Joy from South Island!

Faithful blog followers, rejoice, its time for another. Here's the update from the past week...

We began this Sunday with an early, three hour long ferry ride from Wellington to a little town, I can't quite think of the name though. Though it sounds quaint, the ferry was far from that, it was extremely rocky and shook up a couple uneasy stomachs within the group. A lot of green faces. An interesting experience. Stepping onto solid ground was a lovely relief, to say the least. That was followed by a long bus ride, finally ending our day's travel in Christchurch, where we were warmly greeted by a couple of the homestay-arrangers. Helloooo, South Island!

The group then split up (groups of either 3 or 4) for new homestays in Lyttleton, a town about a half hour drive from Christchurch. That evening was spent getting to know our individual homestay families.

Monday morning the group reunited bright and early to begin the environmental conservation work we'd be doing over the next couple days. This day, we had "clippers" to chop down growing Sycamore trees (an invasive species to New Zealand plants, which are currently being revegetated), "herbiciders" to follow them with blue goo, and others who helped chop down real trees with chainsaws. Intense. It was a cold but productive first day! Again, after work we separated to our homestays to relax for the evening.

Tuesday morning was similar, just some different work (mostly planting native New Zealand baby trees). Another lovely, productive day of volunteering. Afterwards, we split again, many taking advantage of the cute little coffee shops on the main street. Later that night, some of us convened to be total Americans and watch the movie "Baby Mama" (props to Katie B for providing it, as quotes from it have been dropped all trip). So funny.

Wednesday, we finished up the work asked of us by planting the rest of the baby trees (which was a lot!). For the most part, this went smoothly, but with some mishaps, like Meghan (who accidentally sat on/brushed against a dried up thornbush--another invasive species by the way--and as a result had thorns stuck to her basically from the neck down, very pokey... Hahaha... Poor thing. We all had a good laugh). Overall, we're quite proud of the work we've done! :)

Then, Thursday (today) was a nice change of pace. Accompanied by Ivette (hopefully I'm spelling her name correctly, if not, apologies! My other guess would be Yvette), a Maori homestay mother, we hiked up the Bridle Trail (in the old days, settlers traveled up this to get to Christchurch, on the other side of the mountain). We spent the majority of the day hiking, soaking up unforgettable sceneries, and listening to Ivette tell many stories, both Maori tales and about New Zealand history. Following the hike, we went down to the dock and almost all of us (minus two wimps who will go unnamed) jumped into the harbour water, carrying on the precedent set by the previous 6 groups. IT WAS ICE COLD. Luckily, the day ended at Ivette's house, where we cozied up with a great meal.

Tomorrow will be spent in Christchurch, shopping and preparing for our upcoming free travel time! Woo! Then in the evening we'll have a goodbye party, as Saturday morning we'll depart to Queenstown.

Overall, its been another fabulous week. I know some of us started to have some homesick-ness spouts recently, so this fun and comfortable homestay experience definitely came at the perfect time. Sickness cured. Thus far, South Island is a wonderful place! Surprisingly, I was able to figure out picture uploading, so you all can check out some shots from New Zealand below! I'm sure there will be more once other cameras are accesible.

Trivia master (and my roomie for the week) Katie V has provided some New Zealand words that are totally different from our typical vocabulary:
dinner=big, hot meal
but supper=post dinner tea with biscuits (=cookies)
tea=a light dinner
pudding=dessert
(obviously it has been difficult getting our meals straight!)
togs=a bathing suit
bench=countertop
bunfight=a party (a fun one)
pram=baby stroller
barbie=grill (but saying "shrimp on the barbie," so cliché , rookie mistake!)
and I'm sure there's many more...

We'll be checking in again asap after tramping near Queenstown!
Hollaaaaa,
Bilbo Bloggins of the week (aka Kathleen)

PS. Please pardon any grammatical/spelling errors (a vast amount, I'm sure) within this blog. There is no spell check. Its been like 5 months since school, its the first time I've had to write correctly, obviously:)