First Month Living in New Zealand

What it is like for a family of five Americans to move to and live in New Zealand. The first month.

 — To read about our adventures getting into New Zeland click here — 

The plane banked left and Mount Doom came into view through my window. Well, not Mount Doom, but Mount Ngauruhoe, the mountain used in the film Lord of the Rings. We were finally out of quarantine in Auckland and getting our first look at the country we would be calling home.

Our flight to New Zealand from the US arrived in the pre-dawn, and due to the efficient quarantine system in the country, we had been whisked off for our two weeks of isolation without an opportunity for sightseeing. Then for a fortnight, we had looked out of the same windows onto the same view of Auckland. It was a good landscape with Skytower featuring prominently in our slice of the largest city in the nation, but after two weeks, we were itching to see more. And we did.

Our flight crossed the Cook Strait that separates the north and south islands and cruised into Christchurch, the largest city on the south island. From the air, the land around the city is a broad plain cut by meandering rivers and ruler-straight lines of tall trees that separate fields.

Unlike our previous arrival at a New Zealand airport, no one met us. There was no one in PPE to lead us from the plane to quarantine. Instead, we arrived just like regular visitors to any city in the pre-COVID world. We almost felt unwelcome after the reception we had received on our arrival from the USA.

Bags collected and rental car acquired, we set out to see our new home. But first, breakfast. Although the food we received in quarantine left no room for complaint, we had fantasized about eating in a restaurant for too long to wait even an hour longer. So we drove off to the cafe we had selected with the excessive care that comes from an internet connection and too much free time.

In New Zealand, they drive from the right side of the car in the left lane. So we drove off on the “wrong side” of the road, or at least that is how it felt. It’s a bit nerve-wracking at first, but I figured out a clever way to get a little extra practice before hitting the city streets. I got lost in airport parking and practiced my skills by circling the airport.

Once on the road, Heidi helped remind me which lane to get into every time I turned, and we arrived at our destination without any drama. It is stressful at first driving on the “wrong side” of the road, but it was all worth it when we arrived at our destination, a cute little garden cafe staffed by the friendliest Kiwis. Heidi and I got coffee. Real coffee, not the instant we had in quarantine. We ordered off a menu, and we ate things like spiced apple pancakes in a cozy space with a garden terrace next to us. It may have just been breakfast, but it felt like an extravagance.

Then it was time to travel to the town that will be our home, Greymouth. That meant transiting from the east side of the south island to the west. Although the journey is only 234 kilometers (145 miles), it goes through the mountain chain that divides the island. As we left the city, the snow-capped mountains came into view as they stretched across the horizon. Unlike the Rocky Mountains we were used to, these mountains seem to rise up abruptly, without the preamble of foothills. One moment we were traveling over flat plains, and then we turned, and it was mountain driving.

We passed a field of massive boulders known as Castle Hill. Then we continued up to Arthur’s pass. Some vandal had removed the “P” from the Arthur’s Pass sign which my children recognized as the height of humor. As we passed through the hamlet that is “Arthur’s _ass,” we came across the first roadblock to our journey.

The road was literally blocked off for construction and would not open again for two hours. Rather than get upset, we turned around and went back to explore Cave Stream, where the river flows underground through a cave. It was interesting to see the stream run into one end of the cave and then back out a couple of hundred yards later. It is possible to walk through the cave, but we lacked the appropriate gear to attempt it as a spur-of-the-moment endeavor.

We continued our journey with no more hiccups and arrived at the ocean, where we took a right turn and headed into the town of Greymouth. We passed some newer, modern homes, but mostly older houses that had been well cared for, updated, and remodeled. We also passed a few that simply needed to be torn down and replaced, but overall it looked like people took pride in their community.

We had no problem finding the simple brick house the hospital had reserved for us. It was a small 1950’s home with three-bedrooms, large bright windows, and the potential to be quite charming. Unfortunately, it was not living up to that potential. I understand that when it comes to deciding where to spend the hospital budget, beautifying these accommodations should not be a top priority. Still, I would have preferred this decision was not so prominently on display.

It did have good beds; it just didn’t have enough. We had hoped for four bedrooms, but we could get by with three bedrooms, but not three beds. We made the most of the situation and called it a day as it was late. The next day I called up my hospital contact about the bed situation. That afternoon, he showed up with a pair of twin beds, and we were able to make it work with a bit of rearranging. A couple of posters from the local equivalent of Target and shuffling of the items in the kitchen, and we felt we could make a go of it in our temporary home.

Then we learned that it might not be as temporary as we would like. The west coast is experiencing a resurgence of interest, and people are moving into the area. So the market for buying homes is tight. However, my critical-needs-worker visa does not allow me to purchase a home, and it turns out that the rental market is even tighter. There were no appropriately-sized dwellings advertised for rent, and the ones we did see looked worse than where we were currently living. It was discouraging but only convinced us that we would need to try twice as hard.

We learned the best rental properties disapeared before they made it onto the official market. Renting a good place was clearly a matter of who you know, so we set out to get to know people who might be able to help. We contacted the local realtors’ agencies and received a responce that was cool at best. With houses to sell and a hopping market, we can’t blame them for not taking a lot of interest in a family looking to rent.

Meanwhile, I shamelessly told everyone I met in my hospital orientation and anywhere else that we were looking for a rental. And my impudence was rewarded with an email telling me about a landlord whose tenant had broken their lease. I immediately called about the perspective opening and talked to a man who seemed to have the perfect four-bedroom home, complete with an ocean view. It sounded too good to be true.

Heidi, Will, Delaney, and I had a little trouble finding the house because although it has an address on a busy road, the house is set well back from that road down a narrow drive. It was worth the effort to find. A well-maintained brick home with modernized windows and appliances, a spacious kitchen, and floor-to-ceiling windows that face the ocean. We needed to jump on this while we could. And then there came the problem.

It is a given people renting properties in New Zealand say no to pets. But our beloved dog Aspen is a part of our family, and we had gone to a great deal of effort and expense to bring him with us. The people renting the house had not mentioned a pet exclusion, and I had made a point not to ask.

I have learned in negotiations that both sides have a problem they are trying to solve. If you can convince the other party that you can fix their issue, they will want to do business with you. So I worked to convince them that we were the perfect family to live in this home. I talked respectfully about the house and convinced them we would show it the same fondness they did. We dressed right and acted like stable people who would be the perfect renters. And they bought it. They wanted to rent to us, so when I brought up the dog, they told me that would have been a deal-breaker over the phone but relented and allowed us to move in with Aspen.

And move in we would, just as soon as we returned from two weeks in Christchurch.

The hospital I will work in on the West Coast is the biggest in that district, but it is still a small hospital with limited resources. That means I will need to work with doctors in Christchurch in a relationship that is “close at a distance.” To help me get to know people I would be cooperating with, the district sent me to Christchurch for two weeks. Not just me, but the whole family.

Our Christchurch rental house was one and a half miles from the hospital and a spectacular one and a half miles at that. The huge park and botanical gardens at the city center defined my route. Every day I walked to the hospital through stands of giant old trees. I marveled at unusual breeds of trees, some ramrod straight, and others with chaotic drooping branches. I watched a club sail remote-controlled boats on the lake. Schools teams practiced rugby on the spacious pitches. And people of all ages lounged in natural beauty. Heck of a way to start and end my workday.

Of course, I did more than work. We explored the sights and dined in some great restaurants. We shopped in the name-brand stores, wandered the aisles in bookshops, and consumed more gelato than five people probably should. Oh, and I celebrated my birthday. I remember a few childhood birthday parties that were threatened by winter weather, so it was quite a change to celebrate on a warm spring evening. Thank you to my family for making my day.

Our visit to Christchurch felt like a holiday, even if I went to the hospital every weekday. But our return to Greymouth would be work. We moved from the house the hospital rented us to our new home. Fortunately, all we had for personal belongings fit into five suitcases. The rest of the household items we shipped have been in Panama for more than a month, casualties of the global supply collapse. That means we don’t have our beds. So I moved the three beds we were able to beg or borrow and a set of mattress pads to create places for all of us to sleep. Heidi and I are getting a little tired of sleeping on the floor and look forward to our bed arriving . . . sometime in January? The fun of “camping out” on our bedroom floor is wearing thin.

I started work with a “list” that Monday. The list is all the cases or patients I am assigned to see that day. Our days are highly regimented with each day starting at 8:00 am with rounds. All the surgeons, plus the registrar and lead nurse meet in a small conference room to discuss new admissions and patients on the ward. We look at labs, x-rays and vitals, then go to see the patients as a team. The team agree on a care plan, which it’s the registrar’s (kind of like a resident) responsibility to carry out while we Senior Medical Officers go to either the “Theater” or the clinic.

Going to the Theater is not like watching a show. Or well, it is a little like a show, but I am the performer because the Theater means the operating room. At 9:00, I meet my team of fellow players, and we go over the playbill. We discuss each patient, what we will be doing for them, what issues they might have, and any special needs before anyone goes to the procedure room. I then meet the patient and talk to them, change into scrubs and maybe get a “spot of tea” while the patient makes their way to the procedure room and everything gets set up.

I do my first case, and by the time I finish, it is tea time. This planned ten-minute break often stretches a “wee bit” longer than designed as people feel less pressure to push cases through, unlike the over-scheduled OR’s in the US. After we do the second surgery, it is lunchtime. Not grab a quick bite while you keep moving. But a proper lunch break where the room closes and everyone on the team goes to lunch simultaneously. Then it is afternoon surgery or endoscopy with much the same rhythm. It’s a much more relaxed pace than I am used to, and it will require a little time for me to settle in, but it is nice not to be in the seeming unending chaos of over-scheduled OR’s.

Also, because the surgical team functions with a team approach to patient care, an urgent procedure does not need to wait for the on-call person to get free. Instead, whoever is available does the case. If I’m doing endoscopy and a patient needs to be added on, I just do it. Same for the surgeon in the operating room. This keeps everything flowing much more smoothly in the “Theater” and the clinic.

It’s a different approach to work that balances the needs of the patients with the health of the surgical team. Things may not get done on the same schedule as in America, but they do get done. One surgeon had to call in sick, and we shuffled up the work and still got all the procedures done for the day, so no patients were canceled. That is the advantage of a system that doesn’t focus on being hyper-efficient. Less efficient systems benefit from built-in slack that can be taken up when needed to get the job done. When the system concentrates on efficiency (i.e getting as much done with as few resources as possible) anything that disrupts that highly ordered system leads to chaos. We need to remember that a bit of inefficiency in the system is not a design flaw; it is resiliency. Something that was tragically lacking in the US health system when the pandemic hit.

On the home front, Allen, William, and Delaney continued their studies via the online program through the Colorado E-school. We did not know if COVID would disrupt classroom work again like it had the previous semester, but we did know that our move would. The transition to online school allowed them to continue their studies while in quarantine and completed them after we arrived in Greymouth. On-line school had its ups and downs and required a little more flexibility in approach once we were 15 hours ahead of the US schools. But the kids adapted to all of that better than I had hoped they would. The most important lesson they may have learned from the last semester may not have been math, history, or science, but how they can succeed in challenging circumstances. We are very proud of them for how well they have adapted.

We have tried to get out and explore the area as much as possible, but with moving and moving again, school (because of the time difference, the kids’ school week ran Tuesday through Saturday), my working, and Heidi’s efforts to make wherever we laid down our heads feel like home, we haven’t gotten out as much as we would have liked.

We did visit the charming community of Hokitika just south of us, where we hiked around a set of the bluest lakes formed from melting glacier water. The highlight of the hike was walking over two suspension bridges and looking down at the impossibly blue water as we swayed gently above. The low-light was the sand flies. Although we haven’t seen mosquitos, we have found a new biting insect that is at least as tenacious. Fortunately, these tiny vampires are poor fliers, and a good pair of socks and long pants appear to be all that is needed to avoid coming home with bitten-up ankles, a lesson learned the hard way.

We played on the beach in Hokitika and threw rocks into the ocean. Wading into the surf, we quickly learned why everyone we see surfing or engaged in other water sports wears wet suits. The water became painfully cold for feet and ankles after just a few minutes, but that didn’t stop us from having a “bit of a laugh.”

We also traveled north up the West Coast. The biggest problem with this oceanside drive is that the view is spectacular. Sandy beaches, cliffs dropping into the ocean, and large rock formations pounded by the surf make for awe-inspiring vistas at every turn. What should take only two hours to drive could quickly turn into an all-day adventure if you keep stopping to take it all in (something I could have done if the kids hadn’t lost their patience).

A unique formation along the route was Punakaiki. This unusual rock formation is also known as Pancake Rocks because the layering of the rocks makes them look like stacked pancakes. It was mesmerizing to watch the ocean waves flow through openings in rocks to burst into blowholes which sometimes turns spectators into participants as the spray lands on them. Bring a towel for your camera and a rain jacket for yourself if you go.

New Zealand has been living under strict quarantine to keep covid off the island. The plan had worked well, but the more infectious Delta and Omicron variants are now finding their way into the nation. So the government has changed tactics and pushed vaccination hard. And it is working. The goal was to vaccinate over 90% of the population fully, and they have succeeded.

As part of the vaccination policy, NZ instituted a Vaccine Passport. The policy has met with little opposition in NZ, and most people seem to like the idea; however, most people are vaccinated. You can’t be stopped from going to the hardware store or buying groceries. However, you will need to show your Vaccine Passport if you want to buy a flat white (the popular coffee drink best described as a middle ground between a cappuccino and latte) or eat in a restaurant.

Despite the high vaccination rate, hospitals are gearing up for expected cases of COVID. Although vaccination appears to offer protection against serious illness in most healthy adults, its effectiveness at preventing infection with the new Omicron variant is less robust. After dealing with COVID for so long in the US, it is interesting to be in a place dealing with it for the first time. Fortunately, NZ has a lot of knowledge from the last two years to draw on and resources and medications we did not have back in March of 2020. And it is summer in the southern hemisphere, which will also help. Hoping those factors will limit the harm on this island, unlike the USA, where more than 800,000 thousand people have now died from the virus. I remember seeing experts back in early 2020 estimating over one million US deaths and having a hard time believing that could be true, but it now looks like it is just a matter of time. Please, be safe and be smart.

The days are temperate, with sixteen hours of daylight, so it does not feel like Christmas to people from the northern hemisphere. Despite the reversal of seasons, we did experience a little Christmas miracle. A few days after moving into our new home, we found a large box in the back of Will’s closet and opened it to discover an artificial Christmas tree complete with lights. We promptly set it up, and with a trip to the local discount store for some decorations, we have a tree surrounded by gifts. Not sure who left the tree or why it is here, but we sure are grateful.

We ended our year in a very different place than we began. While COVID created turmoil in the world, my choice not to sign the new contract my employer drew up made our personal lives equally uncertain. I had no clear plan back then, resulting in many sleepless nights. Yet, I secretly believed that I would find a way to make it work. I just knew that if I leaped, I would find a net on the way down. I wouldn’t have expected it to have been the fantastic ride it has been or to have ended where it has, but we are all having an amazing experience.

People keep asking me why I would leave a successful practice in the US and move to the far side of the world. To be honest, I’m not sure I understood myself, but here is what I have come to comprehend. It is possible to work for twenty years and have twenty years of experience to show for it. It is also possible to have the same one-year of experience twenty times. I was beginning to feel like my life had become the latter. Yes, I could work the same job for a few more years, but I did not feel I was learning and growing. I was just putting in the work and collecting a check. If I wanted to continue to grow as a person and a surgeon, I needed to shake it up, do new things and take new chances.

It is often the things that scare us most that we have to do to become who we can be. Giving up a secure position to step into the unknown scared me. Leaving our comfortable home to move to an island on the far side of the world seemed too extreme. And yet, once the idea was in my head, I knew that if I didn’t do it — if I gave into my fear — I would be a smaller person. Once I recognized that fear, I knew what I had to do, and I did it. Not sure if it was the most thoughtful plan I could have come up with, but then again, it’s the crazy ideas that lead to the best stories.

I hope you have enjoyed this update. If so, feel free to share it with anyone else you think might find it interesting. Our adventures will continue as we branch out to see more of this wonderful country.

Read More;

Learn more about how we decided to move to New Zealand

Why I chose having an experience over making more money