Advertisement
Published: October 13th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Akaroa Property & View
The property included the house in the left hand corner and all this land! Hello everyone! Another month has flown by and so we have nearly been away for half a year! Another month means another quiz, so have a pop at the
following two questions for the ultimate prize:
- At our last homestay in Akaroa, there was a horse (see picture) with a disability. What was it?
- Over the past month, what two animals has Bobby disinfected?
Since writing last, we left Byron Bay and went to Brisbane. The host's car
broke down and so a neighbour collected us and she was lovely. Our host,
Jennifer, was great too and she is the first host to give us a pudding
which was so good. She lives in the suburb Brighton which was similar to
our Brighton as it was near the sea. We also watched their version of 'Deal
Or No Deal' in the evening and it even made Noel Edmonds look good.
We started work the next day and this involved painting in one of her other
properties. We really enjoyed this as it was a nice change from weeding. In
our free time we went to a nearby wetland reserve which had a recent bush
fire so everything was
pretty much dead.
We had a day off on the following day and so we got up early and left for
Brisbane city. We went to the Botanical Gardens first which reminded us of
Sydney's. We then went to the Brisbane museum, followed by the Queensland
museum which was really good (and free). We learnt a lot about Queensland's
endangered animals and they had a great photographer of the year exhibit.
We then went to Roma Park at the end of the day.
We had another full days work the next day where we did more painting and
we built a gazebo too. She then kindly took us around Redcliffe and we saw
the worlds largest coastal sand dunes and the Glasshouse Mountains from a
distance.
On our next day off we went up close to the Glass House mountains which was
good and we then went to Mount Co-Tha which had a great view of the city.
We then went to a Botanical Gardens near the viewpoint which was really
good and we saw tons of lizards. At sunset we went on the ferry down the
river in Brisbane which was great.
On the morning
of the flight to Christchurch, Jennifer kindly took us to
the airport in the morning at 5.45am. We got on the flight Ok but it was a
bit disappointing to find that there was no TV screen on the seat infront
but just a shared one. It took us about 2 hours to get through customs as
we had goods to declare (hot chocolate, noodles and wood) but they were all
accepted. Bobby was sandwiched between the under 17s New South Wales Rugby
Union team which slowed down the whole process. We made our way to the
homestay (which was in the suburb Brighton again) in Christchurch and the
weather was really miserable (rain and clouds). Over the next five days we
helped them pack up and move house. This homestay wasn't one of our best as
there was no heating, little food as they refused to buy any more food as
they were moving (i.e half a yogurt for lunch), we had to sleep on a lilo that didn't inflate and worst of all we had to work a lot of extra hours with little gratitude from the
wife (the husband was really nice). Nonetheless Christchurch was lovely and
quaint (like Cambridge). On our time off while the weather was horrible, we
went to the Christchurch museum (where we learnt a lot about the Moas,
Maowi people, Antarctica and NZ transport), the Art Centre, the Art gallery
and Brighton Beach (which had a pier but no amusement arcades). The weather
thankfully perked up a couple of days later and so we happily saw the
Botanical Gardens and the Cathedral. We also did a trek up a nearby
mountain (which the cable car runs up but we want to save money). When we
got to the top - it was so windy and cold that my hands went white and my
fingernails went purple. We couldn't stand there for more than a minute
without running away to find shelter, but the views were great (see
picture).
We got the bus to Akaroa (which is about 1 ½ hours away from Christchurch)
and we were met by our next host, Georgie, who is lovely and reminds us of
Granny! She took us back to her and her husband's, Mike, million acre farm
with sheep and horses, a vineyard and lovely flower gardens. We were just
so happy to have a
bed and food. We have had great new foods here such as
lobster, herring & asparagus.
We have been shovelling horse poo, weeding, cutting off dead daffodil heads
and cleaning out troughs. In our spare time we have spent a lot of it on
the property as it is so big and beautiful. We have also gone to the town
and have done a nice walks up a hill and along the coast. Yesterday Mike killed one of their sheep, we scrubbed the blood stains and then we ate its liver for dinner.
We would like to congratulations to Janet and Keith for their five year anniversary! It is also great to hear that Nanny and Granddad have been taken out a lot!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.185s; Tpl: 0.024s; cc: 11; qc: 66; dbt: 0.1097s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Dad the quiz winner
non-member comment
Quiz Guess
I wanted to be the first to guess this month's competion, as I think I have the answer sussed by looking at the picture of the poor horse. Is it missing an ear, eye and tail? As for disinfected animlals, my money is on a walloughby and a Koala bear - am I right? I have to say I am shocked that you could eat the liver of a sheep you were aquainted with. But I guess after being starved at that other place.... Loved the view of Christchurch - up on the desktop it goes.