Dec. 27/10 5:13pm
Our current WWOOFing stay is coming to an end tomorrow. After the ferry docked on the 20th, we drove for about 30 minutes in the dark to a campground that's managed by the Department of Conservation. We drove past it first and then realized it was probably what we were looking for. It was a warm night and the site is just over a dune from the beach so we eventually worked out where to set the tent up and probably
didn't get to sleep before midnight. During the night a rain squall moved in so we woke to a pouring! After a carefully planned pack-up, we drove into the town of Blenheim to eat breakfast in a covered car park. A couple hours down the coast we got to Kaikoura and found our way to the Circle K Ranch and our hosts Max and Kd.
The first day we started clearing out this creek that runs through their property. The watercress and other grass had grown across so thick that you have to saw the edges and then pick up the rafts of roots with a rake. So a couple hours of that was plenty. I don't remember what else we got up to the first day but slowly our project became digging holes for posts that will support bird netting over their crayfish ponds. They are developing a freshwater crayfish farm so there are 5 ponds dug out, 4 of them are filled with water and 3 of them have crays in them. It takes a few years for them to be up to a decent size to sell and I think they have some that are about a year old. They are large ponds with the biggest being about 750 cubic metres. Also on the farm there are a few cows, some goats, lots of chickens and ducks and a dog.
We've been getting along with the hosts and having fun just chatting. Max is from the UK originally and Kd is from California but they are both New Zealand citizens now. They are great company so it's made the stay quite nice. Particularly as it fell over Christmas.
The town of Kaikoura is about 3500 people permanently but they get over 900,000 visitors in a year! One main feature is that there is an underwater trench where 1000m offshore it drops to about 1200m deep. We didn't see the bottom. So they get a lot of sealife because the currents converge and create a nutrient-rich environment. So there are heaps of whales, seals and dolphins that live in the area. One of the big things people do here is take a whale watching boat tour which we had planned to do. However, on the advice of Max and Kd we looked into the "swim with the dolphins" tour. At first I had thought it was similar to many other captive dolphin swims so I wasn't too keen but reading more into it, we realized that you swim with them in the wild. So we went down to the office and were told that they were all booked up until the end of the year and we only had plans to stay until Dec 28th. We put out names on the waiting lists and hoped for a phone call.
On the afternoon of the 23rd we got a call inviting us to go on the 5:30am tour the next morning. We jumped at it! At that hour the sun was just making its way up and we got ourselves ready and went into town. They get you suited up at the office and then you watch a short video about what will happen and then they bus you to the dock. The good thing about the ocean being flat lately is that it was a nice ride out to find the dolphins - only about 20 minutes before we started spotting them. These dolphins are called Dusky dolphins and they only live in Kaikoura. They are smaller than bottlenose dolphins, with an average of about 6ft or so long. I think a couple thousand call the area home but they don't always travel in pods. They feed at night so at that hour we found them starting to group into larger pods. The boat carries 30 people but they only let 16 go in to swim. Once you reach an area with several dolphins, they stop the boat and you jump in with your
snorkels ready. The water temp was 16 degrees so it wasn't really cold.
The visibility in the area is about 5m so all of a sudden you see a dolphin come by. They swim right by you but of course they know where you are so they don't run into you. In the first spot you would usually see a dolphin about at least every 30 seconds. The advice they gave was to make lots of noise to draw attention to yourself and to be as dolphin-like as you can. If the dolphins find you interesting they may circle around you and swim by again and if not they just continue on their way as they please. They don't put any food in the water to attract them and there's no nets or barriers at all. So we all swim along making all sorts of noises - most of us trying to sound like dolphins and Dustin making horse noises to have something different for the dolphins to be interested in. They said that if a dolphin is circling you it's a good idea to maintain eye contact and swim circles with them so it's stunning when that happens. They are very intelligent of course. All the noise-making leaves you out of breath and then swimming in circles makes you a little dizzy so you have to
pause every now and then. Dustin did a bit of diving down which also gets them to swim near you. They warned that trying to touch them would just make them swim away and once I was using my arms to circle and reached out too far and the dolphin took off so we tried to keep our hands at our sides. I even had a mother with a calf swimming circles around me which was amazing! She came back a few times or it was
several pairs of mothers with their calves.
These dolphins also commonly play around so we saw too many backflips to count and they often jumped out of the water too. We just didn't get any photos of them in the air.
The first stop lasted about 20 minutes maybe and then they called us back to the boat. They moved the boat to catch up with the pods which were grouping up even more. So the next stop it felt like you saw a dolphin every 10 seconds or so! Sometimes there would be 5 or 6 in view at a time. Every now and then you bump into other swimmers because you're all so focused on watching the dolphins. The second stop must have
been 20-30 minutes before we got back on the boat for one more stop in another area. That last stop had fewer dolphins but that just meant back to every 30 seconds or so you saw one. So we had a cracker of a morning and an incredible experience. The mountains that border the coast are gorgeous and the water is such a lovely blue.
Christmas Eve continued back at the farm. Dustin had a nap and I got to work making Nanaimo Bars. We had thought of something to make that was from home and although neither of us can remember ever having homemade Nanaimo Bars, we thought it would be yummy. We did some more work digging and setting posts around the ponds and then when Kd got home from work we went out hunting for a Christmas tree. It's been some time since I've gotten one from anywhere that's not pre-cut so it was funny when we pulled into this little random picnic area to find a pine. Dustin had it cut in no time and we brought it back to decorate. I love seeing other people's ornaments and what goes on their tree - it's so cool when there's similar ones from your childhood. After the tree was ready we still had to get some food prepped for Christmas Day.
Given that they have ducks on their farm, they chose to have a duck dish for Christmas dinner. So they rounded up a couple ducks and well, killed them. This is the process. I helped pluck one and they realized that these ducks weren't fattened up enough so had to get one more which Dustin did the honours. We figure if we eat meat we have to be willing to slaughter and clean it otherwise maybe we shouldn't be so
cavalier in our meal choices. Since we don't get the chance to take part in the process really ever, we thought we ought to try. We thanked the ducks and they were all ready for the next day.
We had a lovely evening chatting and laughing before heading to bed. It had been a long day. It was cool at their place because the bedroom we stayed in was sort of an attic space I guess you'd say. You climbed up a ladder and there was a bed up there. It's maybe 4 feet high or so which meant you couldn't stand up but it worked out fine and was quite cozy. There were doors but we left them open for some air flow. The days had been super hot but all but one night it was cool enough for sleeping.
Christmas morning arrived and Dustin awoke with glee. haha. Turns out that we both got each other a hat! His is a surf hat for wearing in the water and he got me one to wear around sightseeing because most hats make me look nerdy and this one does a bit less than others. We went downstairs and even had a wrapped gift to open from Kd and Max - this great Kiwi candy called Pineapple Lumps which is pineapple-
flavoured marshmallow kind of taffy covered in chocolate. Mmmm. After gifts and breakfast, I made a pumpkin pie for later in the day and Dustin went looking for surf without any luck. It had been flat since we got there.
A friend that Kd works with came over for the Christmas lunch (most people's big meal here is lunch rather than dinner) and we played a round of croquet. Neither of us had played before and it was quite fun. We sat down to a sunny lunch out in the yard and their friend Annie had handmade some Christmas crackers which she filled with mini water guns and mini chocolate bars! Sweet as. Over bubbly we sat and chatted and had quite a nice afternoon. We didn't end up staying up too late since we were pretty tired. The next day we kept at the posts (there were about a dozen that we ended up putting it and since the bank isn't the same height all around the pond there was lots of surveying and measuring to make sure they all stood up tall enough to keep the net from drooping.)
In the afternoon we drove down to check out the surf spot to find waves big enough to ride! Dustin went in and they were maybe 4 feet tall and quickly they picked up to double that or more! It actually looked pretty scary sometimes because they peaked really weird. But it was the biggest surf he had been in and he managed just fine so that was cool. Just getting comfortable in waves that size is a big thing. Later in the day other friends of Max and Kd came over with their 3 kids. They are a very gingery family and the kids were cute. So we had a nice dinner with fresh pesto made from the basil in the garden. It was great to be eating all these garden-fresh vegetables and most of the meat is also from cows they had raised on the property too. So delicious food all around! On Boxing Day evening we were sitting around a fire sharing stories and comparing health care systems haha.
So although it's odd to have a warm Christmas, I don't think we could have spent it in a better spot with more welcoming people this year. It would have been a bit lonely to just be camping or something and see all the families around for their summer holidays.
Our current WWOOFing stay is coming to an end tomorrow. After the ferry docked on the 20th, we drove for about 30 minutes in the dark to a campground that's managed by the Department of Conservation. We drove past it first and then realized it was probably what we were looking for. It was a warm night and the site is just over a dune from the beach so we eventually worked out where to set the tent up and probably
didn't get to sleep before midnight. During the night a rain squall moved in so we woke to a pouring! After a carefully planned pack-up, we drove into the town of Blenheim to eat breakfast in a covered car park. A couple hours down the coast we got to Kaikoura and found our way to the Circle K Ranch and our hosts Max and Kd.
The first day we started clearing out this creek that runs through their property. The watercress and other grass had grown across so thick that you have to saw the edges and then pick up the rafts of roots with a rake. So a couple hours of that was plenty. I don't remember what else we got up to the first day but slowly our project became digging holes for posts that will support bird netting over their crayfish ponds. They are developing a freshwater crayfish farm so there are 5 ponds dug out, 4 of them are filled with water and 3 of them have crays in them. It takes a few years for them to be up to a decent size to sell and I think they have some that are about a year old. They are large ponds with the biggest being about 750 cubic metres. Also on the farm there are a few cows, some goats, lots of chickens and ducks and a dog.
We've been getting along with the hosts and having fun just chatting. Max is from the UK originally and Kd is from California but they are both New Zealand citizens now. They are great company so it's made the stay quite nice. Particularly as it fell over Christmas.
The town of Kaikoura is about 3500 people permanently but they get over 900,000 visitors in a year! One main feature is that there is an underwater trench where 1000m offshore it drops to about 1200m deep. We didn't see the bottom. So they get a lot of sealife because the currents converge and create a nutrient-rich environment. So there are heaps of whales, seals and dolphins that live in the area. One of the big things people do here is take a whale watching boat tour which we had planned to do. However, on the advice of Max and Kd we looked into the "swim with the dolphins" tour. At first I had thought it was similar to many other captive dolphin swims so I wasn't too keen but reading more into it, we realized that you swim with them in the wild. So we went down to the office and were told that they were all booked up until the end of the year and we only had plans to stay until Dec 28th. We put out names on the waiting lists and hoped for a phone call.
On the afternoon of the 23rd we got a call inviting us to go on the 5:30am tour the next morning. We jumped at it! At that hour the sun was just making its way up and we got ourselves ready and went into town. They get you suited up at the office and then you watch a short video about what will happen and then they bus you to the dock. The good thing about the ocean being flat lately is that it was a nice ride out to find the dolphins - only about 20 minutes before we started spotting them. These dolphins are called Dusky dolphins and they only live in Kaikoura. They are smaller than bottlenose dolphins, with an average of about 6ft or so long. I think a couple thousand call the area home but they don't always travel in pods. They feed at night so at that hour we found them starting to group into larger pods. The boat carries 30 people but they only let 16 go in to swim. Once you reach an area with several dolphins, they stop the boat and you jump in with your
snorkels ready. The water temp was 16 degrees so it wasn't really cold.
The visibility in the area is about 5m so all of a sudden you see a dolphin come by. They swim right by you but of course they know where you are so they don't run into you. In the first spot you would usually see a dolphin about at least every 30 seconds. The advice they gave was to make lots of noise to draw attention to yourself and to be as dolphin-like as you can. If the dolphins find you interesting they may circle around you and swim by again and if not they just continue on their way as they please. They don't put any food in the water to attract them and there's no nets or barriers at all. So we all swim along making all sorts of noises - most of us trying to sound like dolphins and Dustin making horse noises to have something different for the dolphins to be interested in. They said that if a dolphin is circling you it's a good idea to maintain eye contact and swim circles with them so it's stunning when that happens. They are very intelligent of course. All the noise-making leaves you out of breath and then swimming in circles makes you a little dizzy so you have to
pause every now and then. Dustin did a bit of diving down which also gets them to swim near you. They warned that trying to touch them would just make them swim away and once I was using my arms to circle and reached out too far and the dolphin took off so we tried to keep our hands at our sides. I even had a mother with a calf swimming circles around me which was amazing! She came back a few times or it was
several pairs of mothers with their calves.
These dolphins also commonly play around so we saw too many backflips to count and they often jumped out of the water too. We just didn't get any photos of them in the air.
The first stop lasted about 20 minutes maybe and then they called us back to the boat. They moved the boat to catch up with the pods which were grouping up even more. So the next stop it felt like you saw a dolphin every 10 seconds or so! Sometimes there would be 5 or 6 in view at a time. Every now and then you bump into other swimmers because you're all so focused on watching the dolphins. The second stop must have
been 20-30 minutes before we got back on the boat for one more stop in another area. That last stop had fewer dolphins but that just meant back to every 30 seconds or so you saw one. So we had a cracker of a morning and an incredible experience. The mountains that border the coast are gorgeous and the water is such a lovely blue.
Christmas Eve continued back at the farm. Dustin had a nap and I got to work making Nanaimo Bars. We had thought of something to make that was from home and although neither of us can remember ever having homemade Nanaimo Bars, we thought it would be yummy. We did some more work digging and setting posts around the ponds and then when Kd got home from work we went out hunting for a Christmas tree. It's been some time since I've gotten one from anywhere that's not pre-cut so it was funny when we pulled into this little random picnic area to find a pine. Dustin had it cut in no time and we brought it back to decorate. I love seeing other people's ornaments and what goes on their tree - it's so cool when there's similar ones from your childhood. After the tree was ready we still had to get some food prepped for Christmas Day.
Given that they have ducks on their farm, they chose to have a duck dish for Christmas dinner. So they rounded up a couple ducks and well, killed them. This is the process. I helped pluck one and they realized that these ducks weren't fattened up enough so had to get one more which Dustin did the honours. We figure if we eat meat we have to be willing to slaughter and clean it otherwise maybe we shouldn't be so
cavalier in our meal choices. Since we don't get the chance to take part in the process really ever, we thought we ought to try. We thanked the ducks and they were all ready for the next day.
We had a lovely evening chatting and laughing before heading to bed. It had been a long day. It was cool at their place because the bedroom we stayed in was sort of an attic space I guess you'd say. You climbed up a ladder and there was a bed up there. It's maybe 4 feet high or so which meant you couldn't stand up but it worked out fine and was quite cozy. There were doors but we left them open for some air flow. The days had been super hot but all but one night it was cool enough for sleeping.
Christmas morning arrived and Dustin awoke with glee. haha. Turns out that we both got each other a hat! His is a surf hat for wearing in the water and he got me one to wear around sightseeing because most hats make me look nerdy and this one does a bit less than others. We went downstairs and even had a wrapped gift to open from Kd and Max - this great Kiwi candy called Pineapple Lumps which is pineapple-
flavoured marshmallow kind of taffy covered in chocolate. Mmmm. After gifts and breakfast, I made a pumpkin pie for later in the day and Dustin went looking for surf without any luck. It had been flat since we got there.
A friend that Kd works with came over for the Christmas lunch (most people's big meal here is lunch rather than dinner) and we played a round of croquet. Neither of us had played before and it was quite fun. We sat down to a sunny lunch out in the yard and their friend Annie had handmade some Christmas crackers which she filled with mini water guns and mini chocolate bars! Sweet as. Over bubbly we sat and chatted and had quite a nice afternoon. We didn't end up staying up too late since we were pretty tired. The next day we kept at the posts (there were about a dozen that we ended up putting it and since the bank isn't the same height all around the pond there was lots of surveying and measuring to make sure they all stood up tall enough to keep the net from drooping.)
In the afternoon we drove down to check out the surf spot to find waves big enough to ride! Dustin went in and they were maybe 4 feet tall and quickly they picked up to double that or more! It actually looked pretty scary sometimes because they peaked really weird. But it was the biggest surf he had been in and he managed just fine so that was cool. Just getting comfortable in waves that size is a big thing. Later in the day other friends of Max and Kd came over with their 3 kids. They are a very gingery family and the kids were cute. So we had a nice dinner with fresh pesto made from the basil in the garden. It was great to be eating all these garden-fresh vegetables and most of the meat is also from cows they had raised on the property too. So delicious food all around! On Boxing Day evening we were sitting around a fire sharing stories and comparing health care systems haha.
So although it's odd to have a warm Christmas, I don't think we could have spent it in a better spot with more welcoming people this year. It would have been a bit lonely to just be camping or something and see all the families around for their summer holidays.
"a very gingery family" ha ha ha!
ReplyDeleteSounds like your Christmas was interesting!
Merry Christmas and happy New Year (tomorrow!!)