Happy New Year!

Christmas when it's warm doesn't feel much like Christmas at all. Except that it did feel like Christmas because it rained and was cold.

So we've been here nearly 5 months and a lot has been going on. Rich has been very busy on the farm but we have been lucky enough to have some great weekends away. Summer decides to show its sunny face every now and then but I'm still wondering if this place ever goes a day without pouring down.

With an unexpected weekend off  at the end of November we headed to Queenstown for the weekend. Arriving on Saturday morning we spent some time wandering around shops and looking around. We had a famous Fergburger for lunch (the first of many) and then decided to hire some mountain bikes to go and explore. Off we went in the scorching heat plastered in sun cream on a "leisurely" ride. After hours (about 45 mins) of going uphill we finally reached Moke Lake. The scenery was fantastic and it was just like being back in the Lake District.

After not nearly enough of a break, Hitler (Rich) insisted we set off again along the other side of the lake and down the proper mountain bike tracks where I was more than likely going to break my neck. When I expressed these concerns to Hitler I got the response "what is the worst that can happen?!" and then he cycled off in to the distance. Oh crap. Anyway after a lot of screaming and multiple cuts and bruises later (sadly all mine) we made it back to the road.

On the way back we stopped next to Lake Wakatipu for a break and happened to stop where some guys were out on the lake using hydro jet packs. I'm now saving for one!

Back into QT and it was time for a well earned drink and pizza.

The next day we decided (stupidly) to go and do a bungy jump. I wanted to go for the small jump as I was pretty scared but somehow 2 hours later we were on a bus on our way to the biggest jump possible. 134m of terror. We were harnessed up and taken out to the jump platform in a cable car. Rich was stood with a big smile on his face while I was on the verge of tears. I still have no idea how he was so calm. There was 8 of us waiting to jump, going in order of heaviest to lightest. The first man went forward for his jump and didn't jump, he was too scared."If a man can't do it how the hell am I going to do it?". The next two guys after him jumped straight away. Then it was Rich's turn, off he went with a massive smile on his face and diving very gracefully. I couldn't even watch him jump I was absolutely petrified.

Then it was my turn. I sat down to get the rope attached to my feet and then after some words of advice from one of the crew I was lead out to the platform. I was definitely crying by this point and I think if I hadn't paid $200 for it I would have turned around and ran home. The rope was thrown out in front of me and after "5 4 3 2 1 JUMP" I was still stood on the platform shaking my head. I am still convinced that the only reason I jumped was that if I didn't do it I would be reminded of the event by Rich for the rest of time. So that was that, the decision was made, I had to go. I bent my knees and very ungracefully fell off the platform flapping my arms all the way down much like a baby bird trying to fly for the first time. Once I felt the rope pull tight then I started to enjoy it, and once I was back on solid ground I enjoyed it even more. I can't believe I did it but I'm definitely glad I did. I would recommend anyone to try it once, but once is definitely enough.

Once back in QT and after all the excitement of the day we decided it was time to go home.

A few weekends later we decided to take a trip to Auckland. So early one morning we drove to Queenstown and jumped on a flight and headed off in a northern direction. Once arriving in Auckland we dropped our bags off at a hotel, grabbed some lunch and off we went to explore Auckland. We went up Auckland's answer to the Empire State Building, the Skytower and then wandered around the shops before going out for dinner that evening down on the harbour. After being in the remote world of Nightcaps where seeing another person is a rare event it was nice to be in the busy city and we are both looking forward to going back later in the year. The next day we explored some more and then soon enough it was time for us to head back to the airport to fly back to Queenstown. 

Auckland by night

Up the Skytower 

Auckland from the Skytower

Brave enough to sit on the glass floor 

Auckland

Back in Queenstown at lunchtime it was time for a Fergburger and a trip up the Skyline Gondola and Luge. 

Loving it!

Mountain bikers coming up the gondola

QT from the top of the gondola

Another bungy choice.

It was time to head home again and get back to work and get ready for Christmas.

Nelly was certainly excited for xmas

Christmas was a little different for me this year as we were working. Most of the others on the farm have families and children to spend Christmas with and as we don't, we said we would happily milk cows. So on Christmas morning at 4.15am we got up and went off to milk at the herringbone. Back home at breakfast time it was time for skype and to open the Christmas boxes full of presents that had arrived from the UK. Skyping Rich's dad and Step mum we saw just how fat Rich's cat Sam has got and we opened a box full of chocolate and matching Christmas jumpers! 
Chris and Sue had kindly invited us to have Christmas with them at Chris' brothers house so we turned up in our matching jumpers and pretty much got laughed at for the next 3 hours. All the kiwis sent pictures of us to their laughing kiwi friends. Apparently Kiwi's don't have the need for a warm jumper at this time of year so this 'Christmas jumper' tradition is wasted on them. However due to our festive look they are now all converted and have requested we send them Christmas jumpers next year. I think we can class that as a win for the UK. 

"Merry Christmas you filthy animal"

After having a lovely Christmas dinner of Turkey, Beef, Ham and Salmon it was time to get back to the cows again. In my food induced coma milking was a struggle. But shortly after we were on our way for Christmas dinner round 2 and some pudding. Home again at 9pm and time to skype Rich's sister and then my crazy family. More presents, more chocolate and more Christmas jumpers. Perfect.
It was a very different day but one we both really enjoyed and one I'm sure we won't forget.

A few days later and with work done for the year we headed off to Te Anau to stay with Chris & Sue at their holiday home. While in Te Anau the rodeo was in town, having never been to a rodeo before I was like an over excited child. I'm just glad we were on the spectating side of the fence and not the side where people were being mauled by bulls.

Rodeo

After Te Anau we travelled to Queenstown to celebrate New Year with some friends from Devon, it was great to see some familiar faces. New Year's Eve was crazy but so much fun. Queenstown had a brilliant atmosphere. New Years day was very tame in comparison as we were suffering from hangovers, thankfully nobody wanted to do anything like a bungy as I think a few of us would have probably been sick. Pizza and Cinema was the choice of activity for the evening.

New Year Giggles

The next day Rich and I decided to head up to Wanaka to check out our half ironman course which is now only a week away! It was raining, windy and cold which did not make the lake look appealing at all. Hopefully it'll be a little warmer next weekend! After finally sorting out our wetsuits for the race we agreed we were both knackered and it was time to get home to see the crazy dog and recover before work started again.

The Cardrona between QT and Wanaka

Back at home and it's nice to be back to normality after a busy couple of weeks. The rest of January is set to be busy with Julie (Rich's mum) coming to visit next week, our half ironman next weekend and also Rich's birthday coming up. So lots to look forward to.
2013 has been an amazing year and I'm sure 2014 will be just as brilliant.
Happy New Year to you all, we hope you all had as much fun as we did!

QT Gardens

12 weeks in....

So 12 weeks ago we arrived in New Zealand, 13 weeks since we left Devon and nearly 19 weeks since we left Cumbria.

New Zealand has not disappointed us so far, summer is on its way and the weather is slowly getting better. Here is what we've been doing for the last few months....

On the 29th June we said goodbye to all my family and friends, which was pretty horrible and plenty of tears were cried (mostly by me) but it had to be done. I don't think I have yet come to terms with the fact I won't be seeing my lovely family for a while. One thing I have learnt in the last 10 weeks is to keep telling yourself you'll see your family soon, and then eventually soon really will be soon instead of in a couple of years.


We then drove down to Devon which is where we would stay until Rich's visa turned up. After much (6 weeks) bribing, bartering and general persuasion with NZ immigration they decided Rich was allowed in to the country as he knew more about cows than they originally thought. So finally the flights were booked and the goodbyes to all of Rich's Devon family and friends began. Even though it was longer than expected we had an amazing 6 weeks holiday in Devon with all of Rich's friends. It was so nice for me to meet everyone and get to see all of Devon in the amazing summer we had, which meant a lot of time was spent on the beach actually sunbathing, which I think is a first for me in the UK!

The 10th of August rolled around and we set off on our long journey to the airport, spending 2 days with Rich's uni friends Owen and Claire and then on to Joe and Becky Delves' for a night before we ditched Rich's car in Joe's capable ebay selling hands. Joe kindly dropped us at the airport on Tuesday 13th August and then it was time to fly. So off we went via Dubai, Sydney, Christchurch and finally on Thursday we arrived at Invercargill airport where boss man Chris picked us up.

We stayed at Chris and Sue’s house for the first week while our house was being sorted out. The first couple of days were really difficult trying to get over jetlag as Rich was straight into work on the farm, I however spent most of the days sleeping. On Saturday morning I received the awful news that my Grandad had passed away just a day after we arrived. After speaking to all my family I made the heartbreaking decision not to go home for the funeral. Grandad had been glad to hear that we had finally arrived in NZ and I know the decision I made was what Grandad would have wanted. Gran told me on the phone “I will not be happy if you come all the way back” and not wanting to suffer the wrath of Gran I decided to stay in NZ. Thankfully I was able to write some words and they were read out in the service, so I was able to say bye to Grandad in my own way.

Southland. The View from the top of the farm

So after a week of staying with Chris and Sue we moved into our house. We are living on the sheep farm block just outside the village of Nightcaps, which is about 10km away from the main farm. We were now both working on the farm, Rich was milking and doing other jobs involving cows (I clearly know loads about farming) and I was helping out with calf rearing. I won't lie, having not done a manual job before, I struggled. Funnily enough being headbutted/stood on/covered in shit/kicked by calves stays cute for about a day until you realise just how many bruises you have. 700 calves later my shin bones are just about in one piece. 

After getting over the initial aches and pains and the horrific wake up time of 6am, I began to enjoy the job (well apart from when it rained which was most days).

Our first few days off together were spent looking around the area where we live, we then started going further afield. So on one of our days off we decided to go down to the most southerly point of New Zealand, Bluff. Not surprisingly it was bucketing down with rain but we still went to see what was there. It turns out, not a lot! Even less when it's pouring down with rain and foggy. But despite that we had a great day out, mainly down to the fish and chips we then ate to get out of the rain.

Devils Highway. On the road to QT

The next big trip was up to Canterbury to visit Rich's friend George. We decided to drive via Queenstown the night before and stayed there for the night. Very quickly we both said we would be going back for a few days at a later date. We stayed near Hinds in Canterbury and on the way home we drove down the East coast so we got to see as much as we could in a short time. Canterbury was lovely and sunny, as we drove over the border into Southland it began to rain....I'm beginning to think Southland is like Cumbria and possesses  it's own permanent rain cloud.

Canterbury

Let me in it's raining

Since that trip we have not been away anywhere new but have lots of plans to do so. More recently we decided to get a dog, after lots of talk about a puppy Rich decided it best we don't get a puppy as he doesn't want to run a gauntlet of assorted liquids on the kitchen floor at 4am or be kept up all night by it howling. So we found a lovely dog called Nelly who is a 5 year old labrador/spaniel cross. She has loads of energy and loves to run EVERYWHERE. We were best of friends until this morning when she woke me up with her continuous barking, so we are now having a stand off until she apologises.

Due to our severe lack of anything running related while we have been here both me and Rich decided we need to enter a race to have some motivation to go out and run. We then stupidly decided to enter Challenge Wanaka half ironman and we have no idea why. So in January we will be swimming 1.9km, cycling 90km and then running a half marathon, why? I have no idea. The race is on. Training has started very slowly but with my road bike being sent over in the next couple of weeks we are both looking forward to getting out and exploring Southland on bikes.

Walking the dog has its perks

Last week we had a couple of days off had a visit from Claire, who Rich is good friends with from uni. Claire was over in New Zealand working and she came down to Southland for a few days and stayed with us for a night. It was great to have a familiar face here. The next day Rich and I took the dog and ventured to Catlins which is a rainforest reserve on the South East coast. We saw sealions (most exciting part of the day for me) and walked to Mcleans waterfall which was amazing. Now that the weather is getting better we are hoping to do a lot more walking/running around Southland and Fjordland in the next few weeks.

McLean Falls

So that's about it for our first 12 weeks. We are both loving it here and enjoying the relaxed lifestyle (Me) and the work (Rich). Summer is on its way and everything is better when it's sunny. Now to decide what we are going to do next!

Sealions