Animals!

Phew - what a busy week and a half! I've been lots of different places and seen lots of different animals!

From the Patrelli estate (have you figured out the origin of the name yet?) I got on a bus into Christchurch and met Catherine Boyer who used to live in Falmouth. She works at a boarding school in Chch now, so I met her there and she took me back to their home in Oxford. I remember some of the kids from church school, but they're away at universities all over the world. Mr and Mrs said they didn't remember me, but I'd been reintroduced through the Hemphills and they said that they enjoy hosting travelers so all was well and good.

They moved to NZ eleven years ago and bought a block of farmland a few years later. They proceeded to build a cottage and then a beautiful two-story house while they divided up and fenced off the land. For a while they farmed deer and beef cattle, meaning that they bought the young animals, fattened them up and then sold them for meat, while they ran the cottage as a B&B. That's all over now, but the land is being leased out for other farmers to graze, so there were lots of cute animals to look at.

View from the driveway

Curious calves

I spent a relaxing day on Friday catching up on social media and logistics, and I helped a bit in David's gardens. We went out to lunch in Oxford's village, which was definitely more substantial than Amberley's. Catherine introduced me to Tim Tams, giving me another type of NZ food that I'll have to try to fit in my suitcase home, and David gave me a bit of explanation of rugby after dinner, complete with pause and replays on the TV.

Had too much fun in Oxford

On Saturday morning the northwest winds were blowing, and by blowing I actually mean non-stop air movement. I'm told those winds can make people a little crazy. We went for a little walk in the Oxford hills, which share some of their trails with pastureland, but also goes into the woods which gave some shelter from the wind.

Looking out from the trail

They had a dinner party to go to in the evening, so we did a bit of shopping on the outskirts of Christchurch and then they dropped me off with their friends Vicky and Steve who live in the central city. V and S were also going to the dinner party, so I hung out with their daughter Juliette for the evening. Juliette cooked dinner since she'd just gotten a bunch of new cookbooks, and that was awesome. Vicky was kind enough to drive me to the bus station on Sunday morning, and I was off to Fairlie.

I'd had my next HelpX lined up for a few weeks already, but when we were confirming dates decided that it would be better to push it back a bit so that I'd arrive when there was more to do. I figured it would be no problem to find a place to go for a week in between, but about 20 emails later was starting to sweat. Luckily I finally heard from someone who had availability, and even though it wasn't in a direction I had been intending to go, it ended up being a really cool life to see.

Roddy owns and lives at Blue Mountain Station, which encompasses a GIGANTIC area of mountains and creeks and a tiny bit of flat land outside of Fairlie. He has 15,000 merino sheep and about 300 cattle at any given time, and they live in fenced-off blocks all over the land.

Entrance to the driveway after 25 mins drive from town

View from the house in the morning

The down side to the arrangement was that I was only assigned to housework. Turns out he really needed me - the fridge looked a lot like my senior year apartment's fridge at the end of the year - but I was basically left home alone to do house cleaning all morning. Luckily there were a few exciting tasks mixed in, like feeding a calf whose Mom couldn't do the job.

Feeding Little Jim

In the afternoons I was free to do whatever, so on one day I went down to a deep river section to swim with the girlfriend of one of the workers. I got to go see Roddy's Dad's home and business where he specifically breeds rams and ewes for improved wool quality and health. We picked up a conveyor belt from there and the next day I helped a little bit with getting two mobs of sheep through the conveyor so that their feet could be checked (at least I think I helped, but really the dogs and the guys did most of the work.) I learned that sheep do not want to be hugged, and even when you get close enough to touch them, like when they're trapped in a conveyor, the wool isn't really soft. They have a greasy coating at the tips of the wool fibers to help keep them dry, so it isn't nice to touch until after the wool has been shorn and washed. On the last day I was there I got a ride down to the lake and spent a few hours reading and relaxing in the sun. That was a welcome change since there had been a frost the first morning I was there and overall it was pretty cold. Oh, I also tried out some horse riding, but that only happened twice when I determined that it was definitely the horses causing my dripping nose and aching, itchy eyes. That's another allergy to add to the list.

Weighing ewes for sorting

Jumping for joy upon release

Swimming spot

Dogs at work

A ride in the conveyor

White wool beneath greasy coating

On Friday morning I rode into Timaru with Roddy, where he was picking his kids up from boarding school. (Boarding school and homeschool are quite common in NZ since there are so many people who live so rurally.) I had about an hour to check out town before I got on a bus back to Christchurch. I walked around Chch a bit in the afternoon, but there's really not much to see there these days and I'd already used it as a hub a few times anyway.

Saturday morning was the start of a little vacation. I went to Akaroa, which is located on the Banks Peninsula east of Christchurch. For a little geological background, it used to be Banks Island, formed of two massive volcanoes. Over the past few million years while the volcanoes have been dormant, though, the volcanoes have largely eroded away and the sediment has filled in the space, connecting them to the mainland. Akaroa has a lot of French influence, as the French sent a whole boatload of people to settle it. When the British got wind that was happening, they sent their fastest boats, arriving about a week before the French, to make sure that they would have control of NZ. Therefore, a French settlement in a British colony.

On my first day there, I went for a hike up in the volcanic crater above town. Southerly winds were whipping up from Antarctica, so it was quite cold, but the views out over the harbor were still stunning. On Sunday morning I decided I'd borrow a bike from the hostel to go for a ride down to a Maori historic site. On the map the road appeared to be at sea level the whole way, but I got a surprise when the road snaked up and down the cliffside above the ocean the whole way there. I definitely got a workout!

Cool tree tunnel on the walk

Windy selfie

In Onuku village

Bike taking a break after the ride up from sea level

Sunday afternoon was the event I'd basically come to Akaroa for - swimming with dolphins! Hector's dolphins are unique to the area and live in the wild right outside the harbor. We were outfitted in wetsuits and got a boatride out to sea while learning about how the tour company interacts with them. Basically, we are in the dolphins' home, and they're free to come and go around us as they want. The company has learned that when dolphins swim down or away, there's no point chasing them because they don't want to "play", but sometimes pods of dolphins follow the boat, and that's when we get in the water. There were about ten of us on the trip, and we were all supposed to spread out as a sort of obstacle course for the dolphins to swim between. Then we were supposed to make noise underwater by clapping or hitting pieces of hard plastic together. All of that signaled to the dolphins that we wanted to play too, and then they started swimming around us. IT WAS SO COOL! We weren't allowed to touch them, but sometimes there were four or five swimming by me close enough to touch. We got in the water two different times for probably about ten minutes and just let the dolphins swim around us. I was so happy.

Excited to go see dolphins

Two dolphins spotted!

Four dolphins spotted! Time to go play

The weather wasn't looking good for Monday, but I needed something to do in the morning, so I went out on the Eastern Bays Scenic Mail Run. Since other bays on the peninsula are so remote, their mail delivery has been contracted out to a driver who is free to operate however he likes so long as the mail gets delivered. He saw the opportunity for tourism, got a bigger van, and now brings visitors along his stunning mail route every day. We climbed up and down more steep, narrow roads on cliffsides to five other bays on the peninsula. The occasional clouds and rain just made the scenery more dramatic, and it was a wonderful way to see a lot more of the area than I would have been able to on my own.

View into the center of the volcano

Starvation Gully Rd. NOT going there!

Beautiful beach in Barry's Bay

Monday afternoon I had a bus back to Christchurch and then another bus to Rangiora where I was picked up by my next hosts. The first few days at their house have been pouring rain. It turns out I got out of Akaroa and Christchurch just in time, because they're having these storms and massive flooding. Phew!