New Zealand Part 5 New Plymouth

---

Hearing dogs New Zealand styley week 1

Wow the journey from Auckland to New Plymouth was a long one. Friends who live here had always said the distances look small but because the main roads are only small single carriageways everything goes a lot slower. Luckily the journey was on a beautifully sunny day and through some amazing scenery. The Taranaki Mountain regions are wonderful if not a little hair raising when your coach is driving round hair pin bends. We arrived into new Plymouth after 7 hours on the coach (it stopped at every tiny little town on the way - some weird places) and were immediately aware of the huge snow caped Taranaki Mountain in the distance and sea on the other side - not everyday you get both and this is something New Plymouth boasts about for tourism. This was looking like it would be a nice place to stay.

We were greeted off the bus by Clare the Hearing Dogs Director of Services (I think that’s her title). She was just how Nat had described a smiley lady with a weird thick kiwi accent and bushy 80’s hair. She drove us to the local cheapo supermarket (“Countdown” just in case anyone is wondering) so Nath and I got our first experience of weird brands and pricing but managed to get a few basics together for the next few days. Do you know they still call crisps bloody chips over here!! Anyway Clare took us straight to the Hearing Dogs site which I’d seen briefly online, so knew it was gonna be small but nothing prepared me for the reality of actually how small it was. Three tin houses and a garage……..that’s it!! Lots of nice greenery around it with paddocks attached and a river flowing in the background, but that is really it. The site is a good 10 mins outside of town so easy to get to for dog work but other than that you are out on your own. No phone signal either and a hydro power plant next door which has an alarm that goes off every time the rest of New Zealand stop to put the kettle on or have a shower (therefore 7:30am, 5:30pm or when an episode of Shortland street finishes) (Shortland street - think Holby City with an accent).

Clare sat with us whilst we settled in and we chatted briefly about the set up here and differences between our centres-the main one being their size. They are tiny and currently only have 3 employed staff. I found out straight away as I asked (I couldn’t wait for the information to be offered I wanted to know straight away) that the position of trainer had been filled by another ex hearing dogs colleague from the UK. I must admit to being disappointed, I had spent a lot of time considering what it would mean to stay here and work and how feasible it would be and I had convinced myself that if the opportunity came up then why not go for it. But now the decision had been made for me and at least the silver lining was I didn’t have to try so hard to impress being only a volunteer now and not a potential member of staff! We arranged to meet at 8:30am the next day to walk the dog I was gonna be looking after, so Nath and I settled into bed and had a really great nights sleep enjoying the silence of the new Zealand countryside and the fresh air ( no vomit smell unlike Paihia!!).

I must admit sleeping in a new place that was super dark and super quiet due to its location was a little unnerving. People here still don’t lock their doors at night but I couldn't bring myself to chance it. There happened to be a sound like an alarm that kept going off which worried me……ok so that turned out to be a bird but hey it felt like we were out in the wilderness. Anyway up on time next morning, just about to have breakfast as I had half hour till 8:30 and Clare turned up ready for the walk. . “Oh you’re not ready yet” she said, “well I would have been but you said 8:30am!!”. “whoops did I, oh well its just I got in early so thought I’d come over” I was starving and looking back on it should have told her I’d be ready in half hour but I didn’t, I still did want to make a good impression even if I wouldn’t be staying.

We took Tama (a stocky short yellow lab) a qualified hearing dog in for some refresher work, for a walk and reached a padlocked gate with only a stile for us to cross over but no gap for Tama. “We’ll just lift him over”…..WHAT I thought is she serious; this is a dog who weighs almost as much as me!! She must be having a laugh…..nope!!! Having learnt my lesson from my disturbed breakfast I suggested that this wasn’t a good idea and I wasn’t prepared to lift him. Still it seemed we were gonna have a go. So I tried lifting one end of this huge dog who had only just met me and surprise surprise he wasn’t too keen. Clare, who was already on the other side of the fence waiting to “accept” her end of the dog, said “oh can you not lift him?” HA.

Anyway we chatted loads on our walk and I made some suggestions she did and didn’t like but hey that’s how it works with me. We finally got back and I had my breakfast - yippee. Rest of the day and well rest of the week really, Nath and I went about with our little list of things Clare wanted us to do (being as there were no staff and no dogs in training), a big proportion of it being raffle ticket selling (yawn) but at least I got to do some proper sound work with Tama, something I’d been missing since leaving my job in the UK. Nath kept busy mowing the lawns with the ride on mower, fixing gates, guttering and wiring issues. He was also in my opinion overly happy to have a double garage as a workshop - boys’ ay! Clare is a lovely lady with a heart of gold and really helped us out with what ever she could (showing us some campervans for sale and the local area and giving us advice on where to visit) but as for knowing how a Hearing Dog works etc she had some funny ideas!! She was luckily, very receptive to some of my suggestion, some of which will hopefully be put into place for the new trainer or maybe ignored once we leave - who knows. Without regular transport there wasn’t much else for us to do in New Plymouth, whilst a pretty place it’s actually a bit dull, so we spent a lot of our time searching for a campervan which was becoming a real chore.

We managed to find a load in Auckland so thought we would make a trip up that first weekend, to see Nat again, look at the campers and collect some goods for Clare. We had planned on stopping off at the Waitomo caves on our way up so the weekend wasn’t a complete loss should the vans be no good. However the rain that day didn’t stop at all and the caves were not looking likely. We also had a small delay at one of the mountain road passes, we figured because of traffic or road works, but no in typical kiwi style a traffic delay due to a mud slide across the road, what a nice change! The rain and delays meant we didn’t have time for the cave trip which was a shame, so we made our way to Auckland through the continuous rain via Hamilton to look at a very shoddy van. We got to Nat’s house which was baking in the sunshine just in time for a bevy or two. Sweet!!

Needless to say none of the vans in Auckland were any good but we had started looking further afield in desperation (well I was desperate and pushy and Nath was perhaps overly cautious so between us we had most of the unproductive corners covered). We ended up looking in Tauranga back with Ben and Heather and arranged to head there before coming back to New Plymouth - again a rubbish van and I think we will have to alter our expectations!!. On the way back to New Plymouth we stopped off at the Kiwi house at Otorhanga, so bar seeing our friends the journey wasn’t a total waste. Did you know that Kiwi’s (the birds) are not only real but also fake looking at the same time? I was shocked on seeing my first kiwi; I had always thought they were imaginary or extinct birds like the Dodo and I certainly didn’t think they could be seen in a zoo. Nath and I entered the dark enclosure and whilst I tried to focus away from my reflection in the glass Nath pointed out the kiwi to me. Oh my god, I can never explain how weird and almost spooky it is to see a fairly large bird with an abnormally large bum that looks like its wearing fluffy pyjamas running around close to you looking for food. I wish we could have taken some video or photos but you weren’t allowed to.

With the excitement of the kiwi house over we headed back to New Plymouth, all in all a huge 1100kms round trip - we won’t be doing that again!!!

---

Photos

P1070638
Tama - bless him

P1070640
The training house

P1070643
Nath on "his" motorised mower

P1070644
Busted!!

P1070648
Traffic jam New Zealand style (Due to mud slide)

P1070650
Lunch in the van, without forks - so we used tooth picks!!

P1070652
Xmas at Nat's

P1070655
Xmas pressies at Nat's (hope mines the big one!!)

P1070657
Poppy Bear in her usual position

P1070658
The xmas tree at Ben and Heathers

P1070667
Otorohanga Kiwi house (and other birds)

P1070671
I'm actually stroking a duck!!! its not fake its alive

P1070675
Love the Pukeko's

P1070686
Otorohanga Kiwiw park (plus lots of other birds)