Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the wild and crazy lives of Benjamin and Justin. We've been non-stop for the past 10 days or so... learning our little hearts out. We'll keep this resonably short:
After a couple days in New Brighton, right by the beach, we bought a 1981 Mitsubishi L300. It's so hot! With wheels come wings, and we set off down south after kicking it with some friends, Ang, LZ, and Sez in Christchurch. About 90 mins down Highway 1, we pulled off to find the ocean and a place to park for the night. Unpaved roads to dead-ends and farms created adventurous searching through a night with no lights, but alas, the sounds of the ocean fill our ears, smiles appear. Upon waking, we found ourselves walking on a rock beach, collecting NZ jade, crystaline stones, and other tresures galore - we had to limit our pickings.
We arrived at Otekaieke Station, just west of Oamaru, and got to work the next morning after meeting our hosts, Tony and Jo. Along with Lone, our Danish friend and fellow farm worker, we tagged lambs' ears with a piercing stapler and sorted out which ones belonged to which ewes. This was our first introduction to hands on sheep farming. We jumped right into tailing in the next days - if you want the graphic details of this process, email us and we'd be more than happy to elaborate, and fully quench your curiousity. Some friends of Tony and Jo came by for tea and invited us to come to the lake for water skiing and inner-tubing on water biscuts. Giddy Up! Definitely one of the the most extreme activities we've done, as Dave and Pip, our lake playmates, knew how to rip around on their boat. Yey adrenaline.
We camped that night on the Waitake River; our site was boardered by the river and a small pool that eddied off the main flow. Our hosts provided steak from their cattle - we cooked it up
steak on a rock style. We met a lecturer from the University of Melbourne in AU who was fishing, quite interesting fellow, came back later and gave us 5 lb of trout, we cleaned and gutted them - great for lunch the next day! Back at Otekaieke we slept well and rose early. 5am breakfast, an hour via 4x4 out into the high country, and a full day mustering 2000 sheep. Literally a day in the life of a sheppard. Lots of whistling, lots of baaahhhh's, we walked up and down and around hills, through streams and valleys... seriously paradise. Sun kept us going through most of the day and we returned home to a delicious meal prepared by Jo.
This past weekend, we picked up James Weinberger in Christchurch and went to an outdoor rave back in Little River. Too amazing to get into right now... shoes kicked off on the dance floor around 8am, left the party around 11am. Congratulations to James for making it out - the next 5 weeks will be triple trouble. We're headed to Oster Vineyard to learn about winecraft. Lots of love...
