One Week In

Erika and Kristen--

So, after 40 plus hours of travel, we made it to New Zealand. We were tired, that's for sure. We recovered, though, and adjusted to the time difference with very little trouble. We spent the weekend in Christchurch and thoroughly enjoyed the city. It's nicknamed the Garden City for good reason--we spent much of our time in the Botanical Gardens and the parks. So much is blooming here! We visited 2 stunning rose gardens, saw dahlias, clematis, fuschia, etc. It was fantastic. We also attended quite a few services at the beautiful Christchurch Cathedral. There was some great liturgy and friendly people.

As we were contemplating leaving ChCh, we realized that walking was going to limit us a lot. This, plus some other considerations, prompted us to look into other modes of transport. A lot of cars were advertised in our hostel but that seemed like a lot of headache and not really the kind of trip we wanted to take. One of our goals on this trip is to really enjoy the countryside and we would fly past it a little more than we'd like in a car. Also, a car would tempt us to try to see as much as possible, taking advantage of it, and we wanted to avoid that. When we stopped into a bike shop, we found some decent deals and decided to take the plunge. We now own bikes and a little trailer in NZ!

We have to ride on the left side of the road and learn to tow a trailer and carry our luggage but it is working out really well. Don't worry, we're taking it really easy so far and going short distances every day. Our bums hurt but we're enjoying seeing so much and camping as we go along. We've met super people along the way.

Speaking of super people, we're currently at our very first WWOOF host location, with a great family: Glenn, Karen, Ruby and Islay. Karen has huge gardens which she harvest for a local farmer's market. We have weeded and sown green cover crop so far and are staying in a little campervan. Riding the bikes out here was a little tricky since they live down a long gravel road but we managed and we're going to try to keep up every day (to toughen up our bums--otherwise, we're going to need some of those padded shorts really soon!)

Hey, it's super warm here and we're getting a lot of color and wearing shorts. All that fear about endless winter was for naught. So far.