So for those of you who may have suspected i have fallen off the bottom of the earth, im afraid it is not so. I am still in New Zealand and have spent the last 2 months staying with the Kennedys in Waimate, South Island. I found these guys through the Helpx website and they are fab, basically i stay with them and get my accomodation and keep, in exchange for excercising their four horses and getting them fit for hunting. Its a really nice way of doing things because it keeps the costs down for me, and you get to experience life in a proper new zealand family rather than just doing the touristy stuff, and of course i get to ride which doesnt seem to much like work to me.
Im not going to bore everyone with all the details, but i have really enjoyed it, and came to stay with these guys for 4 weeks at the start of feb and am still here in the middle of april. I am however leaving tomorrow with Jen to start exploring the rest of new zealand and am VERY sad to be leaving. In fact im almost sadder to be leaving these guys than i was to be leaving home at the start of my trip.
In my time at the farm i have milked cows, been trusted with a chainsaw and cut an stacked firewood, been trusted with a hedge trimmer, trimmed the hedges stood on the back of a quad bike, raced around the farm on the back of the quad bike, held a kids birthday party, made horse jumps, clipped horses, put up fences, drunk alot of beer, eaten lots of yummy food, annoyed Richie as much as i can, and of course ridden several ponies!
Jen arrived back in new zealand on the 7th April and after a extended flight time as she discovered she was flying tokoyo - christchurch - auckland - christchurch and the stupid airline wouldnt let her off the first time she arrived in christchurch. I hitched a lift up to christchurch off one of the stock truck drivers and met jen at the airport where we picked up our campervan and headed home to waimate. Spent a couple of days riding the ponies and then took jen off for her first hunt in nz. Not an entirely succesfull day as we had one horse that wouldnt jump, one horse go through a jump and one horse go lame, but still fun and banter was had.
Today we started our official travels and completed a lovely drive round the lakes and up to mount cook, we made it back to waimate in time for dinner as the loop ended up half an hour away. I have come to the conclusion that this is how travelling should be, seeing the sights and then coming home to your dinner on the table, a nice big comfy bed and a hot shower. However sadly this is not to be and for the forseeable future i will be confined to a campervan.
