In Which Kat and Destiny Rock the South Island

We realize, as it’s getting toward the end of April, that those of you still in school are reaching that period toward the end of the school year when everything is due all at the same time and you have exams on everything ever. Thus, as your friends, we have chosen to give you the best gift we can from the other side of the world: ways to procrastinate! So we are putting up several updates in close succession. Enjoy.

First, we make our way from the lovely city of Dunedin, home to the University of Otago, the focal point of New Zealand fashion, and the lovely Thomson family, who will appear several more times, we’re sure, in upcoming posts, as we tend to be at their house a lot. Along the road that skirts the edge of the harbor (and is not the place you want to be with a particularly speedy driver and a storm coming in) is the little township of Portobello. Here we spent a week staying with a Scotsman by the name of Bill, helping with gardening, exploring on bicycles, and wondering why on earth God in heaven saw fit to make roosters. One of the two roosters that resided on the property had a particular love for standing outside our bedroom window at unrighteous hours of the morning and making noises similar to those heard, we assume, in the lower circles of hell. The rooster had also discovered how to crow at just the right frequency to blast through your earplugs and make them utterly useless. It was a week of lovely views, pushing bikes up steep inclines, and considering ways to murder roosters.

After our week in Portobello, we stopped back in Dunedin for two nights before catching the bus to Geraldine, where we met George and Hilary, a British couple now living in Canterbury and building a house using straw as insulation. Also staying at George and Hilary’s house was another American help exchange traveler, an early twenties woodcarver named Warren, who was among the most beautiful human beings either of us had ever personally encountered. We learned that he was dating a girl back in the States, which was probably for the best, as the battle between our two adventurers for Warren’s affections could very well have been long, bloody, and rather uncomfortable for our hosts. We spent Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays some 16 kilometers outside Geraldine, where the house was nearly finished, cleaning, painting, weeding, picking fruits and vegetables, and learning the many uses of mud mixed with straw.

Recipe for plaster mud:

The mixing of mud for plaster is a delicate art, one that requires both tenacity and skill. Enter Destiny, fully geared up in black rubber pants, jacket, and gloves. On a wooden platform at the side of the house is a giant plastic bucket surrounded by smaller buckets of mud. Step one: Dump a small bucket of mud into the “mixing bowl”. Step two: Using a tool that is basically a massive electric egg beater, blend the mud into a deliciously smooth consistency (like cake batter). Step three: Pour the mixture through a sieve into a wheelbarrow. Step four: Take the chunklets of leftover mud from the sieve and form the most epic mud pies of all time (Just for the fun of it).

In Geraldine, where there is one main street and everyone seems to know everyone, there is little of interest to mention. However, it is home to Barkers, a New Zealand famous juice, jam, and preserve company, as well as a very tasty fudge and ice cream shop and a library that offers free wireless internet. However, the most wonderful part of Geraldine is the movie theatre—a single room with a big screen, a small stage area, a balcony, and several front rows that have been replaced with couches, so that you feel you’re in your house, curled up on your couch, watching a big screen movie. We saw ‘Beautiful Lies’ and ‘The Iron Lady’ and attended a discussion on ending world poverty.

After two weeks in Geraldine, we made our way to the Canterbury back country, where we spent two weeks on a sheep and cattle station, set along a glacial-carved braided river, hemmed in by mountains that some mornings were covered in snow. The station, called Glenfalloch, is home to the Todhunter family, made up of Kiwi-born farmer Chas, his German wife Dietland, their seven-year-old daughter Freddy, and their three-year-old son Hendrick. Chas was not around much, as he spent most of the day off working in various parts of the farm. Dietland, a brilliant chef, was kind, if rather reserved. Freddy was rather clever and developed a habit of popping into the house we were staying in without any warning. Hendrick, who had yet to master talking, walked around babbling in almost-words, sounding something like a young Swedish Chef off the Muppets. We also made the acquaintance of Tom, the fairly quiet farm hand, and Cecilia, a young journalist from Denmark hoping to do a series of articles on working and living in New Zealand.

Our working hours were mostly spent painting—fence posts, garages, bedrooms, verandas, any number of things. When we weren’t working, we hiked in the surrounding hills, kayaked down the river, and read and watched DVDs in our house. Yeah, we had a house. The farm is also a retreat and conference centre, with three guest houses, one of which was ours. It had five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a living room, and two kitchens. There are also two little huts, both outfitted with heaters, and between the huts and the houses, the farm can house at least twenty guests.

Thus we progressed from a shared room and a suicide-inducing rooster in Portobello to our own rooms with a brilliant interior view in Geraldine to our own guest house at Glenfalloch. Here’s to hoping the universe smiles on your fortunes as well, perhaps without inflicting you with roosters.