Also we have to factor in the 10-week school terms here in NZ which I, a soft POM (Prisoner of Mother England!) is finding hard to get used to. Indeed, the kids are almost as sick of us as we are of them, and teaching turns to crowd control!
Fortunately, the long slog is nearly over and we break up for a two-week holiday in just over a week.
We are approaching the 1-year anniversary of us arriving here (July 25th) and our thoughts are going back to Bernie's first ever trip into the NZ wilderness. How we were spoilt with a very close encounter (it surfaced within 10 metres of us!) with a beautiful Southern Right Whale on the first kayaking trip Bernie enjoyed here!
Below is a picture of a Southern Right Whale I would love to see in it's entirety:
Despite its tranquil and green reputation, New Zealand has a turbulent and dark (albeit brief) history including a booming Whaling industry, which only finished 46 years ago! This country made fortunes exporting blubber, oil, soap, baleen and bones around the world for many decades - that's not in the tourism brochure for some reason!
Of course times and education has changed the public view on this and Whales are loved by one and all. Although nearly half (22) of all the world's whale species (47) can be found in our waters, only relatively small populations still exist. Although estimates are very hard to formulate, predictions are that there are less than 30 Southern Right Whales which come close to the mainland, so we were really fortunate that day last winter.
Another fact for you - NZ has as much coastline as the USA - seriously! As a result, we have plenty of dolphin and whale stranding's. In light of the anniversary of our first whale encounter, we are going to go on a trip which guarantees a first-hand encounter with the world's largest (ever) animal - the Blue Whale. Sadly, the poor cow was washed up dead 2 hours away from Nelson a fortnight ago. The 27 metre beast is too large to carry out a post-mortem on, and has been left to decompose naturally. It is on a remote piece of coastline well worth exploring so I might just take Bernie there for a romantic break - romance has no nose!
Still, it will be fascinating (for me!) to have a look at it and the huge chunks reportedly taken by sharks. The Paua fishermen who found the carcass abandoned fishing for fear of a shark attack - and the call us POM's softies! The area also promises to be rugged and remote, with birds, plants and landscapes to gasp at.
Here she is, guts 'n all:
It would be awesome to see a live Blue Whale one day... hopefully Bernie is a lucky charm!
Further to my ramblings on the wonderful wildlife here in New Zealand, I have got the green light to start up a Conservation course at school next year with senior students. Over here the education is standards based - teachers tailor courses from a raft of different units which gives us flexibility to make course more academic or hands-on. My plan is to get students involved with local conservation projects - for examle there is a sanctuary in Nelson with a fence soon to be installed to protect many rare species of birds and lizards. There are also a wealth of larger and more significant parks and programs in the surrounding area which we should be able to study, complete reports on and assist with.
I still have to get a viable number of students to sign-up for the course and commit to. If successful, it will begin in January 2010 and will give me more to do than just teaching which is what I'm doing at present - not that I'm complaining!
Bernie is still working at school, they have reduced her hours to 20 per week which is great for her triathlon training. Her boss (head of HR) has begun talking about full-time permanent work so we'll see what develops. I recently recieved a permanent contract, but I'm not guaranteed full hours next year.
Other than that, we are both fit and healthy and hope you are too. We're still getting up at 5:30 three days a week and there have been a few frosts recently - most painful in a house with high ceilings, no cetral heating, boards for walls and no insulation! However, the days are stunning and we have been running and cycling with beautiful sights of the coast, mountains, bush and sunsets!
We now have 79 days until we fly to Australia for the World Champs, then it will soon be time to fly to the UK for 3 weeks of debauchery! We're going to be complete light-weights by the time we get there!!
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