Buildings

Building styles in this town betray certain things about both the builders and the environment. Most obviously the center of town is attractive with a lot of older buildings and is now well decorated and beautified with plantings and hanging baskets. While this may suggest a concern for history I've been told that it was more a case of lack of money for building something modern than a desire to maintain the town's heritage. Now many older buildings and warehouses just outside the center are being renovated as property prices rise.

There is some art deco influence in town which may reflect some rebuilding from damage from the Hawkes Bay earthquake in 1931, but many of the buildings would not look out of place in an English market town. Similarly the leafier suburbs resemble those of middle England with tree lined streets and well tended gardens, though the houses and lush greenery remind us more of Florida. The lack of central heating also reminds us that it does not get really cold here, but as the house was pretty cool the other night when it dropped to 9.5C (49F) I expect we'll be cranking up the heaters.

There was a stronger European influence (and specifically British) in the town's development because of the early battles with the Maori over land rights, and prominent in the town center is a memorial to the Europeans killed in these skirmishes. I'm not sure how many war memorials there are in total here but it's and impressive testament to New Zealand's involvement in Britains battles.

One thing that is missing is out of town big box stores, though there are quite a few situated in the town. We are "blessed" with McDonalds, Burger King, Dominos etc and Subway seems to be particularly popular, but most companies are domestic or Australian.

Politics

So this blog does not turn into a list of things we've done in Wanganui I'll try and make some comments on New Zealand with the benefit of two weeks of perspective and a somewhat US bias! While some might suggest this is uninformed comment I prefer to quote Robert Burns:

"Such a gift as god would gie us,
To see oorselves as others see us."

Two major political events (I use the term major with tongue in cheek) have occured in February: firstly a scandal has "erupted" after 18 months (including an election) about a member of parliament who arranged immigration status for an man employed working on his home, secondly there has been a fuss about whether children go to school hungry and whether the solution is for private companies to send in food items. While I can't comment on the details of these they did impress me with a couple of things:

1. What the troubled MP did seems to be pretty minor compared to the massive corruption endemic in the US system where politicians need vast amounts of money to be elected and the people providing most of the money clearly expect some benefit. I'm told however that whatever trouble politicians get into here, they tend to duck out and reappear in a year or two. If not rehabilitated then at least with their transgressions forgotten.

The expulsion of this MP from the party does actually remove the 1 seat majority of the Labour Party, but they enjoy the general support of two minor parties (Maori and Green) if push comes to shove in a vote to dissolve parliament.

2. The political heat about the children led to some very British style grandstanding with the leader of the opposition (National Party - conservative) making as much political capital as possible while the party in power (Labour - liberal in the US sense) denouced him for the way he presented the message. None of which was much use to hungry children. And anyone who thinks that the UK parliament can be entertaining theatre at times (at least at Prime Minister's questions) should see the coverage in NZ where the general level of debate was slightly lower and the theatrics slightly more to the fore than the Glasgow University debating chamber.

As a positive aside a politician recently tied the knot (OK, underwent a civil commitment ceremony) with his gay partner. I don't see this occuring in most US states.

I'm not sure what to make of the political pulse here, and my feel for the mood is obviously coloured by living in a conservative area. While certain features of life suggest a more European style leftist view (moderately generous welfare benefits, comprehensive health care for children, nuclear free status) the overall feel is more like the individualist mindset of the US. It'll be interesting resolving the dichotomy.

Pictures

Pictures are starting to appear at:

http://www.timcooke.com/NZ/index.htm

I'll hopefully keep up to date as we explore the area.

Panorama


Click on the picture for a bigger version. We live at about *. The sea is top left with the center of town above the river bridge.

Running

For the runners among you, a few positive comments on Wanganui:

1. There are sidewalks/ pavements and street lighting which is a blessing to anyone used to attempting to run in the US.

2. Low humidity.

3. You can plan routes with many hills or none.

4. There is some interesting running history at the track I do some training on: http://www.coolrunning.co.nz/articles/2002a008.html.

Introductory Stuff

Wanganui is an attractive small town with a real town center, a pleasant range of parks and excellent sports facilities. It is sited on the Whanganui River with views of the two highest peaks on the North Island (Ruapahu to the north, Taranaki to the west) and the South Island on a clear day. And so far we've had virtually nothing but clear days. Read more about it here: http://www.wanganui.com/ and here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanganui#Wanganui_City.

Tracy's job is not difficult, though doing urgent care is a lot different that what she's used to (lots of x-rays and getting foreign objects out of eyes so far). Tim was only here 29 hours before he got the first call from a dentist needing his services so he should be all set when his dental licence comes through.

Arrival

So here I am in New Zealand, this time the blog will chart our year here in Wanganui. The flight (Albany- Chicago- Los Angeles- Auckland- Wanganui) was as good as can be expected and kudos to Air New Zealand for giving us good leg room.

First impressions of Auckland airport (where I waited for 4 hours for the final flight to Wanganui) were that it strongly reminded me of Prestwick (small airport west of Glasow, remained viable for years as it rarely fogged and planes often diverted there in pre-instrument landing days) in the days when transatlantic flights still landed there: same small terminal building, same flight in over water with fields all around, same sleepy feel (though it is the national day here so it may get a little busier). The weather is nice too and it was great to get the option to walk from iternational to domestic terminals.

One interesting feature: no security in the domestic terminal, and no door on the cockpit of the 24 seater. Memo to the USA, it helps to be a country that is well liked!