So, we have not updated the blog for about 8 weeks now, and a considerable amount of action has occurred.
We have not been lazy but rather, very busy with work and play.
Carol was still with us when we last wrote. We were visiting Hanmer Springs with her, and enjoyed a trip to the hot pools here.
They were discovered by a Mr Hanmer about 150 years ago and the town has developed into a small tourist attraction, surrounded by the St James mountain range and replete with some of the best walking and mountain bike tracks in the country. As a result, it attracts a lot of holiday-makers from the Canterbury region and further afield.
The hot pools resort is located in the center of the town and has about 9 thermal pools, all different temperatures (the hottest being a sweltering 43 degrees c). It also has a 20 metre swimming pool and some water slides and kids pool for the youngsters. I imagine the best time to use the pools would be the winter season when you can really feel the benefit of the thermal water, but the mild springtime still seemed appropriate for us.
Carol had her 1st ever bounce on a trampoline!! Me and Meg also managed to make use of the mountain biking tracks around Hanmer Forest and did a few cycles, but realised that we weren't as familiar to bikes as we used to be when our legs ached for a few days afterwards.
Our stay in Hanmer fell on a Saturday, and we chanced upon the village market on the central green.
Meg had her back looked at by a chiropractor, but ended up feeling worse than she had before she started! Carol treated us all to a palm-reading from Arthur, the local palmist. He was very nice and took his time with each of us, being very sincere with his readings. I can't remember all that he said, especially about Meg and Carol, but he did forecast that I would live to be a healthy old man. (with a lovely wife) Meg said that bit. So that's nice.
Our next stop from Hanmer was Christchurch again, as Carol was flying from Christchurch airport a couple of days later. We arrived in time for Meg and Carol to go to the Willowbank centre. They got to witness a genuine Maori family and the traditional welcome and presentation into a Maori tribe. They enjoyed it, and were very impressed with the veracity that the haka was performed with and the performances of all the tribe members.
They followed this by a guided trip around the Willowbank wildlife centre, where they were shown kiwi's and other rare birds. The Kiwi's were kept in a special nocturnal house, where the time of day was manipulated to convince the birds to come out at 'night'. Although the birds and wildlife were impressive, Meg and Carol felt that they had been hurried around the centre more quickly than they would have liked.
While they were at Willowbank I was carrying out important food shopping and had the task of getting fish and chips, which we ate in Carol's hut afterwards.
We now had one full day to utilise before Carol's exiting flight, so it was suggested that we take a visit to Akaroa, which is on the Banks Peninsula, just to the South of Christchurch. It took us about 2 hours to get there, but it was a delightful drive, through landscape similar to the Lake District – green rolling hills surrounding us everywhere.
Akaroa is a harbour on the peninsula that was originally settled by the French settlers in the early 1800's. It therefore retains a certain French feel and charm, with French road names and French inhabitants. We had a stroll around the town, and had our dinner at a seaside restaurant.
We drove back to Christchurch and did final packing for Carol's big day the next day. We had to get up at about 4am to take Carol to the airport. We were sad to let Carol go back. We had 3 weeks spent with Carol and it had gone so quickly. We had squeezed a lot into our time, so I hope she enjoyed it. We loved having her with us.
Without Carol, it felt quite strange to be reduced to just us 2 again. But we had pressing financial matters to deal with. Since leaving Ohakune at the end of October, we had managed to spend a considerable chunk of our money and now job-hunting was the order of the day. Rather than parking up in central Christchurch, we drove to South New Brighton where we had been with carol, and parked up by the library, where knew we could use the free internet. We made ourselves comfortable on the sea-facing chairs and scoured the job- and traveller-sites for any potential jobs.
While Carol had been with us, were constantly making mental notes of places that we would like to find work, and we had narrowed it down to 3: Wanaka, Hanmer, and Akaroa. We had been offered some cleaning work by our campsite in Wanaka, but it was not enough for both of us, and was located quite a way out of the town. Akaroa had had a few job-signs in shop-windows the previous day but when we rang to enquire, there was either no answer, or the job had already been filled.
We therefore decided to head towards Hanmer Springs (only a couple of hours drive from Christchurch), and base most of our hopes on find work there.
We stopped for a night in Waikari, a tiny village that had little to warrant stopping, but had a very cheap campsite! (This is a big attraction for us!). And as it turned out, it is probably one of the best places we've camped. It was on a really quiet recreation ground, and we had access to free hot showers and free laundry, and we were one of only 2 campers there, so it was really quiet. If we weren't in such a hurry to find work, then we could have quite easily stayed there another couple of days, just relaxing.
The road to Hanmer is very picturesque. It goes through the Weka Pass, which has some astonishing limestone features, and always demands that we stop (or at least slow down) in awe of them. We haven't yet had time to explore them close up, but hope to sometime soon.
When we arrived in Hanmer the following day, we headed for the same campsite that we had stayed in with carol – Alpine Apartments. This is run by a lovely couple called Brian and Tezeh. During the next week that we were there, they were very kind to us, and we got to know them quite well. They even invited us to their Sunday dinner, where they cooked venison (Meg's first time), and we met all the family – their son Tyson and their foreign exchange student, Rhonya. Meg did some cleaning for them and I did some lawn-mowering in return for our accommodation (free tent site for Salvador) for the week, so it didn't cost us anything, which came in very helpful as we had little money to spend! Most daytimes we spent at the local library which provided free internet access, which we used to job-hunt, and we also printed out and handed in our CV's to most companies and shops in the village.
Over the next few days we had various phone calls with different possible jobs around the country – a hotel on the Marlbrough Sounds, a hotel in Glenorchy, and a dairy farm in Otago. There were drawbacks to each of these, even though they were located in incredibly beautiful areas of the country. Our breakthrough came one day when we were at the library. A lady who worked in the local hotel recognised us from us asking for work the previous day, and came up to let us know that she knew that there was some work for a couple at a nearby campsite. We quickly drove up the road to Alpine Adventures Holiday Park, and introduced ourselves to the owner, Alan. He told us to come back in a couple of days' time, and he would have some work for us. In the meantime, I also got a call from the Monteith's Brewery Bar, which is located in the centre of the village. They wanted to me to have a chat with the owner with regard to starting work there.
So we had spent nearly a whole week job-huntng, and suddenly all our prayers were answered!
We arrived at the Alpine Adventures campsite a couple of days later ready to start work. We felt a bit bad for Brian and Tezeh, who had been really kind to us, as we moved to work for the enemy...
At Alpine Adventures, we were introduced to Alan, the owner, and his 2 closest workers, Zane and Hayley. Zane and Hayley were about to go on a 2 week holiday, so that was why Alan was keen to get some workers in to help out.
Alan is a lovely man. He clearly is a big man, but he has a big heart to match, and can't let a sentence slip by without cracking a (terrible) joke. It became clear that he could offer one of us – Meg – a full time position, and myself a part-time position helping with cleaning/gardening etc. This worked perfectly as I also had my job at Monteith's to top up my income.
So basically, for the last 7 weeks, that is exactly what we have been doing: Meg's been working 5 days a week at the campsite. This entails her working on reception, checking people in, taking bookings on the phone and online, cleaning rooms and linen, and generally looking after the campsite as a whole. I work at the campsite most mornings, (and before Christmas it was most afternoons too, as we prepared for the holiday rush), cleaning rooms and doing the bin rounds, before going to Monteith's in the afternoon/evening for some shifts there.
It is nice working in the same place together, and makes the whole experience much more bearable. The village is also really lovely, with all the right amenities and surrounded by beautiful landscapes.
Other than working for the last 7 weeks, we have had some adventures. On our last day before starting work, we attempted to climb Mt Isobel, the mountain that overlooks the Hanmer valley. We cycled part of the way, and then walked up a waterfall track, which took us through the mountain forest. After about 2 and a half hours, we found the track leading us out of the forest, past the tree line. As we ascended the hillside the wind was getting stronger and stronger, which wouldn't normally bother us, but as soon as we reached an exposed plateau (on the saddle of the mountain), the wind was unbelievable. We could barely stand up it was so strong. We had about another 30 minutes walk to go to the proper summit, but not much actual ascent as we were already about 1500m up. Because we weren't going to get any more sheltered (in fact, we would only have got more and more exposed), we decided to head back down to an altitude/area where we could stand properly without having to lean 30degrees into the wind.
We were also here for Christmas!! This was a very strange period. We obviously felt incredibly homesick as we would without all our family and friends, but we did all we could to immerse ourselves into the NZ Christmas experience, as it would be our first (and probably only) Christmas away from the UK. However, we definitely felt that Christmas was not such a big deal here as we are used to in the UK. There was a clear lack of lights/decorations in town – none of the shops or bars showed any evidence that it was Christmas – and people were not quite as excited as they get at home. My theory is that in the UK (or northern hemisphere in general) is in the middle of winter, and Christmas time brings a brief glimmer of excitement to an otherwise pretty miserable time of year. It is therefore normally grabbed with both hands and made the most of in the UK. In New Zealand (and perhaps the other southern hemisphere countries), it is the height of summer, and people are more excited about the hot weather and holiday time than celebrating Christmas. Christmas is almost just another excuse to have a day off work.
So despite our feeling slightly miffed at lack of excitement, we still attended the local carol service. This, rather oddly, took place at the hot pools complex. It felt weird, not only being outside in the warmth of summer singing carols, but also surrounded by water slides and hot pools. There was a brass band and a choir who led the singing, and everyone got handed candles (in upturned plastic coke bottles as wind protectors) and carol sheets. It was a really clear evening, so felt quite magical under the stars.
We were obviously concerned about what we would do on the actual Christmas day, so we looked at various ideas. Alan had invited us round to his house to have Christmas dinner, where he planned to cook a Roast Dinner to help us feel less homesick.. So we decided to take him up on the offer. However, we still wanted to do something special for Christmas eve and morn.
After a bit of research, we decided to drive to Lake Tennyson. This is a lake about 40km north of Hanmer Springs, but it is nearly all on gravel/unsealed roads, so we could only go at about 20km/h, so it took us 2 hours to drive there. The landscape was awesome. It was completely desolated, with tussock grass and gorse everywhere, hares running all over the road, hawks and falcons scouring the hills, cows and bulls stubbornly playing chicken in the middle of the road, and wild horses scatted around surrounding fields. and We arrived at about 8.30pm on Christmas eve (as we had been working in the daytime), and it was just starting to turn to dusk. We hadn't seen anyone else on the road and there was only one other camper nearby. It was a clear evening, and spectacularly silent. The stars were so clear that we spent a while just in open-mouthed awe at what was above us.
We cooked steak and mash as a Christmas eve treat, washed down with some local red wine.
In the morning, the snow-topped hills in the far distance were visible and the sandflies were already awake and active by the time we got out of bed. We didn't even dare get out of the van for an hour or so. However, eventually a fresh breeze picked up, and we were able to sit by the lake while we opened our presents. We used some of Meg's big socks as some stockings, and opened presents that we had got each other (books), and also the presents from the UK that carol had left with us. We were quite emotional missing everyone, but had to keep reminding ourselves of how lucky we were to be where we were. There wasn't another soul in sight.
After having our breakfast and drinks we got ourselves ready to go on a Christmas day walk. There weren't any formed tracks in the area, so we decided to try and find our own way the nearest hill on the other side of the lake. This required us to wade, thigh-deep, through a big stream coming out from our end of the lake. This certainly woke us up, if we weren't already awake. We walked along the edge of the lake for about an hour before heading up the hill that we had earmarked for exploration. We got about 45 minutes up the hill before we decided to turn back round. We were surrounded by bracken and soggy moss and were not on any sort of track whatsoever, and the ground was very uneven. We still had magnificent views of the lake and of where we had camped at the far end. We also had to think about getting back to Salvador as we had to drive back to Hanmer Springs for lunch/dinner at Alan's house.
On the drive back to Hanmer, we were still mesmerised by the landscape – the electric pylons that seemed the only manmade objects able to withstand the conditions and stood out like sore thumbs along the valley floors.
As we arrived back in Hanmer we had quick showers before heading to Alan's. He had invited Zane and Hayley and also his friend Dean and his family. Anthony, his son, also did some part-time work at the campsite, so we were already familiar with him.
The whole affair was quite strange, as the men just sat outside drinking beer (or bourbon), while the women sat inside, either sleeping or prepping the dinner. Because the roast lamb was so massive, it wasn't cooked until 9pm, so the preceding 3 – 4hours was spent drinking and watching Anthony play on his new playstation game.
After dinner we had to rush back to the campsite in order to skype with our families in England, which was great to talk to them as they were just starting their Christmas day.
The campsite was incredibly busy following Christmas, and was for about 4 weeks after. It is the start of the summer holidays in New Zealand, so all the sites were booked up in advance and we were all busy cleaning and fixing things every day.
The week after Christmas was also the time that I was required to start work at the bar properly. I had shifts most days of the week, and it was a nice job to balance out the work at the campsite. It is more food-orientated than most pubs, so is busy in the evenings with mainly diners. The food is good quality and the whole place is probably more expensive than other bars. But the staff are great and I have made a lot of friends there.
Kate and Ian (our friends from home) had said they would send us some money for our wedding pressie. So we decided to use this and treat ourselves to a posh meal at a restaurant called Peppers a couple of days before New Year, which was a nice luxury. We don't often get the chance to eat posh food and drink expensive wine, so we made the most of it. It was delicious, and we had the nicest wine that we've had so far in NZ – Lake Road Syrah.
For New Year's Eve, I had somehow not been given any shifts at the bar, so we were free to go out and see in 2010 in style. We headed for the Monteith's bar, where we knew the most amount of people (my work-mates), and there was also Willie Macarthur, a one-man-band, playing lots of Irish and Scottish music, which got everyone in a very jovial mood for the night. We had a few drinks(!), and boogie-woogied on the dance floor, and managed to stop by another pub on the way home, where some bands were playing outside (playing RATM's 'Killing in the Name' – that's all I remember).
As January passed by, the campsite got less busy as the holiday season calmed down, but with plenty of cleaning still to do and bins to be emptied each day, and the bar is a bit less manic than it was a few weeks ago. We have made a few friends that we see each day: Rewa and Kay are both cleaners. Rewa is a keen fisher womann andregularlyy goes to Kaikoura where she goes crayfish and paua fishing. She sold me a whole crayfish for $20, which is a bargain (we're been offered it at a roadside cafe for $50!). It was already cooked through wrapped in news paper, ready for me to enjoy. I have never eaten lobster or crayfish before, so it was quite an experience, breaking it all apart and pulling the fleshy meat out of the various arms and legs and tails. Meg did not want to try any (she does not like seafood) so she watched and squirmed as I ripped it apart!
The big event of January was 'The Arrival of Phil's Mum and Dad', aka 'The Arrival of Meg's mother- and father-in-law'.
They flew into Auckland on the 7th January, and managed to get out of the UK just before the worst of the snow, which was lucky as they could have got caught in all sorts of delays.
They stayed in Auckland for 2 nights before we flew up to meet them. We flew up from Christchurch, and the night before had met up with my cousin Rob, who had decided to part ways with his girlfriend Sarah and head home. We had a cool night with him in a tiny backstreet bar where we drank ale (not real ale) and ate Mexican.
We arrived in Auckland early in the morning, and had to wait a a couple of hours for mum and dad to pick up their rental car and drive to the airport. When they arrived, it was fantastic to see them, as it had been nearly 9 months since the last time.
The plan now was for us all to drive up to the Bay of Islands where we would spend 3 nights. It took about 4 hours to get up to Paihia, but we stopped at Whangerei along the way to take a walk through a kauri forest and take a look at the Whangerei falls.
Arriving in Paihia, we found the B+B. This was a big treat for me and Meg, even though we had only arranged to camp on the lawn.
The place was fantastic and had a view over the bay, as well as having a swimming pool and spa pool. The swimming pool was only about 5 metres long, but it had jets of water at one end, so that you could swim against the current constantly and never reach the other end.
Because it was too late to do any activities when we arrived, we decided to arrange everything for the next day. We walked along the seaside and wharf and pier, and spoke to the various operators, while we ate ice-cream. Unfortunately we had just missed the Tall Ships festival, but we were still able to see a few big ships in the bay.
In the evening we were advised by the B+B owner to try the Swiss Cottage, which was along the sea-front. This was a shame, as although the setting was great, the food was pretty poor. Still it was lovely to have an evening with the Kerr seniors.
The next day we had to get up early to meet our scheduled departure time down on the wharf. Breakfast was a work of art. Inge, the B+B owner obviously takes great care over her breakfasts, as we had boiled eggs, yoghurt, muesli, fresh fruit, dried fruit, fruit juice, and all sorts of bread and preserves. It was all displayed beautifully on the table and you didn't want to spoil it by touching anything.
We were booked onto a Bay of Islands tour at 9am, so had to swiftly make our way down into town. We were on a large cruiser-boat thing, but could sit in the open on one of the decks. It was a beautiful day, but the breeze on the sea made it feel very refreshing. We went through the bay (of islands), with informing commentary from the driver and crew. Our aim was to make it out to the hole in the rock – a geological wonder – that stands at the entrance to the bay. However, after about half an hour along the route, the driver was made aware of some dolphins up ahead. We had luckily already made our way to the front of the boat, and managed to squeeze through the barriers to stick our heads out so that we were directly down into the water beneath the boat. We had the most amazing view of all these dolphins that suddenly appeared and started playing around the bow wave of the boat. It felt incredibly special to be that close to them and to be able to hear them talking to one another and playing. They were being pushed along by the boat, but often they could just wag their tails/fins, and suddenly zoom off into the distance – it was amazing how fast they were. They were jumping in and out of the water, and more and more just kept appearing. We managed to get a video of them all here.
After our dolphin experience, we would have been quite content to just go home – we were that happy – but we continued out to the hole in the rock. This was pretty cool, and the sea was calm enough for the boat to manoeuvre itself through the rock, which often isn't possible when the sea is a bit rocky.
We then went on a whale-hunting expedition, as the crew were aware that there was a whale nearby. We made our way to when another boat was looking for the whale, but we were only able to see the occasional surface-break of the whale, and couldn't see much. It didn't want to be disturbed, as it had a calf, so we left it to its own devices and took off towards one of the islands.
On the island we were taken on a guided walk by a Maori lady who explained the significance of the Bay of Islands to the original Maori tribes and the history and cultures that were begun here. She was full of information, but almost too much to take in, in such a short period of time (we only had half an hour).
We were dropped off in Russell, which was the original capital of New Zealand, and the main port when European and Asian whalers started coming here in the early 1800's. Back in the day it was re owned for the “down and outs” that inhabited the township. There was little evidence of them these days with mainly nice cafes for the tourists!
Mum and dad treated themselves to a guided bus tour, while me and Meg sat by the beach and I went for a swim. We then met up with Mum and Dad and had (another) lovely icecream.
We decided it was a good time to catch the water taxi back over to Paihia, we were glad we didn't leave it any later as the wind had picked up and the boat ride was a bit choppy.
We made the most of the lovely view at the B&B and had fish and chips on the patio.
The following day started with another lovely breakfast and some socialising with the fellow B&Bers. We had decided that we would visit Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840.
The treaty was presented as a contract between various Maori chiefs and the British Crown to establish who owned what (and to prevent the French getting anything). There were, and still are many disagreements as to what exactly was agreed on the treaty. The different language versions differ significantly. I'm not sure how they will ever resolve this problem, but from what I can make out it is the main cause of the anger between the Maori and Pakeha (white people) today. Mostly things seem to tick along OK, but I get the feeling there is an undercurrent of bitterness/anger . People say it is because the Maori people are angry that so much of their land was bought (and taken) for so little, and that they had not imagined the magnitude of the takeover.
It was mentioned yesterday on the news how great it was that Waitangi day (which was on Saturday 6th Feb) had passed without any demonstrations or disturbances. This is obviously looked at as being a very positive sign.
We spent a few hours at the treaty grounds, reading the various information and visiting the treaty house, the whare runanga (Maori meeting house) - this has lots of cavings from different Maori tribes. There are also some original Maori war canoes. They were incredible, soooo long. It is hard to imagine them full of people and on the water. You can see how big the Kauri tree trunk was, unbelievable!
The grounds themselves had such an amazing view. It felt like you were at the top of New Zealand, even though you are far from it. I really enjoyed the visit. It has helped put the things that you hear about into perspective.
After our picnic we decided to head to a nearby waterfall. Phil gave the slight wrong directions and much to John and Dorothy's surprise/horror we ended up on a gravel road. We eventually found the waterfalls and realised we could have come from the other side on a fully tarmacked road!
We had another evening on the patio this time with wine and a pack of cards. John and Dorothy have been teaching us how to play bridge. It's fun but complicated!
The following day it was time to head back down to Auckland where Phil and I had to catch our plane, leaving John and Dorothy to begin the rest of their New Zealand adventures. Their next port of call being the Coramandel and ours being back to work in Hanmer!
We've got so much more to tell you about...we're only up to the beginning of January! It's scary how fast the time is flying. At least writing this makes us both realise how much we've seen and done and how lucky we are!
