Settled in Palmy

We have been in Palmy for 2 weeks now and are pretty much settled in. Bree has been at school for a little over a week and I am now set-up at Massey University. Bree is really enjoying her new school and is starting to make new friends. All schools here have a swimming pool and swimming daily is part of the school curriculum. Bree thinks this is wonderful plus she gets to swim again at her afterschool care program. Term 1 just started here so Bree is starting level 2 with all of the other children her age. The course content seems similar and she really likes her teachers. On Friday her school had a picnic and all 300 plus kids walked to the park and then spent the afternoon scooting (very popular), swimming and playing games. The park was just a sea of red school shirts!

The parks here are wonderful and I love the playgrounds. Lots of cool spinning and climbing equipment and some even have flying foxes (little zip lines). Scooters are very popular here and the kids can really fly on these things. Bree just got one but she is still learning and takes it pretty slow. They also have these skate boards with two separate pieces and independent wheels that swivel – talk about balance!

I now have an office at Massey which I am sharing with a researcher from Holland. The university campus is a nice size, quite similar to TRU. I am slowly meeting people and the campus will begin to fill-up when classes start at the end of the month. I have been able to ride my bike in most days as the campus is close to town.

I am just getting up to speed on the agricultural sector here. I have been doing lots of reading and am now getting a chance to talk with some of the other faculty. I hope to get out and start visiting farms in the next few weeks. Pasture really is a strong focus here and having an abundant amount of forage is one of their strengths. Even the dairy industry is mainly pasture based which makes production focus around the main growing season. Next week I am attending a conference on greenhouse gas emissions and I hope to visit the GHG centre located here soon.

Well time to get ready for the work week. Bree and I will post updates every week or two.