Canterbury Show Day

From last month:

Last Friday was the beginning of another three-day weekend. It was Show Day, the Kiwi equivalent of the county fair. But this county is the District of Canterbury, by a good margin the largest on the more agrarian south island. The fair only runs three days, but the first two are sort of warm-ups, with the early competitions and school field trips. We joined the masses on Friday to visit the show.















The weather was beautiful, perfect. In good Christchurch fashion, the commute from driveway to car park was less than ten minutes, even with cars pouring in at the rate you would find at the state fair. We loaded the kids into the double-wide (stroller, that is; pram; trolley), each weighing a pound extra due to sunscreen, and headed in to meet the McKenzies and Lettinks inside.














The surprise of the event was the paucity of surprises. For the most part, the event was a proportionate version of the Texas state fair. Show animals were there, and people mingled among the barns, but it was a more commercial affair, with rides, restaurant booths, shows.


Among the surprises was the popularity of horse events. There were two arenas running simultaneously, one for youth events, another for the big people. Another difference was the increased variety of species showed. It makes sense that the fine wool and meat production species of sheep would be abundant, but the cattle breeds were also wider ranging than we would normally see. They didn't have the heat tolerant breeds that we would see in Texas, like the bezu breeds, but then why should they. Another difference, though not surprising, was the variety of foods. They had both the standard state fair affair, the we-can-fry-anything booths. Cotton candy (or "candy floss" as they call it here) was there, hamburgers and hot dogs were there. But they were not what you think; for that you would have to go to the AMERICAN hot dog stand, the one with the American flags on it. Otherwise your hot dog was a crispy fried corn dog! But they also had a good variety of ethnic foods-- Indian, Chinese, German. There were also vegetarian booths! Anyone see that in Dallas last month?


Mostly we milled around. Ryan learned about honey bees, as we see in the photo, including letting a male crawl on her hand and arm. Brave girl! The freestyle motocross show was scratched because of wind gusts, but I noticed that their bikes were not exactly tuned. Knobbies worn, a couple of years old. Maybe it was best that their show was reduced to a few power slides around the main show arena, where the horses had been jumping earlier. The tractor pull went as scheduled. There were the wood chopping competitions, tractor displays, and helicopter rides! We got together and ate on the grass and took some great photos, as you see here. Trey joined with Antoni to debate the latest tractor models while the rest of us spoke of simpler topics.


All in all, it was a great day. The walk back to the car took longer than the drive, so we still had the evening to prepare for Trey's first birthday party. But that calls for its own blog entry and photos.

Port Hills

The last couple of weekends have brought us beautiful weather, that great time when the chill is gone, the peak temperatures are still quite nice, and it is all that much better when you have been hoping for this weather for weeks.

Photo: Walter Lettink, friend, trail guide, wicked rider.


On a sunny winter day a couple of months ago I tried tackling the Port Hills, the range that is the southern limit of Christchurch and its 'burbs. Homes are built up maybe the first quarter of the way to the top, and above them is a large system of trails managed by the District of Canterbury. At the time, the ride was a genuine slag. The trails were saturated. They apparently stay that way during the winter. I only saw a couple of miles of the trails, and it seemed nice, but I had to watch the clock due to the limited daylight, it was a little cold, and I didn't know exactly where I was or where to turn to head down off the hills.


These last two weekends have proven that these trails are much better when it gets a little sunshine. You have to start out with a pretty good workout getting up to the trails along the summit. Then the views are great off each side. Finally you get to enjoy the long downhill run back to sea level.

I have also learned that there are a ton of cyclists around here. No wonder there are so many bike shops. Seriously half the people that I saw on the roads around the Port Hills were either on bikes or toting them with their cars.

Both rides the past couple of weekends started in about the middle of the hills. A week ago we got to the top then headed out on toward the coast. The views were spectacular, as the photos show. One minute the Kaikoura Mountains were in view on the northern horizon, snow covered; the next we were looking down on Lyttleton, the same town on the southern side of the Port Hills where Ana, the kids, and I went the day before for the farmers' market and coffee. At one point we watched some paragliders taking trips from the summit to a valley below. (see photo)

Toward the end of the ride we descended into what can best be described as beach villages. Sumner and Scarborough lie out on the end of the foothills. As maps show, in contrast to the photos, they are only a matter of kilometers from the center of Christchurch, but they feel like they could just as easily be a world away. Out of sight, out of mind. They have their own rhythm, clearly their own scenery, and some great coffee shops, as I can attest after the stop we made in Sumner at the end of the ride.


Sitting in the coffee shop, looking out at the traffic passing on the street, I watched literally dozens of bikes go by-- mountain bikes, roadies; some in packs of five or six, others individually. There were a lot of folks cycling.

The next week Walter and I left from the same point, ascended to the summit, then turned inland. We dropped back down Kennedy Bush Track, the most inland trail of the system, then turned back uphill on Worsley Road (the same surname as on of the officers on the Shackleford expedition. Coincidence?), which terminated into a jeep trail, a rutted, steep trail that, at least for me, was a gutbuster. After traversing back toward the middle of the hills, we dropped down some technical track that intermingles with the downhillers' tracks. It was a warmer day, so the sweat was pouring, but again the views were worth it. I also noticed that the snowcaps have also shrunk significantly on the inland mountains in just a week's time.


And as for the cyclists, there must have been twice as many as last weekend. The hills were crawling with them, both on the trails and the roads.

There are so many trails to still cover, and so few weekends to get to go see them!

The view of Sumner from above.

The view from the trail past Sumner toward downtown Christchurch.

Gondola

Mainly the latest requests have been for more photos, so we have worked on taking more of them. It has been easier with such beautiful weather lately. For me the best has been the past couple of weeks, when it has been a little to cold during the early hours, nice in short sleeves for a couple of hours in the peak of the afternoon.

Ryan knows the word gondola now. We took a trip up to the top of the Port Hills, a ridge that forms the southern boundary to greater Christchurch. We timed it perfectly on a clear evening so that we got to have dinner watching the sun set on the city and all the lights come on. The building at the top has a viewing balcony about 270 degrees around. There is also a restaurant. Fortunately for us, it closes at 8 pm, about 45 minutes before sunset. They also leave the dining areas open, since they consume a strong majority floorspace but shelter is needed, as the winds are near constant up there. They are also darn cold! Surprisingly, there were only another half-dozen people there.

So the timing and the setting were ideal. We took in the views, took some family photos, then went inside and enjoyed our picnic while the sky changed colors. It was a great time. The play area was available exclusively for the kids' use. And there were educational posters throughout the restaurant. A couple of photos of them are below, including some of the more spectacular species of birds that have passed into extinction, such as the Moa (the largest bird ever to have lived), the largest eagle ever to have lived, and the laughing owl. I recommend looking them up online if you have the chance.

There was also some information on the first European to find New Zealand. Interestingly, he never set foot on the land, and it was more than a century later before Captain Cook would be the first European to do so.

Views north into Christchurch:

The view west.

Lyttleton

Under good weather

The last time we passed an illness around the house, we had to cancel any plans of celebrating Ryan's birthday. So here I sit, 7 minutes from my birthday, palpating the enlarged lymph nodes in my neck and rubbing my temples. Nausea seems to be the common thread for each of us. Trey was the entertaining one, kicking it off with the gastrointestinal equivalent of fireworks the day before yesterday... in both directions... while buckled into his car seat while Ana drove the streets a good distance from home. Poor fellow. But he was a trooper, and hasn't really acted like he felt badly, oddly enough. He just showed it.
So Ana has pulled out of tomorrow's duathlon, birthday dinner was canceled, the Halloween party across town went by without us, and any activities for the weekend seem too difficult at this point. In fact, we were all asleep by 6 pm! Which explains why I am composing this in the middle of the night.
On a lighter note, last weekend was wonderful. Ana let me go for a weekend trip with the guys, so four of us hightailed out of town on the Friday afternoon of our Labour Day weekend for Picton a port town for ferries connecting the south island with Wellington. After an overnight stay there, we caught a morning ferry to the northern tip of one of the peninsulae formed by all the long sounds through there, then spent two days climbing and descending the hills on the way back to Picton. Company was great, the scenery incredible, and the riding was the best I have had the opportunity to behold. What a weekend.

This is the traffic at the start of a three-day weekend, south island style. The only way it could be made legitimate traffic was by people's irrationally hurried behavior and by the one-lane bridges on major highways, as pictured. This is from the most major route north and south on the island.
These were the fellow travellers. Who knows why we decided to continue wearing our helmets on the ferry. It wasn't a group decision, but it was one less thing to hold in the wind and waves. Anyway, these are Walter Lettick, born in Belgium, raised in NZ; Heath Lash, who spent most of his youth in South Africa, where his father was a veterinarian to all sorts of animals; and Tom McKenzie, best friend of Walter, husband of one of the plastic surgery registrars, who, by the way, is the best friend of Walter's fiancee from childhood.
This was the kind of scenery we had to deal with all weekend. Dangerous when a view like that pops out at you on a downhill! Fortunately there were plenty of steep, gutbusting uphills to take up our time, much of it pushing.
This is one of the examples how we were NOT roughing it. Beers at a plantation-like resort inaccessible by car, just ferry, bike, or hike. Despite the seclusion, there was jazz music playing, all the amenities of a good resort, very good food. This was where we had lunch on day one. We continued on to another resort to spend the night. After hosing off the tons of mud (from both bike and man), we relaxed in the hot-tub before dinner. Night-time entertainment was a hike down from the restaurant at the top of the resort (FAR from the top of the hill however) to the bar on the shore, where the only satellite TV was. The joint was chucker, as people gathered to watch the New Zealand equivalent of the Super Bowl, the rugby union national championship. Canterbury, the district for Christchurch, beat Wellington. The crowd, literally standing room only-- and not much of that-- was clearly bipartisan. We were on the south island, but barely, and Wellington was only about 30 km across the water.

It was interesting at the end of the match how half the folks headed back to their bungalows, the other half got on dingies at the pier and headed out to their boats in the bay.

It was a 71 km journey, and here we are at the finish. Notice how we are not burdened by our packs. The beauty of the trip is that the ferry makes numerous stops on the way back to Picton, so they are happy to ferry your packs along to your stop for the night. Our timing was so good that, as we emerged from the trail into town at the end of the second day, the ferry was just pulling into dock.

Even the ride home was nice. The mountains are still snowcapped in the distance.
Ana has had her own outdoor projects going. She did her first duathlon and the South Island Masters Games a couple of weeks ago and brought home the silver! It was a lot of fun. We put street tires on the same mountain bike and she was good to go. Mind you bikes ranged from triathlon bikes with disks for the rear wheel to decrease drag; to lower-end mountain bikes with knobby tires.
The run was actually on a short road course for cars. Hence the tire barriers and concrete walls.
The kids are getting more playful, as Trey gets stronger and more independent, and as the weather gets warmer. Note the excellent demonstration of the scissor-hold, unrivaled since the days of the Von Erichs.

Trey has found that he can entertain in his own right, with this face of his. All of the sudden his eyes grow huge and he does this Valsalva maneuver. We are trying to catch it on video.

Ryan took it upon herself to don us all with capes. She raided the dishtowel drawer to find us all costumes.
Ryan has started swimming classes and is happy to strut her new swimming cap and the goggles. When she was informed that her teacher was named Zoe, she exclaimed, "Oh good, and Elmo can teach Trey, Big Bird can teach Mommy, and the Cookie Monster can teach Daddy!"

As the weather has gotten better, we have been able to get out into the "garden" on occasion. I had an afternoon of studying, while Ryno brought out a book of her own-- and some dreams.

Let me know if you have anything you would like us to report on, photograph, or answer.

By the way, it is now two in the morning and everyone is awake. Today may be a long one...

Reality check

I have to admit that I came over here with false expectations. I see that now, but when you are excited about something, you are willing to overlook faults or, more likely, not go looking for faults you know must be there to some degree.

So as you get to know the real character, it almost feels goofy to think what you thought then. Don't get me wrong, I am still quite happy to be here. I just feel that I have gotten to know more of the real deal, not just some image of what I want it to be.

The loss of the luster really became apparent on a taxi ride back from Burwood Hospital (an revamped military hospital located on the northeast edge of town) to Christchurch Hospital (the main one smack in the center of town. Google map it). Because we occasionally have to bounce between them, they reimburse us for the mileage or they pay for the taxi trip. (This job is pretty nice.)

Point being that I found myself in another taxi, making this trip. Usually the driver is from a standard demographic, a relatively simple older guy who grew up somewhere on the south island, a nice guy who is satisfied talking about the direction the wind is blowing and the latest rugby score. But this time I was transported by a guy about 24 years old, an immigrant from India who had moved here two years ago with his wife. (Sounds like the flip side of a New York movie, right?)

Not too far into the trip, he asked me where I was from. I guess my accent fools no one. Next was the question as to my opinion of New Zealand. I gave my honest positive opinion and expected a similar one, so he caught me off guard when he said that at least it was a pretty country. Turns out he is not too fired up about the people. The racism was a little too great for him, which was strange because I had not seen any of it. He must have been hogging it all.

Turns out that the there must be a pretty good share of it. Doesn't make any sense considering the fact that this country is newer that ours, they really didn't have any slavery, the urban areas are very multicultural, and they honor the Maori heritage. The Maori thing is ubiquitous. Every sign (mottos, welcome, push) has a Maori interpretation. Whenever public land is sold, the Maori have first rights to purchasing it. Then there is the Haka at all the All Blacks rugby games, the Maori radio and television stations, special scholarships... You add on top of that that it seems no one is more than second generation Kiwi, so even if you were born here, a fair share of you friends must be from elsewhere. So it would seem that ethnic sensitivity runs deep here, maybe even too deep.

But our driver went on to tell me about the treatment he had received, especially through work. He was well-spoken, seemed fairly well educated, and had traveled a good bit. Nonetheless, he said he was regularly slandered. He particularly grumbled about how every passenger asked him where he was from and how long he had been there. I winced a bit, apologizing that I had asked the same only a minute before, but he shrugged it off, explaining how easy it was to tell the difference in the way that the question is asked. Usually it has the tone of, "What are you doing here?"

The absurdity of it came more to light with examples. Just a couple of weeks before, he had taken a boy-- sounded to be around six years old-- back to his parents' house. I don't know where he was coming from that his parents weren't with him, but the point was that he took the kid up to the doorstep and told the father the taxi fare, only to be met with the response, "I don't have to pay you. This is my country, not yours."

Even his cousin, who is a policeman here, has had similar problems. He got a similar retort as to why the tennant didn't have to open his front door when the policemann knocked to serve a warrant!

It's clear that both of them are in professions that expose them to the dregs of society, and that I was surprised by their experiences because I get a much better segment of the population in plastic surgery-- further support for my decision to abandon trauma and general surgery for hand surgery. In fact it is even better here than in the states, as doctors are held in higher esteem, trips to clinic are more significant, and they are grateful for treatment rather than suspicious. But I was glad to hear about different experiences and opinions of the country.

A comparison of systems

So the vernal equinox came and went this week, and I have noted a bit of a change in myself, as well. Perhaps because I have also realized that I recently passed the half-way point of work at Christchurch Hospital. It has certainly gone by very quickly. Maybe it is a bit of subconscious self-evaluation, but the honeymoon phase is over, I have begun more to work on the necessary preparations for Sydney, and I have a sense of routine at work, which allows the mind to be on other things while completing tasks. Meanwhile I have noticed that I have not given Aunt Kath the description of work life here, as I told her I would. So I will start there and progress to other observations later.

Work is actually very nice. If I were to boil it down to two reasons, they would be that 1) the union has been strong here, and the registrars are the biggest beneficiaries, it seems; and 2) that I am appreciated there. The latter makes a huge difference. The two trainees here, those who are already designated to become plastic surgeons, are responsible for making sure that all the acute cases from the emergency department are taken care of. At times, that has meant that they were not able to participate in the elective cases they wanted. Most of these acute cases are hand surgery, or skin grafting of acute injuries. With the previous experience with burn intensive care and with the hand fellowship, I provided them a lot of relief to focus on the cases they want. Works out nice.

As for the conditions, it is much more civilized here. Much less of a sense of indentured servitude. Fewer hours, more respect, more vacation time, better pay. Kind of nice.

There is a tradeoff, however. This training scheme is based on the UK system, as are Canada's, Australia's, and a couple of others. The result is a much less direct pathway of matriculation. Basically you graduate from medical school without any clinical experience, so you are not expected to know what you want to do. You apply for positions as house officers, where you manage medications, make the changes discussed in rounds, chase down lab results, take care of the paperwork, including admissions and discharges. Through this experience, you learn about the specialty over about a four-month stretch, and the department gets to know about you. At the end of the run you move on to another specialty. And this rotational progression can be interminable.

The next step is to move from house officer to registrar. At the end of the year, or some year, you declare that you are moving from one role to the next and apply to a department to become employeed for the run of 12 weeks. And herein lies the greatest difference: even though you are taking call, doing the surgeries, attending lectures, giving presentations on the subject, you are not guaranteed to become one of those specialists. You get a better feel for what the field is like, get better pay, that is about it. And again, this process of going from one rotation to another may last one year, maybe several. It depends on when you are ready to apply to one specialty for final training and the fortune of getting accepted into a training slot.

And there are not many slots. For plastic surgery, for example, there are some ten positions in the country-- total. This year there was good timing and five spots were available. Some years, maybe only one.

So the downside is you have no idea how long your training will last. Worse, you may spend several years chasing a carrot that you will never reach. I would think that could be quite frustrating, demoralizing. But in the meanwhile, work can be rather pleasant, you have deeper pockets at an age when many are establishing families, or at the least want to be seein the world.
Pay is fair, resposibility low, and so for a doctor of the same age, these guys are incredibly cultured, well-traveled. But they still have a long road ahead of them before they reach independence.

In the end, which is more preferable? The jury is still out.

Just a great day.

I had to spend a little extra time tonight (way past my bedtime) to blog about a great day. You just never know when they are going to happen. In order for today to turn out like it did, a colleague had to call in sick, there had to be a couple of miscommunications, and my Paypal account had to be straightened out. No pictures this time, so just use your mind's eye.

Layan called in sick on a day when he was on call. I was post-call, thus having booked some of the surgeries for today when the patients came through the Emergency Department yesterday. Normally Layan would have done them, but since I know the cases, and two of the four were hand cases, I took them to the "operating theatre." They were fracture cases, procedures I really enjoy doing. The operating theatre mood was light, with everyone in a good mood. They came out well, too.

Just after the second hand surgery, I had to hurry to a meeting across town regarding upper extremity surgery for tetraplegics. Now it would have been great if the meeting had taken place, but I took full advantage of the opening in the appointment book to.... go home early! (Actually by the time I got back to the hospital and gathered things together, I only got to leave on time, but it was the first time since I have been here.) This allowed me to play with the kids and Ana for a while without the distraction of getting ready for dinner or feeding them (the kids).

Now I have to backtrack a few weeks. I had decided shortly after having arrived here, that the only way I would unite the mountain bike I had brought over with the highly reputed trails around here required the headlight, also brought over. Well, that sucker lasted only a couple of trips to work and back. As soon as it had to be charged, it became clear that the charger didn't work here, despite using a plug adapter. Time to upgrade!

Some time passed with shopping online. After looking at some review articles, chat reviews, vendor and manufacturer websites, it basically came down to two models. Interestingly, one is made in Australia, the second right here in the Garden City! (Ayup and Nightlightning, if you are interested).

The comparison took a little more time. I finally decided on Ayup, picked out the colors that I wanted and bought them from the company. In the process of checking out, it seemed easier to use my Paypal account. Long story slightly shorter, changing your address a couple of times, including to another country, when it has been dormant for months and months somehow triggers some security alerts. It also seems that triggering security alerts at Paypal triggers security alerts at my credit card company.

A couple of phone calls back to the states, during their hours of convenience, took a few more days to manage. If competent people managed the phones at Paypal, the pain would have been less, but after assuring me that all was well, they allowed new purchases to be made but never allowed the transfer of funds to Ayup. More time passed.

Ultimately, the great goods arrived last week, a month later. And tonight was the first opportunity I had to use them in an appropriate venue. These boys would be dangerous on the streets (for the oncoming cars... and therefore for me, I guess), but I found a city park that has trails and doesn't close until 11 pm. Perfect!

Fast forward back to where the great day left off. I found the park (Bottle Lake) and went for a great ride around sundown. It turns out that it leads you alongside the coast, which I found right in the midst of a great sunset. Surf to the east, mountains and sunset on the western horizon, and the emerging city lights and the Port Hills beyond them to the south. A great moment.

The lights worked fantastically. In fact, when I got back to the car I seriously considered going out for another ride. And why not, considering how many Kiwis were still out there; by my estimate more than thirty people were out riding the trails, and there were more cars in the lot that when I got there! But headed for home on time, and, man, am I glad I did. The kids were great, and we sat down to the best dinner Ana my have ever made. It was a wonderful culmination.

Great work, good people, family playtime, exercise, wonderful views, great food. This is what I hoped for coming to New Zealand.

The lights are recharged. You just never know when the next great day will come around...

Orana Wildlife Park

It turns out that there is a a great wildlife park just on the edge of town. The pictures pretty much speak for themselves.

Mt. Hutt

The first of several adventures the past couple of weeks was another trip snowboarding. But this time all four of us made the trip.... in our 12-year old car. But no worries; this time we were going to the most popular mountain in the country, and considering how few there are down here, I think we can safely say in the entire southern hemisphere.

The trip is, in short, hair-raising. Pavement, none. The reason, the road would be slicker, the speeds possibly higher, and therefore they would have to invest more in guard rails. I should have taken a picture of one of them, but I was busy gripping the steering wheel tightly. And the photos in the fog may not have come out well. But they are nothing more than a steel cable running through 5 or 6 rusty posts which angled out of the edge of the cliff. There were only a couple of them on the 13 km ascent.

All of the slopes here are above tree level. No skiing in the trees, and a good uphill climb in the car. And when you get there, it really is a wider spot carved into the hill. See exhibit B.

Really you become convinced that no one else could be on the mountain, so by the time we got there, my disappointment in the road was mixed by the happiness to see any other cars whatsoever.

But up on the mountain, the views were great. We eventually drove above the clouds. This a view back from the top of the slope at the road we used.

And this is view in the other direction. Wow.

We took the long way home to see a little more of the country. We were once again caught off guard. In the countryside, just outside the town of Ashburton, population 14,000, we passed a farmhouse with these signs outside. That will give you a double-take.

The Trip to the Antarctic (Centre)

The third and most recent trip was to Christchurch's International Antarctic Centre. There we learned a number of things, including how close we really are to antarctica. In fact, a relatively large portion of the entire center is the base for the United States Antarctic Program. There were several large exhibits regarding the brutally cold temperatures there, the explorers who had been there (as early as 1820!), the climate changes there, but really we were there to see the penguins.




Ryan got a front-row view of the feeding of the penguins. These were little fellas, which reminds me of how large the bigger species are. I should have taken a photo of Ryan beside some of the stuffed emperor penguins. I am not sure which was taller.


While chasing Ryan around, I did take a couple of photos of some really interesting facts about Christchurch. I hope they come out legible.