Happy New Year!!

With a combination of the weather and different traditions for the holidays, it was a Christmas I’ll remember for awhile. My last blog left off with me headed to Dunedin for the holidays but that all changed. I did go to Dunedin for a week and loved it. But Adi and Adrian from Totaranui emailed me in search of some help before the holidays. I gladly accepted their offer to go back up to the Marlborough Sounds for two weeks.

It was wonderful to go back…I felt like I was going home to my Kiwi family. It was great to see how much the gardens had grown, and the animals too! My little Betsy Boo was huge! Now that she's bigger she mingles with the other sheep and is starting to pick up their jumpy habits, but whenever I called to her when she was in the paddock, she would look up and Baaa back to me. She even ran over a few times so I could give her a scratch on the cheek.

We worked hard during those two weeks, gardening and cleaning like crazy. Adi and Adrian let some friends of the family use the house over Christmas so we were preparing it for them. We did more work on the cottages and they look fantastic. I polyurethaned the floor in the bathroom (in the cottage) so it's almost done. It just needs a toilet to finish it off. I mowed lawns, and cleared out the "spider garden". Everything was looking great when we left!

It was also nice to experience some Kiwi traditions for Christmas. I helped Adi make her Christmas cake which was delicious. We also baked a sweet bread and lots of cookies. Adi made Christmas crackers which we don't have in the US. They are little gifts that snap when you open them. Adi's book of songs on the piano changed to christmas music and it filled the house as we sipped ginger wine and prepared dinner. We went out and got two Christmas trees (one for the house and one for the cottage) and Adi let me help decorate.

I had a great time, again! There was talk of them doing a big trip to the states and Canada, then to Europe, so hopefully they will make a stop in NH (or wherever I happen to be)!

After my two weeks there (I left on the 23rd of Dec.), I headed to Hanmer Springs (pronounced Hamner for some odd reason) for Christmas. It was a cozy little alpine village and I stayed at the YHA. It reminded me of Colorado. Although I stayed in a dorm room, I had the whole room to myself for three days! Apparently, not many backpackers go to Hanmer for the holidays....so it was very quiet for me, but nice all the same. The day after Christmas I went to the hot springs which was really busy. They had a huge range of pools to choose from. I liked the really hot, sulphur pools.

After Hanmer, I went back to Christchurch for a night, then to Lake Tekapo. The water in the lake is extremely blue due to the rock flour in the water. Rock flour is a powdery substance caused by the glaciers grinding up rock really finely and depositing it in the water. Funnily, I met up with a girl I had met up in Picton (by Adi's house). Kim is from Belgium and traveling around NZ before heading to Australia. We happened to be on the same bus down to Lake Tekapo and in the same hostel. I've had lots of instances where I've bumped into the same people in different parts of the country.

After Lake Tekapo, I headed to Mount Cook. My plan was to spend New Year's eve at Mount Cook but all the hostels in town were booked up, so I could only spend one night. The day I arrived, I wasted no time....dropped my bags at the YHA and headed straight for the Hooker Valley Track which weaves along a river up to a glacial lake near the base of Mt. Cook. I took lots of photos but am too lazy to post the good ones here, so all you get for now is my blurry foot shot. :)

The next day I headed back to Dunedin on a shuttle with a very friendly, and talkative bus driver. I happened to be the only person on the shuttle too!

So now I'm in the beautiful city of Dunedin again. I arrived on the 30th of Dec. I'm working/living at a hostel right in town, making beds and cleaning for free accommodation. Not a bad deal. I work from 10-1:00, then have the rest of the day to wander the city. There is a great night life here and cozy little cafes. On New Year's eve, there was a BBQ at the hostel, then a group of us went down to the downtown Octagon area to watch the bands and the fireworks. After midnight we went to a club, stumbling home sometime around 3:30. It was a great time.

So I'm just biding time here until February when I head back down to Invercargill for the Habitat build.