Surfs Up Down Under!

That's right, I can surf! We went to Surf Camp this week for 4 days. Each day we had 2 2-hour lessons. The camp was held 2 hours away from Sydney. We left the city at 7:30am and once we got to camp we had a quick orientation, then they distributed our wetsuits and it was straight to the beach we went!

Sarah and I both were standing up after our first lesson! The weather was horrible for the first 3 days of camp, it was raining SO hard but that made the water feel warmer so it wasn't that bad in the water. But on land it was awful. Throughout the week as you got better they would give you smaller and harder boards. That was going great, until Sarah and I collided and her hard-edged board hit me square in the face. My eyelid got cut and was bleeding a little but my teeth and jaw hurt so bad I kept checking to make sure none of my teeth were loose. After the lesson my nose bled a little but I think that was just aftershock or something. Sarah did make a LOST nosebleed reference that had me a little concerned....

Its been 3 days and I still have some numbness in my jaw and gum area. "Not here, or here so much....but right here." (Name that movie!) I have a little bruising around my eye but that's alright, not too bad for my first surf accident! How hardcore am I? Haha, totally joking.

Surfing was so much fun but man! what a workout! Everyone was so exhausted at the end of each day that we usually just ate dinner, played some cards, watched a surf dvd and then went to bed around 9pm.

The last day of camp we got up at 6am and were in the water at 6:30am for a sunrise surf. The weather FINALLY cleared up and it was beautiful. Surfing at sunrise in Australia, doesn't get much better than that! The waves were perfect, too! During our last surf session there were dolphins in the area. Ahhhh, perfection.

Friday we moved into our new "home" in Bondi Beach. Its sorta like a dorm. Sarah and I have our own room which has 2 twin beds, a sink that won't stop running, a 9'' flatscreen tv and a wardrobe. And about 2 square feet of floor space. The house had 17 rooms, and there are probably 20 people living there. Last night we hung out in the lounge room and rooftop area and met most everyone. They are all really friendly and from all over the place! England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Canada, Oklahoma. The best part of the house is that it has a rooftop kitchen and hang out area that looks straight out to Bondi Beach. (see picture in the post below that was taken from the roof.) This morning Sarah and I ran along a trail that connects Bondi Beach to the neighboring 3 or so beaches. The view was just amazing. The path follows the coastline around and we stopped to watch some surfers along the way.

Today is Anzac Day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANZAC_Day) so tonight I think we'll head over to the pubs and celebrate with the locals and our new housemates. Earlier today we went to the mall and bought some much needed new clothes! Don't worry Dad, we will get jobs soon!

Sydney Pictures

Opera House, Harbour Bridge and me!

Pretty Opera House! Sydney Skyline - SkyTower near the left, Opera House hard to see in the middle and the ever present Bridge on the right (I swear you can see it from almost anywhere in Sydney!)The koala that sleeps outside our house And his friends the kangaroos and Mr. Wallaby (just kidding, we saw these at the zoo, no wild kangaroo or koala spottings yet)

7 Mile Beach in Geroa where we were for Surf Camp!

My signature pose, this time on a surf board!

All the clouds at surf camp are shaped like Australia. Jk, this was just a photo they had from another time at camp, pretty cool though, huh?With our instructor, Jackson And last but not least....the view of Bondi Beach...FROM OUR ROOFTOP!!!!!

Sunny Sydney

And the wonderful weather continues....

Last night we went to see 17 Again, the Zac Efron movie, because there was nothing else showing. Jk, its because we wanted to see it. It was actually really good and so funny! The movie theaters here have assigned seats, so that was weird. And they have self serve drinks and popcorn, and if you are a Gold Club member you can go into this private bar before the show and get an overpriced beverage. Interesting.

Today we had our orientation with the work program and it went well. Tomorrow we are going to look at a few places to live near Bondi Beach (you can be jealous, its ok). And hopefully we'll get jobs in that area too. If not the city is only a short bus/train ride away.

Monday we are off to surf school for 4 days so when we live near Bondi we can surf and not look silly. I am so excited to learn, then surf in all the places we travel to!

Just wanted to send this quick update. I'll post when I have news about a job/flat!

All Things Aussie!

We made it to Sydney! Yesterday we woke up at 4:45am and flew from Christchurch to Auckland, had a 5 hour layover and then flew to Sydney. We took the train into the city center and found our hostel where the work program we are meeting has booked us for 2 nights. We got settled and then Sarah's parent's friends David and Lynette, who live in Sydney, came and picked us up and took us to their apartment for dinner. We went to bed fairly early due to our long day of traveling and then David and Lynette came and picked us up this morning at 9:30 and took us on a 5 hour driving tour of the city. It was SO nice - a personalized, chauffeured tour of the city! 

We drove to see the Opera House (that's when it hit me that we are really in Sydney!), saw Luna Park from across the harbor, gazed at people doing the bridge climb on Sydney Harbour Bridge, had a coffee (hot chocolate for me), stopped by Bondi Beach and a few other beaches close by, saw Nicole Kidman's apartment that is for sale for $20 million and saw jellyfish floating in the harbour across from her place (how Australian! haha), had lunch, then they dropped us off at our work program's office so we can use the free internet! The weather is PERFECT today, its warm and sunny. So far I love Sydney, its a big city but its clean and beautiful! Old buildings mixed with new, parks all around (including Hyde Park - but what big city doesn't have a Hyde Park?!), beautiful beaches a short distance from downtown, cute boutiques and TONS of cafes/restaurant. We've had quite a nice welcome and I can't wait to get to know Sydney more! 

Tomorrow we have an orientation at 10am and will commence our job/house search. It was nice to see all the parts of the city so we can have an idea of where we would like to live and where we shouldn't live. Our plan for now is to work in Sydney for a month, until my family comes May 16th. Then we will travel with them around Sydney, to Tasmania and up to Melbourne where they will leave on March 28th. After that Sarah and I will head north and meet Jessica for some beach time, then go even more north and meet Jamie for beaches, animals, parks, and hopefully India! After all our guests have come and gone we will probably go back to our favorite city and work until its time to come home, and do some traveling to Indonesia, Malaysia, etc while we can. But from now till May 16th its time to work work work so I can do all the aforementioned traveling!  

It was sad to leave New Zealand but I'm excited to see what Australia has to offer! So far so good! 

Life on the farm!

It’s been awhile since I posted! Here’s the run down of what I’ve been doing, in case you haven’t already read it on Sarah’s blog:

April 7th: We drove from Akaroa back to Christchurch and headed straight to the Orana Wildlife Park. This small wildlife park has animal feedings throughout the day all scheduled so you can make it to all of them. We started with the farm animals, and then we got to see our first Kiwi bird as they fed it in the nocturnal kiwi house. We paid extra and got to ride in a cage on the back of a truck that went into the lion enclosure and stood about 2 feet as the keeper fed the lion horse meat. It was AWSEOME being that close to a lion. Then we fed giraffes, saw how fast Cheetahs can run (and how wimpy their meow is – it sounds like a house cat’s meow!), saw the rhinos, meerkats, otters, all your favorite zoo animals. Then we headed back to our campground and settled in for our last night in our van. :(

Cute harbor town of Akaroa

We decided not to spend $ to swim with the dolphins, so this is as close as we got

REALLY close to the lion....

Christchurch, Cathedral Square

April 8th: Last day with the van. We started cleaning it in the morning and repacking all our bags. Then we took it to the self service car wash and turned it in, and boarded a bus for Amberley to start our week on the farm. Debra our host picked us up in her cool old Land Cruiser SUV aka the farm truck. They had a farmstay girl from Japan in the house for the first night we slept in their cabins. Farmstay is different than farm help – that girl pays to stay here and only do the fun farm things while we work and do some non-fun farm things in exchange for room and board. We set up our beds and came inside for dinner. We had corned beef from a cow they had butchered, salad with tomatoes from their garden and potatoes that were hand dug that morning. Talk about a home-grown meal.

April 9th: We were ready for work at 9:30am. Frankly I thought we’d be getting up at the crack of dawn so 9:30am was alright for me. Our first farm job was to make blueberry muffins, since the Japanese girl and a German farm helper they had made awful apple muffins the previous day. Easy enough. While Sarah did that I ran a dozen free range eggs from the farm’s chickens over to a neighbor. Next we fed the horses, one of which kicked Sarah when she tried to shoo it away from the hay that was for another set of horses, and then came in for lunch. After lunch (and tea, of course) we spent 2 hours pulling pinecones off cut tree limbs and sorting the pinecones from the branches and the stumps. It was pretty hard work and I was definitely sore the next day (oh wait, I still am!). Mike and Debra’s daughter, her husband and their 2 kids joined us for dinner – lamb chops (from one of their lambs), salad and more fresh potatoes. (If I blog about the food a lot thats because its awesome and I cant get over the fact that its all home grown and organic…so fresh!)

April 10th: We rode with Debra to a town on the other side of Christchurch to pick up 5 sheep she bought. It had snowed in the mountains the night before so during the drive I just stared at the snowcapped mountains next to the lush green fields. This whole country looks like one perfect painting. It’s seriously unreal how pretty it is. Hopefully the sheep are pregnant as they have been “running” with a male and they will have lambs at the end of this year. I asked a million questions about sheep and learned pretty much all Ill ever need to know, and more. We got the sheep settled in their new pasture, fed the horses, ate lunch and spent the afternoon filling potholes in their ½ mile long driveway. We also fed the chickens and collected eggs. It was a real Easter egg hunt, the eggs come from different breeds of chickens so they are different colors and you really have to look for them to find them! We had schnitzel for dinner and watched American Idol.

Aril 11th: I cooked some of the eggs I collected for breakfast and we set out to finish the potholes. We fed the horses and when we came back for lunch Mike and Debra’s daughter was at the house again with kids, and 3 hitchhikers she picked up. They were 2 Americans and a Canadian that are out doing a faith week which means they have $20, no food, and no tent and rely on their faith and God to bless them with what they need. It’s working so far since they were picked up by Carla who brought them to the farm to stay the night and eat some good food. They are doing to Discipleship Training School in a town in NZ with 43 other students and after their classes are over they will disperse over the world (2 of them are going to Africa, one to Asia) and do missions for a few months, then meet up in Jerusalem for graduation. It’s called YWAM – Youth with a Mission- and apparently it’s a really big organization, even in the States, but I hadn’t heard of it. It was so cool to meet them and listen to their adventure and what’s yet to come.

After Sarah and I took the kids to collect eggs, feed chickens and feed the horses apples from the apple trees (I had one myself, so good!!) we joined the other 3 at the top lot and cleared branches for about 3 hours. It was boring, monotonous and hard but it had to get done! We had lamb sausages for dinner and there were 10 people at the table! I got to talk to Allie today as it was her birthday back in the States so that was super nice. It was a great day!

April 11th, Easter: We went to church in a town nearby which was quite interesting. It was a tiny Pentecostal church that hardly even spoke of Easter, much different than the Easter Sunday service I'm used to. But it was still nice. Debra took the other 3 and dropped them off on the highway and pointed them in the right direction. They will try to hitch to the north part of the South Island. We told them the good places to go but they will just have to see where hitching gets them. I got their emails and can’t wait to hear how their week ends up going. After church we had lunch, changed into work clothes, fed the horses and spend the rest of the afternoon helping Mike and Debra build a horse jump for the cross country course they are putting in. More fun but exhausting work. We had yummy, home grown, organic soup for dinner. I think for dessert we’ll have leftover fruit pudding or hot cross buns (yes, they are a real thing!).

Tuesday they are going to drive us back into Christchurch and we’ll stay the night in a hostel before catching our early flight to Auckland then Sydney Wednesday.

The farmstay has been really cool. There is so much more to farming than I ever thought! Mike and Debra are super nice and so funny, they have a great marriage and you can see that just by the way they play off each other. Debra says she is working on being a Proverbs 31 woman but I think she’s more than halfway there (read it to see what I mean). They are both very hardworking farmers and they each have other jobs too! She’s an accountant and he’s a programmer! It’s been really great and I really feel at home here. They have been hosting strangers in their home since the 70s and they truly enjoy it.

The horse jump we made today

Sarah helped build this fence

Feeding the horses!

Pretty free range eggs!

Last week in New Zealand :(

Our time in New Zealand is quickly coming to an end :(

We stayed one night in Christchurch, and since we hadn't heard back from any farmstays yet we extended our van rental from the 6th to the 8th and took off for Akaroa, on the coast. Akaroa is a beautiful, laid-back, peaceful harbor town. We parked our van at our campsite and took a pathway downhill to the town. We walked along Main St., ate a delicious lunch at a cafe - I had seafood chowder that was amazing and Sarah had a yummy chicken sandwich. Then we walked to the other end of town and through some old graveyards, then out to the lighthouse and back through town. We hiked back up the hill, relaxed at our campsite for a few hours then drove back to town for dinner. We ate at this awesome restaurant and I got seafood risotto that was out of this world. It had calamari, salmon, mussels, scallops, hoki fish, etc - all straight from the ocean we were dining next to. Can't get enough of their delicious fresh seafood!

After dinner I checked my email and saw that I received an email from the farmstay we were most interested in. They are able to accommodate us so we will be heading out to their farm tomorrow. They have cherry & apricot orchards, horses, sheep, bees, gardens, etc on their farm so it should be fun and interesting to help out.

We leave for Aussie on the 15th, we are flying from Christchurch to Auckland to catch our flight across. That was much cheaper than keeping the van, taking the ferry and driving back to Auckland. Plus it saves some time. Not sure how the Internet will be on the farm so this may be the last post until I'm in Australia!

Seafood Fest!

We passed through Christchurch on our way up to Kaikoura so we stopped and took a bone carving class (very popular hobby in NZ). Our one-armed teacher, John, helped us file our beef bone pieces into cool pendants. That took about 3 hours then we continued driving up to Kaikoura. The plan was to go whale watching in Kaikoura, but when we arrived at our campground the lady said the whales had been “naughty” recently and weren’t showing up. She suggested fishing instead, that way we’d at least get dinner out of it. So we booked a fishing trip on the Sophie-Rose boat. Our one-legged captain, Nick, (this week’s theme was amputees) took us and 3 other people out. First we checked the crayfish pots (crayfish is quite the delicacy here, it sells for $40 each), the first pot had an octopus in it that we both got to hold! Nick was surprised that we actually held it, but it was so cool. It was all squirmy and was putting its suction things all over my arm. We had to kill the octopus after we held it because they eat all the crayfish. Later we took it over to some NZ fur seals on a rock and threw it to them but they weren’t hungry and let it sink. The next pot had a carpet shark in it that we also got to hold. Its called a carpet shark because their belly smells like wet carpet. I smelled it but im not convinced that’s what it smells like. The 3rd pot finally had crayfish in it! But only 3.

Then we went out into the deep water and started fishing. We caught a lot of sea perch, the other 2 people on the boat caught some blue cod, but sarah and I got the catch of the day when we each caught a grouper. Apparently that’s a really big deal and they are hard to catch so Nick was very impressed and Im pretty sure half the town heard about it before we left this morning. When I caught my grouper I had a perch on the other hook (the line was double hooked) so needless to say it was quite a workout reeling it in. we were fishing in about 70m deep water so it takes awhile to reel your line all the way back up. After my grouper I caught a dogfish shark. You cant eat it but Nick saved it for bait. Nick filleted our fish right as we caught it, some were still flopping around even after being filleted! After we had our fill we went over to where there was a pod of about 100 dolphins swimming around and doing acrobatics. It was awesome!!!! So unreal.

Then we headed in. Kaikoura is beautiful….there are snow capped mountains right next to the ocean. Jerry, the boat owner, invited us to stay the night as his backpackers so he could cook our fish properly and we could celebrate our big catches with some wine. It was really fun and we just sat around eating fresh fish, drinking local wine with feijoa (local fruit) juice and chatting. We had boiled crayfish tail (tastes like lobster), fried grouper and baked perch. Delicious! Jerry was so hospitable and it was nice to be invited over to be among locals! His house is right on the main road to the wharf so out his front door he has an amazing view of the mountains and ocean. We stayed in our van in his backyard and feel asleep listening to the sound of the ocean. Perfection! It was a fantastic weekend. Enjoy the pictures!

Our first whitebait patty - see the tiny whitebait in it?

Fur seal (look at the beautiful snow capped mountains!) I held the octopus too, but Sarah's picture shows its size betterCrayfish

Carpet sharkMy big catch! Grouper and perch on one line!The dogfish shark I caught What a picture perfect way to end the day...watching the dolphins play!

Bungy pictures!

Nature, Chocolate and Bungee...OH MY!

Monday March 30th we drove 5km down the road from our campsite and walked part way around Lake Matheson, aka Reflection Lake. If it’s not too cloudy you can see near perfect reflections of snow-capped Mt. Tasman and Mt. Cook in the lake. We took some pretty pictures (below) and hit the road for Queenstown. I fell in love almost immediately after arriving in Queenstown. It has the charm of a small ski city but set in even more beautiful surroundings. Ski season hasn’t started yet so it’s still relatively calm around the town but I was definitely eyeing the condos for sale. We went to a wine tasting store that had really cool wine sample dispensers. You just insert a card, push your selection and it spits out a sample, half-glass or full glass of your choice of wine. Then when you are through you take the card to the counter and pay the balance (ouch!). After wine we walked across the street and ate at Fishbone Restaurant where I had delicious fish and chips and Sarah got oysters. We went to our campground, booked our bungee jump for the next day at noon and I ended the evening by watching some of Lord of the Rings 1, and I actually did recognize some of the New Zealand scenery!

Tuesday the 31st was bungee day. We took a gondola up the hill to the bungee site. We got there about an hour early so we had time to wait, and let our nerves build up. At noon we walked down to the platform. I decided to go first, that way I wouldn’t have to hear Sarah say if it was bad or good. So I went over to the ledge (and the jump we did was called the Ledge, appropriately), and got the harness on. They had me sit on a couch inside the Ledge house until it was my turn. Before I jumped they walked me to the ledge and made me smile (or try to smile) for a picture. I had a death grip on the poor guy who walked me out there. Then it was time to run and jump. It was so scary and I think I was only smiling cause I was glad to still be alive. I don’t remember much of the fall but I’m glad I did it. We had the option to go over and over again if we wanted, but neither of us went more than once.

Getting pulled back up

Couldn't complain about the view!

After bungee we ate lunch at this popular place called Fergburger right in the town square, then walked around a bit and finally dragged ourselves away from adorable Queenstown.

We drove over 5 hours, past Te Anau to a campsite close to Milford Sounds. This was a Department of Conservation campsite which only consisted of a port a potty. Yikes. We toughed it out for the night and the next morning woke up early and drove the rest of the way into Milford Sound. On the drive we passed through Homer Tunnel which was hand chiseled out of the mountainside back in the day. It just so happened to be April Fool’s Day and I was reading that there is a naked run through the tunnel each April Fool’s Day, but we didn’t see the race, or any sign of it. We took a cruise through beautiful, serene Milford Sound. The mountains rise straight from the water and there are tons of waterfalls. It was very picturesque but SO windy! After the cruise we had another long drive to Dunedin.

Mitre peak is on the left

Just before the captain put us right up against the waterfall

Rare New Zealand fur seals!

This morning we went to the Cadbury factory in Dunedin for a tour. Cameras weren’t allowed inside but it was really neat and smelled awesome, like chocolate! There was even a giant chocolate waterfall at the end. We also got samples along the way, then access to a discount store. I bought enough chocolate to last me until Christmas! I like Cadbury chocolate so much more than Hershey. America needs to jump on the Cadbury train!

Railway Station: 2nd most photographed building in the Southern Hemisphere or something....2nd to Syndey Opera House

After the tour we drove over to Baldwin St, the steepest street in the world. I tried to jog up it but it was so steep and the chocolate was weighing me down. We did walk all the way to the top and took some cool pictures.

A few years ago a girl got in a wheelie bin (aka trashcan with wheels) and went down the street but tragically died. Its seriously steep.After that we said goodbye to Dunedin and drove towards Timaru. We stopped on the way to see the famous spherical boulders on the beach. The rocks are perfectly round due to some phenomenon involving limestone (sorry I don’t have details, there weren’t any signs explaining it…). The pancake rocks (seen in my previous post) also involved limestone. My question is: Texas is full of limestone, so why don’t we have any of these cool rock formations?

Now we are in Timaru for the night. Tomorrow we will continue to head north towards Christchurch! Enjoy the photos!