Exploring the Land of the Long White Cloud

The View from the kitchen/living room at the sheep farm! Sorry guys, I was planning to post a heap of photos but these three took ages so sorry that's all there will be for now. These were all from the sheep farm we were on Jan 10-17/11.

Jan 27/11 8:01pm There was sunshine today! For the entire day! We lucked out with the weather and went out for a hike to the Rob Roy glacier. It was about a 3 hour return hike, something like 10km and around 330m elevation gain so it wasn't too strenuous - although a bit tough for me after weeks of relatively low-activity. The views were absolutely stunning though. At the end of the track there's just this massive wide view of glacier-topped mountains with waterfalls all over. The drive out there was an hour each way and most of it was on a gravel road. It was a very popular spot though and there were heaps of cars in the car park when we were leaving. We have been in Wanaka for a night now. It's about 3.5 hours from Dunedin and we visited the town on our trip a couple years ago. We'll be coming into a stretch of cities we've been to before so it will be neat to see if there's been much change or to spend more time in them. From here we'll head towards th...

Well we have spent the last 4 days in Dunedin, we got a cabin to hide from the cold and rain of summer here. Today the high is about 14 degrees! Definitely thought summer would be a bit warmer but we've been told this is pretty normal. We finished up our farm stay on Monday and it was only a few hours over to Dunedin. We've just been recharging mostly, I've had a bit of a cold lately so trying to get rid of it. Dustin got out to surf once but then the wind kicked up for a few days and the conditions were huge and messy. We're starting another wwoofing stop today just outside Dunedin up near the port. We'll be here a few nights before heading over to the west coast of the south island. We have about 3 weeks left on this island so we've been trying to sort out our plans for the time and trying to work out another wwoofing stop or two. There's a great wine region on the north part of the island so I thought a winery/vineyard would be a great experience! App...

Jan. 12/11 7:14pm Lately it's been light out until about 10pm! So we've been going to bed late and getting up early because we hardly notice it's so late at night. Right now we are staying at Stonewood farm. It's way way way south on the south island and they run a few thousand sheep and cattle. We're wwoofing with a family of five with the children being 12, 17 and 20 or so. They have been very happy to have Dustin do a bunch of fixes on doors and around the sheds and I've been helping get the family photos organized and into albums. The house has a stunning view from the kitchen and living room area - it's a few hundred metres from the ocean but it's up on a cliff so you see their paddocks and then the ocean. Just lovely! When we left Manapouri the other day we drove into Invercargill because the small bays and towns we passed on the way were all but deserted. We tried to stay at Colac Bay because it was gorgeous and Pete comes from a town called C...

Jan 6/11 8:30pm We haven't even been away from New Plymouth for a month and it feels like it's been many weeks! Being on the road sure slows time down in some ways. So our wwoofing stay in Christchurch was actually really nice. The house had 5 or 6 bedrooms and it was very luxurious. We had a bathroom to ourselves and our bedroom had a couch and a balcony! So we were a bit spoiled for our 5 nights there. We helped clean up the gardens because he's hoping to sell the place next year so we pruned trees, weeded, planted flaxes and other stuff around the yard. I washed the windows and Dustin helped with clearing the spouting. We went into the city on the 30th for the cricket match. New Zealand played Pakistan and they had quite a spectacular loss but we still enjoyed ourselves. They hand out these little banners and one side says "4" and the other says "6" so that you can hold it up when they score either of those. We had front row seats in the middle of...