My time in Akaroa

On 16.02 I drove from Christchurch to Akaroa because a new challenge was waiting for me in Akaroa. Akaroa is a small sweet town located an hour and thirty minutes away from Christchurch. But what makes Akaroa special is that it is different from other cities in New Zealand because it used to be a French colony. This can still be noticed today, which is probably very intentional and encouraged to attract tourists.

But Akaroa is not only special to me because it used to be a French colony, but also because the Onuku Farm Hostel is located there. I connect this hostel very much with my sister Chiara because when she was in New Zealand, she wwoofed there for two weeks and loved this place. Wwoofing stands for: world-wide opportunities on organic farms, which means that you can work on a farm or a similar place but you don't get paid for it, instead you become part of a community and usually get to stay and eat for free.

Since I started planning my time in New Zealand more precisely, it was clear to me that I also wanted to experience and understand this special place and why it means so much to Chiara. That's why I decided to wwoof there for two weeks. In the past two years since Chiara was there, some things have changed but the basic concept is the same.

The Onuku Farm Hostel is located on a mountain and can only be reached by car, but during this drive you should hope that no one comes towards you because the road is mostly one lane.

The Onuku Farm Hostel consists of a hostel, a campground, and a van park. The campground includes several different cabins, including the well-known Stargazer, and the opportunity to camp.

The van park is where the cars or campers are located, which offer the possibility to sleep.

During my time at the Onuku Farm Hostel, I lived in the van park and slept in my own car. I could have also slept in my own cabin, but since these were my last two weeks with my car, I decided to spend the last time in my car.

My daily task was to clean the campground facilities from 10 am to about 1 pm. This included making the beds in the Stargazers and the other cabins when they were booked, as well as cleaning the kitchen and the bathrooms.

We were a group of wwoofers, about eight people in total, who cleaned in different areas every morning. Most of the time, I cleaned the campground together with a very nice French boy. This nice group made the Onuku Farm Hostel very special from my first day.

But what is special about this place is that almost everything is outside. This means that the kitchen at the van park is open, so to speak, missing a wall, or that the toilets are not inside the house but in front of it. This means that when the weather is bad, the path to the toilet can get very wet or you need an extra jacket for breakfast to stay warm. But it also means that you are outside all day, and that is something that I have come to appreciate and love very much on my journey, because it just feels very good to spend as much time as possible outdoors during the day.

In addition, the Onuku Farm Hostel has become a very special place for me because of its employees, the wwoofers, and the guests. This is not only due to the warmth of the people, but also to the opportunities offered to you at this place.

One of the most unique experiences I had at this place was power picking. Powers are a very special and well-known type of shellfish in New Zealand, but it is very difficult to find them because you have to dive to a depth of about 5-6 meters to reach the bottom and remove the shells with a spoon. However, this is very difficult because diving itself is already a challenge, but in addition, power shells are very colorful and striking on the inside, but from the outside they look like any other stone on the seabed.

But because we did this trip with a diving professional who knows a lot about the shells, we found many shells even though most of us were unsuccessful. However, we had to check if they were long enough, meaning they had to reach from the tip of our index finger to the base of our thumb, because only if they had this minimum length were we allowed to keep them, otherwise we put them back into the water.

Another special event was that I had the opportunity to swim with dolphins. Akaroa is home to the very rare and special Hector dolphins, which are relatively small dolphins with a black, round-shaped fin.

The Onuku Farm Hostel offers boat tours to see these special dolphins and, if possible, swim with them. These tours start at 7:30 in the morning and you go out on a small boat with only about 6 other people.

Since the Onuku Farm Hostel does not provide food for the wwoofers, sometimes some wwoofers are offered the opportunity to do the dolphin tour for free as a thank you for their work.

I was also one of the lucky ones who had this opportunity and I was very grateful for this unique opportunity.

The dolphin tour was one of the best things I did in New Zealand and I am very grateful for this opportunity.

Another special thing in these two weeks was that my uncles Stefan and Ludwig visited me. They were on the South Island at that time and when they found out where I was and that it was not far from them, they decided to book a Stargazer and spend two nights in Akaroa.

I was very happy about their visit, not only because I hadn't seen them in a while, but also because I could show them this special place a bit. However, they didn't have much luck with the weather, which meant that Ludwig had to freeze during breakfast. But they were still able to observe some stars.

The two weeks in Akaroa went by very quickly and it was hard for me to say goodbye to this place and these people, but I am very grateful for every experience I had in these two weeks.

And I can understand very well why this place means so much to Chiara.