So we didn’t do much of anything in Kaikoura; it was raining too much to do any walks, and the whale watches were something like $135! We did stop on the way there near Blenheim for a tour of Montana vineyards, NZ’s largest vineyard. And we got a tasting at the end, it was really good. After our night in Kaikoura, we headed south to Christchurch, and spent a couple of days there. It’s a nice little city, and we got some spectacular views of the city, the Alps in the distance, and the surrounding bays from a hilltop drive. Sarah climbed down one of the hills to get close-up pictures of sheep, then chased my hat down when it blew away. After that, we headed inland to stay a night by Lake Tekapo, where we wre close to the Alps, and MT Cook in particular. The next day, we drove up to the Hermitage Hotel, at the base of Mt Cook. It’s apparently a famous hotel here, but it was rather unimpressive. We did a two hour walk along a path to Kea Point, named after the green parrots in the area that are known to eat car tires and windshield wipers. Alas, we saw none, and didn’t even get to watch a possible far-off avalanche. It’s okay, though, because the views of the mountains were spectacular.

After that, we headed down to Oamaru, a nice little seaside town that is home to the Blue Penguin Colony. We signed up for the viewing and behind the scenes tour, and got to see over two hundred of the cute little bastards. There was even a rabbit that got caught in the tide of landward penguins, and it seemed to not know what to do. Every direction it hopped, it found itself surrounded. Unfortunatley, they don’t allow photography of any kind, so we have no pictures of the event. The backpackers we stayed at in Oamaru was a little farm just south of the city in a town called All Day Bay. It was a really nice, clean place run by a friendly couple who owned sheep and alpacas and a dog named Gus. We had the place to ourselves the first night, and sat by the fire, and felt very comfortable and relaxed. If we could have, we would have stayed there much longer.

Then came our farm stay. We signed up with an organization called wwoof: willing workers on organic farms. The idea is that you stay on a farm, work a few hours a day, and they give you food and lodging. Seemed like a good way to save some money and get a little experience working in a different setting. We looked through the book they sent us, and picked a couple of places that seemed good. The first one we calle was a place in a “town” called Henley, just south of Dunedin. The book said it was run by a couple who had some fruit trees, a garden, kunekune pigs, sheep, goats, chooks, cats, dogs, and bees. The woman was a teacher, and the man played celtic music. It sounded good, and they could take us at the time we wanted.

I guess the first clue that something was wrong should have come when the woman, Alice, didn’t email me back for a week, then emailed me without putting anything in about directions, and only saying we were expected, and she’d see us on Sunday. We pulled up to the house Sunday afternoon, and she showed us where we’d be staying. We should have turned around and left right then. When I say it was a hovel, I am not exaggerating. It was an old cottage that was as dirty as anyplace I’ve ever seen. The floors were dirty. The toilet was dirty. The shower was dirty. The bed was dirty. The walls were falling apart, and were water stained. The outside was crumbling. And she told us how the plumbing had just been fixed twice, because the sink and the shower had backed up with shit, they had “fixed” it, and a couple of weeks later it had happened again. So they replaced the pipes leading into the hovel. Great.

Why we decided to stay and try to stick it out, I’m not sure, but we did, and we lasted two days. It wasn’t the backbreaking work, like clearing firewood from the side of the hill with no sure footing. It wasn’t the idea of possibly digging a hole to bury the soon to be dead grandmother pig who would either be slaughtered or shot in the head. It wasn’t the complete lack of appreciation that they basically had a supply of indentured servants. It wasn’t even the dog killing one of the chickens when it got loose, or the other dog tied in a corner in the living room. No, it was the filth, the sheer filth of the place. The breaking point for me came when one of the dogs shit on the kitchen floor, and Alice picked it up with a paper towel and put it in the wood stove. Let me repeat that: the dog shit went into the wood stove in the living room, and would be burned later. That was it for us, so we packed our things, left them a note, and got the hell outta Dodge.

We have been in a very big, CLEAN, and friendly backpackers called Hogwartz, here in Dunedin. We are going to see NZ’s only castle tomorrow, and then we head south and then on to the Fiordlands. I think we just had bad luck picking a farm stay (not that theirs was an actual farm), and most places would be better. But we’re not going to find out.