Whales, horses, dogs

With the freshly transferred salary of Mr. Ace, we spontaneously drove back up to Kaikoura to finally do the whale tour. Since the temporary employment agency has not contacted us yet, and the Woofing positions we contacted have not responded, there was nothing holding us back in Christchurch. However, in Kaikoura we were immediately greeted with bad weather and when we wanted to do the tour the next morning, it was cancelled due to bad sea conditions. There is absolutely nothing to do in Kaikoura, so we postponed the tour to the next morning and drove 1 1/2 hours to Blenheim to have breakfast at McDonalds and go to the movies (A Wrinkle Of Time. There are really nicer Disney movies ...). Our priorities are not misplaced ...

The next morning, the whale tour actually worked out. However, we were already warned that it was windy and Captain Jimmy may have to turn back. Nevertheless, we took motion sickness tablets and got on the boat. The beginning was fun and beautiful, but it didn't take long until half of the boat company (including us) needed one vomit bag after another. We still saw the whale - at least 10% of it. But apparently, you can't see more. By the way, the sperm whale is called Sperm Whale here ... for whatever reason.

After both of us swore never to go on a boat tour again (it didn't go so well in Taupo either), we drove back to Christchurch. In the meantime, we had already received an offer for a Woofing position in Christchurch for one week. It was supposed to start on 18.04. and we were back in Christchurch on 16.04. We used our last 'free' day to visit 'Christ College' here. A boys' boarding school that could pass as Kiwi-Hogwarts. There are four houses, classes and meals are organized by houses. The buildings are all quite old - the school turned 150 years old in 2000. But in every classroom, there is all sorts of Apple equipment and no more paper is handed out. We took a tour there and we were the only ones, which was pretty cool. Also cool: In New Zealand, it is the law that every child with a disability (at least physically) must be accepted at every school ... Germany could take a lesson from that.

The next day, we went to Mariska, our host mom. Unfortunately, she forgot to send us her address, so we followed her on her Facebook page (she offers horse rides) and ended up at her horses instead of her house. After a short phone call, we got the correct address and went back to Christchurch. Mariska and her family were super kind and funny. We didn't feel comfortable on the first day because instead of getting to know everyone, we were immediately asked to work in the garden and our accommodation for the night was in another house where some messy - men lived and our beds were in a garage and the toilet couldn't be locked ...

We spent the night in the car and locked ourselves in the driveway. We told Mariska the next day that we didn't want to sleep there and instead parked the car on her property, behind a fence, and slept there. From that day on, I really liked it. The family is moving to a 19-hectare farm at the beginning of May and we helped with the renovation/moving, built fences on the paddock, built saddle racks, cleaned water troughs and carried wood ... so much wood!

Furthermore, we fed the five horses and spent hours picking up their poop ... with our hands! Mariska handed us gloves and sent us into the pasture. I don't know what possessed a person to stand on a completely covered pasture and say 'I'm going to pick up all of this by hand now.' It takes forever! But all the horses were super kind and beautiful, and Hannah and I both fell a little bit in love with the animals.

The last three days (Monday to Wednesday) started with the news that the family was taking a short trip to Wellington and we should take care of the house and animals. So, we fed the horses and dogs. In the mornings, however, we went with Mariska to the horses to see exactly what each horse eats, etc., and that's when we found out that we would also go on a ride. And it was really, really nice. I rode Jewel and Hannah rode Ronda. The riding area is super beautiful and Mariska captured it all in pictures for us.

In addition to the horses, the family also had two dogs. Caspian and China. Both completely crazy. Caspian barks at everything ... birds, airplanes, spots of light ... and China howls all day. It was definitely an interesting and loud (!) soundscape all day.

Today, we not only left the family, but also visited the temporary employment agency, signed the last documents, and took a drug test. Tomorrow morning, we will start our first job at a pizza factory. We're excited!