the vet's Blog; Wandering NZ

Winter in Wanaka.
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As I have mentioned, I was given an opportunity to speak in Wanaka at a week long veterinary educational conference which meant a nearly all expense paid week in Wanaka including skiing.
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I gave 7.5 hours of lecture on various topics in veterinary neurology/neurosurgery. Quite a bit of work preparing the powerpoint lectures to do this, but worth it for sure. There were about 40 vets from NZ and Oz attending. It is an annual conference; a week to ski, eat and booze under the guise of continuing education. The lectures began at 7:30, ended at 9:30 so folks could go ski and then began again 5:30pm for another 2 hours. Surprisingly, attendance was very good, even early am. My flight was paid for so did not take the bike down, instead flew into Queenstown. It was a little unnerving to descend through heavy cloud cover with mountains all around. You could see the tops above the clouds all around, but had no idea where they went as the plane descended through the clouds…gulp. Accommodation was right on Lake Wanaka and was outstanding…
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better than the backpackers and campgrounds that I have been staying in as I travel for sure….I felt like a rockstar with a big suite all to myself. Although it had been a good snow season, by mid August they’d had 2-3 weeks of very warm weather which made for a lot of snow melt and some avalanche conditions. After finishing my lectures early in the week, I skied Treble Cone for 2.5 days, but about ½ the terrain was closed ½ of the time. This was my only skiing in NZ. I have skied since I was 5 yrs old and lived in Colorado for 9 years; this doesn’t make me an expert, but I have skied quite a bit. I was very impressed by the terrain at Treble Cone and imagine it would really be awesome with great snow. Although the terrain was limited, I very much enjoyed it. The days were crystal clear and warm; like Spring skiing in Colorado, with awesome views of Lake Wanaka from the mountain. I had been in Wanaka during my summer travels, but it was a magical place to view in Winter with snow on the surrounding peaks.
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The entire week was beautiful clear sunny warm days. Good weather, good food, excellent Pinot Noir and good people with new found friendships and an open invitation to visit, fish and hunt in Tasmania!! Sweeeeeet!!!

Winter in Wanaka reminds me of Colorado! Freakin’ beautiful. An awesome week.


Ute Roadtrip

Work now behind me and the Wanaka conference done, it was time to begin exploring the North Island. I moved out of my flat in Wellington, unwilling to pay rent just to have a place to store my stuff while I was traveling. My dilemma was my belongings. I’ll tell ya’, material belongings are nice, but accumulation of things a pain in the ass. There is definitely something to be said for the ‘KISS’ principle….’keep it simple stupid’….less can be better. One of the great things about traveling NZ by motorbike is the simplicity….you necessarily must simplify your life. I never really thought having so FEW belongings could be so gratifying. Suddenly, ready to hit the road again, I felt burdened by my accumulations….sounds like a lot, in fact it was still hardly anything, all of which I could move in a single trip with my ute…hardly anything at all really, but still too much to carry on a motorcycle. I listed a few things on Trademe to sell (largest of which was my futon) and gave the rest away to the Salvation army; and a few things Brazilian kid backpacking/woofffing. Good luck Pablo!!
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I wanted to take a reconnaiscense trip regarding vet specialty med. I needed to meet and speak with a few different vet specialists. The only one from the South Island with whom I needed to speak was going to be on Waiheke Island, so I set a North Island itinerary for a 2-3 week trip around meeting and speaking to various vet specialists and/or vets who had employed or might consider employing a vet specialist. I still had both the bike and the ute at that time and debated which I would take for the trip. Where would I store one while I was gone with the other? Where would I leave my ‘material accumulations’? What vehicle did I WANT to take? All things you have to think about when you are homeless. Truth be told, I had hardly driven my ute. Even in a relatively small city like Wellington, driving and finding parking was infinitely easier on the bike as compared to the ute…so the ute stayed parked most of the time…why I even had a ute is a good question, but another story in itself. Anyway, after 7-8 months of being on my bike almost daily, I was kind of sick of it, and just wanted the luxury of traveling by car where I could lock everything inside, have heat, not have to wear all the gear all the time, etc…and I threw my futon in the tray under tonneau cover, so could carry my bed with me!
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The bike, a few spare things and one large piece of luggage stuffed to the hilt I left in a shed on a friend’s farm in Upper Hutt. Off to Waiheke Island on a non-motorbike road trip! This was at the end of August 2009.