Home Away from Home

Canadian life coach Karen Miners has made a new home for herself just outside of New Plymouth with her New Zealand partner, Dave. Miners, a former Montrealer, describes her life living abroad. “It is a very slow pace here,” Miners says. “Families are larger; a lot of mothers stay home with their kids.” Miners is also an outdoor guide at an adventure camp and a member of the New Zealand Army Reserves. She says her children have a very different life to her own childhood. “They have grown up on a farm in small-town New Zealand and they get to ride motorbikes, go water skiing, help calve cows and shoot possums.” Will Miners ever return to Canada? “I have lived in New Zealand nearly half my life and that bothers me. I’m afraid I’ll turn into a New Zealander and not want to return,” she says.