The North Island

We packed up our life in Westport on Good Friday and started making our way to our next assigned location on the North Island. We drove from Westport to Picton (with a stop in Nelson for lunch) and took the inter-island ferry across the Cook Strait to Wellington.

Aboard the Bluebridge Interisland Ferry

We arrived late Friday night and checked into our old haunt--the Ibis Hotel Wellington. This is where we stayed during Ruben's orientation with NZLocums. It felt good to get our bearings quickly.

Saturday morning we met wonderful Nicole Pray for a run around Wellington and brekkies downtown. I failed to carry my camera, unfortunately, so I didn't get any pictures of Nicole and her boyfriend Vaughan, with whom we also had a very enjoyable dinner Saturday night.

Then it was on the bus Sunday morning to head to Turangi, on the south end of Lake Taupo for Ruben's one-week assignment with the clinic in town.

Views from the bus

 As usual, our first taste of town is a run on a local path. We found a great 20km or so loop right outside the door of our bach (that's Kiwi for holiday home) that goes upriver, crosses a swing bridge, and comes back downriver on the other side.

An angler on the Tongariro River in Turangi.

More anglers. This portion of the river is right at the end of our street.

View from the driveway at Stump Cottage.

Stump Cottage

Ruben relaxing in the sun after the run.

This is the interior of the bach. I think Kiwis might have a national hoarding problem!

There are probably 500 magazines in this batch. I like magazines, so this has definitely kept me occupied.

Ruben jumped right into work at the Turangi Community Health Centre. On his first day he pulled a fish scale out of some angler's finger.

No Internet access at the bach, so I've been spending a stupid amount of time at the Turangi Public Library doing my work and checking e-mail, etc.

We leave Turangi Saturday morning for our next placement in Otorohanga. This might be my only post until we get there....