran part of the trail. As we were finishing our supper of noodles and wine, a group of 10 showed up after dark! 6 kids, and 4 adults. They brought tents and lots of gear so all was good. With so many going in and out the door in the dark it was easy to get confused as to who was who but I swore the same people were going in and out. Turns out, there were 2 sets of twins in the group so there really WERE repeats! Phew! I didn’t think I was that dehydrated.

In the morning, the plan was to go over the saddle of the southern mountain and head to the hut on the other side. Our legs being less than up to the task of a long day of climbing again through the bush, we thought, well there’s a glacier just up the side of this other rocky mountain, lets just climb up there and have a look. Again, our navigation and perspective skills not being the greatest, we ended up CLIMBING UP boulders crawling across scree (loose rock that slides). Going up really wasn’t that bad, just one foot in front of the other, onto the next rock. Occasionally looking backward saying, gee we’ve climbed pretty high! Let’s go higher for a better view. Eventually we made it to an area that was literally all scree with only a few solid rocks that we clung to with our lives. Just as Laura and I were taking a rest on one of the more grounded rocks, a huge gust a wind came over the summit and threatened to take our coats and bodies back down the mountain. Laura and I looked at each other and decided it was time to move. Did we take the hint and go down… NO! Up again! We SWORE there was a glacier up here, it was on the map! Finally we rounded the first saddle and duh duh dah! No glacier but there was a large glacial lake and a wisping of snow around it. It was the clearest blue water I’ve ever seen! Freshest water you’ll get I suppose. Right, the actual glacier might just be a bit higher. More assent along a rocky ledge, and there some something that looked very much like a pipe near the next summit. Well if there’s a pipe up there, SOMEONE must have gotten up there so away we went. We did find a large compacted snow pile that I suppose you could pretend is a glacier. Though a quite small one. Right, up again, this time hugging the rocky walls and pulling ourselves up, over, through, and around precarious areas of rock. No ropes, no picks, no equiptment whatsoever. Choosing the correct rock to hold onto that didn’t move was a bit of a trick. Turns out that pipe was just another damn rock. In the words of Homer Simpson, DOH! However this was said, while clinging, spread-eagle like against a rocky wall with the hut in the distant view being about 1mm by 1mm. Perhaps we’ll call it a day. Going up was one thing, but getting down again was a completely different game. I don’t think I’ve ever been that close to soiling myself before. But after the scared feeling, comes an sense of survival and get down the mountain. I did stop at one point and have the last of my cheese sandwich in case it was my last meal. Better to fall to your death full than empty right?

We made a successful journey back down the glacial lake and stopped to fill up our platypus packs. The best tasting water ever, although extremely cold. Back onto the scree we decided the best way to move quickly on scree was by sliding down it! Laura decided to slide on her bum, which resulted in some very ripped trousers, but gave us a good laugh. I decided skiing via boots was a better as I still wanted to keep my trousers intact. By the time we made it back to the large rocks to climb down we had had about enough of rock climbing. I always forget that going down is so much harder, it doesn’t seem like it should be.

Finally back to the hut we celebrated life with our liter of hard cider. We made supper while the cider was chilling in the river tied to a rock. Who needs a fridge when you have glacial water!? The rest of the hut crew was happy to see us alive and even the German, Torston, had given up the climb before we had. It earned us a round of high fives and lots of ‘we’re hard core!’ Though I think blatant stupidity had more to do with it than hard coreness. The weather that had been threatening all day with clouds and a few sprinkles, finally gave in and the rain and clouds covered our little valley just an hour after our arrival back to the hut. Phew!!!

We spent the night playing sharades with the camping families and Torston, while sipping our hard cider and relaxing our very very tired legs. Many jokes were made over Laura’s torn trousers and our river fridge, but it was a great night in the hut. That night I just about froze to death in my poor excuse for a sleeping bag. First night it wasn’t as cold but second night, I had every piece of clothing on including my rain coat. I woke early just so that I could start moving and get warm again. I must look into a better sleeping bag.

Easter morning we were awoken by the mom’s from the other family saying ‘Happy Easter’ and handing out chocolate eggs to the kids. They even gave Laura and I a chocolate egg each. Considering that we were just about out of food, and breakfast was going to be tea and half a granola bar we were happy to add the chocolate egg in for more calories. I think we might have been drooling a bit as they all sat around the hut eating their hot porridge. I’ll remember porridge for the next trek. The rain was still steady, so there was nothing to do but pack up and get going for our 6 hour walk out. Donning our water-proofs, we headed out. We found the correct trail this time at the junction and found where we were supposed to go up over the hill. We only strayed a few times when the foot trails were confused with the livestock trails that went into the gorse forest. We’ll just pretend we wanted to get a look at the wild beef cows… A few snags and dagger bushes later we found the river mouth and finally the car park. We were soaked through but quite happy to peel a layer off just get our feet out of our boots. The recovery had to be quick as we were white water rafting the next day!

I've also just realized I've managed to delete the rest of my photos from this trek. DOH!!! Sometimes computers just don't tell you when you don't have a hard copy!

Nope! I’m not dead! I’ve just become really good at procrastinating. But right now, there is a sink full of dishes calling my name and I REALLY don’t want to wash them. So therefore the blog it is!

So last you knew of me I was just starting to race around in my wee car. She now has a name, Merino. To most, a Merino sheep is one that makes soft and fuzzy wool great for sweaters and gloves. In real life however, dotting the paddocks of New Zealand, they are ugly, floppy skinned beasts that have no tolerance for road side tourist cameras. They run at the slightest slowing of a vehicle. To be honest, I do the same when I come across potential rent-a-cars full of people slowly wandering the country roads when I’m in route to farms. I’m usually not out for a scenic drive but late, as veterinarians are most of the time, trying to make the appointed time that was booked in the diary. ANYWAY, Merino sheep have lots of loose skin around their fronts, are usually white to grey, depending on the rain and mud forecast, and look very old and weathered standing out in the paddocks. Thus the 1988 Ford Laser got its name, being dingy white, elderly, and having a floppy registration plate on its front end.

Finding a nut and bolt to solve this was a different story. Most of the dairy sheds are built away from the main ‘tool shop’ on farm as they try to place it in the middle of the grazing blocks. So even though we go on farm everyday, there usually isn’t a tool shop full of miscellaneous bits and pieces to borrow. I could have just asked but of course, being me, I didn’t. I had to take care of it on my own. Luckily, when I rummaged through the small tool box in the clinic I found a small bolt that happened to fit Merino and alleviate the floppy plate issue.

Leaving Merino behind at Chris Mac’s for the weekend, I flew over to Australia (middle of March) for a wedding of a good friend from home. She just happened to be marrying a Kiwi, but they had been living in Queensland for awhile. Even though it had only been a few months being away from home, it was great to see some people I knew for a change and didn’t have to explain my reason for coming to the opposite side of the world.

Now having thought I mastered the whole driving on the wrong side of the road, and a stick shift, I thought what the heck, I’ll get a manual car for a rental its cheaper. I was given the next size up from a Smart Car, pea soup green, and an engine SO quite that I couldn’t HEAR the engine to shift at first. Anything would be quieter than the Laser but still. Driving at dusk in a rainstorm with rush hour traffic was a little nerve racking. I guess I had become accustomed to south island traffic, where if you see 3 other vehicles on the same road, it’s a busy day. I made it to my hostel thankfully without any serious events. Although when I stalled going uphill on the highway in front of a semi-truck I thought maybe it was the end of the pea-soup car. DOH! The hostel turned out to be literally across the dock from the tavern where the boat was taking off to take us to the wedding island, so all I had to do was walk down the stairs the next day. It was a whole new experience getting all gussed up at a hostel amongst the hippies and young club going culture. I had snears and compliments on my shoes all at the same time. Weird.

Not knowing anybody coming to the wedding besides the bride and her sister, I just joined what looked like a bunch of people that looked dressy and said, hey are you guys going to a wedding too? And struck up conversation with whoever was around to talk to. Laura and Justin’s friends were very kind and quickly adopted me for the day. We took a short cruise to South Stradbrooke Island for the ceremony under a pretty island canopy with the sea breeze coming off the water. Laura was stunningly beautiful, and Justin went properly from anxious groom to delighted happy groom as soon as the door of the dressing room opened. My favorite part is watching the change on the grooms face instead of the bride. Its priceless.

There was much mingling, some dancing, a lovely dinner, and some great conversations with my adoptees. Now, I swear to you it was not my fault, I didn’t bring it up. I’ve learned over the years that NO one, wants to hear about my profession over dinner, on holidays, and especially at fancy occasions. THEY ASKED ME!! Hey, yur a vet? How exactly is it possible that men aren’t sterile till 60 days AFTER a vasectomy? I even tried to dodge out of it, get away with non-specific terms. But there I was surrounded by 4 attached men, with their full attention wanting a specific explanation. More wine please!

The day after the wedding, I had the whole day to myself so I drove down the Gold Coast stopping at different beaches along the way just taking in the immensity of the beach land that Queensland had. The waves, though I was told they were small, were the biggest waves I had ever seen and had me sufficiently wary of the surfing I had decided to learn. There were storms on and off all weekend and though the waves weren’t huge they were irregular with lots of rip tide or something to that effect. The surfing instructor at the hostel said, “Dude, you don’t want to learn in this. Come back on a calmer weekend.” So, alas, my surfing career would have to wait. I was content to watch the kite surfers and parasailing. These guys are NUTS! But I totally wanted to give it a try! You basically have a kite attached to a handle and a surf board. You catch a wind with the kite, you aim it out to sea, then try to hop on the surf board and put your feet in the little straps and let the kite take you out to the waves, when there’s a big gust of wind, it picks you up and carries you over the waves, or if you don’t want to surf that wave you jump and let the wind carry you over the wave. Pretty dang awesome!

Back in New Zealand I faced my first weekend on call! Now due to the fact that I never practiced small animal medicine, they are not making me do the smallies on the weekend. Phew! I’m trying to learn the small animal stuff again but at this point I’d be pretty useless. I’d be trying to convince the owner that it’s economically more sound to get a new cat than try and fix this old one. But back to the weekend, I was ready and waiting for my first emergency call. I slept lightly, had my phone on its loudest setting so not to miss a call, groceries in fridge and small snacks ready in case it was a day in the truck with no breaks. I got one call. 11am on Saturday morning, one run of the mill milk fever. A couple bags of calcium in the vein, a word of encouragement that she would for sure stand in an hour, and off I went. Yes, even here in clean, green New Zealand, where everything is perceived as better than those terrible indoor housing factory farms… they still get good ol’ milk fever, and some of the farmers are still too afraid to put calcium In the vein too fast so they just call the vet.

The next few weeks were just filled with various low key activities such as swimming at the local pool for exercise, coffee and mince pies for a lunch treat, Wednesday night dinner clubs , and leaving do’s for several people I’d met. There always seems to be people coming and leaving Vetlife, but I think a lot of it is just an excuse for a barbeque behind the clinic with Speights beer and cider. Garth, the nutritionist that had been here a year left for a job on the North Island, BBQ #1, and drinks after work 1,2, and 3. Laura, one of the British locums was finishing her time here, BBQ #2, and drinks after work 4,5,and 6. Jenny N., my host when I first arrived and inventory manager, was leaving to start her own pet shop. BBQ #3. The Wednesday supper club has reduced by 2 already! Laura asked for a pumpkin pie before she left, because she had heard about this American tradition at Thanksgiving. I was delighted, until I found out that ORANGE pumpkins don’t exist here! They are grey or green, known to me as butternut squash but referred to here as pumpkin. It also doesn’t come in a pre-processed easy prep can o’ pumpkin. After I cooked down my squash I then realized I had no blender or food processor. What I did have was a side crank, 1950’s manual hand mixer. Aside from a few weird lumps of squash the ‘pumpkin pie’ came out pretty dang good.

One for the list if people come to visit, a can of pumpkin for a real pie.

It was also a few weeks of freak accidents for cows. There was a cow vs. silage wagon, which I even successfully placed drains in the wounds like a good surgeon (although in the absolute wrong way after reading in the surgery books later), but she healed up great! After she tried to run us down a few times when I had to go back and remove the drains, I dubbed her able to go back to the main herd. She had been breaking down paddock fences to get back anyway. She was so covered in purple wound spray and red spray paint to mark her as a penicillin cow that she looked quite artistic.

There was another heifer calf vs. bale spike that was a similar story. She was in a 40 acre paddock and we had to run her down with 4 people and a motor bike just to get close enough to sedate and examine the wound. After an inventive stitch-up with a scalpel blade clip job and a 16 gauge needle to thread the suture (my kit was being sterilized from the other cow), she was up and running back to her mates. Didn’t seem to phase her. Gotta love cows!

And now for the pièce de résistance, I had a call to look at a cow with a swollen eye. Turns out she had a broken jaw! Figure that one out! Well actually it was another silage wagon incident as far as we can figure. 4 weeks prior, the owner noticed her eye was weepy and opaque, treated it for pink eye and when she started losing weight called us. She had actually ruptured her globe, that was scarred down and doing fine, but looking in her mouth to rule out choke or woody tongue, we saw she had broken her jaw at the symphysis (middle of the front teeth) and there was a good 4 inch wound into the mucosa. Ok, how do you fix THAT! Well, we decided to give it a try by wiring it shut like in a dog. Using the largest orthopedic wire Susan and I could find in the clinic and 2, 18 gauge spinal needles, and a lot of Ketamine/Xyalzine we managed to get 4 pieces of wire around the teeth and mandible. We put one of the owners on picture duty and ended up with some great shots, and even some surprise video. At one point while tightening the wires, it broke, and there’s definitely a muffled s**t caught on tape. Oops. To be fair I was standing on my head trying to pass wires through spinal needles and slobber while she was fighting the drugs with every brain cell. We finished tightening the last wire with her standing even though 3 people were sitting on her a minute earlier.

More to come! There’s a few more crazy weekends to tell about!

Kat

Pictures to come soon!