Two Americans emigrate to New Zealand from Colorado,
USA.
We talk about
our life in Nelson, New Zealand.
December 2007 | Blog home | February 2008
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3 January: Golden Bay with John and StarThe final trek we made with our good friends John and Star while they were here in late November/ early December was to take them to one of our favourite top of the south locations, Wharariki Beach, and over to the farthest side of Golden Bay to Farewell Spit.
We love Wharariki Beach -- someone called it a 'typical' west coast beach, but I don't recall it being terribly typical. Then again, I'm not really a local so what do I know!! But it's 20 minute trek through sheep farmlands (see right, sheep were 
VERY vocal this day), entering out into a view of the west coast and onto white sand dunes that take you to a gorgeous location, including a seal colony that always has me rapt! We've shown you the seal colony before on a prior blog, but this time we got another great view in a different area.
Heading out on the path, we get to see some great views of Farewell Spit and Wharariki Beach, and took lots of photos.
This shot (left) doesn't really do the beach and dunes justice, we had blue skies, great weather, and climbed out over those hot, hot dunes.
We were warned by another visitor that there weren't too many seals, a couple of fat ones sitting up high on the rocky cliffs. But I wasn't going to be fooled by those sly, slippery creatures, and I was rewarded when I waded through the strong waters around to the other side of the volcano cone island.
Look at this fat guy, he's loving his perch, but the cutest ones are yet to come, around the corner even further I found three moms with their babies, and daddy was nearby too. 
I didn't want to get too close, didn't want to disturb them, but I called Don over, and John quickly came and took the camera from Star and hiked up high to get some of these shots. We coaxed Star to tread through water to join us and get a close up view. Adorable!
After our seal colony excursion and a hike back, we walked in the water, walked around, got a lot of sun, and goofed off just a bit, and Don couldn't stop making finger guns and posing.
He's big into posing for photos (what a poser). So I decided to take the piss out of him a bit, and nearly helped him pose with his pumping fists by grabbing him in another area, but he caught me before we fully captured the moment. : )
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Then we went to the other side of the spit, to the beach off the spit, for a flat walk along the beach and out across a bit to another west coast beach much like Wharariki.
Along the way I spotted -- with such a keen eye, I cannot tell you how good I was -- this poor crab who missed the boat and was waaaay out of the water during the lowest tide. Despite the fact that perhaps he wanted to be there (which I just refused to believe), I insisted that John rescue him and put him into some water nearby.
On our way home we saw heaps of beautiful black swans, which apparently frequent Farewell Spit and Golden Bay, although this was the first time I'd seen them. So pretty!
7 January: Don's first day of work at CouncilI'm such a proud mum today! Well, not really a mum as such, but it probably seems like it.
Don started his job today at the Nelson City Council. I usually have Mondays off, so I wasn't at the office to walk him around and take him under my wing and really mentor him for his very first day, but he's been assigned his own 
'buddy' in the department and will be well protected.
I caught him eating breakfast, looking over his paperwork. What a responsible employee! Could I be any more mumsy, wanting to make sure to get him off to school --- err, work in a timely fashion.
Then I caught him reading up on the Council in our fortnightly publication, Live Nelson (good boy!) which my team writes and publishes. He's always keen to figure out which articles are mine. He's sure to impress his boss and co-workers with that kind of umph and drive!
Big problem right off the bat though as he forgot his work shoes! Can't take that boy anywhere.
Livvy was around wanting to help too.
Wait, she's actually more concerned with getting some food in her dish than with Don, my mistake. Cats.
With bags packed and ready to go, I followed him around all morning to make sure he was ready. I tried to insist he take his lunch, 
maybe a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but he was more keen to go it alone today, waiting to scout out the lay of the land, assess the kitchen possibilities and all. How adorable!! In his words, he's going to play it like he would on Survivor, quiet and assessing everyone else for the first few days before he starts to form an alliance.
By the time I stalked him out to the car through the garage, he'd clearly had enough of me. I won't share with you the expletive that crossed his lips in conjunction with my name, but safe to say I stopped taking photos and made my way back into the house, getting the 'f' away from him as he so kindly requested. At least he put on the right shoes finally. Have a swell first day at Council at your new job, Don!
Yes it was my first day and pretty uneventful. I'm just eager to start with some real work. Basically I was given the office tour, met a bunch of people, and was given some training on the computer and phone systems. Plus took 2 smoko breaks and had a cuppa or two. I'll let you know when I start to figure out what exactly I will be doing but I did get a bit of insight today. I might be the project manager for the spraying of the treated solid waste at Rabbit Island. Cool. Hopefully I won't have to be "hands on" for that one. Anyway, more as I learn more.
Summer's fourth shark sighting madeBy JOSH REICH and NZPA - The Nelson Mail | Tuesday, 08 January 2008
There has been a shark sighting in a fourth location this summer after four divers saw a great white shark off the Kapiti Coast on Saturday. However, there has not been a fatal attack by a great white in New Zealand for more than 30 years.
Marine conservationist Wade Doak said sharks usually only bite a person by mistake and people should learn to live with them. There have been about 45 unprovoked shark attacks recorded in New Zealand since 1852 - nine fatal.
Saturday's 4m (12 feet!!!) shark appeared as builder Gary Porter prepared to dive near Kapiti Island. Mr Porter and three friends watched and took photos as the shark circled their boat for more than an hour, passing close enough for them to touch its fin. "They're so fast. It's amazing for that size how quickly it can move through the water. You wouldn't stand a chance really," Mr Porter said.
Earlier, North Taranaki fishermen Andrew Sharman, Wilson Montgomery and David Collingwood said they saw a massive shark about 9am on Friday, about 3km off Motunui. The shark was at least 5m (15 feet!!!!!!) long and its grey dorsal fin was sticking more than half a metre out of the water, the men said.
In the Bay of Plenty a 2.5m bronze whaler was caught in a fishing net off Papamoa beach on December 29. Another two sharks were spotted swimming about 100m south of the club's flags on New Year's Day.
In Northland a 2.5m (7.5 feet!) mako shark has been seen daily for the past week at Ocean Beach, 36km south-east of Whangarei, swimming under a surfer on one occasion.
The chances of coming face-to-face with a great white shark while taking a dip at Tahunanui Beach (in Nelson) are slim. National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research principal scientist Malcolm Francis said while great whites could appear in shallow water anywhere in New Zealand, they were unlikely to be found in the Nelson region.
Great white sharks tended to be attracted by school fish activity, especially around fishing vessels and seal colonies. More commonly found in the summer months is the bronze whaler, while the odd blue or mako shark has been found in deeper water off the Nelson coast.
On 29 December my friend Jade married her fiancee Chris in a lovely ceremony on Haulashore Island which is just off of the coast from Nelson. More than 100 guests were boated out to the Island for the ceremony and then we boated back for the reception at a seaside restaurant. The whole day was beautiful and Jade looked gorgeous!
But first she invited a dozen girlfriends to 
join her in Christchurch the weekend before for what is called here the hens night, the bachelorette party in the States. The bachelor party in the States is called the bucks night here.
The girls got together and we had a lovely dinner on the ocean down in Canterbury and then ventured back into the
city to an 80s bar where we all danced to very, very old tunes (how old did we all feel!!!) and had a blast.
Jade even let her hair down just a bit and got on a chair to dance a jig or something, I can't even remember, and I didn't drink that much! But we all had a good time. That's my friend Kate in the lower right foreground.
The wedding itself was gorgeous, but not without its fluke -- which wedding goes completely according to plan??
Sure enough, Don and I were one of the lucky dozen or so who went across to the island on Chris' boat, The Cortez, pictured above right.
But the other 100 guests were to take a chartered boat across from the port to the dock at Haulashore, and it wasn't happening at least for one hour. The barb-b-cruise.
The winds were blowing quite a bit that day, and the boat captain guy was determined to back that boat 
onto the right side of the dock, but the wind was pushing it away, toward land and he could never get close enough.
After 45 minutes of going out and moving back in toward the dock (literally we counted 10 times and then stopped counting), and after we heard from Jade who was waiting first in a car on the hill on land, and then on the Cortez in the bay area, the captain guy -- with the help of all the blokes who were waiting on the island yelling out directions from the dock and trying their darndest to help -- finally decided to approach the dock from the other side. We all were saying this on land for the entire time, but once he moved it back on the other side, the wind pushed him gently into the dock, and voila! Jade joked later that she might have been the first bride ever to get to her wedding BEFORE her guests!
Chris and his groomsment were waiting patiently (sorta). In the photo above, Chris is the second from the right, and his best man Ian is next to him.
Everyone started exiting the boat and making their way toward us where the ceremony was taking place. Then the bride landed with her parents and wedding party, and we got underway!
The ceremony began, with Jade escorted down 'the aisle' by both her mother and father and preceded by best friend Sarina (blonde) and sister Rachel (brunette), with sister Freya just out of this shot. Jade and Chris, who wrote their own vows, exchanged them in 
front of everyone and in front of all of Nelson. I came to find out that one of our colleagues, Nan, was watching from land through binoculars, so indeed it was ALL of Nelson!! Nan said it was a bit fuzzy, however, but what a peeper she is!
There were boats sitting just off the island watching the ceremony, so it wasn't just Nan doing the peeping.
After the ceremony, family photos started, here are Jade and Chris with her father and her mother.
I enticed Jade to a picture with me, isn't she lovely! 
Later on she was telling us how much in pain she was with her veil, which was clipped to the back of her head. She put on such a brave face! She couldn't wait to tear it off at the reception. I was wearing my new fabulous red dress, and we were all doing our best to avoid sunburn and still look pretty.
Then off to the reception where we ate fresh seafood that Chris and some of his friends actually caught in the weeks prior to the wedding. We ate a multiple course meal, listened to touching speeches by several people, including the new couple, and then danced to great live music.
All in all, it was a great day and we were home at 1.30am sharp and slept in until about 10am the next day.
Congratulations Jade and Chris!
PS. Happy birthday, Mark!
We've been saying this for a long time, and we're not super smart either, most people have been talking about it, honestly. It's THE main reason we've decided to not buy a home here yet and it's put real stress on a population that (was) over 70% home owners. So many cannot afford to buy the smallest house any more, it's very difficult. And if you sink all your money into a house, it's your sole investment and it sucks up so much of your income, you lose any financial freedom. Tough road ahead.
NZ houses world's least affordable
By Anne Gibson, NZ Herald
(shortened for brevity sake)
New Zealand's homes are the least affordable in the world. It scores worst in an international survey of the world's six most expensive housing markets, passing Australia for the first time.
Demographia, an international survey business run by Hugh Pavletich of Christchurch and Wendell Cox of the United States, today issued its fourth annual report, showing New Zealand has slipped drastically on an international scale.
The United States, Australia, Britain, Ireland, Canada and New Zealand were studied, and the results reveal NZ house hunters face the biggest gap between earnings and house prices.
Wages are so low and house prices are so high that it takes 18 years and six months of a household's entire annual income to pay for a home, Demographia found. That measure is based on median house prices compared to median wages.
Australia had been the least affordable country of the six, but New Zealand has overtaken it, partly because of high mortgage interest rates.
But Aucklanders are no longer the worst-off New Zealanders. Tauranga is now the country's most expensive city compared to its wages, ranking 20th of 227 cities in the survey, followed by Auckland in 31st place and Christchurch in 34th.
Houses in Los Angeles remained the world's most expensive, and California was the most expensive area.
The most affordable houses are in Canada's remote Thunder Bay, followed by Youngstown in Ohio and Fort Wayne in Indiana.
Last weekend, Jade invited Don and I to go fishing with her and Chris on their boat out in the haven. We've been wanting to for forever, as people sea fish here like crazy just off the coast of our fair city. And they catch heaps!!
I may have mentioned in a recent blog that Chris and some of his friends caught all the fish to serve at their wedding by themselves. So we've been planning to go with them for some time, and now we had our chance!
Of course we had thoughts all afternoon about taking home a dozen freshly caught fish (that others would gut and clean for us) and have fresh fish for dinner for days and days, OOOOOh yummy!
Well, since neither of us had fished before, and one of us wasn't fishing at all (but there for the ride and moral support), our chances drastically dimmed.
We met up with Jade and Chris and they had a few other family members joining them as well. We piled into the boat and headed off. GOOD NEWS! Ginger does work like a charm on motion sickness, for me anyway. I took some test 
pills and the dramatic waves and swells we sat in while fishing, which normally would have me heaving overboard, washed right over me! Woo hoo. Now there is hope for me to become a boatie after all.
The bait was cut up and bloody good ... for fish. Don was given his first pole all baited up and ready, and he put his line 
down for the very first time ever! And so did the other boys.
The fish were biting indeed. And it wasn't long before we (well, not me, but I was THERE, a collective 'we') caught our first ... a spottie. Technically I dunno what its name or species is, but its nickname is a spottie, and apparently they don't taste good and always get tossed back.
Above you can see Don baiting his own hook with his very own hands (and he got lovely blood-and-guts spots on his shirt that we had to clean out -- fishing is DIRTY).
Here he is with his first actual fish, yes a spottie, so back s/he went. But how cool!
You'll have to pretend, however, that Don is really holding the snapper he caught, because he was one of three snapper catchers that day!! But his fish was off his hook and back in 
the water so fast because it was juuuussst a touch too small to legally take home. BLAST! After all those blokes fishing, and all those two dozen spotties caught, we all came away with one freaking snapper, ONE!
Bummer. But Chris had this cutie little spottie on his line and nearly ate it all raw and in one gulp!
We'll get you next time, fishies!
Don and I are planning our first vacation outside of New Zealand. Before we moved here, probably our chief concern—aside from finding jobs—was retaining our ability to travel. We’ve been many places in the last 15 years and want to continue to see the world. But, travelling from New Zealand is a bit trickier and far more expensive than from the States. We researched costs and felt prepared for the reality that we’d need to be frugal and plan well ahead—and save lots of money, of course.
Because our move across the water was a big enough adventure all on its own, we decided that we’d stay around New Zealand for the first few years, travel more cheaply this way and see parts of the country we’d not seen. We’ve been able to do some of this but because our lives here have turned out a bit better financially than we planned, we decided a few months ago to duck on over to Australia sometime in 2008. In planning this trip, we've started to learn some travel realities about living in a provincial location within a very small, island country.
Here are some things to consider about travelling from New Zealand on holiday. As with everything we write about, we intend this as information, not complaint. We feel that we can do anything, and overcoming these travel issues is just another adventure that is part of living in this great place. Okay, sometimes there are tedious parts as well, but you have to stay positive, right?!
I'll split this information into a three-part blog and cover these topics:
Right now the kiwi dollar is relatively strong, but it is still behind most currencies Europe, the States, Australia, Asia, England and the U.K.
For every kiwi dollar we use to travel, we will only get 1/3 of its value if we are in England as the pound is about 3x its value. So a measly £5 lunch would cost us $15 of our NZ dollars. Stretch that out to hotel or B&Bs, for every £75 to £100 night we stay, we’re shelling out up to $300 of our dollars. Now if you are lucky enough to be able to save $300 per month on vacations, well one month’s savings is going to one night’s hotel in England. Crikey!
The Euro is about twice the kiwi dollar, and the US dollar is approximately 1.33. As an example, a trip to the States might cost about $5,000 US dollars, but since we’ll pay in Kiwi dollars, we’ll need to save about $6,700.
At the time I wrote this, $1 NZ was equal to about 85 Japanese Yen. A room for one night at the Hyatt in Tokyo is about 27,000Y, or about $300 NZ. That exchange isn’t too awful, but Tokyo is as expensive as any city at that rate.
And $1 NZ is equal to about 5.5 Chinese Yuan or about 6 Hong Kong Dollars. The Ramada in Hong Kong charges about HK$650, and that amounts to approximately NZ$108, so that's not too bad.
I've been told Thailand is great because it is cheap relative to the currency exchange, with nightly stays costing about $30 and food being dirt cheap in kiwi dollars.
Among the cheapest option for any sort of travel outside of New Zealand, Australia's currency adds only about 20% to the cost via exchange. The bonus about Australia is it is generally very affordable even before the exchange, so overall it is the top destination for kiwis.
PS. Happy birthday, Deanna!
