Mt. Hutt Ski Trip


View from peak: Farmland and Ocean in the background


The classic New Zealand "Thumbs Up" pose


Borrowed terminology from the Starkville crew - this is a "Death Cookie". Props to Avery.


What is a wild parrot doing on the ski slopes?


What a unique skiing experience we had; like no other we've ever had. It only took an hour of driving after Jonny picked us up at 7 a.m. to get to the parking lot at Mt. Hutt. By the way, the parking lot and a ski rental shop with restaurant are the only things on the mountain. The closest town is about 20 minutes away and it requires a 4WD or tyre (NZ spelling) chains to get to the parking lot of the ski slope. Everything is above the tree line at 6800 ft., which is a little different from home.

From the peak of the mountain we could see mountain ranges in one direction and the ocean and flatland (equivalent to The Delta) in the other direction. We found some fresh powder on some isolated trails that were labeled "Experts Only" (Kate was a little skeptical). Many a death cookies were avoided on the slopes; these balls of ice will take you out in a heartbeat. Once we were knackered (this is a Jonny-ism which means extremely tired) we headed down and discovered the parrot above on top of someone's car. This was the perfect end to a not-so-normal day of skiing/snowboarding.

Antarctica, Here We Come...Sort of.




Saturday turned out to be a rainy, cold day so we opted for an inside adventure. Jonny suggested the International Antarctic Center and we had a great time! Here are a few fun facts we learned while we were there:
1. Christchurch is only 2,377 miles (3825 km) from Antarctica
2. Emperor penguins are the tallest penguin and can grow as tall as Paige (around 4 feet tall)
3. Human hair can grow up to twice as fast in Antarctica
4. Winds can blow up to 180 km/hour (you do the conversion)
5. Antarctica is the coldest place on Earth and can reach temperatures of -89 degrees celsius
6. The first sighting of land in Antarctica was not until 1820
7. Since there is no government or one country that owns Antarctica, you do not need a passport to visit
8. There are actually 3 different South Poles--the ceremonial, geographical, and magnetic; the magnetic South Pole is actually out in the ocean somewhere
9. Only $15000 will get you a nice cruise to Antarctica

We went in a room that simulated the conditions when it is dark (which is 4 months out of the year) and extremely windy and they took the temperature down to -18 degrees. It was a very memorable experience. The site that this museum is on is actually the airport and preparation center that all the trips to Antarctica leave from. For any more information, you can go to www.iceberg.co.nz.

This is a picture of the new edition to my hospital, the Woman's Center; so, if I decide to have a baby here, this is where I will be delivering (ha ha). Well, it is Saturday morning and I have officially finished my first week of work. Blaine is steady on the job hunt and our landlord, Katey has called an enginnering contact that she thinks might be able to help.

I really think I am going to like my job in the Coronary Care Unit. We get lots of patients that have had heart attacks, congestive heart failure, intra-aortic balloon pumps and pre and post heart surgeries such as angioplasty and stenting. We have a very diverse group of nurses from South Africa, France, Germany, and England...so I am not the odd one out.

We planned on going snow skiing today but they are having a blizzard in the mountains and we wouldn't be able to drive up there. If the weather clears, we plan on going tomorrow. Last night we went over to one of the church member's house and played Risk...I am not very fond of this game and it dragged on for 3 hours. But we had fun eating and visiting...most of the people are from Australia and so they taught us about cultural differences there. We have another friend couple from Nashville, Tyler and Susan. He works at K-Mart and she works as a pre-school teacher; we will pretty much be neighbors when we move into our flat. They bought a 1984 white van they call "Betty" for around $1500 and it has a bed in the back. They are fun because they are Southerners and we relate to them well. The sad news is that they are leaving in October to travel for 2 months before moving back to the States but we will have fun with them until then!

This is just another picture form our Saturday drive through the mountains. Wanted to share a few interesting facts about New Zealand: guess what they don't have here???!! SQUIRRELS. They also don't have central heating or insulation in their houses. Last night it sleeted/rained all night and we just about froze to death. At one point I(Kate) took a blanket that I brought from home and wrapped it around my head like a turban to try and stay warm. I think we might make a trip today to K-Mart to buy a little electric heater. One thing they do have here is ketchup and Blaine definitely bought a bottle the first day we were here (that's for everyone who knows about Blaine's ketchup obsession...he eats it on everything!).

No other news from today...just another day of orientation and job hunting. Thanks for all the Southern dinner suggestions...we will have to see how many ingredients we can find before we make a decision.

My first day at work and Blaine's first day on the job hunt is now officially over. They both went quite well. I had orientation at Princess Margaret's Hospital that turned into a 45 minute bus ride towards the hills. I had to catch the Orbiter bus from a stop down from our house. Blaine, however, caught a ride with Katey Lane, the lady who we are living with in her sports car convertible...they rode with the top down in 40 degree weather because Katey had to take her skiis by the shop. Blaine now has his work visa...we thought he was going to have to take part-time employment for 8-10 weeks until his visa came in but found out on Friday that if he came at 8 o'clock on Monday he could get his visa that day! He made several contacts in person and over the phone with some job leads and then got so tired he had to go play golf! He actually played with the pastor of the church that we visited yesterday. We decided to try out this church on recommendation from one of our church members at Meadowbrook. It was a very small church that was planted just 6 months ago from a couple of families from Australia. It was held in the community center and everyone was very glad we came and even invited us over to one of their houses for tea afterwards.
I am going to cook a Southern meal for dinner one night this week for Katey and her daughter, Charlie. I haven't decided what to fix. Any suggestions?
Here is a picture of the house we are staying in for 3 weeks...very modern.

I am slowly learning the in's and out's of creating a blog, so bear with me. I wanted to show everyone that as we expected there ARE sheep here. And I also wanted to demonstrate with an audio/video clip that I have not lost my southern drawl YET.

We had the most exciting day so far in New Zealand! We woke up to a breakfast of soy milk and granola (Blaine’s first time to have soy milk). After much discussion, we realized soy milk is definitely the way to go—the milk we drank expires May 2007! We all showered and headed off for new explorations. Johnny took us on the drive that he takes most tourists…it is one of those drives that would never get old (as you can tell from the pics). We had lunch in Sumner along the beach; the weather was cool with a strong breeze. This is definitely one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen; Switzerland might come close. Johnny can whip his 4WD car around the winding mountain roads, skimming past all the cyclists within inches. After witnessing this, I have decided that it would NOT be in my best interest to take on the challenge of biking up these mountain roads. We got back into town after many scenic drive stops and visited Johnny’s sister, Megan and her husband, Sam, who live 5 minutes from where our flat will be. It is great to meet a girl to chat with since I have only been around guys for the last 4 days. We are about to go out for Thai food and watch the rugby game of All Blacks team (New Zealand) versus Australia. I know nothing about rugby so I will educate you all after my lesson tonight. We have tons of pictures from today, so check out tomorrow and hopefully I will figure out how to load a short video as well.

We finally had a day to see a little of the outer regions of Christchurch today. After checking out of our hotel, we took the bus downtown to visit the Immigration office and go by to finalize our rental property. Everyone knows of my(Kate) love for Mexican food, so we searched the city and found The Burrito Company (sort of like Moe's)...it was excellent and I will definitely be revisiting. We then took the bus to Southshore and walked out on the beach and on the New Brighton Pier and watched all the fishermen (one even caught a baby shark). [Mrs. Totty, rest assured the shark was unharmed and returned to his ocean home safely]

We spent the night with Johnny and dined on fish and chips for supper. Took a night drive up into the mountains to get a view of the city...so beautiful. It is nice to have a friend with a car to show us around. Saturday night we will move in with our realtor and get settled into our temporary home! More news later...

Good News!!! We found an apartment today! Had a disappointing start to the day after we viewed a few flats that were pretty terrible. We went in Harcourts, a real estate company, which we found out only sales property and does not rent (or “let” as they say in NZ). But while we were in the lobby, a real estate agent spoke with us and was excited to meet us because she had availability in her own personal rental properties. She drove us around to 2 different apartments and we decided on one that is close to the city center. It is a two bedroom furnished apartment with a washer/dryer. The small catch is that the apartment is not available until September 5th, sooooooo we are going to live with the realtor at her house until then. This sounds weird but her name is Katey Lane and she is very nice.

The pictures are from our walk around the city today. Both are taken along the Avon River which is a crystal clear stream running through the city with shops/cafes lining the banks. We ate dinner with Johnny (of course) tonight at a pub nearby. More news soon!

This is a picture of Blaine and me in front of the cathedral in the city square where we ate lunch with our friend Johnny who lives in Christchurch (we met him on our trip to Germany). You will probably be hearing a lot more about Johnny, seeing that he is the only friend we have here.

All the things we learned on our first day in NZ:
Crayfish does not equal crawfish (a.k.a. “mud bugs”), in NZ it is lobster.
They don’t call running shoes tennis shoes or sneakers but in NZ they are trainers.
Since they drive on the left side of the road, they WALK on the left side of the road (I think a lot of people were cussing us today).
Everyone, YES everyone in the world knows how to spell Mississippi; this is the first thing they tell you when you say that is where you are from (and the spelling is about all they know about Mississippi).
Everyone’s hair looks better in low humidity.

We now officially live in New Zealand!!! Today for us is tommorow for everyone back home and it is so confusing. I am posting this on Wednesday morning at 11:30 a.m. and we just talked to Blaine's dad and it is Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. The flight to get here was very long but thankfully uneventful. We are settled into our hotel which is very nice and about to head downtown via the Metro bus to explore and open a bank account, etc. My nurse manager picked us up in an old Camry which we barely fit our bags in and she came bearing two bags of groceries to get us started. This is just a quick post to catch everyone up. We'll try and take some pictures this afternoon to share!! Thank you for everyone's prayers, God definitely heard and got us here safely--Blaine and Kate