User:TeWaitere

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I started with the Wikipedia in November 2004 as a result of a sudden interest in local history while living in London. I'd resolved to lose some weight and get fit so decided to follow the Walking the Way to Health Initiative (WHI) 10000 steps a day program. As a result every lunchtime I'd spend an hour walking around the streets of the city. Wandering the streets with no destination in mind really opened my eyes to the fascinating city I'd been taking for granted. After absorbing some of the history and the idiosyncratic stories of the City I thought it would be nice to share some of them with others. Hence my involvement with the Wikipedia.

After six and a half years in London my wife and I decided to return to New Zealand as our son was reaching school age and we preferred the schools in New Zealand to the ones in London. We now live in Christchurch, New Zealand, where I work as a general-purpose developer for a contract software company.

In the early 1990s I spent three and a half years in South America, the Caribbean and the United States on what we in New Zealand call the "Great OE" (Overseas Experience). Almost 18 months of that time was spent in Santiago de Chile. That was where I originally got interested in history, wondering why the guy on the back of the local coins, the Chilean equivalent of George Washington, was called Bernardo O'Higgins - such a very Spanish-sounding name.

Apart from history in general, and British and Chilean history in particular, I'm interested in travel, aeronautics / astronautics, tramping (aka hiking) and tall ships.