Hiking in The Pinnacles

In our last week before starting work, we decided to take another trip out to the Wairarapa region about an hour outside of Wellington to explore an area called the Pinnacles - formally, the Putangirua Pinnacles. You can find more about the hiking trails around this area on the Department of Conservation website. We had driven out to the Wairarapa a few weeks previously on a fine day and discovered an incredible deserted beach. At the time, we didn't know about the Pinnacles which were about 15 minutes from where we'd been standing, so when we found out, we knew we had to go back.

If you're an extreme LOTR fan, you may remember this as the Path of the Dead in the Return of the King. The rock formations are an example of badlands erosion and seem very fragile. The website and trail head both warn walkers to watch out for falling rocks and they aren't kidding. There are two possible trails - one up through the river bed and the other across the top of the close by hills looking down on the Pinnacles. We decided we wanted to take the river bed path which took about 90 minutes one way and maybe 45 minutes back, but we stopped several times to take pictures. There were only two or three other cars in the parking lot and and throughout the entire hike we only crossed paths with three other people.  This was a Friday in the winter though, so perhaps it would be busier on a summer weekend.

The path wasn't very clearly marked - in our experience an exception for NZ trails, but with an environment that is changing rapidly due to erosion and in a river bed like this, its not terribly surprising. The way we walked up (not the real path) required us to cross over the riverbed several times. It hadn't rained in several days when we did this hike, so the river was really more of a stream, but I would not have wanted to try this route right after heavy rain. Chris enjoys taunting me in crossing streams as I hate the thought of getting wet, so I got my own back by taking a video of him doing a great Dirty Dancing impression :-).

Once you leave the park, there is an incredible drive up the side of a hill overlooking the beach we had previously discovered. On a clear day, you can see the outline of the South Island and just enjoy the incredible colors of the water and sky. 

On the way back, we stopped in a lovely little town called Featherston which is no more than a collection of half a dozen shops on the side of a road, but they have a good cafe and a great cheese shop called C'est Cheese where we bought some rather excellent aged Edam which we enjoyed with a glass of NZ wine looking out from our valley that evening.

Feeding Red Pandas At Wellington Zoo

Yesterday we had the most amazing experience. We got to meet three of the four Red Pandas that live at Wellington Zoo. Wellington, like a handful of other zoos around the world offers 'close encounters' with some of their animals. This helps raise money for the zoo, raise awareness of the conservation needs of the animals and also enables the handlers to perform health checks. Wellington has a few different close encounters, the format of which depends on the animal. Here you can meet Red Pandas, Meerkats, Cheetahs and Giraffes. The Red Panda experience is by far their most popular and has been on our bucket list for a while.

You can book online or by phone, and for about $99 NZD you get to sit quietly while a Red Panda jumps up on your lap and eats grape and pear pieces out of your hand for half an hour. These guys are a little like meeting a hungry cat. They will come over and eat what you offer, and they may allow you to stroke them once or twice, but once they are done, they're off to go sunbathe in a tree. 

We met Kushi, a two year old female originally from Hamilton Zoo, and her perspective beau, six year old Manasa and his father, Isha. Each lives in a separate Red Panda environment which is full of trees and paths for them to climb and explore. It was a "cold" winter day - around 10 degrees C, so the Pandas were pretty active with their thick fur coats and they were more than happy to jump up on us and let us feed them. 

All three of them were very curious and friendly and while we were feeding them, the keeper gave us a little of their history, answered our questions and talked a little about their conservation. While I would have LOVED to have snuck one of these gorgeous little fur balls home, they are on the endangered list and very few are still living in the wild. I'd give you more details, but honestly my ears and brain shut down while the keeper was talking because I was overloaded by furry red gorgeousness. I guess we'll just have to go back a second time to hear the talk...

10 Unexpectedly Awesome Things About Wellington

There are so many great things about living in New Zealand. If I were to count them all, that list would be a LOT longer than just ten, and many would be things we expected based on our previous visits. But these ten things are those we really hadn't expected and that have really struck us since we have been here. 

Good Coffee - Anywhere*

*Except for Starbucks

If someone asked me where in the world has really good coffee, I would probably have said Columbia, Jamaica, Italy, France and probably USA along with a few other places. Chris and I are big fans of lattes. When we used to visit family in Hudson NY, every day we were there we would go to Swallow, our favorite coffee shop on Warren Street that served Stumptown Coffee and made the BEST latte (Swallow is now called Moto Coffee Machine and a cross between a motorcycle shop and a coffee shop. This only makes sense if you know Hudson - but they are the same guys and make the same awesome coffee). We found a couple of places in DC that had good coffee, but really nowhere that came close to Swallow. Here in Wellington you can basically go anywhere and they will have awesome coffee. I am still not completely sure I can taste the difference between a latte and a flat white, but rest assured, they are both awesome. I have heard there is a Starbucks here, but I haven't seen it yet, and it seems that locals treat it more like a tourist attraction than a place to get coffee. 

Fantastic Craft Beer

In addition to being big fans of coffee, we are both also big fans of craft beer (could we get any more hipster?). I wasn't anticipating a big craft beer scene in Wellington but boy was I wrong! There are a ton of little breweries making some really awesome small batch beer. I would say it tends more towards the hoppy end of the spectrum in general, but we have both enjoyed beers from Mac's, Panhead and Behemoth and finding many more to taste!

The Sky Is SO Blue

It took me a while to notice this because it IS winter and frequently overcast for at least part of the day. But if you catch Wellington on a clear day the sky is an amazingly deep blue that I don't think I've seen anywhere in the US. I can only think that this is down to a lower level of pollution and a lot less high level cloud from jet contrails as so few flights fly over New Zealand compared with Virginia. I remember reading that in the three days immediately after 9/11 when commercial flights were still mostly grounded in the US, the sky was so blue. Makes you think...

So Is The Water

The ocean surrounding Wellington and the water in the harbor is an incredible range of translucent blues. It varies from an aqua you would expect to see in the Bahamas to a deep royal blue and every shade in between. Again, I can only think this is down to so much less pollution, but whatever the reason, it is really striking. Especially when you come into land at the Airport and you can see so many different shades. 

Fiji Is a Three Hour Direct Flight Away and Wellington Airport is Awesome

Speaking of the Airport, its also amazing. Its small, easy to navigate and super relaxed. NOTHING like US airports. No TSA craziness, no people screaming at you, even if a lot of the rules are the same (laptops out of your bag, no liquids in carry on etc) somehow NZ has managed to ratchet back the general level of stress you experience at airports. Maybe it has something to do with these?

As a frequent flyer in the US I had TSA pre-check and Global Entry and even with its strict bio security rules, NZ is still 100 x easier to navigate. Before we moved here I took a plane pretty much every week from Washington Reagan to Dallas Fort Worth for work. That's about a three hour flight. You know what's a three hour direct flight from Wellington? Fiji. And Sydney. If you change, you can easily get to New Caledonia, Tahiti, American Samoa and basically any other Pacific Island paradise you can think of in just a handful of hours.  

Amazing Hikes In The Middle Of The City

Today I decided to explore the trail that starts at the end of our street. Two and a half hours later, I feel like I was transported to somewhere hundreds of miles from civilization and back into the city. We are very fortunate we live in a neighborhood that backs onto 'the bush' as folks call it here. Otari-Wilton's Bush is connected to the trails behind us as well as a great trail called Skyline that goes across some of the peaks behind the city. I just did a little 2.5 hour loop but I went from our living room to the following views on foot in less than an hour. That snow capped mountain you see in the third photo is actually on the South Island. Blows my mind you can see that from the trail in our back yard!

Its Like We Live In Pandora

Not just the amazing fern trees and other native plants that NZ is famous for but the wild life too! We have a giant mountain parrot that comes and sits on our roof and makes a hell of a racket. But its the coolest thing - its a rare bird that has been reintroduced to Wellington called a Kaka. While we have seen our local Kaka numerous times, I have yet to get a picture of him/her, so here is a stock photo so you can see what I am talking about. Here is also a link about their reintroduction into Wellington and the associated challenges. 

Wellington has a pretty impressive zoo, as well as an Eco Park called Zealandia which is basically a nature reserve in the heart of the city where they have protected and reintroduced native species of flora and fauna. We haven't made it over for a visit yet, but I'm looking forward to it. 

Public Transportation Is Really Good

Wellington has a mixture of light rail, traditional gas powered buses and trolley buses. They go pretty much everywhere in the city. There are also cabs and even Uber. The buses use a payment system called a Snapper Card, like a SmartTrip Card in DC, but this card also let you pay for metered parking in the city and even cabs. Sadly it is not the same system for the trains which need a separate ticket, but its still great. As far as cost, I would say its about on par with the DC metro, perhaps very slightly cheaper. 

Chocolate!

The Swiss are famous for it, and the British sure know how to make a good Cadbury's bar, but let me tell you, Whittakers chocolate is the bomb! There have an every day type of bars with all the flavors you would imagine, milk, dark, hazlenut, almond, mint etc, but there is also an artisan type with flavors like Marlborough Sea Salt and Caramel, Pear and Honey and Oolong Tea. Recently Whittakers also partnered with some of the best Milk in NZ to create the Lewis Road Creamery Whittakers Chocolate milk. OMG. This country is very dangerous...

The Movies Are Cheap And Movie Theaters Really Nice 

After having sticker shock by basically everything it was amazing to experience the movies here. We went to the Reading cinema at Courtenay Place to see the latest Jason Bourne movie. Wellington doesn't seem to have IMAX, but they DO have something called Titan which blows IMAX out of the water. This was the biggest screen I had ever seen, amazing sound and leather recliner type seats for $11 NZD. About 50% less than an IMAX show in DC. The movie theaters also have a bar/restaurant where you can have a beer and a bite of real food before the movie. What's not to love?

How to Get Set Up

Getting set up in a foreign country is a complicated dance with lots of different steps that need to be completed in the right order. I think we mostly got things right with this move, and in the hope this may be useful for someone else, here is what we did.

Step 1. Finances
If possible, set up finances from your home country. New Zealand banks (ANZ in particular) made this process incredibly simple with a banking package advertised on their international splash page targeted directly to immigrants. Basically you can set up an account from your home country, transfer money into it, then when you arrive, visit the local branch with ID, complete the opening process and have immediate access to your funds. In the case of ANZ, we were also provided on the spot with an ATM and debit card which let us use cash machines, buy goods online and use the EFTPOS machine in shops straight away. Amazingly the NZ bank was OK with us not providing an address initially. I am quite sure this would not be the case in the US. When we explained our situation, they just asked us to come back and update our address once we had one. As a second tip, we transferred funds from our US to NZ accounts using a fintech company called Transferwise which was much cheaper and faster than an international inter institution transfer.

Step 2. Immediate Transportation and Housing
We were very fortunate that as part of our relocation, the firm provided two weeks of accommodation and two weeks of car rental. This was about the perfect amount of time. We ended up finding a flat and moving in within a week, but it took us almost a full two weeks to find and buy a car. Having a place to sleep and a way to get around for at least a couple of weeks was critical in reducing the stress levels and increasing our flexibility.

Step 3. An Address
An address is a precursor to so many things, so this should be a top priority. Having the funds in place to pay a deposit and initial moving costs make this possible. More details on house hunting in Wellington can be found in the post - "You Don't Look Like Axe Murderers..."

Step 3b. Permanent Transportation
We decided we wanted to buy a car to provide more freedom and flexibility, but depending on where you live, you could make do with public transportation for sure. Wellington has a pretty good system of buses, light rail and the iconic Cable Car.

Step 4. Utilities
With a home comes all kinds of fun things like bills. Unless you are renting somewhere that provides an all inclusive rent price, you will need to get set up with things like power, water and internet. Once again NZ made this unbelievably easy. They have a service called FastConnect. You basically call as single number, provide your new address and they contact power companies, water etc and get you set up. Its free for individuals and paid for by the utility companies I believe. Its amazing, they were super responsive and saved us a ton of research figuring out who we needed to call to get set up. Internet isn't one of their services, but Chris loves diving into the details of things like this, and he had our WiFi set up in the new place before we even moved in.

Step 5. Local ID/Drivers Licences
Although we could have driven within NZ for six months or so on our US license, we decided we wanted to have some local ID and a drivers license was the easiest way to do this. Now we had an address we took our US licenses to the local VTNZ filled in a form paid a modest amount and in a week or so we should have new NZ licenses sent to us.

Step 6. Taxes
Assuming you're not independently wealthy and you will have to work, you will have to register for some kind of local Tax ID. In NZ this is called and IRD number. In order to apply for this, we needed NZ bank accounts, photo ID and a local address. You fill in the forms online, scan in your documents and 8-10 days later you can get paid in NZ!

Step 7. Healthcare
As part of our visa, we are entitled to NZ healthcare, which like the UK is open to all residents and citizens. You can also get private health insurance, but I am not sure yet if we will do this. We do need to register with a local doctor however and that's our next step.

Step 8. Register to Vote!
Ok so maybe this one is only SO important this year and with this US election, but for sure we want our voices heard. Fortunately visiting the US embassy homepage from overseas right now directs you straight to the Federal Voting Assistance Program site which enables you to register to vote by postcard. I can't wait to see how this works..... Wish you were here, the weather has been somewhat crappy but the people are lovely. PS I vote for Hillary...

That's all the basic stuff you need to function, but of course to integrate and get to know your new home, there are lots more fun things to do - like explore the area, find the best bars and the nights for the best happy hours and meet your new neighbors. But we'll leave that recap for another time!

Kiwi/US Culture Differences #1

I have a feeling there may be several posts on this topic. This first one is almost more of a values difference than a culture difference, but it seeps into the culture of life here so bear with me. There isn't a neat and tidy way of putting this, but its the difference between the US culture of acquiring 'stuff' in your life much of which is inexpensive, often low quality and more often than not disposable; and the Kiwi culture of value and usefulness of all things until they are literally dust.

The best examples I can give of this are Trade Me and second hand shops. As I mentioned previously, we have suffered from a decent amount of sticker shock here on everything from toasters to office chairs. As we have been setting up our simple Kiwi life, and without a paycheck for a couple of months, we have looked for creative ways to save money and cut costs. Chris and I have always been big fans of second hand - whether that means antiques or furniture from Craigslist. Most of the furniture in our house in Alexandria in fact was from Craigslist, local vintage shops and even Goodwill. So after arriving here, we sought out much of the same equivalents. The difference comes in the kinds of things you find for sale here. Things that people would not donate to a charity store in the States but would just go straight in the trash, are for sale here (albeit for a few bucks). In fact, one of the second hand shops is literally at the local dump. Some things that people have been thrown out have been rescued and can be bought from a shop at the same location. This is not a criticism and is in many cases not simply due to lack of resources, but more a difference in values.

Kiwis seem to have more of a culture of 'making do' and less of an expectation of new and shiny. Our discovery of this first hand started with the housing search and was reaffirmed with our Trade Me experiences. For example, when looking for an office chair, we found the following...

Office Chair on Trade Me

This led to a discovery of the $1 reserve category, which led to the following...

Selection of $1 reserve items

And my absolute favorite...

Yep, this dust could be yours for just ONE DOLLAR!

Happy shopping people :-)

Wellington Beaches

We've been pretty busy for the last couple of weeks getting everything set up so we haven't had a lot of time to explore the area. Fortunately, Wellington is a very reasonably sized city - still big enough for you to feel that it IS a city, but small enough to get anywhere pretty easily. Chris and I joke that wherever we need to go, google will always tell us it takes 16 minutes.

While we haven't managed to go too far afield, we have managed to check out some awesome beaches. Considering its the middle of winter here, its still pretty pleasant to walk on the beach as long as you have a thin jacket and a wind break. I don't know how busy it will get in the summer, but with the exception of one or two other dog walkers, and in Lyall bay the crazy surfers, often we won't see anyone at all.

As well as just amazing wild beauty, the beaches are also full of awesome shells, polished stones, drift wood and sea weeds. It's definitely not the groomed sand of South Beach, but its all the more impressive to me because of its savageness. You can really imagine that things are pretty much unchanged between your footsteps and the footsteps of the first person to discover the beach. All of the photos below are from beaches within 15 - 45 minutes of downtown Wellington.

Owhiro Bay - 15 minutes from downtown

Pauatahanui - 30 minutes from downtown

Queen Elizabeth Park, Paekakariki - 45 minutes from downtown

Paua Shells and Driftwood