Multiple people in Wellington, including the immigration officer, had warned us that Gisborne was 'pretty backwater'. Now I think this description is something you can only truly understand if you have been to Gisborne, but we'll try our best to describe what it's like. It's a fairly small town with a population of 46 000, a town centre that's one street in size and only a handful of buildings that are more than one storey high. Shops are generally open 9am-3pm, and close at midday on Saturdays. Having mocked 'Chequers' hotel in Bournemouth for advertising 'full central heating', this was a farfetched desire in Gisborne, where the only building that has central heating, or even insulation, is the hospital.

Our first home was the Tudor Park Motel, run by an American couple, our room came complete with kitchen, TV, table and multiple fluorescent pink fabric roses. We settled in, making the window seat our wardrobe and making full use of the electric heaters and blankets.

It was our first day in the hospital and we were being shown around when Claire was introduced to one of her new colleagues. 'Claire, this is Rubika', she thought this was a slightly odd name, but with new cultures, comes new names. Later that day, over lunch, this new colleague offered Claire her number, she typed it into Claire's phone, before entering her name...Rebecca. The first of many language differences Claire and Greg were to find out.

Some interesting words that stumped us when we first heard them were; 'Jandles', 'Dairies', 'Stockings', 'Tramping' and 'Manchester'. We'll leave you in suspense for their meanings. Unfortunately these language differences extended beyond general chit-chat and we soon found that our medical terminology and shorthand would be of no use here. In the UK 'BM' means blood glucose, derived from the Boehringer Mannheim test to test blood sugars. In New Zealand 'BM' stands for 'Bowel Movement', hence the nurses confusion when Claire wrote in the notes 'ensure tight BM control'.

We ventured out on foot to explore the area and some 1.5 hours later we arrived in town, it was at this point we realised that despite Gisborne being a small place, a car was definitely necessary. We started hunting, initially online before rapidly realising the internet, unlike Bournemouth, was not the mainstay of advertising and communication here. We resorted to walking the streets eyeing up any car with a 'for sale' sign before finding out about the Eastland Trader (see separate post). It turns out that you don't need insurance in New Zealand to drive a car legally. A friend (the aforementioned 'Rubika') offered us her car while she was away, my initial response being 'but I'm not insured on it', to which she replied enthusiastically 'me neither', so later that week we acquired someone else car to assist us in the hunt for our own.

Luckily the Eastland Trader came up trumps and we found and bought our beast of a machine, on first inspection a nice family 4 x 4 in maroon, on collection, it was actually bright purple. The Grape of Wrath came together with a lovely odour of baby sick, half a lollipop stuck to the floor and some minor electrical malfunctions and with only 240 000 km on the clock, it was a winner.