Life in Westport

The Town

Westport is a coal mining town whose charm lies somewhat below its surface.  Guidebooks will tell you not to bother visiting unless you need to re-up on supplies or need a quick pit stop on the way to more popular tourist destinations along the West Coast.  With world coal prices on the decline, the mines have laid off a number of workers; the nearby cement factory also shut down this summer as a result of corporate consolidation.  Needless to say, these are some hard times for folks in Westport.  Nevertheless, it is a charming town with plenty of community and activity once you look for it.

It’s a very spread out town that feels like the mountain west where lots are big, streets are wide and blocks are long.  Almost all houses are single story ranches—ours is a rare two story house, but for all intents and purposes, it’s a single family house on stilts.  The town is on the Buller River right where it empties into the Tasman Sea.  There are beautiful beaches on each side of the river’s mouth, a 5-minute drive from our house.  In the evening and early morning (when it’s not torrentially raining), we can hear the surf.  Driving in the other direction, we can be in the mountains in 20 minutes.

Our house is a furnished rental known by almost everyone in town– a friend or relative of most has lived here at one point or another.  It’s a large (for Westport standards) house on the outskirts of town, about a mile and a half to schools, Dara’s work and Westport’s main commercial street.

We have plenty of space and enjoy a time capsule décor that is quite striking:

While far from luxurious, it fits the bill and our only big concern is the ability to heat the place when winter comes.  But, hey, summer is coming, so that’s a worry for later.

It’s true what they say about New Zealanders being a friendly lot.  We’ve encountered super-helpful and gracious folks all along the way—librarians, bankers, kindy teachers and doctors.  The small town feel makes connecting pretty easy and we’ve been invited to birthday parties, dinners, and camping trips already.

November on the West Coast is Whitebait season, where young fish from a variety of species swim upstream from the oceans to mature into adults.  Folks fish them with fine nets, collecting the tiny little buggers which can fetch delicacy prices of up to $100/pound in the big cities of Christchurch and Aukland.  Dara had a patient give her a supply which she fried up in fritters.  The eyes freaked out Hazel and Leah, but Rose loved them and demanded more in her lunch the next day.

The Weather

The West Coast has a reputation for having terrible weather—rainy, windy and harsh.  When we tell folks from around the country, particularly people in Wellington, that we moved  to Westport, the first question is always, “Why?”  One local in Nelson quipped that Westport was the only place he saw it rain to hard that the rain drops bounced off the ground.  Not surprisingly, this reputation seems to have spawned a bit of defensiveness from Westport locals.  We hear things like, “it’s not as bad as everyone says,” “just because it’s raining out at the beach doesn’t’ mean it’s raining in town,” and “it rains mostly at night.”

Bu most Westport residents embrace the rainy climate.  We have heard more than one crusty long timer tell us, proudly:  “if you can see the mountains, it’s about to rain; if you can’t see them, it’s already raining.”  Whitebait season (Sept to mid-November) is supposedly particularly rainy.

Our own experience so far has been somewhere in the middle.  It does rain a lot—and not just at night—but we do see the sun for a portion of most days.  The weather changes extremely quickly and unpredictably such that looking at a forecast is generally unreliable.  Even when a forecast looks like this…

…chances are that we will see more sun than you’d expect and it won’t rain the whole time.  One upside to the ever-changing weather is the frequency of rainbows.  New Zealanders think we are crazy because we stop to admire each bow even though it’s a routine, weekly–or even daily–event.

School and Kindy

The older girls are at Westport North School or “North School” where they are quickly settling into a routine.  The first couple of weeks were a challenge since they had school for a week, then two weeks of holiday.  But now that the new term has started, we are all feeling a bit more of a groove.  We are getting a kick out of their uniforms, they are starting to make some new friends and have playdates, and they even got their picture on the front page of the town paper!

Rosie has probably adjusted the most rapidly of all of us.  She’s at Westport Kindy where she acts like she owns the place.  Each day it’s a challenge to pick her up because she just wants to stay, play and explain all of the activities.  Her favorite is the “sky fox” which is a mini-zip line that she has mastered.

Click here for a demonstration: img_4901

Buller Med

Dara has settled into her job pretty easily at the Buller Medical Center and is already worried that the relaxed NZ health care system is going to ruin her for our eventual return to the States.  Her colleagues have been amazingly supportive and welcoming to all of us, but particularly to her as she gets used to the idiosyncrasies of the new system.  The one and a half hour lunch breaks she gets every day don’t hurt either!

All in all, we are slowly starting to feel like we belong here, and we are acquiring the stuff (cars, bikes, tools, kitchen utensils, etc.) and experiences (which supermarket to go to, when the library is open, which café makes the best coffee) that separate tourists from residents.  We know we’ll never be locals, but we are well on our way to being settled.