Christmas is here...

what an adventure it has been so far with still 10 months to go. today is Christmas and tomorrow i will have been in this incredible place for exactly 2 months.

i'm now sitting in a hostel in Christchurch, a German, all women's hostel on Christmas night, one of the only places with available rooms on this night. this evening i took a little stroll around cathedral sq in the middle of the city where almost every shop is closed and people were walking peacefully around with a many smiles. it felt good.

the day has been a pleasant one to say the least as i spent it eating wonderful food in the lovely company of Anita's family. it's warm outside so we had a huge lunch outside under some tents and a huge dessert to follow. i think there were over 20 of us and everyone was so friendly and welcoming. last night for Christmas Eve we had a large dinner with Johnny and Alastair's sister and her family which was also quite nice and warm and cheerful, just as Christmas should be. again i felt very welcome and even got a few Christmas gifts. Santa is quite faithful. I learned from Malin, the sweedish fiance of the brothers' nephew, that Father Christmas delivers gifts in Sweden the night before Christmas Eve, which made a lot of sense seeing as it would be very difficult for Santa to deliver gifts to the entire world in one night. takes the pressure of for him a little. :)

what news? things on the farm have been busy. i've remained on the same sheep farm in Kaikoura for nearly 2 months and have learned heaps and heaps! we've cut the tails off of lambs and drafted them from their mothers to be sent off to the meatworks or to other farms. we've also done some major fence repairs and driven new post and such...and when i say we drove posts, we actually dug old posts out, dug new holes, placed the new ones in, and filled in the holes with dirt and rocks. needless to say my arms were a bit sore after that. johnny also has some 75 cows and a few days ago we ear clipped and tagged the calfs. that was quite a task!

there is a fascinating lady that i've gotten to know a little here and there who comes to help muster sheep and cattle and do the tagging and tailing and such. her name is jenny wards and she breaks horses for a living, as in, she musters wild horses and breaks them and trains them to be ridden. she is quite impressive and incredibly talented in so many ways. she can do anything a man or woman can do! come to find that she and some other horse riders from Kaikoura were extra horsemen in the Lord of the Rings movies. she also helped to train some of the riders and figure out various manouevers (eye dunt noe howw tue spel)for the horses during battle scenes. i've had some awesome conversations with here about this and heard some great stories. i've also watched her work a horse in an effort to rebreak it of some bad habbits. i really wanted to see a mare foaling but they usually do it between 12 and 5am and even after staying up most of the night with jenny waiting for this horse, she didn't foal and i never got to see it. so bummed. hopefully i'll get another opportunity. i'm so fortunate to know this amazing woman!

the weather has been flip flopping all over the place. any time i ask alastair what the weather is supposed to be like he always answers, "it's going to clear up and rain." thus you can see that new zealand weather is always changing and hardly ever predictible. just 3 days ago it was very cold and rainy and today it was blazing hot and sunny. i'm headed tomorrow to Hanmer Springs which is a quaint village with natural thermal springs. i'll spend a few days there, enjoying a short break, and head back to Kaikoura on Saturday. i have yet to get bored with the awesome scenery here and only get excited to eventually move on and explore new places and people!

my internet time is up so i must go. but a very Merry Christmas to all!

alrighty. i'm gonna try to put a link to some photos and hopefully it will work sufficiently. it's a bit troublesome to upload pics on this here thing, so i went with the link option. :)

http://elon.facebook.com/album.php?aid=18854&id=506021509

http://elon.facebook.com/album.php?aid=18854&page=2&id=506021509

http://elon.facebook.com/album.php?aid=18854&page=3&id=506021509

hope these work! let me know if they don't!

peace.

ok. i just discovered it's not working. i'll try to fix things later. you can only see them if you join facebook and become my friend. sorry.

later guys and gals!

lots and lots of sheep.

so much has happened.

i do have a bit of time to write, but i'm currently entertaining 13 year old david (so of farm owners at the same time!) at the same time. he's going on about feeding lambs.

first off...if you want to call me from outside of new zealand this is what you need to do:

dial the code to get out of the country (for the u.s. it's 011)
then dial 64 (new zealand's country code)
then dial 2102653080

this is my cell phone number

from within new zealand (if you happen to be passing through) it's 02102653080.

so there ya have it.

just quickly...

i've traveled from auckland to wellington (south tip of north island) on an 11 hour bus ride and met two older kiwi ladies who had done missionary work in india and bangledesh (sp?) and had met mother teresa. passed by mt. doom (lord of the rings) along the way. beauty everywhere. then i took a 3 hour ferry ride to picton (north tip of south island). took a bus to kaikoura where i've been for the past 4 days. went fishing and caught barracouda, pirch, and crayfish (delicious). saw some albatross (incredible!) and dolphins. also took a walk around the kaikoura penninsula along limestone bluffs and saw and smelled some big fat seals, got attacked by some oyster catchers, and spotted two yellow eyed penguins in a sea cave. the water is incredible and blue and i wish i could describe it to give you an accurate picture. i will try to upload some photos in the future (as i said before) when i get on a faster computer.

i'm in my second day on the sheep far. the farm is amazingly beautiful and about 1600 acres.

i'll write more soon. love to all.

i touched my first sheep today!

already incredible

ok. so many words and so little motivation to write them all. i'll do my best.

i'm still in auckland. plan is to leave tomorrow to head to a sheep farm in kaikoura on the south island. sweet as. i'm pumped!

let's see, the past two days have consisted of...

well saturday i woke up and felt pretty ill and tired. i forgot to take the airborne...blast. so i have myself a little cold. saturday was pretty crappy but i mananged to meet 3 cool peeps in the midst of it all. two americans, sarah and paul, and one austrian, elke (pronounced elka). i spent most of the day sleeping and writing some letters, and then some more sleeping. yesterday i woke up feeling much more refreshed and ready to take on the day. paul left for some obscure island and sarah, elke, and i took off in the morning by ferry to Waiheke Island just off the coast of Auckland. We began along a tramping (hiking) path that looked appealing and expected it to last about 1.5 hours. Turned out we got off track somewhere along Church Bay Rd and traveled the coastline on and off beautiful, sharp, rocks that guarded the land and through less traveled paths where Gorse (gorse?) Bushes attacked us with full force! minimal, prickly, pain. there were some fantastic views along th way. at one point, in one of the MANY little bays we came across we spotted some sea kayakers and asked how much further to our destination, Black Pool. THey told us just around the corner, which we were releaved to hear since we had already been tramping for nearly 2 hours.

well, 6 corners later we reached a little beach and spotted a couple walking their dog. they kindly informed us that Black Pool was in fact, STILL, just around the [stinkin] corner. we asked them for the quickest way to civilization and they showed us a path and told us of a road to follow that should only take about an hour. finding the road, with no sign of cars, we walked for about 15 minutes, straight up hill, and about the time we started downhill we heard a car (hallelujah!) and stuck out our thumbs. they were happy to give us a ride (an older couple) in the back of their wooden truck bed. when they asked where we were headed we said, "lunch!" and they drove on to drop us off at a lovely Fish n Chips shack where i had the biggest meal of my life. 3.5hours of serious hiking and i couldn't even finish half of the chips (fries) in front of me. It was spectacular!

Finding that Waiheke Island has 24 vineyards in the space of about 92 sq km, we got some advice and walked another half hour to a vineyard where i did my first wine tasting. it was definitely fun and interesting, but i am not so much a fan of wine. by the 7th and final wine i was happy to be done. feeling warm and happy, the 3 of us sat outside the beautiful vineyard on a wonderfull grassy nole and took in the view of the bay and surrounding islands, vineyards and sheep farms. wow. i was so happy.

around 4:30pm we headed on another half hour walk back to the warf to sit in a coffee shop and await the next ferry. when we arrived, the only restaurant area was being renovated and wasn't open yet. thus...we talked each other into hitching a ride with the new owner back into town and spent the next 4 hours relaxing and chatting (sans the friendly but older restaurant owner) in a little pub overlooking a lovely bay. it being a sunday night in the off-season, we were the only people for quite some time. a little later a small group of locals made their way in after a long day's work and we hung out and chatted and relaxed a little more. it was nice and interesting and i must say the new zealanders are quite the charmers. i wasn't buying too much of it but i enjoyed a few conversations. i think sarah was a little more excited about the boys than i was...needless to say Elke and I had to talk her out of staying the night on the island. eeek! we walked an additional half hour back down to the warf and caught the 10:15 ferry back to auckland and spent a long, hard night's rest in our hostel room. it was a pretty incredible experience.

i can't wait to get out of this city. i'm sure there is a lot to offer, but i'm ready to be with the sheep and begin to feel settled.

it's so hard to look ahead a year's time and imagine the end...it seems so far away yet i know when it comes it will have felt much to short. i'm excited to see what life has in store on the south island alongside the sheep and cattle and all of their poop. yes! i can't wait to always smell like a sheep. i hope it's as romantic as it seems from afar. i will be finding out very soon!

love abounds for you all. life is swell...or better yet, sweet as!

peace.


ps. unfortunately i can't upload any photos yet...but i'll get to that asap.

i am here. in the land of the long white cloud.

so i arrived, on time, and tired as all get out. but alas i managed to get to my hostel and then on to orientation at the international exchange office. it was very informative and made me feel so excited despite my tired estate. there are photos all around me of all the exciting things there are to explore and do here. some good news, the unemployment rate in new zealand is 3%. they must be doing something right. maybe i'll find out what that is and spread it around.

i have to admit, it is strange to be here alone and to ponder the year ahead. i've been so tired and not feeling much like socializing but i know this will pass as soon as i catch up to the day.

some fun facts about new zealand include...

there are 4 million people and 60 million sheep. (yes!)
there is a region on the east coast of new zealand that is known for being the first place in the world to see the sun rise. i'm assuming it's quite exciting on new year's eve!
every location in new zealand is 100 or fewer kilometers from the sea. wow. my kind of place.
new zealand has the cheapest sky diving options in the world.
oh yeah, and it's just plain "SWEET AS!"

more to come soon. i hope. i have free internet at the moment but i'm not certain of the future...who is really.

hope everyone is well. i hope to be on a farm soon. i'll try to keep things up to date.

mucho looooove.


d

tomorrow begins my journey...

tomorrow, ie, saturday morning i board a plane at 6am to eugene, oregon which marks the first leg of my trip. yippee! i spoke with a farm owner last night via telephone and he seemed overjoyed to have me and i also returned the semtiment...duh! thousands of sheep on his farm. you can actually check out his place at this website...

http://4wheeladventures.co.nz

this doesn't show the farm, however, it does give you a glimpse of the other end of their business which is some 4wheeler trecks, along with some amazing photos of the surrounding environment. no so bad!

so, i spose i'll be in oregon until the 24th when i'll head for the land of sheep, missing oct. 25th, 2007 entirely (i will not exist on that day. bizzzzaaaaarrrre.) and hopefully a few days later i'll travel to the south island of new zealand, in the kaikoura region where johnny trewin's farm exists. very exciting, though extensively surreal still.


i'll keep all updated as much as i possibly can manage. i have no clue how often this will be.


loooove.

d