Week 1 / Monday

Larissa groaned when the alarm went off at 6:30 am the next morning – what with the two hour timezone change, that was way too early. But she followed her normal practice and dragged herself out of bed immediately: time to get showered, dressed and packed.

Today was going to be her toughest day. It wasn’t so much what was happening, no, it was Marty and Tui. This was the downside of the working honeymoon, and what a downside it was. Neither Julian or Larissa had anticipated it, but their working holiday had morphed into a road trip with another couple. Really, though, it was inevitable and Larissa had kicked herself several times for not thinking that one through. Julian had met Tui and spent time with Marty, and said that they were her kind of people, and she’d be fine. But he was a guy ... even her marvellously empathetic guy, he just couldn’t know. And he wasn’t confident about it either. And even at best ... it was going to cramp their honeymoon style, how could it not?

But it did help that Marty and Tui were just as nervous. They’d talked about backing out several times, but Marty really needed to be in on the work parts, and if Marty was in, sure, Tui might as well be in. Should be. So they’d had a couple of zoom calls, talking about the trip, and she knew Tui a little. A little enough to be ... uneasy. Just a bit. Tui was nice and friendly, but a couple of times there’d been hints of reserve on her part. If that was Tui being Tui ... sure, no problems. If that was just zoom ... great. But if that was a flag of something bigger: not cool. But she was committed, they were committed. So she was nervous, and Julian knew that, and she knew that she could rely on him to watch out for her, and keep a close watch on her comfort, and they’d lined up some magic words they could use with each other if they needed to.

Larissa thought through it in her head one last time in the shower and took a deep breath. Marty and Tui were about to happen. Well, she’d make the best of it that she could. And other bits of today would be amazing, she reminded herself. Then she was out of the shower, doing a very little make up while Julian used the shower. And then it was time. Time to check out. Time to get picked up by Marty and Tui.

They were waiting for Julian and Larissa out the front of the hotel. Marty’s face lit up when he saw them, and he greeted Julian with a huge hug. Tui had a hug for him, though not a huge one. Plenty in reserve there, Larissa could see. Fair, since she’d only met Julian once briefly. Then Marty turned to Larissa, and gave her a huge smile. “Larissa! I’m so excited to meet you.” She could see that he was unsure – hug, or not? She decided to help him out and hugged him quickly. Then she turned to Tui – no, Tui just settled for a handshake. But her smile was wide.

“Larissa, I’m so excited to meet you. We’ve been so excited for all week, and I’m really looking forward to it.” Well, it sounded like genuine warmth there, at least.

Larissa took stock of Marty and Tui while they talked to Julian and loaded their stuff into the back of Marty’s ute. Marty was slightly shorter than Julian, thin and wiry, with short curly hair. His manner was enthusiastic and excitable, which was exactly how Julian had described him to her. Tui was taller than Larissa, tall for a girl, just a little taller than Marty, and not a lightly built girl either. Very fit, though, and moved easily and smoothly. She picked up Larissa’s bag like it was empty. Her skin was a little dark – there was some non-european ancestry there. Funny how she’d hardly got any feel for these things after a couple of hours on Zoom with Marty and Tui.

To her surprise, Tui sat in the back seat of the cab and indicated for Larissa to join her. But straight away that made sense – the guys launched straight into a discussion about the project and the meetings for the day, while Tui asked her about her flight, their day yesterday, and her wedding. As she explained, she tried to get a feel for what Tui was about. Eventually she got her chance and she asked Tui how early they’d had to get up to meet them at their hotel so early.

“Oh, not that early – we stayed with my sister and her family last night. They live on a farm a bit south from here.” Oh, Larissa asked, what kind of farm? “Oh, she’s got horses. So expensive but that’s all she ever wanted, horses. Her husband has some management job in the city, gone all day, and she runs the stables. Her girls home school in the morning and ride horses in the afternoon.”

That meant that Larissa could ask Tui about her family. She lived on a sheep farm south from Hamilton in a little place with a totally unpronounceable name for Larissa – a Maori name, Tui explained, grinning. She was the last of four children, and all her siblings had left home and headed for the bright lights of the city. Tui was going to run – and own – the farm, and she’d met Marty at Massey Uni, wherever that was, where she was doing agriculture and he was doing environmental science. He’d transferred to Waikato Uni for his doctorate because it was closer to her – he was from some small place near Napier.

Intrigued, Larissa asked her about the sheep farming, and Tui was definitely happy to talk about that, and they did for a most of the way to Hamilton. But that wasn’t all that Tui had going on; she also played district representative level netball for her region – high enough level that she’d played on some of the Silver Ferns, New Zealand’s world champion netball team. Wow, said Larissa, was Tui good enough for that? No, Tui said. She could’ve tried, but realistically, she just wasn’t that good or determined. Or rich enough, though her family would’ve tried if she wanted. And it just wouldn’t be fun.

No. Marty, and her sheep: quite enough for a girl from the country to be happy and comfortable. Julian was right, Larissa thought, she really liked Tui, her kind of people, and as Tui asked her about being a vet, she realised that Tui had thawed out, no longer following her early scripted questioning of Larissa.

Great. The first hurdle was cleared; now, to find out how much freedom they had to do wild honeymoon things. But at this point Marty interrupted, and they started talking about the planning meeting. That took them all the way to Waikato Uni, and Marty parked as close as he could – they wanted a quick departure once it was time to leave.

They had enough time to buy coffee before their first meeting. They sat out in the sunlight drinking their coffee. Larissa was intrigued by that – kiwis thought totally differently about the sun than Australians; no hats anywhere, and everyone choosing to sit in the sun. She’d put sunscreen on when they sat outside, just an automatic thing, and she’d noticed Tui’s surprise at that.

Towards the end of their time, conversation veered around to navigation skills, and the boys were telling Larissa and Tui how the guys, and guys generally, were better at navigating then the girls. Larissa rolled her eyes at Tui, and got a tight smile. Interesting: Tui wasn’t so amused. But when Julian confidently headed off towards the meeting, in the wrong direction, the two of them ganged up on him and had a great time making fun of the guys for that, and her and Tui were grinning with each other about that. Yeah, she was going to be OK with Tui.

Now it was time for the meeting – a group of Waikato Uni people to meet with them. The first thirty minutes or so, Tui and Larissa were part of the meeting, and it was a general introduction to their trip, and the week, and each other, and review the activities. After that, Julian and Marty had meetings with modelling, research and policy teams all morning, trying to get the messaging Layna would have balanced right. Larissa enjoyed meeting everyone and hearing their enthusiasm for what Julian – and Layna – were planning to do, but then it was time to go, to leave the guys to their boring meetings, while Larissa went and had fun.

One of the professor’s wives had offered to entertain Larissa and Tui while the meetings happened. Larissa had automatically imagined an elderly lady, but, uh, no. She was in her physical prime, and this was an excuse to get away from the kids – with grandma, she said with a grin, and get some exercise. Another of the wives, an older woman, had volunteered to drive for them.

First, they went to the Hamilton Gardens, a beautiful garden park near the centre of the city, and Larissa and Tui got shown around the gardens by their professor’s wife, who said to call her their guide. She had worked at the gardens when she was younger, and still knew some of the staff, so they got a fun tour and saw a little of the behind the scenes stuff. Larissa really enjoyed the gardens, more interesting than she expected, specially how lush and green they were, since Melbourne summers were pretty dry, even during a La Nina year. She could have done a few more hours there, but not to be. Probably that would be a common feeling for her this week.

After about an hour in the gardens, they walked to the southern end of the gardens, and there were three kayaks waiting for them on a trailer behind their guide’s car. They were going to kayak down the river through city of Hamilton, and Larissa was really looking forward to it.

They lined the three kayaks up at the edge of the water, on a little sandy bank near a dock for the tourist boat. Tui was ready to go, but Larissa had to change; she’d felt that she couldn’t really go to a uni meeting as a non-student with just shorts. Tui didn’t feel the same – was that an Aussie/Kiwi thing? Larissa peeled her jeans off and threw them into the car, and then pulled her sports shorts on. She could see some surprise in Tui’s look that she did that in public – that was a test, actually, but their guide, the professor’s wife, didn’t bat an eyelid.

Then they were in the water and paddling gently down the river towards Hamilton City. They had maybe a bit over an hour and their guide said that it would take about two hours if they just drifted, so they had to keep paddling, though no need to push it. As they gently passed through the city, their guide told them about the city, its history, and some of the buildings. She was pretty good at that – she had interesting stories about the locals and the good and bad decisions they’d made. Not a professional guide or anything, she assured them, she just liked knowing her place. It was fun seeing the undersides of the bridges and listening to the traffic rumbling over them and dodging the little other river traffic. There were a couple of islands to paddle around too.

Larissa was really enjoying this; it was gentle, but interesting, and it was a lovely day, the sun was out, with a gentle breeze, and not too hot. Very chill. What a lovely way to travel, right down on the water, and how nice to not be in any hurry; she let herself be guided by their guide who kept looking at her watch. Tui was just as chill as well, enjoying this a lot.

Eventually they came to a boat ramp and their guide said they’d arrived at their destination. They grounded the kayaks on the boat ramp, and their guide quickly pulled them up a bit so they could get out and stretch. Her friend was waiting for them and they loaded the kayaks back onto the trailer. Their guide said they had enough time so they sat on the edge of the boat ramp, their ankles in the water, and shared instant coffee from a thermos. Just plain old boring coffee, but in this location? It just seemed like the nicest coffee she’d had for a while. Well, except for her wedding breakfast. But still, lovely.

Then they made their way back to the uni – just in time. Larissa changed back into her jeans, and thanked their guide effusively – what a lovely morning!

Now it was time for a new experience for her: her and Julian were doing a double header presentation at Waikato uni over lunch. Noon for an hour from Julian, and then an hour from Larissa. Julian was speaking about the project, it’s academic underpinnings, and how they decided what to present on, and what they were trying to achieve. Larissa was talking about Lacey, obviously, and then more generally about her experiences as an emergency vet. Waikato didn’t have a vet course, so Larissa had no idea how well her talk would be attended, but she knew Julian’s was going to be hit. Summer, so it was just the academic staff and researchers, but it had been advertised around the uni.

She walked into the lecture theatre with Tui and her guide, and discovered that they were in one of the big first year lecture rooms, and it was pretty full – maybe a couple of hundred in the room. Awesome, and also, how lucky they were to be in a place still covid free. Obviously late January was a quiet time at the uni, not a lot of pressure to do stuff. Julian was first, and he was about to start, so her just gave her a smile, and she gave him a thumbs up.

After his introduction, Julian stood up and explained why they were both in New Zealand, and that they were leaving at precisely 2pm, so if people had questions, they had to ask beforehand, because both of them were going to run!

Then he did his talk – why the project started, how they learned and succeeded, and the role he’d ended up playing, supporting Layna and doing the research, and showed some clips of Layna doing her thing. Then he switched and talked about the academic work that went on behind the scenes, the extensive support they had from the university staff, survelliance, research, and policy advice, and then how that led to Waikato Uni, and what Marty was doing to help. Then he switched to the river poisoning incident, showing the Youtube video and talking about how it played out, and what they’d learnt. It’d truly lifted the project an order of magnitude in terms of hit counts, attention, and ability to cut through red tape. While Julian did his talk, Larissa, Tui and Marty ate some sandwiches they had there for her, and Julian would eat during her presentation. She also sent off her daily summary for friends and family. Today’s kissing photo: kissing at the top of the Sky Tower, Auckland city and harbour bridge in the background, with the tween fans all hugging them – they’d loved that idea.

Then it was time for questions – he’d left twenty minutes. There were lots of questions, people lining up to ask them. Julian got asked serious questions about the project, and its impact, and how people were responding, and whether he thought that they were going to change anyone’s mind. Julian talked about their ongoing work to build relationships in the energy economy parts of Australia, and talked about the Sale experience. Also, of course, someone asked about whether they were still coming to New Zealand. Sure, Julian said, as soon as we can now. Then there was a few minutes debate between Julian and a couple of questioners about the impact of the country’s land ownership changes. Julian mostly stayed out of that one, just noting that it would bad to be distracted from the big issue. Finally, one of the staff closed it up by asking what Julian’s impressions of New Zealand were. Love it, Julian said. Lovely climate, land, people, flora and fauna, what’s not to like? “In fact, I liked it here so much that I brought my wife here for our honeymoon!” Yeah, that got a very large cheer from the audience.

Then the host gave everyone a minute, for Larissa to get set, and for people to leave if they needed to. A few people needed to, but the room remained pretty full, Larissa was pleased to see. The professor doing the introductions wasn’t quite sure how to describe her, she was amused to see. She just didn’t fit into any of his boxes: an under-graduate with a routine day to day job who was famous for being on Youtube in her underwear, like her husband, which he couldn’t bring himself to talk about. But he could say how she saved Lacey’s life. Sweet, and Larissa really didn’t mind – it was her pleasure that she didn’t fit into any of his boxes. Her life was her own, the shape she’d made for it, and she saw no need to slide into anyone else’s box.

She’d talked to Julian about this talk, and they’d decided to she’d do something different from her usual talk, and they’d found that there was nothing like the vet rescue service in New Zealand, so she was just going to tell them a few stories of what being a vet rescue worker was like, and then show them the video she made with Harry, and then Lacey’s rescue, of course. Finally, she was going to finish by talking about rescue, how important it was to her.

“Thanks,” she said, “and it’s lovely to be here, and thanks all for coming to listen to me. I know that I don’t meet the usual profile at all for a speaker at a university lunch time meeting, but I’ll try to be interesting and worth listening to. Now my story starts early last year, Julian and I were at a party, we were dancing, and I noticed a girl leaning against the wall, and going down.” She told the story of the party, then getting tutored by Ruth, just expecting to be helping out, and then suddenly being out on her own on that wild day in late winter. “So here I was, freaked out of my mind at being alone when I still haven’t even graduated, and trying to deal with the storms rolling through and keep my head above the water, metaphorically, when this happened.”

She played the video. This time, she let it run without stopping. When it finished, she made her usual talking points, and then talked about the consequences. Then she told them all about Cheryl’s eagle, killing that first koala, and finally about Harry and Bud, and she showed them the video that she made with Harry. “OK, so that’s what I wanted to talk about. I love my job. It’s not really a job, in fact, it’s a mission. Every day, I rescue animals, and the people that love them, and what an awesome thing it is to rescue them, it rescues me. This is what mum told me on Christmas day when I told her about Harry.” She told them about the game she used to play as a kid. “My family life was difficult, and now my dreams have come to life, both in my job, and in my husband, and we’re having a great life. Ok, time for questions. We really are going to run at 2pm, so you have to ask whatever you want to ask in front of everyone.”

The first question was a surprise. “Thanks, Larissa, that was really awesome, and I’m sure you’ve inspired all of us. Do you think we should have a vet rescue service here?”

“Oh,” Larissa said, “I don’t know. I mean, I can’t tell you about whether it’s really viable or not, or how the management makes sense of the emergency work as against the private pet care that makes us money. What I can tell you is that most of our wildlife work is driven by kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, deer, snakes, and eagles, and I don’t think you have anything like that, right? But the most of rest of our work is driven by domestic animals, and traffic accidents. What happens here for them?”

No one seemed to know. Odd. Larissa shrugged. “So there you go. I’ll tell you what I noticed though, on the way down here this morning. Where’s all the roadkill? Either you have really efficient road clearers, or you have much less of a wildlife problem over here.”

Then she had a few questions about the incident with Lacey, normal things. Then, “So you’re just an under-graduate, you said. How does that work, that you’re working as a vet? Are you going to finish your degree?”

“Sure, there’s so much I don’t know yet. I’ve been really focused on emergency vet knowledge, but there’s so much more, so I’m certainly going to finish my degree. And as for how can I do it? I kinda wasn’t supposed to be out there by myself, but they were desperate, and better for me to be out there than no one. And after Lacey ... no one’s been willing to say I can’t.”

A couple more questions, common ones, and then it was time. The professor hosting the talks called Julian up, and thanked both of them, and asked the audience to give them some applause. They got a standing ovation, sweet. It was certainly nice to be appreciated.

When the audience sat down, he said, “We usually give people a bottle of wine as a token of our appreciation, but this time, we heard that Julian is a huge Lord of the Rings fan, so here’s your entry tickets for Hobbiton.” Sweet! A much better token than a bottle of wine they wouldn’t drink.

Then Julian grabbed the mic, and looked at his phone. “Two minutes! I’d just like to say how appreciative we are of your hospitality, and how much I’m looking forward to us coming back, even if I don’t make it. I’ll make sure Layna and the team visit you all here.” Lots of smiles for that, and then, it was time to go. They picked up their stuff, and then for fun, they did literally run, and Marty and Tui were just getting up when they went through the door. They could hear laughter behind them.

They slowed down once they were out of the theatre, and let Marty and Tui catch up. “We really didn’t think you were serious about running!” Marty gasped.

“Oh, we that wasn’t serious,” Julian laughed, “but we could both see we’d enjoy doing that, and it certainly dealt with the risk that people would delay us.” They were walking briskly now; this was their tightest connection. It was precisely 2pm, and they were expected at a billionaire retreat at precisely 4pm, and their map program had predicted it would take three minutes longer than two hours. So it really was tight. Larissa threw her bag in the ute and hopped in, and didn’t even have time to do her seatbelt up before Marty had it moving.

Once they were settled, Larissa asked Julian how their meetings had gone. “Oh, great, I’m really happy and I think we got through everything we wanted to. Marty, you think so?”