Log 12: Irish fest and Skiing adventures!

MUSIC!!!!  I’ve finally tapped into the scene here! The guys at the session I’ve been going to in Christchurch told me about an Irish festival in Nelson, about 6hours away by car.  You bet I was up for the drive, I was so starved of tunes and music, I was going to do anything to get up there. I had the holiday weekend off work and I took a few more days just so I could stay an extra day to get in on a few more impromptu sessions that were likely to happen.  During the three day festival that was held at a music school, we learned about 10 tunes during the day, a few from the lessons and then a few more from each other in the hallways. Then the evenings were sessions into the wee hours of the morning before and after the night entertainment. The guest artists were a band called Beoga, that I had had a chance to see in Wisconsin of all places. They played at a little catholic church in the rustic wilderness around where I had been working.   About 150 people attended the festival, and the was a great chance to get to know the band and actually talk to them. I met a  bunch of people, even a few local ones from Christchurch that I hadn’t known about. I was also invited to another session in Christchurch that hadn’t known about. All in all it was a great weekend, with great people, and I learned a heap of tunes that I’ve somehow managed to remember!

In my work life, I was asked to put on a seminar for the vets in several clinics about abdominal surgery in cattle. This was a bit of a daunting task as I was giving vets with 20 years of practice under their belts advice about when and why to open the abdomen of a cow and tips on helping caesarians go well. Although I felt totally out of my league, I think they really enjoyed it.  I asked a mentor from home to make a video of an LDA surgery for me and then I attempted a powerpoint presentation on techniques, tricks, and tips for surgery.  It went over very well actually, and I learned a few things too!

We also had an Open Day for the clinic, which is like an advertizing day with a BBQ and we put on a few client talks that catered toward the dairy workers that may be new to the dairy industry. It was our first ever Open Day for the clinic, as this is more common for the agriculture shops in town, and at first when the clinic staff were the only ones helping themselves to the sausages and steaks we were a bit worried but by the end of the day we had about 40 people show. Phew!

Now that it is winter, the ski culture has arrived in Methven, the wee town towards the mountains from Ashburton. The whole town comes alive, shops and restaurants open, PEOPLE are walking on the streets, the pubs are full, and ski bums and tourists are everywhere. The two pubs in town are The Blue Pub, and The Brown Pub, or to us locals, The Blue, and The Brown. The Blue pub is classified as the ‘tourist’ pub and the locals stay away from it during the high seasons.  Its more flash, has had a fresh paint job, is clean and bright inside with bands that play now and again. Whereas The Brown, is a bit dodgy to look at, is pretty dark and cramped inside, and in general caters to the locals.  In fact, when a non-local walks in for a drink, they get a stare-down from the occupants of the bar as a subliminal warning not to act too foreign.  Alex, Amy and I quickly found this stare disconcerting until we met up with the ‘locals’ that knew us and the crowd seemed to relax toward us a bit. 

The best part about the locals pubs around the country in New Zealand is that they host a Speed Shearing contest!!  Literally IN the pub!  They set up chutes and stages and the sheep come in and out the windows!  Each weekend a different pub had the next heat of the contest, which I regretfully missed.  I would have paid money to see a sheep flying out a pub window!! 

Winter in New Zealand: I realize that in the US we have a REAL winter (snow, ice, negative FERENHEIT temperatures) and other parts of the world don’t get it. But to hear them tell me about the upcoming ‘terribly cold and dreary’ winter weather I was about to experience you’d think the arctic- circle was going to descend upon them.   These Kiwi’s have a pretty pathetic winter to be honest, but then again only a small percentage of the worlds population understands winter in terms of Siberia and Wisconsin…  We had one snow this season in our town, and I missed it cuz I slept in. It melted by 10:30am. The sunny frosty mornings or -2 C ( 28F) were amazing, and downright comfortable. I seemed to wow them with tales of de-icing my hands inside of cows during surgery, driving to calls in a foot of fresh snow before the plows had came through, and building so snowmen that didn’t melt for months. Even on the dreariest day, it didn’t hold a candle to the months of grey, dark, and cloud of a Michigan winter.

Going with the flow of winter and the ski frenzy, it was decided that I should try out this adventure sport of sliding downhill on 5 foot long popsicle sticks.  Amy was determined to get me up to Mt. Hutt to give it a go. I acquired some cheap ski pants and goggles, rented boots and skis, and decked myself out in thermals and layers as it was supposed to be cold and windy on top of a mountain, ha, I was stripping off layers after my first attempt at the bunny hill. My first trip up the ski road was a bit harrowing, I signed up for a group lessons and I was shown the ins and outs of beginner skiing.  The balance was quite similar to ice skating so I managed to get down the bunny hill without too much trouble.  I booked another private lesson with my group teacher and he showed me some more of the basic skills and then took me up the hill to the easy slope on the lift. Learning how to get on and off the lift was a challenge in itself, and with strict instruction it wasn’t too bad.  After a lot of falling on my patookis, and getting twisted into some pretty strange positions after falls, I managed to get down the easy slope without a single fall by the end of the day!

Amy and Alex went with me again on my third day of skiing and after several successful trips down the Green slope, they talked me into the more difficult Blue slope. Just as we started down, a cloud rolled in, visibility was sketchy, and it was getting colder so the snow was fairly icy. Although there was a lot of falling I made it down, and we headed in for some lunch.  After lunch A & A went up the big lift to the ‘real’ slopes and I attempted the Blue again. Again a cloud rolled in, so I couldn’t see the bumps.  Needless to say, I ended up on my tush a lot and again twisted into knots, so as soon as we hit the bottom, I went into the lodge and pouted over my bruised hips and shins, and swore off skiing for the rest of my life.  Not my sport, mate.  After an hour of sulking, I picked up my remaining pride and headed for the Green hill again and had many successful, non-ass falling trips down that renewed my faith in my balance.  Ok, so skiing isn’t so bad.  Though it was my last trip up Mt. Hutt for the season, it was a good time and glad I gave it a go.

Log 11: Vaccine Run, Night out in Christchurch, and Dry off season!

The next week was the vaccine run for the small animal clinic which we were recruited to help with.  They ask the Largie vets to help out too since they get a fair amount of animals in a short amount of time.  We load up a few trucks with vaccine, dewormer pills, and dog anti-inflammatories and set out a table at various country halls around our practice area and most of the farm dogs roll up on the back of the ute’s and in dog boxes ready to get checked out.  These were mostly working dogs, but there was the occasional big strong man with ‘his wife’s’ little white dog, that rides in his lap and if you watch closely he secretly dotes on the dog and feeds it treats.  It was a great day visiting the country areas and visiting with the farmers you don’t see very often because they are mostly of the sheep and beef variety.

On the weekend Laura, another vet based in Methven, and I headed to Aokaroa for the weekend to find something to do and a need to get out of Ashvegas and away from work.  We arrived late and stayed at a backpackers, only to find that because it was going into winter, all food places were closing early and we managed to order a late pizza and sneakily eat it in the bar while ‘having a wine’.  The next day we found a little market in town and bought some chiabata bread and cheese and went for tramp up a hill. Once at the top there was almost a 360 degree view of the peninsula and the surrounding bays. 

We headed into Christchurch that night to join Alex and Amy and some of their friends out for dinner and then out dancing at Soul Square. We didn’t last long after our long day of walking but the highlight of the night was the Chip shop DJ.  Post dancing, Laura and I decided some greasy chips were just the thing so we stopped at a chip shop that looked HOPPIN!  There was a guy mixing the techno music over the speakers behind the counter and as we walked in an order came up, the music was paused and, “2 chips and a burger” was called out over the speaker. As soon as the customer came forward, the music was back on, the transaction was made and then it was our turn to order. Which we had to all but scream into the guys ear, while he was boppin’ along to the beat. As we waited for our order, we couldn’t help but sit in bewilderment and laugh. 

Sunday we laid low, and toured around the outdoor shops, pricing out sleeping bags, tents, and backpacks. After my last disastrous night tramping in my not so warm bag, I was ready to invest in one to remedy the problem.  I was also checking out new backpacks as mine was serviced me well but is about to fall to pieces and is not appropriate for actually backpacking travel which was the next plan on the plate!

Now the next order of cow business this season is dry cowing! 150,000 cows in our practice area all get dried off at one time, minus the ones that milk through winter, and we help do this as drying off 500 cows in one go can be a massive undertaking and bodies and hands are needed no matter their employment status on farm or vet clinic.  4 and 5am starts to put tubes of dry cow in teats for 2-3 hours was an experience to be reckoned with. The cows loaded on the milking platform, milked, and as the milkers come off there is a crew of people with wet wipes cleaning teats, then another crew of people putting tubes of dry cow in teats, and potentially another crew putting in teat seal to protect the teats from invasion when they are moved to winter grazing.  The cows don’t really like this as their teats are not touched much with the kiwi style of milking (no prep, just put cups on), so it goes a bit like this:  find the next cow that’s cleaned, *kick “hey hey”, pull cap with teeth, insert one tube. *kick, “hey now”, pull cap, insert second tube. *kick kick kick, “here now!!” pull cap with teeth get half of tube placed *KICK, “HEY!”  pull cap, insert last tube.  Some are great and don’t move a muscle, other’s need a guy riding the platform around holding the tail in the air.  It goes fast though, and there were bits of tube and caps EVERYWHERE!   If I was going to get an infection from ingesting manure, that would have been when I’d have gotten it, but never fear, inevitably some parts of those dry cow antibiotic ended up in my mouth from all the cap pulling. I was infected and cured all at the same time.

Even in my life as a dairy farmer’s daughter, and then vet school and 3 years of working as a vet, I had maybe dried off about 5 cows in my life.  I can now say I’ve done a wee bit more than the average bear. At least for the average American vet.

After dry cowing ended, the work really was coming to a standstill so going a bit stir-crazy, Amy and I started going swimming at the local pool together and signed up for a spinning class at the gym. This was like no spinning class I had been in before! Granted I’ve only ever done one associated with a triathlon class and it only lasted 30min. An hour with this professional cyclist and my legs were kapoot!! 

Log 10: Tramping and Music

It was finally time to go back and revisit Arthur’s Pass, and after a long week at work I was ready to get the hell outta dodge!  I didn’t particularly care where I went I just needed out of Ashvegas, the name lovingly given to Ashburton to mock it for being boring and dull.  Another Laura from Britain working for one of the competing vet clinics and our newest adoptee, also wanted to get away for a relaxing adventure. 

We headed back up to Arthur’s pass but the rain quickly descended into the pass and didn’t leave us much option for tramping except some short walks.  Just happy to be out, we walked to a waterfall and around some hills that kicked us out onto the road eventually. Retiring to the hostel for the afternoon we drank wine, and read our books while listening to the gentle rain and seeing the clouded and misty hills out the window. We went across the road to the pub/café for supper and a night of wine drinking. Luckily we only lived across the road that had little to no traffic so we managed to stumble home and find our beds.  The next day we stopped off at a few different small trails and a cave. For lunch we stopped into a very posh golf resort where there were many groups of fancy ‘ladies that lunch’. We were definitely given the up and down as we walked in kinda wet from the rain and dingy from living and sleeping in our clothes as we were expecting to be tramping in the mountains.  Minding our manners as if we too were posh ladies lunching, we had a coffee and some great soup and laughing to ourselves at the eyes that spent their time staring at us. 

The other British Laura, that had left a few weeks previously was back in town for one day to sell her car and catch her flight to Australia, and me having Friday off of work headed up to spend the day with her.  I went up early to drop my fiddle bow off for re-hairing at a little German woman’s house that builds violins and does repairs out of her home. It was like leaving a child with a stranger, I felt very sad leaving my fiddle with someone else. I went into the city center to meet Laura but being a bit early I stopped into the pub for a drink. What the heck right? It’s my day off and nearly noon!  My pint of cider was going down well while playing poker on my mobile phone when Laura texted that she was at our meet up point! Shoot!  Downing the rest of my pint and ran to meet her as all her stuff was waiting to be put in my car.  Luggage secured, we headed to a coffee shop for a snack then walked around the botanical gardens and just chatted. I love chatting with Laura because the conversation never stops, we’re always laughing or speaking seriously about one thing or another. My mother’s great ability of talking to anyone, even the wall if necessary, is rubbing off on me I suspect.  We then headed to the cinema to see a Kiwi film called ‘Boy’, it has had rave reviews and it brings to light the Maori culture that’s all over New Zealand. Funnily enough, we had the theater to ourselves so we settled into our seats and two glasses of wine for our private showing. Afterward we headed to the alley of restaurants on Oxford Terrace that all have some kind of fire feature and outdoor seating. That was our only criteria for food, a place that has outdoor seating and a fire element!  More great conversation over a wonderful dinner and it was time to drop Laura at her dodgy accommodation near the airport for her early morning flight. It was a very classy trucker like motel that reminded me of home and my reasons for sleeping in my truck while driving across the country. After reassuring her that she wouldn’t be murdered in her sleep staying here and meeting the very hospitable man that ran the joint I said my goodbye’s and started my long drive home.

The next day I went hiking with Amy and Alex, on the Wharfdale Trail in Oxford.  The idea was to park a car at either end so we left Merino at the end of the long gravel road near the finish, and took Gordon the van to the starting point. It was a wonderful day hiking through beech forest into the hut which we found we had to ourselves for the night. We built a fire, made tea and supper while listening to my headphones blaring as loud as possible. With the quietness of the forest and the hut, it was actually enough sound to mumble along to some classic oldies for the evening! 

The night was only eventful because it was this particular night that prompted me to upgrade to a respectable sleeping bag.  After the fire in the stove died and the heat dissipated, I woke absolutely freezing at about 3am.  My own fault for not having proper gear, but I decided to put on all clothing items I had brought, which was few being an overnight tramp. The hat, gloves, and raincoat all went on and I managed to sleep a little until 6am when I gave up. Score 0 for Kat.

The walk out the next morning was down through a valley and across a few river crossings that in attempting to find a better crossing point, I just ended up falling in the river feet first. I can’t quite remember if Amy and Alex crossed dry, but I think they probably didn’t care about getting their feet wet. I think it was just early training as a child, Keep your feet Dry!!  Don’t get your socks muddy! There is also nothing less comfortable and harder to air-out than cold wet hiking boots.  The hardcore Kiwi’s go all out, river crossings and wet feet don’t seem to bother them. Maybe someday I’ll be that cool. Before heading back we stopped in Oxford at a café and had a coffee and a muffin in all our smelly tramping gear glory, and even managed to save a few crumbs for the wee birds that kept close to our feet practically begging.  That night we headed up to Methven to finish off the weekend with dinner at the Thai restaurant in Methven

After my last attempt of the Irish session I found in Christchurch, one of the players pulled me aside and said, hey there’s a more ‘traditional’ session on Monday nights if you are intersested. I think I nearly kissed him with delight! As much as the old ballads were good to hear again, the trumpet player and the 3 very simple English folk tunes that they played weren’t really my cup of tea. So I headed out to the Bailies pub, was so excited to play real tunes with real people!  We had a great time!!!  Jeremy, the other fiddle player, knows a little bit of everything I know!!!  Its great!!  I think he must photographic memory for music, because he remembers every tune he’s ever played! Its not a flash player but hey, I’m not picky.  They made me play a few tunes from all my weird genres that I know, and they fell in love with Natalie Macmaster’s version of Catharsis, a great G minor tune. SO great to play a variety!

Log 9: Dry cow season, and International Ploughing contest!

Now that the preg testing is done we’re moving into the dry season when the thousands of milking cows in this region ALL get dried off and moved to winter grazing until they calve in the spring. Spring being August and September. Besides a few farms that winter milk because the milk price is at a premium because of less cows producing, most everyone has 2 months off. Off meaning that seem to go on vacation, travel, or fix fencing and the sheds while the cows are gone. The winter grazing, at least in Canterbury is crop of the brassica variety that is grown in the summer months. Brassicas that are grown are kale, rape, fodder beat (sugar beet), and sometimes oats. The cows graze this in ‘breaks’ so only a section of the paddock is fed at one time then the cows are moved onto a new section when this is all eaten, and the stalks are ‘pugged’ into the ground. An important note is that the cows are first filled up on straw or silage prior to being let onto a new break because one of the huge draw backs with brassicas is that when cows gorge themselves too soon before the rumen bugs have a change to adjust the bloat and die or get nitrate poisoning. So on occasion the vets get called to go help stab holes in cows rumens to relieve bloat and then come back the next day to stitch them back up. Or we go out and find several dead in a paddock and even more that are sick from nitrate toxicity so we run around injecting methylene blue dye into their veins. Some hazards to pasturing, it is not all green happy cows with perfect grass.

Now during this time is also when the vets go out and do their dry cow consults and re-do the prescriptions for the next season. When I arrived they gave me 15 farms to be in charge of and many of them I had yet to meet. So I headed out to consult on drugs I had never used, give managers tips and reviews of their mastitis procedures that I quickly found out are extremely different than the US systems, and tell them how to transition their cows through to calving over winter in a system I knew very little about. Excuse my language but, ‘bring on the bullshitting!’ No, I was very honest with the farmers and I actually learned a great deal in just talking with them and having them talk me through what they’ve done in the past. What worked, what didn’t, how the season was different how it changed, what to expect for next season. It’s the same all over the world. Cows still get the same diseases the management is just different. So I just extrapolated from my disease knowledge and they taught me the management stuff. When my suggestions didn’t fit their management scheme, first they'd laugh at me, then we'd talk about it and come up with something that would work. It was actually a really good learning process.

In other news, I was talked into training for a half marathon race! Now, last year during my aspiration to become an athlete for the first time in my life, I managed to pull off two triathlons, a duathlon, and a 5K run. The longest I had to run was 7miles and that was about my limit, as running was by far my least favorite. But I thought, what the heck I’ll give a half marathon a try. It will keep me fit and there are lots of long flat roads to run on around here. There was a race in Christchurch in 7 weeks and so I started in the middle of the beginner

training schedule. Now, last year I might have managed this after my triathlon, but after 4 months of no training, starting in the middle turned out to be a poor choice. I went from running once a week to running 6 days a week and promptly pulled a muscle in the top of my leg on run number 7. Determined to get through the pain and keep going, I tried a 60min run that pretty much left me crippled for two days. Right. The race was pretty much off, as I needed about 2 weeks rest and I couldn’t start again fresh with 4 weeks till race time. The one great thing was that I ran just around sunset and these are AMAZING in New Zealand with the mountains as a backdrop.

Luckily about this time I also attempted to go to the Irish session in Christchurch again and this time brought my fiddle. I played the few tunes they did, and sang the ballads and plugged my ears when the trumpet player, first I’d ever heard at an Irish sessions, stood up on the table and blasted as loud as he could. To my great relief, at one of the breaks a gentleman came up and told me about a more ‘traditional’ session at a different bar on Monday nights. Score! I’ll give that a go next week. He also told me about their annual Irish festival that takes place in Nelson up north and happens to be the same weekend as the half-marathon. I jumped at the chance to play tunes with real people again as well as drop out of the my ridiculous attempt at being a serious runner. I signed up online the next day and spent the next week on my couch learning tunes in preparation and giving my leg a well deserved rest.

I also found a $1 movie rental place and stocked up on films to watch. I rented all the Lord of the Rings movies since I’d only seen them once and thought I’d try and see if any of the scenes looked familiar. None in particular as a lot of them were just sections of the mountains computer graphed into backgrounds. Still amazing films and good to see again, I think I’d like to live in Hobbiton someday.

Another weekend event was the World Ploughing Competition held in Methven, which happens to be the next town north of Ashburton. Not able to let a farming contest pass by without visiting I went up to take a look. I found New Zealand’s version of a tractor show!! As I first walked in, I passed a car cut and stretched with a pen in the middle with 4 ewes inside. No joke it was called Cabs 4 Ewe. HAHA! I love the humor here. I walked past tents of mechants with gum boots, woolen socks, jeans and waterproofs, water troughs, pencils, drenching guns, etc. Moved onto an isle of international food caravans and coffee’s to go. Oh no, not just any coffee in a styrofoam cups…these were mobile cappuccino vans. At the end of that isle

gripping my flat white coffee, I found rows and rows of antique tractors!! Darcy, Craig, and Paul would have been drooling I’m sure! I didn’t know what most of them were but I started taking pictures of all kinds of oldish tractors to show the folks back home. My absolute favorite was a John Deere B because we had one growing up and I used to drive it with my Grandpa. I was too small to work the pedals, so he did that and I did the steering. It was a good ol’ put put put tractor with a huge huge steering wheel. Well, maybe it was normal size but I remember it being about the size of ME.

Onto the ploughing section, I never knew there was so much skill or competition in making rows of dirt! Apparently it’s very serious business and judges with clip boards were analyzing each countries rows looking for uniformity, evenness, straightness, and loads of other things

that I probably couldn’t see. Each country’s appointed ploughman had a designated section of land to work up and a small sign with their name and previous awards. Each ploughman also displayed some version of their colors or flag for their country. At the end of the rows, beyond the barriers, walked farmers and ploughman from all over the world assessing the rows themselves and looking very serious, nodding or shaking their heads, and grumbling something about how that ploughman should be placed. I couldn’t help but smile as I walked by. I found a demonstration of horse ploughing in one corner, a few teams of Clydesdales and Percherons but mostly Shires. No Belgians here, those are my personal favorite.

Then I heard it. And saw it to for that matter. Tractor pulls across the road! I quickly walked over and had to see for myself how the Kiwi’s did at pulling tractors. Well, it is not just a distance run. These were superstock machines and they had a stone boat on the back. Two raced at the same time, they went down the track, around a barrel and back again. Didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me but there was a lot of whooping and hollering by the audience so one of them must have done well. With lungs full of dust, enough coffee to make anyone jittery, and still gimping around with a pulled muscle I headed back to Ashburton with a nice fill of country livin.

Log 8: Adventures!

Just to remind you that I really am working during my adventures here, I’ll take you back to Vetlife and the cows. On arrival at Vetlife my first day, I was told that I might get one c-section a year because farmers just don’t do them here. Accepting this as the rule I was floored when I was asked to do an elective c-section on an embryo transfer animal. I was yet again amazing when during a calving they let me do a cesarean on a heifer that had a scarred vagina, making a vaginal birth impossible, calf was dead but the heifer did fabulous! The alternative was shooting her so I might have talked the guy into it. I was also trying to keep it cheap as that was the main concern if she did survive. A record time of 50min from arrival to having the cow stitched up, I was pretty happy, as was the farmer.

Well, not 2 weeks later, once again I came to a calving with a live calf that was overcooked and just too big to fit. A quick conversation later and that one came out the side as well. Cow and calf happy as clams, and both doing amazingly well. Hopefully this trend doesn’t continue or they are going to start yelling at me for whacking holes in cows all over the county! Autumn calving is almost done at least so I’ll get a break before spring hits. This as prompted the boss to ask me to do a surgery lecture for the Kiwi vets though. So later this winter, when things are quiet I’m giving a presentation on LDA’s and other gut surgeries, as well as c-sections. Tricks of the trade, and tips for the inexperienced ones, as they don’t get many surgeries period.

In other news, I have purchased a ukulele! Hankering for an instrument that you can strum and potentially accompany someone, with a shortage of mandolins in this country, I opted for the ukulele. In hindsight, I should have just bought a small guitar but no, something called me to the ukulele. It said my name! Literally! Model No. K-AT. So now I have a ukulele and now I need to learn how to play the dang thing. My instrument collecting habit is getting a bit ridiculous. Just prior to leaving the US, I was given a gift certificate for playing a gig for a friend, and what did I buy? Some new fiddle strings and some rhythm bones! Those clickity-clackity pieces of wood or bone that people play sometimes very well, but most of the time badly and out of rhythm. I had to have a go at them. After a few months of working at it, I think I’m doomed to be a poor player of the bones.

My next weekend away was to Arthur’s Pass, or at least the sights around the pass. Arthur’s pass is one of two major passes that cross the southern alps of the south island and a major tourist route as there are many small and large treks all around the area and to my great surprise a hostel in a town half the size of Elsie, MI (~400). The drive up was amazing views of the mountains, crossing of the Rakaia gorge, and more twisty turning roads and one lane bridges. I stopped at Castel Hill which is an area of very interesting geology. Huge boulders and rocks are scattered over the hills, and climbers come here very often to go bouldering. I came across quite a few that day, and along with ropes, pullies, and climbing shoes, they also bring along huge mats. I assume to jump down onto after successfully scaling the boulder, or to fall onto when there is an unsuccessful attempt. After wandering around the area for a bit I climbed up a small boulder, worth of a non-boulderer and had some lunch. I continued on my drive and stopped at the village of Arthur’s Pass. There’s a train station for a tourist train that comes up and back from Christchurch through the mountains, a shop/café, a bar/café, a hostel and over various vacation rental houses.

Arthur’s Pass is also the home of one of the most awkward birds, called kea’s, that’s still surviving in New Zealand. Unlike its very flightless fat cousin, the kakapo parrot, kea’s do fly but they terribly curious and like to mess with stuff. People’s lunches, cars, tents, passerby’s, anything that’s different they will investigate/mutilate. One story from an outdoor shop salesman, was that they left their tent pitched while they went for a walk up a mountain. On their way back a flock of kea descended on their tent and ripped it to shreds! So note to self, don’t leave anything out in the open of bright color if there are kea’s nearby. As I only had the day to explore, I had a coffee and some soup at the bar/café, read my book for a bit on a roadside where you can hear a waterfall, then headed back to Ashburton. I’ll come back for proper adventuring another time.

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!