Posts with tag: bach

Letters from the Southern Man

Migrating is more than just filling in forms and submitting paperwork, its a complex process that will test even the most resilient of people. 

Understanding New Zealand is paramount to your immigration survival and to give you a realistic view of the country, its people and how we see the world, read our weekly Southern Man blogs. Often humorous, sometimes challenging, but always food for thought.

Matapouri and Mermaid Pools

 

Happy New Year and can I take this opportunity of wishing you all the very best for 2012.

So where to begin with this, my first Letter from New Zealand in 2012? 

We could talk immigration policy, pass marks and so on but that would be a bit dull.

Although I have only been away for three weeks it seems like months. Over my summer (such as summer has been up this end of the country this year) I once again realised that the more time I spend travelling around this country the more I appreciate how lucky my family and I were being born here. And I love to share it with you…….

I couldn’t get out of the office fast enough toward the end of December. For Immagine NZ, 2011 was most definitely a year of two halves. The first presented difficult trading conditions given the ongoing (but still unofficial) cuts to migrant numbers and the difficulties many potential clients continued to experience selling up their homes in order to free up the cash to make migrating possible, but the second half was strong with December being our best in 23 years. Either world property markets are starting to free up or people are just a little more desperate to get somewhere civilised and are taking whatever equity they can extract from their houses and just doing it. Possibly before things get worse.

We appear to have hit the ground running in 2012 with a busy first week. Having a working knowledge of the crazy Australian General Skills Category and related visa categories has allowed us to offer clients greater ‘offerings’ and as I have mentioned before I enjoy using Australia as a backdoor to New Zealand as it often presents a far less complex visa pathway than coming directly to New Zealand. 

I want to tell you a little more about a special part of New Zealand where my family and I spent a few days last week with close friends.

Matapouri Bay. Shortly after finishing posting this I am heading back up there for a few more days (the sun is out – what am I to do?) to pick up my youngest son and enjoy a friend’s 50th  birthday tonight. Alfresco dining under a balmy summer sky, big trestle tables with brightly coloured tablecloths groaning under a heavy load of barbequed meats and seafood, with crisp salads prepared from local gardens, sweet hot summer corn dripping in melted butter, lit by large candles , a few beers and wine – I cannot wait!

For me there is nothing like spending time around a barbeque (braai to our South African friends) at night with close friends and family, a good local boutique brewery produced beer or world class local wine in one hand eating the best of the local produce and kai moana (seafood) with the other. 

The fishing, when the weather has allowed, has been fantastic the past few weeks. They are biting and biting hard and we have eaten and given away many a good sized snapper over the past ten days. So many I confess I am almost all fished out. Catching and consuming I mean. Well, almost…….

Matapouri is an absolute gem. If I could upload a few photos to The Letter you could see what I am talking about but as I can’t(!) you will need to rely on http://www.tutukakacoastnz.com/matapouri-bay/ in the meantime. Check it out.

A smallish coastal village about two and a half hours drive north of Auckland on the East coast (my favourite side of the island) this sickle shaped bay is protected from the open ocean that lies beyond its two headlands. An estuary flows out at one end and is guarded by mangrove forests which are the spawning grounds for many types of inshore fish including sharks (yes, really), home to sting rays and provide predator free nesting sites for many native birds. The headlands are covered in dense native forest.

Last Thursday we took a walk around the northern end of the bay to visit and swim in the (locally famous) Mermaid Pools. Virtually inaccessible to all but mountain goats and very determined humans the afternoon began with a wander though a reserve covered in regenerating and mature native forest. The sun was out and the humidity was high as it always is at this time of year. It was a 25 degree day and the humidity was probably around 90%. The enormous trees acting to keep the sun off us also provided thick, sultry warm air – the type you can feel when you breathe it in.  With the village on one side and steep forested hills on the other, a great track has been carved into the soft dark soils by the local Council making the initial climb somewhat comfortable but none the less by the time we got to the top of the first hill after perhaps 10 minutes the heart was pumping pretty hard.

From the top we enjoyed a spectacular view north all the way up to Cape Brett (home to the Hole in the Rock for those of you that have been to the Bay of Islands) which was shimmering blue on a distant horizon. Five minutes or so of further walking along the ridge we arrived at the first lookout and rest stop. Picture sheer cliffs on both sides of you with trees clinging by their root systems (if they were humans I’d be thinking toenails) and a drop of probably 100 metres to the roiling sea, whitecaps and swells generated by a strong ocean breeze lining up to throw themselves at the shoreline. The two metre swells crashed against the craggy greywacke rocks that lined the pebble strewn beaches. Below us Gannets wheeled and dived into the bay, like bunker busting bombs, popping up to the surface with a plump wiggling silver fish in their beaks more often than not. A cooling breeze demanded rest and a few holiday snapshots.

We set off along the trail again and as we walked stole glimpses of the ocean to our left. Sheep grazed in the fields to our right – the old New Zealand and the new. I definitely prefer the old.

Having picked our way down onto the sand dunes we enjoyed a different assortment of native plants – the sand was covered in native flax and blankets of grasses with seed pods that look and feel like rabbits’ tails waving in the breeze.

Then up the next headland and on toward the Mermaid Pools. I suspect this headland is an abandoned Maori pa (fortified village). What appeared to be old kumara (sweet potato) pits were dotted throughout this forest but now trees grow where once the food was stored. These sorts of headlands were popular with Maori as they were easy to defend thanks to their extremely (death defying actually) steep slopes. So steep in places we were hauling ourselves up for 30 metres on (and between) the twisted root systems of ancient Pohutukawa trees and thinking crampons may have been the order of the day! Saplings provided handholds. You hoped like hell you didn’t slip.

When we got to the top and had caught our breath I marvelled at the power of nature to take back what is hers when we leave her to it. Now covered in regenerating forest of Nikau palms, Karaka and Kowhai trees the light filtered through and provided us with an explosion of differently hued greens courtesy of the trees around us. The ground was thick with seedlings wherever there was enough light and I stopped and collected seeds of some of my favourite native trees for planting back at my beach house.  There was that pleasant, mother earth smell of rainforest – damp soils, sweating vegetation and rotting wood.  

When we emerged on the other side of the summit the view was magnificent – directly out to sea lies the Poor Knights Islands – a marine reserve and one of the top ten dive sites in the world. The sea a deep deep blue, the rocks jagged, intimidating and unforgiving. The spray of the waves as they crashed onto their hardness the purest white. And below us the Mermaid Pools. Two swimming pool size rock pools that lie just above the high tide mark they have only one opening to the ocean. The pools themselves were about 3 metres deep in their middle. Just for a second I thought I saw two mermaids swimming in the largest pool but they turned out to be a couple of female German tourists – close, but no cigar……

We wound our way carefully down the path toward the ocean and the very inviting looking pools. Slipping and sliding, grabbing at the flaxes that lined the path we were being beaten by the sun again but fanned by the ocean breeze. Ahead of us the land disappeared abruptly into the deep churning Pacific Ocean. 

Off with the shirt, Raybans and Fedora and into the pool!

Because the ocean never reaches it but the sea gently flushes it through one narrow opening the water never stagnates and was as clear as any seawater I have ever been in. There were kina (prickly sea eggs) and crabs a plenty. Strands of smooth seaweed provided shelter for tiny fish and shrimp that had been washed in on a passing swell. The walls of the pool were dotted with limpets, cats-eyes and other assorted molluscs. Surrounded by sharp angular rocks the pools themselves were very conveniently full of small motorcar sized boulders covered in a light salmon coloured seaweed. Pale, soft on the feet and very inviting.

A truly wonderful place to cool off.

At the end of the pool where the rock face heads back up the headland is the ‘jumping rock’. It doesn’t – you are meant to.  Wedged like a gargoyle about 20 metres above the deep water below it is a favourite place for teenage lads to impress the girls by jumping, bombing or to really make a statement, dive off. Shades of cliff diving at Acapulco and no less scary. 

Although my days of being interested in impressing teenage girls are far behind me I none the less had to fight the urge to at least make one jump myself. I’ve jumped out of planes enough to think this couldn’t be scarier. Just wetter. However with the words of my far more sensible wife ringing in my ears I resisted the temptation.

A truly amazing spot and one you should try and visit on a hot summer’s day.

As close to paradise as I suspect there is.

On a slightly more mundane and back to work note I am returning to South Africa for seminars in early February. Click here for details. For those of you in Malaysia and Singapore, click here.

Until next week

Iain MacLeod – Southern Man

Year end wrap up!

 

This is my last Southern Man Letter from New Zealand for 2011.

My bags are packed, I’m going to do the family thing and then it is off to the peace and quiet of Lang’s Beach in northland for three weeks of not very much.

What a year it has been.

It began as 2010 finished – uncomfortable trading conditions thanks to our Government’s ongoing (but unofficial) cut in migrant numbers, flat property markets in the countries so many of our migrants are sourced from, fewer people being able to realise the equity in their homes that funds the move to New Zealand, a tight labour market here making the prospect of finding work (often to secure residence) daunting and the uncertainty in the global economy causing many a would be migrant to ask themselves if they were jumping out of a local fire into a New Zealand frying pan.

I can tell you though that it has ended on a very positive note – for us anyway. The last few months have been pretty good. Although we all have to work far harder for our clients given their heightened fears about what they are doing and the risks they are taking I am not aware of any client who did not find work and we haven’t had a residence case declined yet that has meant our ‘money back guarantee’ required a refund.

I suspect 2012 will continue to be challenging given the uncertainty in international markets.

It is funny though how we view the world. This week there was a business headline in the local rag that trumpeted a fall in business confidence in the last quarter of 2011. Reading through the survey what it actually said was ‘I am worried about everyone else’s business but actually we are doing pretty well in our own and think the next year will be better than this year for us’.

This was a typical survey finding over the past two years here. We worry about the economy but feel relaxed about our own prospects. Weird how it works but everyone I know from manufacturing through construction to real estate is feeling positive about the year ahead.

New Zealand remains well placed to ride it out with low Government debt (albeit climbing) and everyone I know doing their utmost to pay down their own private debt.

The next few years will see further reform of the welfare system which is simply too generous to too many people and the public servants will be twitching as Government signals they will have to keep delivering quality ‘service’ with fewer people. Should be interesting!

Our Australian operation, Immagine Australia has made great strides and it has been a lot of fun learning Australian policy (just to prove our own Government policy makers aren’t the only people on Earth who understand little about migration and the realities of labour markets). Really good fun to use Australia as the welcome doormat to New Zealand.

We are looking forward to growing that business through 2012.

And so it ends for another year.

Christmas here is not so much religious any more, it is a day pass from the day job. With summer heating up it marks the first day of a well deserved summer break. Beaches, books, good food and family time. If you are lucky a few days at the beach – its free, its clean and the water warming with every passing day.

For me it is as I say off to the beach house up north. The fishing rods are ready, the new fire pit has the wood stacked in it, the wine is stacked, the freezer full of food.

All that remains is for me to thank my dedicated team of consummate professionals for their efforts this year. Jo, Kay, Chris, Paul and Karina all take this break knowing that not only is it well deserved but they can pat themselves on the back for another year in which they made a real difference to people’s lives. We all know how hard migration is – leaving friends and family, homes. Security, jobs and settling in a new country is never easy and is always stressful. This small but dedicated team takes away so much of the fear and I can but thank them all and salute them on behalf of all our clients.

And to finish on a lighter note a Christmas ditty put together by Paul. I promise it won’t fry your computer but will bring a smile to your face.

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/KYzYHLJm15Q8DbQCZOWG

Take care, look after yourselves, have as Merry Christmas and all the best for 2012.

Until, well, next year

 

Iain MacLeod - Southern Man

 

My Favourite Place on Earth

This week, rugby or my favourite place on Earth?

Rugby or my favourite place on Earth? What to do, what to do…..

Springboks back in their own beds. Hmmm. Wallabies to follow??? Hmmm, better not speak too soon. The glorious performance of New Zealand referees? Hmmm.

Nah, there’s plenty of water to pass under the Rugby World Cup bridge so let me tell you about my favourite place on Earth and we might return to the rugby if the All Blacks win against Australia this Sunday. If they don’t win we’ll discuss the varying standards of Rugby World Cup referees and blame everyone but ourselves (would put us in good company).

An easy 90 minutes drive from Mount Eden in Auckland is Lang’s Beach. I am lucky enough to own half a beach house (or ‘bach’ – as we North Islanders call it – don’t ask me why) along with my brother-in-law.

Nestled on the east coast of Northland Lang’s is a safe beach, about one and a half kilometres long and protected at each end by promontories of land. Perfect for launching my boat off the beach as it is sheltered from incoming swells.

The sand along this part of the coast is fine and a pale yellow. In summer the sea temperature is 23 degrees and during winter it gets down to a rather chilly 16 degrees. The beaches immediately to the north and south get serious regular surf and are used by the local surfing population all year round. Wetsuits in winter. Boardies in summer.

The water is clear and clean but through the months it changes from an almost grey green in winter to a deep blue green in spring to almost turquoise in summer. Near the shore the water is crystal clear. So clear you have to remind yourself there is no need to constantly watch the bottom while out catching a wave because that shadow isn’t likely to be anything more than loose seaweed and not some deadly form of sea life preparing to end your days.

Plankton abounds. And building on that a robust and healthy food chain exists. Scallop beds lie 50m offshore, lobster hide among the rocks, shellfish lie in their multitudes under the sand. Bait fish abound. Predator fish are everywhere. At certain times of the year their density is so great the water literally turns black with them and boils as the predator fish dart and charge into the masses – an absolute food frenzy. Gannets, Petrels and shearwaters attack from the top. Little Blue Penguins patrol the edges. The fishing is bountiful (for us as well as the birds) either off the beach, off the rocks or out in small boats. Sharks patrol. Harmless ones although we get the not so nice ones from time to time forcing swimmers out of the water……

I’ve seen 3m Orca (Killer Whales) that uniquely for New Zealand come in very close to shore into water as shallow as 2 meters hunting for stingray (you have to see how far a stingray can jump out of the water when it has an Orca on its tail!!).

I have even seen a pod of a half dozen Bryde’s whales fishing and ‘spy hopping’ about 2km out to sea. The largest was about 13m long. Spectacular.

About 15 kilometres out to sea lies Taranaga (The Hen) and a series of six smaller islands (the Chickens). These are protected islands and no landing by humans is allowed. These offshore jewels teem with native birds in forest as pristine as it was 1000 years ago. The ancient Tuatara are found in abundance here. This ancient reptile (it isn’t a lizard) was around when the dinosaurs walked other parts of the Earth.

We first had a holiday up there when my eldest son was about four. We stayed successive Christmases in three different beach houses before finding the one we currently own.

Perched high above Bream Bay the view is spectacular. We sit about 150 meters above sea level and have a 270 degree view north toward Whangarei, out toward New Zealand’s largest marine reserve at The Poor Knight Islands, around to the Hen and Chicks and south toward Bream Tail.

When we first stayed there everything below us was rolling hillside and grazing cows. There were few trees and fewer people. The walk down to the beach with little ones was down a steep gravelled track until we hit the coast road. On a hot summer’s day the walk down was far easier than the walk back with tired little feet soon joined by a younger brother whose preferred method of transport was stroller or dad’s back.

We are no fuss Charlies and the boys would take their afternoon nap in small shelters under a beach towel before waking up and charging off into the ‘bagoon’ as they called it (a tidal pool where a stream that meanders down the hillside met the incoming tide).

Those little boys are now 18 and 15 and prefer the company of their peers to the company of their parents so my wife and I are lucky enough to escape the rat race and two teenagers these days and steal away to our favourite spot on our own or with friends.

A couple of years ago we added a new outdoor ‘room’ – around 20 square meters of open north facing deck and it was while relaxing in a deck chair this past Saturday that made me decide to write and share my impressions ofthis place with you.

High wispy clouds dawdling eastward overhead, a warm breeze coming up from the ocean below, pleasant enough to take the heat out of the sun but not cold. The winter skin was enjoying the warmth of summer’s early rays. Sun block on nose. Looking up I watched as a Skylark, balancing on thermals of air, sung its territorial song before dipping its wings and falling in controlled flight out of the sky back to its grassy nest.

Seagulls wheeled about overhead as did the local harrier, fancying no doubt to make a meal of one of the local feral rabbits that live on the property. In the grass and underbrush pheasants called warnings to one another. Scuttling with quick steps was a covey of Californian Quail; I would like to think owing their existence to my rat eradication programme about our property.

The local boisterous bunch of Tui, a native bird I have written of before, flew from tree to tree chasing one another and warbling their melodic calls each time they were stationary long enough to do so (which wasn’t long – these birds live their lives expending energy to find more sources of energy in the next nectar bearing flowering trees and shrubs). They fly with heavy wings these guys, like so many of our native birds.

It is now early summer up north and it is spreading its warm tentacles slowly southwards. The ground, which is predominantly clay and like concrete in summer, is still soft enough to plant at this time of year. Over the years I have been investing in coastal natives in an attempt to return the grassed hillsides into something resembling what it must once have been. I love the native birds of New Zealand and most are berry or nectar feeders but many parts of the country have become like Dharfur to these native pigeons, Tui, Kakariki, Bellbird and others – a virtual food desert owing to deforestation and ‘conversion’ to grasslands.

I aim to change that - at least on our 6000 square meters of paradise by planting native trees and shrubs.

I considered, as I sat there dozing in the sun, how human coastal development can actually enhance the return of native forest and it’s inhabitants. The farms are subdivided and many of the new buyers want trees and birds and so thousands of native trees and flowering shrubs are planted every year along this coast. It will take many years for the birds to come back in the numbers that James Cook in 1769 once described as a ‘deafening dawn chorus” (the birds were so loud he had to park the Endeavour 400m offshore so his crew could get some sleep), but I have confidence one day they will return, if not in ‘deafening dawn chorus’ numbers at least in reasonable, seduce me with your song, numbers.

And so it was I sat in my deck chair enjoying a pre Ireland-Wales quarter final glass of red and day dreamed - post planting of 71 native plants I should add and I considered how lucky I really am.

Lucky to live in a country where all this is possible. Lucky that I stumbled across a piece of New Zealand I can escape to with family and friends. Lucky to find and buy before the coastal boom of the mid 2000s (and which I could not likely afford now).

A place where, when I stroll along the beach, I consciously look for a piece of rubbish, a coke can, something – anything! – that might tell me I am not imagining how beautiful and clean this place is.

Lucky to take walks along soft sand under mighty Pohutukawa which in summer are adorned in bright red flowers (a bit like those bottle brush flowers you might know if you are not from New Zealand) and listen to the waves hissing as they crawl up the beach.

A beach which is open to one and all. Where sections are roped off every year so the highly endangered New Zealand dotterel can nest in relative peace along with the raucous Pied Oyster catcher.

Where people walk their dogs (on leads of course) and the teenagers light fires and surreptitiously (and sometimes not so surreptitiously) sip their beers and imagine what might be.

She’s a special place is Langs.

I hope you get to enjoy it one day.

Until next week,

 

*** Passmark updates

In the latest pool draw 628 EOIs were selected including the following points profiles:

*All those with 140 points

*All those with 125 points or more including six years work in an area of absolute skills shortage

*All those with 100 points or more including an offer of skilled employment