Advertisement
Published: November 14th 2005
Edit Blog Post
chez la mer
the garden at chez la mer backpackers Small town life is good...I've been to another production at the Gaiety Hall. This time it was a play, called "The Onion," about...onions. Actually more of a comedic interpretation of New Zealand based on a family onion farm. The actors (all 2 of them) and the director and sound guy stayed at the backpacker where I work, and the director is an American man, but he got New Zealand residency about 2 years ago. He told me about how hard but satisfying it was to write jokes about NZ that Kiwis would find funny, but he did a good job because the audience loved it.
I also saw the local Fireman's Competition, hosted here in Akaroa. Many of the volunteer firemen from the Banks Peninsula came to compete...including owner of Chez la Mer Backpackers, Roy. He competed in just one race, for guys who have been firemen for under 3 years. The races involved unloading the hose/tools from the firetruck (for the competitions purposes this was a wooden box on wheels), connecting the hose to the water supply, running the hose down the lawn as the water was turned on, and spraying a target. And Roy won! It was great
chez la mer
the garden at chez la mer backpackers fun.
I've been working at the restaurant 3-4 days a week, and at the backpackers 6 days a week, so i only have 1 full day off a week. I've started planning these carefully...I only have 7 full days off though I'll be in Akaroa for another month and a half. Last week for my day off, I went kayaking from Onuku, another bay on the Banks Peninsula. The leader picked me up at 7:30am and we drove out to Onuku where we met the other kayakers and got all set to go. It was a beautiful day, blue sky, calm waters. We headed out into Akaroa Harbour, and after about 5-10 minutes saw our first dolphins, Hector's dolphins. They are the smallest dolphin, about 4-5 feet long, and really curious. They swam over to us, and we could see them swimming under the boats, poking their heads out, even scratching their backs on the undersides of some of the kayaks. Throughout the whole day, we saw about 15 dolphins. Hector's dolphins are not known to jump out of the water, but apparently there is one tour boat they really like, and we saw them jump for this boat.
chez la mer
the back of chez la mer, through the garden The tour boat has a dog onboard (he's a little terrier and wears a little life vest...very funny). The dog can hear the dolphins and he gets really excited and starts wagging his tail and barking when dolphins are near the tour boat...maybe the dolphins like him too and put on a show for him.
Roy (owner of Chez la Mer) offers boat trips/fishing trip to hostel guests, and takes his workers along for free! So on Saturday, Isabel and I and two Dutch guests went out for a fishing trip/boat tour. Another nice day, but a little cloudy and windy. As we were pulling out of the wharf, we saw a small sailboat that had capsized. Its two passengers were holding onto it and trying to get it upright, but with no luck. We circled around them at the smae time another boat pulled up and tied itself to the sailboat to tug it in. But the two guys were still hanging onto the side, so we followed them in to make sure they didnt fall off. One guy got too tired so we scooped him up and brought him in with us to the wharf. Roy is
also a volunteer in the ambulance for the local hospital, so he was full of advice about preventing hypothermia. After making sure the boat and other passenger were safely on shore, we headed out to sea. We went out to a spot that Roy knows to try and catch some dinner. In the two plus hours that we were out there, I caught about 10 fish...including the biggest and the smallest ones. After having turned vegetarian last time I went fishing, I wasn't sure how I would like it, but it was great fun. Most of the fish we threw back , either they were too small or weren't very good for eating, but in the end we brought home 5 good sized blue cods. And the fish seemed to like my bait because I caught by far the most fish. I felt kind of bad for the Dutch guy who only caught 2 and had paid to be out there fishing, and I offered to switch sides of the boat with him thinking there were more fish on my side of the boat. So we switched, and within two minutes, I felt another tug on the line and reeled
akaroa
view of pier from my favorite grassy reading spot in another fish, and he still didn't catch anything.
As we were heading home, Roy took us to the local seal colony, where we saw a few seals sunbathing, and one playing in the water. We also passed two dolphins on the way back. As we pulled into the wharf, the sun was coming out and the sky was clearing. Isabel and I walked back to the backpacker, and turned back to look at the sky. But it was covered by a really dark cloud, and the wind picked up. It started pouring down rain, and there were some lightening strikes...we were lucky to be off the water.
Roy cooked up a delicious dinner, and the fish was delicious.
This week on my day off, I'm thinking about doing the mail run, in which I go along with the local postman to deliver the mail to various secluded bays around the peninsula...
hope everyones doing well...unfortunately, no pictures to post at the moment, but I'll get some up here from the boat trip in a couple of days.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.082s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0434s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
lassie
non-member comment
This sounds like so much fun. Can't wait to see the pix, and to hear about the mail run! love, mom