The gilded path.

You know that moment at work when everything is going great and life can't get any better then unexpectedly it all seems to fall apart? You turn a corner on this high speed jaunt and suddenly there is a dead end and you are hit with a feeling of helplessness and loss of control, maybe even doom. Its at this point I have arrived. But with the lightening reflexes of a race car driver, I have come up with three options. One is to crash and disintegrate under the pressure of impact, something I have unwittingly done before. The next is to stop and reverse to whence I came negating any progress made.  Although why waste energy backtracking through life. Finally, to pull up gently and walk a different route to where I want to be.  So with options at hand, I have decided it is time to stretch my legs.  Time to breathe in deeply, absorb the spectacle of life surrounding me and head through the green fields.  Away from the paved road I had been on, and in these new lush surrounds, I will find my way once more. 

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. Thomas Edison

Winter is officially here. The days seem shorter, everything is always wet either from rain or from dew, and the mornings will soon be getting frosty and even colder. YIPPEE! I have been waiting for this for a long time it seems; looking forward to the winter rains, the snowy peaks and the moods Mother Nature goes through to produce this fine landscape all around me.
In less than 2 weeks, we are heading south to the South Island for a few weeks of camping and adventure. Camping in winter I hear you shriek with surprise? We have all the right equipment and look forward to the company of nature and weather along our journey. We will be fine…..hmmm.
My next journey beyond that will be back to Australia in September for the second of my residential schools for University. This time I will be spending a week out at Mt Lawson Nature Park, between Albury and Corryong, where I will be trapping and monitoring all types of flora and fauna. Much better than sitting in a classroom.
My family recently came for a visit which was great. My sister, brother in law and two nieces hired a motor home and trekked off around the North Island, while Mum came to stay with us for a week. Everyone spent the last few days here at our house before flying back to Australia again. I hope they enjoyed it as much as we did.
Other than that, all is well on the home range. Work continues to take up much of my time, so lucky I have a pretty good job. We try to get out and do walks or go camping or other interesting things on our days off. This helps keep that ‘holiday’ feeling I experienced when we first arrived in New Zealand. As they say, all work and no play………..

Hamilton Zoo

As I sit writing this, it rains outside. In the past two and a half weeks we have had 359 mm's, that's more than the yearly rainfall where we lived in Australia.

One of the preliminary postings I was going t o make on this blog was a brief introduction to Hamilton Zoo so all and sundry can see the environment I have been working in. Almost a year after arriving here, I have remembered this and so in a lame attempt to create ‘the bigger picture’ here is a short introduction to Hamilton Zoo. I have used a few figures of comparison to Adelaide and Monarto Zoos, for those who know or work there can use these as a comparison to augment the impression.Hamilton Zoo is a moderately new zoo. Started in 1969 (the year I was born) it was originally a game farm where birds such as pheasants were bred for release for hunting. Not a very pleasant beginning to the story. There were also numerous other bird displays as the owners were avid bird keepers. Eventually a few exotic mammals come in to the collection and there you have it, a Zoo. The Hamilton City Council stepped in during the 70’s to prop it up financially and when the Zoo faced financial ruin, the Council took it on board completely, rejuvenated it and has run it ever since. Now it is 25 hectares in size (Adelaide Zoo (AZ) 8 hectares, Monarto Zoo 1000+ hectares), holds approximately 450 animals (AZ 1800, MZ 400) of 95 species (AZ 200, MZ 40+). Unlike Adelaide Zoo though, the collection is not filled with little critters like fish or invertebrates or small birds, but larger species of mammals as well as numerous birds, especially waterfowl and parrots. It is just outside the city set among thickets of native and exotic vegetation on low undulating hills, peppered with lakes, stream and waterfalls. The zoo is involved heavily in native New Zealand conservation programs as well as being highly regarded for its success in breeding White Rhinoceros. The zoo is about to expand in size by about another 10 hectares, with the land already fenced off and ready to be developed. This area will become the new African section with the addition of Lions, amongst others. There will also be safari tent accommodation and educational facilities. One of the best things about Hamilton Zoo is the size of the enclosures. Nothing is being kept in tiny cages for the ease of the viewing public. The African section at the moment is a large field, which from different locations you can see herds of Zebras, Giraffe, Blackbuck, and Nilgai mixing with Ostriches and Guinea Fowl as they would naturally. There is walkthrough aviary which is the largest in the southern hemisphere and a series of lakes which are home to numerous waterfowl in a natural environment.

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. (Albert Einstein)

Random things I love about working for the New Zealand Government

Everyone can get free copies of the latest release computer software programs. I recently received a copy of the latest Microsoft programs – most of which I have never heard of, but the email program is great.

We get a paid day off a year to go and volunteer in the community somewhere.

We get a paid family day just to do whatever we want with family i.e. a mother visiting from overseas, maybe?

We get a free health and fitness medical once a year.

There are dozens of free courses which we can choose from if we want to improve our skills. I am off to a ‘Resilience at Work’ course in a few weeks to learn about conflict resolution, negotiating and similar workplace tools. They will also pay for tertiary fees if the study is relevant to our position.

We receive council subsidies to play sport and to be fit and active.

We get a free paid day off to attend NZ’s biggest Agricultural Field Day.

The council will pay for our membership fees to any relevant groups and organisations.
As council employees, we get discounts at a large range of businesses and services including gyms, hairdressers, health and medical practitioners, hire outlets, accommodation and car rentals

And finally, the best of all……

We have a masseuse comes in to the zoo once a week to soothe our aches and pains!

So it’s not only about the working outside and running around with exotic animals that is great about this job. There are a number of little things like these which kind of fill in the gaps between the bigger aspects of the job.

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. (Margaret Thatcher)

I lost a good friend of mine a few weeks ago. We hadn’t been friends for too long, but I considered him one of my best mates. We spent a good part of my last year in Adelaide Zoo talking every day, me more than him of course, but it was always good conversations. We didn’t always speak though, a lot of time was also spent just enjoying each other’s company, just sitting, listening and watching what the other was doing and trying to sense each other’s thoughts and moods. You may have met him if you were one of the many who visited Adelaide Zoo, his name was Pusung and he was the male Sumatran Orang-utan. It was a gentle friendship which grew in to a trusting bond that I cherished, and was my greatest loss when I left for New Zealand. He died a few weeks ago, due to a medical condition in his throat which lead to other complications and I never got to say goodbye or even see him. I didn’t even know how ill he was until after it was all over. I feel so alone because no one over her knew him and so my sadness remains inside.

When I first started working in the industry, a supervisor told me that the golden rule is to never get attached to the animals in your care. It was seen as a flaw or a sign of weakness. I have never believed in this, and indeed have strived for the complete opposite. I would challenge anyone who says a good animal keeper must remain disconnected from their charges for fear of becoming emotional involved in making decisions based on this, not on reason or ethics. The loss of Pusung is devastating, but I have no regrets in becoming so attached to him.
This isn’t just a personal loss either; everyone who worked with him over the years is feeling sad right now. Even people who had brief encounters with him through tours and visits to the zoo are overwhelmed.
Pusung trusted me enough to allow me to do some training with him. He would open his mouth wide and I could check all of his teeth and make sure he was taking care of them. He would push his nose in my direction so I could clean it when he had a cold. I could clean his eyes, check his hands and feet for injuries and prod and poke him almost anywhere to make sure he was all OK. With minimal training, he learnt a lot. This isn’t a reflection on me, it was he who had to do all of the learning and hard work, I was just the weird human that wanted to clean his nose.
So now, his imposing presence and personality have gone from my former workplace. No longer can he turn his back when offered celery instead of banana. No more shutting his den door to indicate that he doesn’t like the person that came to see him. No more offering his head for a kind pat. No more gentle throat rumblings to say he has had a good nights’ sleep. Nothing. Only the memories I have, the pictures I saved and this feeling of sadness and loss remain.

It’s hard not to feel philosophical and poetic about the most recent twist to this adventure in New Zealand. I neve imagined that when we first talked about moving somewhere else for a year of experience and adventure, that it would end up in the situation we are now in. This week we officially resigned from our positions at Monarto and Adelaide Zoos back in Australia. The opportunity of securing permanent and long term employment here at Hamilton Zoo was too great to pass up, and unfortunately this meant we had to resign from our Aussie jobs. It was a decision that slowly crept up on us, but was the right decision to make. I felt stuck between two zoos so to speak, unable to embrace the new until I had said goodbye to the old. So the goodbye was said and it is time to keep on moving. There are many opportunities for us here to grow and develop, with the support and encouragement of fellow keepers and management. We have been given responsibilities and challenges which we yearned for to stay focused and committed. The entire journey from the initial suggestion of an adventure to this very point in time has been great so far, and as I said in the beginning, it is difficult not to feel philosophical and wonder what guided us to this fantastic and extraordinary point because it indeed was not planned.
It’s not all about work either. You have seen the photos of what we are doing, where we are living and these all add up to the momentous feeling of being that I experience each day. I won’t describe the setting to you again, but it is idyllic and peaceful. We have our 2 dogs here now, plus 4 chooks, 3 peacocks and 4 Galloway cows.
What is missing though, are out families and friends. Slowly we become more familiar with the new people around us, but there is not yet that complete connection that you have with people that you share a history with. There are no spontaneous calls for dinner catch-ups, and chats over coffee are sorely missed. These may come and until then, I have more time to be poetic and philosophical.

It is time to answer some frequent questions I have been getting so here are some specifics about our new work environment. For those not working in the zoo industry, some of these aspects may not mean anything at all. For fellow keepers, they may wet themselves with glee!
The Zoo – Hamilton Zoo is 14 hectares in size (approx 36 acres) compared to Adelaide Zoo's 8 hectares (approx 20 acres). It is situated amongst a low hilly area just outside of Hamilton, with room to grow and indeed already has a lot of land earmarked for future developments. It is a network of paths and boardwalks which criss cross through landscaped native forest and gardens, across lakes and through the biggest walk through bird aviary in the southern hemisphere - complete with waterfalls.

Browse – These are the trees and bushes that the animals eat and for keepers, good browse can be like gold to find. The zoo is so big that there are pockets of browse trees scattered around the zoo. This includes poplar, willow, paulownias, lucerne tree and mulberry. It is so easy to get enough browse, freshly picked, any time of the day. It’s such a luxury.

Again relating to the size of the zoo, we have gators and kobotas (two types of little buggies) with tray backs and trailers to zip around the zoo in. It’s great on a warm day to drive fast along the boundary roads to get a cool breeze blowing through your hair! It’s downright fun too!

The working roster is over a two week period. It is 3 days on, 2 off, 7 on, 2 off, then back to 3 on. If you don’t like the 7 days in a row, you can swap it with one of your other days off to break it up. Phil and I are both on the first roster I described, which is great for us as it allows us to go away for overnight trips on our time off. The hours are we start at 8am and finish at 5pm, with a morning and afternoon break and a lunch break. People tend to take a longer morning break or longer lunch and skip the afternoon break, which works really well. It is a very flexible working environment.

There is enough staff to cover all of the working areas each day, but we could always use more to allow for development and extra jobs that need doing. We have brief morning meetings each morning, just to get a feel for the big picture of the day ahead and sort out any extra jobs or issues that need to be dealt with. We have section meetings at least once a month, then all staff meetings every few months. Twice a year we have appraisals where we sit down with our supervisors and talk about our jobs, our roles, how we are doing and what do we want to achieve in the next 6/12/24 months. Our next one is in March and I am looking forward to that!

Please ask any questions you have about my New Zealand experience, as there is so much to tell I run the risk of boring you all to death. Better to be avoided, me thinks!

Never confuse motion with action. Benjamin Franklin

Everywhere I look I see apes, and I don’t simply mean hairy folks with low IQ’s. On the work front, I have been living and breathing Chimps since arriving in New Zealand. For those unaware of the situation, two of the Chimps from Adelaide Zoo coincidentally arrived at Hamilton Zoo the same week I did. It has been years in the planning, and an example of how life continuously weaves a magic tapestry. So, just when these two females think they have seen the last of me and heard their last Aussie accent, there I was when they pooped out of their boxes on the other side of the Tasman. Shock? Horror? Disbelief? Disappointment? Well, it was actually reassuring and comforting for them and very importantly me, to have familiar face to bond with in this new country. Since then, there was a 30 day quarantine period (for the chimps, not me) with intensive contact and interaction, followed by a process of introducing them to the existing troop of 6 chimps. For the uninitiated, Chimps are not all cute and cuddly like the Chimps in old movies or Disney films. They can be viscous, manipulative, cognitive killers just waiting and watching to cement their place in the world by asserting dominance over others. Of course, they can also be hilarious, peaceful and loving animals, given the right social mix and stimulating environment. So, at the moment, we started off with the former and we are aiming for the latter. As the chimps begin to mix and match their personalities and preferences within the group the dynamics will change. The tension will develop and unfold to create a stable and respected social hierarchy, which will keep everyone (including the keepers), happy. Along the way there has been blood, tears and lots of screaming, and that was just from me. The chimps all have a assortment of wounds of numerous descriptions and some are playing mind games with others, testing who is to be feared, who can they persuade to be on their side, who will make the strongest team when it comes to defending themselves against the bully boys and so on. It’s a complicated process of matching personalities and strengths with others and guessing the top twenty possible outcomes and being prepared with a plan B, plan C and plan D for every possible one. The screaming is blood chilling and not something you’d want to experience without warning, then their physical strength is astounding as they throw each other from elevated platforms and their speed is blinding as they bounce of the walls like spider man. It’s all too much for a soft head like me.

As a result, I dream of chimps, or sometimes Orang-utans, almost every night. They are usually escaping out of their exhibit and I am typically the only person around to get them back in. Last night however, I dreamt of taking a bunch of Orang-utans to see a movie?!? I took them home early because they needed to go to the toilet and they didn’t know how to use the public ones in the cinema. OK, someone analyse me quick and sort this head out.

Life is an opportunity and not an obligation.

I’m not quite sure what I was really expecting with my arrival in New Zealand. I was a little too idealistic in my attitude of leaving many old thoughts and concerns behind as I left Australian soil for the green grass on the other side of the fence, known formally as New Zealand. Without realising it, I think I was hoping for an easy transition where everything would go perfectly and my life would be full of adventure and fun. Now that I have landed here, physically and psychologically, I have realised that no matter where you are, life consists of the same elements for everyone. The daily struggle of relationships- both old and new, of work – the eternal time consumer for life itself, and finally of leisure – the things that make it all worthwhile. I am learning now though, that while these elements and their issues will always remain, it is how I respond to them that will be important from now on. Relationships. Leaving everyone we know in one country and moving to another means that everyone we meet will be a new face, and maybe even a new relationship to develop. This takes time and effort and there will be no other way around, just time passing by and letting bonds by showing respect and interest in those around me. Then there is Phil, my comrade in arms on this adventure. Facing all of these challenges and changes alone could be daunting, but even more so with someone else. Once again, extra effort will be needed to increase my levels of consideration and patience with the one person I know can make this adventure even better than it already is. Work has so far been great, and I am looking forward to learning and growing through my new role and responsibilities here. Previous inconveniences have occurred when I inadvertently become involved in the politics of the work environment and this will be avoided by not being judgemental and remaining conservative in expressing my opinions. Leisure. This is what will secure it all together and there will be no stopping me. While the first two elements of relationships and work will be fraught with limitations, boundaries and the associated challenges, leisure will be the wild horse running free to balance the whole equation out. Bush walks, cycling, gym workouts, flying, driving, swimming, skiing and then some more bush walks from the tip of the North Island to the tip of the South Island, not forgetting the offshore islands as far away as Fiji, Samoa and maybe even Tahiti! Yep, no matter what, leisure is going to be the element which drives this vessel.

So, enough of the deep thoughts and contemplative comments and what is really going on? While I am being a little more realistic about the unfolding of his adventure it is still a great one to be on. We are living in a little unit on a farm about 15 minutes from the centre of Hamilton which is surrounded by green fields and cows, with fantastic views of the surrounding ranges. The zoo is about 10 minutes drive from our house and a lovely drive at that, through the countryside on roads lined with hedges and flowers and more green fields. Have I mentioned how green it is over here? I am working with the Chimps to begin with, primarily because two chimps from Adelaide Zoo that I worked with arrived here at Hamilton Zoo the same week. It was all a coincidence really, but it is working out well for them to have a familiar face in this new environment, and vice versa! The round also has Red Panda and Agouti (big rodent like critters from South America), so a nice variety. The zoo itself is quite big because the animal exhibits are enormous compared to most other zoos. Everyone is friendly and helpful and seem genuinely very welcoming. As you may have guessed from the opening paragraph, while I have no hesitation in meeting new people and making friends, it is almost surreal to be having to do this with so many people at once with no respite in familiarity. Hamilton is a small city (170000 people) in the centre of a productive rural floodplain. The fast flowing Waikato River flows through the centre and the area is fringed by low ranges with the west coast being about half an hour from town. The high volcanic peaks of Ruahepu and Taranaki are only a few hours drive away, Auckland is about an hour north of here and there is an airport that has flights to anywhere else we may with to spontaneously visit. With this picture in your head, I will sign off to contemplate once more life’s elements and the joys that they bring.

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. (Theodore Roosevelt)

It's good news week.....

It has been two weeks since the other two keepers pulled out of the exchange deal that started this whole journey. For friends who have been following us during this period, you are aware of the struggle it has been at times. The two weeks feels like two months to me as so much has happened and so may plans have changed, but almost daily our road seems to be getting smoother and clearer. The latest good news was via a phone call to Phil from Hamilton Zoo yesterday morning. They have offered him a contract until the end of February, the same as what I will be doing. At that point, there will be three permanent positions on offer so it is looking really positive that more work will eventuate. This news had us both bouncing around the house last night in a 'happy dance'! Further more, another option for the care of our dogs has arisen. One of the vet nurses I work with has a property not far from our farm and has offered to look after the dogs for how ever long we need. All this good news is surely a sign of things to come?

Thanks to those who have sent messages of encouragement. Everyone had faith that things were going to get alot better and as hard as it was for me to see this eventuating, that's exactly what is happening now. Bit by bit, the wall that suddenly arose two weeks ago is crumbling. This morning I can peek over the top, and see the grassy meadows and snow capped mountains of our destination, and my dreams, once more.

Back on track!!!

Talk about an emotional roller coaster! I am getting more emotions out of this entire adventure and we haven't even left the country yet! Good news for us yesterday, no, FANTASTIC news for us. Yesterday morning I got a call from Hamilton Zoo offering one of us full time work until at least February, and the other casual work. Then, in February, after all the Xmas and New Year chaos and the summer rush, they will look at putting on 2 or 3 more staff and so something is bound to come up. Furthermore, they are going to try an help us get work at Auckland Zoo if we want to live somewhere between Auckland and Hamilton (1 and a 1/2 hours drive between the two zoos). Its all looking really good again and everything is how it should be. I had been carrying around this dull feeling inside ever since the other two pulled out of the deal. It's only today that I realise what an impact it had made on my psyche. I had already applied for a few other jobs around the country because we were determined to do something come November. Our minds had already made the big move from life as we know it, to something different and challenging beyond our comfort zones and familiar horizons. And, now we will be.......

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

(Margaret Thatcher)