WWOOFing in Timaru, Sightseeing in Oamaru

Hey guys ✌

After my unexpected stay in Timaru, I first went WWOOFing and then continued to Oamaru. I will now tell you how these days went for me. Have fun 😊

Friday, January 6th

The first attempt failed, but the second one succeeded. In the morning, after checking out, I was picked up by John, who I would be WWOOFing with for the next three days. He recently bought a large detached house with four bedrooms about 30 km from Timaru, where he lives alone, and of course, has a lot of work to do around the house. I had the honor to help with these tasks, building a compost heap and setting up a vegetable garden. But first, we went to the furniture store to pick up two large sofas. After a snack for lunch, the work began. I had to clear an area of weeds with a spade and then stack the firewood that was scattered all over the lawn into a pile. Time flew by quickly and after a delicious dinner (John is a great cook 😋), we spent the evening in front of the TV while a thunderstorm raged outside.

By the way, I was John's first WWOOFer, after he registered on New Year's Day. He is a very nice and skilled 31-year-old who has never left New Zealand. He has even played football in a club, which is really special for a New Zealander. In his free time, he enjoys hunting. His only roommate is the extremely active Labrador Blue, who is always in motion and can sometimes be a bit annoying while working 😅 The house currently looks relatively empty. The kitchen and bathroom are fully furnished, but there isn't much furniture other than chairs and beds. For example, a dining table is still missing. The garden is quite large.

Saturday, January 7th

In dry weather but still with wet ground, we went to Timaru in the morning, where John had to buy some things at the hardware store, which took some time. As with the first trip, I noticed that the landscape becomes more similar to my homeland, the Eifel, the further away from the coast. Many hills, fields, occasional forests, many animals on the roadside, few settlements. I immediately felt at home 😍 I simply like this landscape much better than the coastal landscape of Timaru, even though it is not ugly at all with the sea and the beach. But I could never live in the flatlands. I need the hills or mountains 😉 To my surprise, I didn't have to work at all on this day. Instead, we went for a hike together on a trail that starts at a campsite. It was damn hard to find, and it took almost an hour to get there. But we finished the hike unexpectedly quickly. The forecast had been for two hours, but we arrived back at the starting point after 75 minutes. The trail was not easy because it was very uneven and sometimes you had to climb or balance on rocks, and it went right through the forest. Unfortunately, there were hardly any nice views. But it was a constant up and down and was definitely fun overall. After our return, we spent the evening in front of the TV again, including dinner.

Sunday, January 8th

On my last full day with John, we got back to work. First, we built a nice compost heap from some wooden pallets, which was then lined first with a carpet, then with newspaper, and finally with dried grass. Then I got to mow a larger area in front of the compost heap with a grass trimmer because that's where the vegetable garden is supposed to be. I also cut the grass around it to a low height. I definitely enjoyed the work, and I learned some new handyman skills, such as operating and maintaining a grass trimmer, hitching trailer ropes, nailing boards together for a compost heap, or using a jigsaw to cut (I don't know what it's called in German). With a few calm explanations and demonstrations, it went better than I had feared. Greetings to those who have been frustrated with me in this regard in recent years 😜

After work, we went out into the wilderness. John had told me that there are wallabies in the area, and I wanted to see one in nature. Unfortunately, despite searching in various places for a long time, we didn't see anything. There were only some herds of cows grazing in the fields. But maybe it will work somewhere else. In the evening, we watched a movie and had dinner, as always. I also got to hose down Blue because he got quite dirty on the trip, of course he was with us 😆

Monday, January 9th

Practically right after getting up, John drove me to the bus stop in Timaru, where I was supposed to take the Intercity bus to Oamaru. Overall, I had a lot of fun with my first WWOOFing experience. My accommodation and host were great, I was well taken care of, the work was varied and definitely not too hard or too long, and not everyone gets to go on excursions with their host. After a relatively short bus ride, I arrived in Oamaru around lunchtime, where I soon set off to explore the small but beautiful town at the amazing Oamaru Backpackers hostel. Unusually for New Zealand, Oamaru has a proper little old town. The buildings there look completely different from the rest of the town and are really beautiful. They also provide a suitable setting for bakeries, cafes, museums, or bookstores, of which there are several. There is also a railway line running through this old town. After having fish and chips for lunch, I continued and once again visited a botanical garden. It's becoming my specialty 😉 This garden was also very nicely designed and, above all, very large, so you can see many beautiful floral artworks. There were also a few bird cages, including cockatoos, parakeets, and pheasants, some of which I had never seen before 🐦 From the garden, we then continued to St. Patrick's Church, the largest church in town. Of course, I went inside and found the church to be really beautiful both inside and out. Afterwards, we briefly returned to the hostel and from there to the main attraction of Oamaru: the penguins. First, I went with Alexandra, who was staying in the same room as me and spontaneously decided to join me, a good distance out of town to observe the relatively large Yellow-Eyed Penguins. Half an hour before the announced main viewing time, about 25 people had gathered there. After securing a good spot, we had to wait. In the meantime, there were also four seals to see scattered along the beach, but they were mostly lazy and just lying around 😴 Suddenly, a really big penguin emerged from the sea and waddled towards the coast. As soon as it disappeared, four more of the same species gradually emerged from the sea at another spot, and then one more or less directly in my line of sight. It was definitely something special to see these wild animals at a relatively close distance. Pure nature, so to speak. 🐧 Then we went back to the center and from there to the much more numerous Blue Penguins, which are much smaller but appear every evening in a large group at the same spot in the sea, precisely at sunset, which was supposed to be at 9:37 pm this time. The whole thing is a big show for tourists. Two wooden stands were set up right at the spot, and there are proper guided tours that you can book. But to get a seat there, you have to pay 30 NZD. If you don't want to do that, you can also stand for free along a wall and observe the animals from about 25-30 meters away. That's what I decided to do because the price was way too high for me. But it was amazing how busy it already was when I arrived around 9:45 pm. Fortunately, I was able to secure a good spot on the wall. The two stands were already full (about 75 people each). There were definitely over 200 tourists gathered there. After we were able to watch two seals in the meantime, which were lying on the coast just a few meters below us, the penguins appeared exactly on time. Initially, there were only some black dots on the surface of the sea, but as they got closer, you could increasingly recognize the outlines of their bodies and finally see them emerge from the water in a thick cluster and waddle straight towards the stands 🐧🐧🐧 The whole thing lasted maybe a minute, and then they were already out of our sight. On the way back, I could find two stragglers, including a chick that looked really cute with its brown, fluffy fur, but I also felt sorry for it because it was visibly clueless and wandering aimlessly. On the other hand, another penguin stood still maybe half a meter away from the spectators for at least ten minutes, allowed himself to be extensively photographed - of course, without flash - and everything. I thought that was funny. He seemed to enjoy the limelight 😎 From there, I went straight back to the hostel.

In the next few days, I will tell you about my experiences with my second WWOOFing job, which was supposed to start the next morning. I can tell you in advance: I really like it there, too!

See you later,

Your Max