Possum World!! (and other random adventures)

For those who don’t know, the Possum (Opossum) is a hated creature in New Zealand. They were introduced from Australia a long time ago and the lack of natural predators allowed them to spawn like crazy. Note that the NZ Possum is different from it’s smaller North American cousin (which most of us are familiar with). Now, the Possum is a serious risk to native bird and plant species, and the millions of Possums in NZ eat 70,000 tons of foliage every night. People here will go out of their way to kill Possums – my coworker Jeremy (also an American) tells me about his neighbor who traps and kills 40-60 possums every couple weeks. The pelts are actually valuable – the fur is blended with merino sheep wool to create something similar to polar-tec fleece. Here’s another fact from Jeremy – you cannot kill a possum (at least not humanely) with a .22 caliber bullet. You have to use something bigger, cause the possum’s skull is too thick. How insane is that?



I learned many of these facts at ‘Opossum World’ in Hawke’s Bay! Ann Marie and I took a road trip to HB a few weekends ago to check out the east coast, and to see some of the wineries in that area. Possum World was pretty hysterical (and free!). There was a Possum Shooting Range (here I am helping thin the Possum population), and little stuffed possum pelts everywhere. A great place, but shockingly and to our disappointment there were no ‘Possum World’ t-shirts.



The wineries were also a ton of fun. We rented bikes to travel from vineyard to vineyard - there were a couple tough hills, and some brutal head winds at the end, but we really enjoyed the scenery and freedom to go at our own pace. We stayed in the town of Napier, at the former prison there (now a backpackers) which was, to be honest, a little weird - but still enjoyable. It was nice to get out of Wellington and see an area that is totally different from what we’ve seen thus far – HB is mostly flat and dominated by vineyards, although some of the areas have rolling hills. Napier was also completely devastated by an earthquake in 1931 so nothing stands more than a few stories tall.




The following weekend we stayed in Wellington. On Saturday we hiked up to the top of Mt. Victoria – which is one of the two big hills in the middle of the city. The views were fantastic – we could see downtown, the entire harbor including the channel out to the sea, and the ocean-side of the city. The hike took us a good 3-4 hours and included another stroll through Oriental Bay - our favorite neighborhood in Wellington, which is at the base of Mt. Vic. We are trying to do least one hike a week to prepare for some more challenging trips later in the year.





We’ve also made friends with our neighbors the Marines! They were having a barbeque over the weekend which Andy, Ann Marie and I dropped in on. The guys were really nice (they have a great reputation in Wellington and lived up to it) and we met a number of others from various govt. departments (both American and Kiwi). It was fun to share stories from back home as well as NZ – be it about sports, the embassy itself, or some of the things that are different over here. We also learned from our new friend Tim (not a marine, but pictured below in the middle) how to watch football from the states. Unfortunately, there are zero games on during the weekends here – they only broadcast Sunday and Monday night NFL games during the day on Monday & Tuesday. Neither of us has watched a minute of either college or NFL this fall. Tim had his parents to purchase a cable-box with an internet connection. The box can be accessed over the internet, allowing the user to watch anything on their computer in real time (although one drawback is that the box controls the TV it’s connected to, so Tim’s parents have to watch the same thing as him!). We figured that was overkill for us, but if we were staying for three years like Tim, we'd have to look into this option.



The weekend ended on a downer though… on Sunday morning the All Blacks lost a close game to France in the Rugby World Cup – their earliest exit in a world cup yet. On cue, the clouds and rain rolled in as the game ended (it had been a nice sunny morning up until then) and the weather was pretty ugly for the rest of the day. The Kiwis are all disappointed and rather angry at both the team and a particular referee, but they’ve managed to rebound a bit to enjoy the remainder of the tournament (South Africa plays defending champ England next weekend). My team members from work all met up this Monday morning for breakfast at one of the local pubs during the SA-Argentina semi-final before going into the office.

As I mentioned in my last post – I have moved offices! I’m with the same group at ACC, but we have moved into the downtown building. It is a further walk (15-20 min) but it is much easier to run errands during the day, or meet up with Carsten or Ann Marie for lunch. I’m still enjoying the work (currently we’re sorting out next year’s budget), and feel like I have been able to contribute a lot to the team.

This most recent weekend we went road tripping with Carsten & Sarah, but more on that later as well as our upcoming visit with Jorgen & Mona in Christchurch. Hope everyone is well – cheers!