It's been a few days, sorry. And this one's not going to be that exciting...sorry again.
I think last time I left off we had just gotten to Christchurch. Christchurch is one of the bigger cities in NZ so there's quite a bit to do. The first day we were there be decided to do a walking tour to get familiar with the city and see some things. We went to the Christchurch Cathedral, which was really pretty, and the flower clock and to a couple parks in the city center. Kind of a laid back day. We were hoping to start a farm stay the next day but we hadn't heard back from anyone we had contacted yet so we kept our van for an extra 2 days.
To kill time, the next day we went out to the Akaroa Peninsula which is about an hour away. Akaroa is a quaint town on the bay with really good restaurants and good shops with local artists' stuff rather than the souvenir-ish stuff they have in the cities. We just walked around town for the day and ate a good dinner...not much else to do there.
We drove back to Christchurch in the morning and went to the Orana Wildlife Park. I don't know, it wasn't really a typical zoo but it wasn't a rescue place either...somewhere in between. We had kind of low expectations but it ended up being really cool because each type of animal got fed at a different time so you just walk around according to the feeding times and either watch them get fed or feed them yourself. We also paid a little extra to go on the lion encounter which takes you out in the caged car and the lions climb on the cage while the keeper feeds them. That was really cool. We also got to feed giraffes. It ended up being totally worth it and was one of the more up-close zoos I've been to.
The next day we had to turn in our van (kind of sad), so we just washed it and ran some little errands in the morning and then turned it in at 3:00. We finally heard from a farm family that could take us, so we had to catch a bus to Amberly which is about 45 min from Christchurch so they could pick us up. We got there around dinner time and met them and looked around a bit. A farm stay is where you can go stay with them for free and eat for free in exchange for helping out with whatever they need for a few hours a day. The couple we're staying with is about in their mid to late fifties. They have grown children and 2 grandchildren that came over for dinner last night. They have a bunch of horses, chickens, ducks, sheep and a really cute 3 yr old beagle. We have our own room and bathroom here, so that's nice.
Here is their website if you want to check it out. http://gracebrook.co.nz/index.htm They sell honey and hazelnuts too.
"Manual labor" doesn't really come to mind when you think of me, I know, so I was a little nervous about what they would have us do. But our first task was....making muffins! Yay, I can do that! Only problem was, she gave me the worst recipe book in the world! It was a cookbook you would give a child if they wanted a coookbook to play with....like the actual ingredients and measurements don't need to matter because they can't read. It was a blueberry muffin recipe that called for lemon juice...umm, what? But nowhere in the directions was anything about lemon juice. Ok, left that out. Then, it called for self-rising flour. She gave us plain flour to use to I asked her if she had self-rising. She said no and handed me some baking powder. Umm, ok, doesn't work that way. So I had to improvise the stupid muffins. I thought they were terrible but everyone else seemed to like them ok. Apparently the girls that were here before us made some REALLY terrible muffins, so maybe mine were good in comparison.
Next we had to feed the horses. We were supposed to divide a bail of hay among a couple groups of horses that were in separate pastures. We grabbed a bail, divided it in half, but one horse kept following us towards the gate. So while Katy was carrying the rest of the hay, I was trying to coax it away, and right as I thought it was turning around the go the other way....it kicked me! I was kicked by a horse my first day on the farm:( I know, I should be careful, it could have broken my rib or knocked my teeth out, blah blah. It kind of hurt but it mostly scared me. But from now on, the horses can eat whatever they want.
Then our next task was to pick up pine cones and make a wood pile. Pretty boring....it took up the rest of the afternoon. But each night we've had awesome dinners. Debra said that 95% of what they eat is from their farm.
Also, even though they're farm people, they sleep in till like 9 or 9:30, awesome! It would be awful if we had to get up at 6 or 7 or earlier. Today we had to get up a little early to help pick up some sheep that they were buying. We put the cage on the trailer and then rode into Christchurch to pick them up. That took up most of the morning. Then in the afternoon we raked pot holes in the driveway (eh) and fed the chickens (smelly).
We're here until the 14th, then we have to go back to Christchurch because we're flying to Auckland early on the 15th and then to Sydney later that day. I've loved New Zealand but I'm kind of ready to go to Australia. Hopefully the last few days on the farm are fun!
