An update!

Ok well I've finally got a little time to spare and so I'll do my best to fill everyone in on how everything is going. I was going to upload some pictures, but as this is a dial-up connection, decided I had better things to do then wait for 2 hours uploading 5 pictures (I was going to use the excuse that I left my USB cable at home, but then realized this computer has a card reader for the digital camera, and thus had to tweak it a bit). Anyways, where did I leave off?
So from the 13th to the 15th, we basically chopped wood fo rmost of the day and then stacked it. Very exciting! I did get stung on the neck though by a bee which was very exciting because sometimes I swell right up, and sometimes nothing happens. Luckily nothing happened this time, so you know, I didn't stop breathing or have to go to the hospital. Hayley sorted out my ticket to Fiji, and now everything is set for me to leave Auckland on the 14th of February. Getting up there however will be another problem...
I left Judith and Snow's on the 16th and they dropped me off outside of Blenheim for me to hitch down to Kaikoura. At first a very nice vinyard owner/businessman picked me up but my second ride could only be considered New Zealand's version of the redneck. Besides not being unable to understand them, their attire consisted of tight jeans and tight leather vests. There car was, well a peace of crap (but hey I don't judge people on what sort of car they drive) and they insisted on tailing and swearing at anyone who was on the road. When we stopped at a seal colony right before Kaikoura, they proceeded to spit and throw rocks at the seals. I could only shake my head in the background (hey they were my ride!) and then when a man took a picture of their license plate to report them, they contemplated whether or not to ram his car. But yeah, after that eventful ride, I was safely in Kaikoura. However I decided the dolphin swimming and whale watching wasn't quite for me, considering that we have those in BC, so I just stayed the night there and then moved on.
On the 17th, I met a German guy in the hostel and he volunteered his American Buddhist friend to drive me down to Conway Flats. The American had been studying at a monestery in Thailand, but sadly had Visa problems and had to come to New Zealand. They dropped me off, and after asking at a random house on the side of the road, I figured out that Medina (the farm of the Handysides) was about 12 kilometers down the road. So I started walking, and after about five minutes a very nice guy by the name of Andrew picked me up, and rove me up the road a bit to his house. Considering he was a bachelor of about 30, it was a little uh, messy (complete with an overpowering smell of marijuana and a big tin full o fit sitting on the coffee table) but he was very nice and gave me a cup of tea and arranged for me to get picked up by the mailman to take me up to the farm. David and Sally greeted me, and then sent me off on a three hour lon ghike aroudn their farm. They live right on the coast, and there are huge cliffs right on the coast line, and then mountains at the back of their farm (about 1500 acres). It's truly a stunning piece of land, and they actually run a track that people pay to walk on. We had venison for dinner, and I can't believe I had lived so long with out it. Better than all meat except for maybe steak :p. They put me up in a big canvas tent outside, but gave me an extra douvet so even though it was quite cold and night, I was all snug!
The next day I hung out with Peter, their oldest son, who is pretty much taking over the farm now. We zoomed around on some ATV's, chasing after cattle and sheep and moving them to the right paddocks. They use dogs for all this work, which supposedly is a unique thing about New Zealand. Then I fixed a dog kennel (exciting, I know).
Friday I hitched down to Christchurch, and wandered around town for a while. They have the International Buskers Festival going on, and some of them were actually really good. 10 foot Unicycles, juggling fire, all sorts of good stuff that one wouldn't normally see. Christchurch is a beautiful city, and is considered the most English of New Zealand cities, complete with punting on the river that winds through town. In the late afternoon I bussed out to Su and Rex's place just outside of the city center.
The next day I spent in Christchurch again, going to the museum, watching the buskers and seeing the sites. The museum is one of the best in regards to Antarctic history, and so it was actually really fascinating. I also toured teh Anglican Cathedral there, which was the first cathedral built in New Zealand ( I think.. if not, it was the first building built pretty much in Christchurch... just imagine a huge cathedral in the middle of nowhere a couple hundred years ago). I found the last Harry Potter book at Su and Rex's when I went back for dinner, and so burnt through it that evening and the next morning. Damn those books are addictive.
On Sunday, (after finishing Harry Potter) Su dropped me off and I started hitching again down to Akaroa, which is on the Banks Peninsula. It was a pretty cool town, (it was the first place that french settlers came to) and so everything has a French flair, but more or less not too exciting.
Yesterday was a fairly eventful day. After eating a delicous meal of a granola bar and some ham, I left the Holiday Park at 9, and was quickly picked up while I was walking to the main road by a family who had also stayed at the park. They had a big campervan, and gave me a bowl of cereal, so it was pretty sweet. I was dropped off on a motorway leading out to Christchurch, and thus had to hitch with traffic screaming by me, but I was quickly picked up by a Kiwi who was going inland, and so drove me for about an hour. He had spent a lot of time in Canada in his youth, working at Whistler and spending time in the Rockies, so we had numerous things to talk about. He dropped me off in the middle of a tiny town, and after ten minutes of waiting for a car to drive by, I started to get a little nervous. Tim however came to my aid, though he drove by at first and only stopped later because he saw the look of disappointment on my face... He was a stock agent or something like that, and basically drives aroudn the entire south island, visiting farms and picks out the lambs for slaughter. He took me to three farms (I figured I had the time to detour) and seemed to really enjoy giving the lambs the (pink) Mark of Death. After a couple hours of driving around with him, (which was quite scenic by the way) he dropped me off just outside of Ashburton, and a Tahiti woman picked me off and drove me a wee bit further down the road to Tekapo. After a quick lunch, John and Theresa picked me up, and after the usual small talk, (they happened to be a Elementary School teacher and High School Math teacher) we realized that John was a second cousin to Lester (whose place I am at right now) (New Zealand is a small country). So they took me to their place, where I checked my e-mail (as I hadn't had a reply from Lester and Caroline saying I could stay). Lester and Caroline weren't home though, so they ended up calling Lester's mother, who came and picked me up, and took me back to her place and fed me. Then she got a hold of Caroline, and drove me up to the farm, which was about half an hour away. So in a very round-about way, and owing to the great Kiwi sense of friendliness, I wound up at their farm in Adbury.
This morning, we did some more stock moving, and I got to run after 16 bulls to move them way down the line (this sounds more exciting then it really is, because they were all yearlings and only half the size that they will grow to be). Then we chased after some deer (3000 of them here) and move them all together as a bunch of the fawns had become seperated from their mothers. And then I did my laundry! Which brings me up to date!
Tomorrow I am going to hitch to Mount Cook, and stay a couple of nights there. Then it's down to Queenstown, and Milford Sound and the glaciers and all that.

January 12

Time flies when you're having fun. I can't believe it's almost been two weeks since I last made an update. However due to not so subtle suggestions that maybe I should update my blog, I'm now here!
New Years here was... uneventful would be a nice way to put it. Everyone here went to bed before 11, so I rang in the New Year watching October Sky on the television. They didn't even have anything on TV advertising the fact it was New Years. So quite sad and maybe a little pathetic... but oh well!
The next couple days were spent in New Years mode. Lots of hanging around and doing random jobs around the property, but nothing exceedingly exciting. I decided to work outside during 35 degree weather and then was a wee bit light-headed as a consequence. On the Fourth we went to Ju and Snow's friend's place, and had a complete and utter feast. Dave had just got some scallops the morning of, and they were really good cooked on the BBQ with kababs. THey also have about eight pet eels that are at least four feet long, and they'll come right out of the water to grab food from you. So I had a good time over-feeding them. New Zealand seems to have eels in pretty much every stream, and supposedly five foot ones have been found swimming in Auckland. Personally I'd prefer to not encounter them while swimming...
The next day was quite uneventful, though we did go down to the river and have a nice little swim. The water is still really cold, but probably not nearly as bad as Canada right now... Then Dave and Kathy came to Sunhill for dinner, but it was so hot that nobody really felt like eating much. Another 35 degree day.
On Saturday the sixth, Malcolm caught the train down to Christchurch in the early afternoon. Well... he was supposed to catch the train, but it derailed, so he got stuck on a bus for a while and then forced to sit beside a new mother and a screaming infant. Yay kids! When we got back, Judith found out that one of the ewes had fly, so she had to round them all up and spray them to make sure it doesn''t die. Fly is when the maggots from the black flies basically eat a sheep from the inside out, because they burrow in through the wool and through the skin. Or something like that, I'm not too sure. Whatever it is, it's not at all pleasant for the animal. Maggie was very efficient in rounding them all up and then sat guarding them all in the pen while Judith sent them all through. She such a friendly and smart dog, it makes me want a border! As a side note, before travelling ot New Zealand, one should know that buying deoderant is very expensive (aka be prepared to spend three times as much).
On Sunday the seventh I finally got to go diving! Judith and Snow dropped me off at Dave's in the morning, and he was able to get me all the gear I needed except for a wetsuit. Considering that renting and then getting a boat for a dive costs anywhere from 150 to 225 dollars anywhere else in the country, and I was able to basically go for free, I think it was a pretty damn good deal. We launched out of Picton, and then did a couple of dives in the Marlborough Sounds. These were my first dives without an instructor, and my last dive was back in April, but I managed to remember most things and eventually dropped down to 55 feet. Dave caught a bunch of scallops, and we were both able to take 50 home so it was a very fine dinner that night. The visibilty was quite poor (but nothing as bad as Vancouver) and I lost Dave after a couple minutes, but still swam around and explored a little. Sadly, I was ''air eating'' and so had to come up a while before Dave, but for a first dive, it was pretty damn good! Dave managed to convince me to try a raw scallop, and I was actually suprised to find out they aren't that bad. A little bit fishy, but also quite sweet! When we got back to Judith's the main water pipe had burst going from the water tank to the house, but Dave managed to fix it after about an hour of running around. I was given the honourable task of bailing water.
On the Monday I finally got all the bank info I needed from back home, and so I was able to send off my Extended Visa application. I also had to send off my passport, which means I can't actually buy any booze if anyone ID's me. Yay. Then we picked a bunch of cherries for Judith to brandy (quite good I suggest everyone tries it one day) and my expert skills from my hard work before Christmas really paid off...
On Tuesday we all packed into the bus with Maggie and set out west. Judith and Snow dropped me off in Murchison and then I set out hitching down to Punakaiki and the pancake rocks! I was picked up by two Norwegian girls right away and had a good time talking to them. Hitching truly is an art. With girls, you have to draw eye-contact with them and then just as they are hesitating about whether to pick you up or not... flash them a smile. Then it's in the bag. They dropped me off just outside of Westport, where I was quickly picked up by a Wellington girl who it turned out has exactly the same plan as me. We ended up camping at teh same campsite that night, and then explored the pancake rocks and local caves around Punakaiki. The pancake rocks are limestone rocks that have been totally owned by the sea, and so are in a bunch of really cool designs. The sea continuously pounds away at caves in the area, and you can feel the power of the surf right through the ground. It's a pretty cool place, and totally reminds me of Enid Blyton (I'm pretty sure I spelled her name wrong) books and all the adventures the kids had in those with undersea caves!
The next day, Leonie (the Wellington girl) and I decided to go up Fox River and try and do some of the hikes up around it. Due to the massive rainfall the night before (incidentally, it did not stop raining the entire time I was on the West Coast) the river had risen a good couple of feet and we had to do a couple river crossings to get down the track. They were really cool, and it was lucky we were together, because it would have been nearly suicidal to attempt them solo. Supposedly failed river crossings are the number one reason for death in New Zealand bush. Anyways, we beat the river and then found these really cool caves, which were pretty much unspoilt. The main one was 200 meters deep, and was covered with formations the entire way in. The last quarter or so was flooded up to our knees, but we sloshed through and it was actually quite an amazing experience. The cave was just so magnificent, and neither of us were really expecting anything great, so we were both totally stunned by it. When we got out though, it started to pour, so on the hike back to her car we got totally soaked, though luckily the rivers hadn't risen. I was able to dry out all my clothes as the camp had lit a drying room boiler, so luckily I wasn't very wet that night in the tent.
Thursday I hitched back over about six hours. First I was picked up by some crazy religion that starts with a "b" guy and as soon as he dropped me off outside of Westport it started to pour. Then a really nice Kiwi who gave me a lot of history of the area, and then some crazy German guys who well... your stereotypical German... They dropped me off in St. Arnaud, and after a quick lunch there, two German girls picked me up after I smiled at them and gave them a wave. They were really nice and actually dropped me right off at Sunhill, where I arrived in the late afternoon.
Today, Judith and I went into Blenheim, as she had to go to a "Creative Fibre" meeting. I had to buy some new sandals (due to my old ones breaking during the plumbing fiasco) and some tent sealant (due to the leaking tent in Punakaiki fiasco). Judith and I then went out for lunch at a Thai restaurant and after a few other errands we got back home around 4, only to be shepherded back into the truck by Snow because Murray has some wood he wanted to get rid of at the cherry orchard. So after two hours of cutting wood, we drove back with a full truck and trailer load of firewood, had a couple G and T''s, and then it became now.
Next week I am planning on going down to Kaikoura and then Christchurch, and then more south. A few people have offered to let me stay at their houses, so hopefully I will update at a better rate than once every two weeks. Cheers!