I (Heart) Timaru.....and random Kiwiana

The big news here and around the world this week has been the tragic Christchurch earthquake. I won't say much about it now except that we are fine, Timaru was unharmed, but everyone here  has friends and/or family there. The loss of of life is staggering, the devastation to a unique city is heart-breaking. It is like New Zealand's combination of 911 and Katrina- it will never be the same. I am glad we got to visit before the destruction. It is another reminder of the fragility of life, and the need to life each day fully.

This is my unapologetic love letter to Timaru, South Canterbury, New Zealand. Today is my last day here after ten months working and playing here, and everything exceeded my expectations by far. I knew nothing about this place before signing up, I just guessed it was a better fit than Hamilton (too large) or Invercargill (too cold). Here are just a few things love about Timaru.
1) Location, location, location. The heart of the South Island, with the spectacular view of the Southern Alps and Mount Cook lurking in the background, as viewed from the hospital.

Mt. Cook/Aoraki peeks from above the four-windowed building in the center

2) Our home, across the street from the cenotaph.

3) Also across the street from the hospital and the Botanic garden. Taking daily walks in the garden as the seasons pass greatly enhances the quality of one's life, much like having a room with a view.


4) Caroline Bay, in the center of town.

5) Tuesday night dinners with the other medical consultants, a tradition started by Bernhard Kuepper to build camaraderie, and made weekly by Camille Hemlock.

Drs. Glowienka, Hemlock, and Kuepper

6) All the great and fun house surgeons and medical students I got to work with/mentor, especially my current crew, Florry O'Connell and the Irish contingent.

At a farewell dinner

[A brief side-bar: at the dinner, I was asked when I met Fayne. When I responded "1973", there was a collective pause, I guess for everyone else there to calculate how many years before their birth this was, followed by incredulous questions about those ancient days. Q-"How long was your hair?", and "Did you wear flairs?"...(bell-bottoms to us). A-"Shoulder-length", and "Yes of course, everyone did".]

Haley, Florry, and me

6) Mid-morning tea with the gang and Kirsha from Pharmacy.
7) The great, hardworking secretaries that made feel at home

Helen Lithgow and Joan Robinson

8) And all the wonderful nurses, therapists, other MDs, etc. I worked with, like Maree the Medical Ward clerk.

9) The great people and patients of South Canterbury, much like the good folks of Fort Bragg.

It seems only a few days ago that we arrived here on May Day.

May 1,2010

We couldn't image how comfortable and at home we would come to feel. Thank you all so much for making this one of the best years of my life.

There are a few other random, Kiwi-related thoughts.

Kiwis are great people, but they must realize their accent and the strange things they do with vowel sounds are the subject of bemused derision from the rest of the English-speaking peoples (even the Aussies).

We have better holidays in the USA. Sure, we WAY overdo and over-commercialize everything, but I haven't seen anything here to compete with Thanksgiving or the Forth of July. Recently they "celebrated" Waitangi Day, honoring the treaty between the British and the Maoris which established the country. There were no parades, no fireworks. I realized it is in some ways the opposite of Independence Day. This is the day the Maori ceded (or may have, depending on who you believe) sovereignty to the Crown. Instead of uniting people, to date it seems to bring up some resentment and grievances on both sides. On holiday here is the Queen's Birthday, which is not actually her birthday, and is not even celebrated in the UK.

I have been puzzled and/or amused by many items in the paper, especially in the Police Notebook, to wit:
"A Timaru man, 18,was arrested for a historic assault."
"A 17-year-old woman and 24-year-old man were caught eating lollies from the bulk bins at Pak 'n Save. They were warned and trespass notices were issued."
"A 22 year-old Timaru was arrested on a warrant"
"A 33 year-old Timaru man was arrested for misusing a phone and possessing an offensive weapon."

There have been photo ops with two very prestigious trophies, the Melbourne Cup for horse racing, and the Webb Ellis Trophy for the Rugby World Cup, to be hosted by NZ later this year

M.C.

W.E.C.

I thought of playing a game matching the auto-makers with the models. We saw new names daily, as if they named each one individually. Try matching these:
A)Suzuki  B) Toyota  C)Nissan  D)Daihatsu  E)Mazda  F)Holden- with
1)Sirion  2)Lucida  3)Astra 4)Bluebird  5)Swift 6)Tribute
(Answers below).

One last Timaru panorama

One final random shout-out to my sister Athena. Like everyone, sometimes she will drive you crazy. But she has one trump card that is hard to ignore: "Yeah, but she gave her best friend her kidney". A former roommate of her daughter Emily wrote an article for the Northwestern on-line paper in honor of National Donors Day. Check it out here.

Answers: A-5,B-2,C-4,D-1,E-6,F-3

Topp Twins and Hot Beaches

Albert Park with SkyTower in Backround, Auckland

We were back in Auckland at the environs really for the first time since we arrived in New Zealand on Anzac Day. The goal was to go to a medical meeting on asthma and allergies and the visit more of the country we hadn't yet visited. My house surgeon Florry O'Connell referred to it as a "conference" (with air quotes) to impugn my motives, which in all honesty were not purely academic. Medical contracts in NZ have very generous allocations for Continuing Medical Education, up to $20,000 per year, and if you don't use it you lose it. The meeting was held in an impressive hall at the University of Auckland, and presented data from a 20 year world-wide study, done by very dedicated people, ISAAC- The International Study of Allergies and Asthma in Childhood. I won't try to summarize.

.
We made time to visit the Auckland Museum again to see the fantastic collection of Pacific/Polynesian artifacts.

It was interesting to return to Auckland after nine months in the rest of the country. It really is a world apart. The central business district really isn't very pleasant, difficult to navigate on foot or by car, sliced up by access roadways. You might think the waterfront would be the natural gathering place, but that's not the case. There are some restaurants, cafes, hotels, a Seaport Museum, but locals don't really hang out there, and there are few natives around. There is a definite shortage of parks and open spaces. Were it not for the iconic Sky Tower, you would be hard-pressed to know where you are.
Everyone agrees the thing to do is to get out of the CBD and go to the neighborhoods, or better yet take a short ferry ride to the Gulf Islands, so we did, specifically to Waiheke Island. Just one big problem: the approaching Typhoon Wilma. We tucked into our postage-stamp sized room in time for the deluge. We spent the night bemoaning our tiny quarters until we found out the grander unit next door flooded over night. Dodged a bullet there! The next day the rain stopped, but we side-stepped multiple rock slides to tour this jewel. Most tourists were scared away, so we had the hop-on-hop-off buses almost to ourselves, a private tour really. We saw the beautiful beaches
 
and the 100 year-old house that slid down to the sea.

We also saw some very strange looking creatures that our guide explained where genetic hybrid between a sheep and a giraffe,a "sheeraffe"if you will. They certainly look strange, and he may have been right, but I have been unable to verify it at this time, and alas I have no photographs. (I believe he was misinformed or it was a ruse and they were really sheared alpacas.) It was unexpected and delightful day, highlighted by a nice lunch at a beachfront café.

The roads and pathways had cleared enough on Sunday that we were able to enjoy the Headland sculptures on the gulf, an event which occurs every other year for four weeks. Artists have the challenge of preparing sculptures and exhibits that are scattered along the trail on the West Coast to the island overlooking Hauraki Gulf across to Auckland. Below are several examples of the more interesting artworks. The first photo actually contains two works of art, the first is a construction of firewood, steel, and fencing wire entitled "Sunday Afternoon" (by Marcus Tatton), and a more conceptual piece entitled "aendaenti" (by Kazu Nakagawa) in which trail walkers are urged to carry umbrellas (I think of it as sort of being a Christo-lite).

A pile of wood and an art lover/work of art

Fletcher Vaughn-Collapse

Chris Bailey-The Anchor Stone of Waiheke

Chris Meder-The Cheeky Moa

Look carefully at the names on the signposts. They all refer to the famous works of art throughout the world.

Matt Akehurst-You Are Here

This is a family group of Viagra, Ritalin, Prozac, Halcion, and other commonly prescribed drugs. Can you name them all?

Paul Radford-Prodigal Child

A kind of the fish/submarine thingee.

David McCracken-Washed Up On Waiheke

All-in-all, a unique experience, and lots of fun.
Next up was the real reason for our excursion to Waiheke: to see the World Famous in New Zealand fabulous Topp Twins , who have been described as the World's only comedic, country singing, dancing, and yodeling lesbian twin sisters. Sort of Malvina Reynolds/Indigo Girls/Hee-Haw meshugas. We became acquainted with them via the Kiwi documentary Untouchable Girls, highly recommended. We missed their Hoedown near Timaru over the holidays, so came up to the Cable Bay Vineyards in Waiheke. The concert was delayed one day due to the cyclone, but by Sunday the weather was fine. I can't really explain their act and the Hoedown. See the movie.

Lynda Topp wandering through the crowd as Camp Mother and with Jools as Camp Leader

The Twins as Ken and Ken

The whole troupe on stage

It was a pleasant evening on the lawn, and afterwords we took the ferry back to the city center, surprised to see performers riding along with us (not the twins, alas).

The postponement of the show meant we had no place to stay on the island, and delayed the next leg of our trip to the Coromandel Peninsula. This also was fortuitous, as we would not have made it to Coromandel Town due to a large slide blocking the road. Many Kiwis and visitors have said the Coromandel is their favorite place in all of New Zealand, an unspoiled area two hours from Auckland with quaint towns, pristine white sand beaches, and plenty of tramping paths through rainforests. We had only the briefest peek at those splendors. The first stop was in Thames, a gold-mining center in the 1860's and home to the Thames School of Mines. A museum, historic stuff, old labs, local guides......we are NOT going to pass this up.

And we did not.
Time was short. It was Tuesday, February 1st, time to head back to Timaru and work, but not before a visit to Hot Water Beach. This is such a cool place. Hot springs empty out under the sand, and at two hours on either side of low tide you go down with a rented shovel, dig a hole, and sit in your own personal spa. Be careful, because your tush can get quite heated.

I have read about it since before I came here, and didn't realize what a beautiful spot it was.

Just a short bit up the road is Cathedral Cove, but we couldn't walk up to it due to, of course, a slide from the cyclone.

Then drive to the airport and back to the South Island, for a final 3 1/2 weeks.