Siu~V: NZ Day 2 : Christchurch

aaahh...My first morning waking up in beautiful NZ but brrrr..... it was cold even when I was indoors in my hostel.

Sun's just about to come out at 7am (getting more daylight since winter was coming to an end). We love the sun here. Can't wait for those sun rays to hit our skin in the cold windy mornings.

Taking a walk around the YHA hostel, I found yet another kitchen and lounge upstairs. Cool.
No one else around though; I must have been the earliest to get up.
I see myself getting up around 7am every morning coz I go to bed latest 10 coz there isn't much to do around here when it gets dark.

I thanked God for another lovely day without any storms or aftershocks.

'Cept for a mini shock when we learnt that parking by the roadside's pretty expensive-NZD 2.90/ hour. So, we kinda drove round and round looking for free parking... just trying to be typical Msians. :P ... Till a kind soul told us parking was free the entire day. It was a way of luring people to get into and around Christchurch (CC) after the quake incident. Lucky us!

Still, sightseeing in CC is best done ON FOOT.
How else would you be able to stop and capture absolutely anything at any point of time...

Flowers were starting to bloom - the sign of spring approaching!

and trees were looking like they just heard some 'hair-raising' news.

Lots of churches in CC; but we didnt do much touring then coz we knew we were gonna be back here in about 10 days time..Yeah baby!

I love this statue honouring the fallen heroes of Canterbury during the war in 1914 - 1918.

Lots of food kiosks along the streets selling cheap yet deeeeelicious snacks.

This giant chess set on display IS for play too! Makes check-mating all the more fun.

Apparently rugby is the biggest sport in NZ right now. I remember hearing about the All Blacks first even before I know it was rugby-related.

It's quite sad looking at some of the ruined buildings (mostly already torn down), so I'm just gonna let you catch glimpses of them, hence a modestly-sized picture of it.

This poor church has a bandaged top.

When it comes to food, while we could have easily settled for fast food,

trying out their Fish n Chips was a better (and cheaper) option.
And there were plenty of takeaway diners and cafes offering this western fave.

For a little less than NZD 5, we got this huuuuuuge parcel of piping hot fried fish fillet and thick fluffy potato chips.

oh, we gotta buy the sauces though, they didn't come free.

And no chilli sauce for sale, just tomato ketchup which i hate. tomato sauce + fries = blwurrkk!!

While I was feeding the driver his fishy lunch, we drove about an hour to our pre-booked farm stay at Rangiora, a little place right outside CC.

Once again, the sights as we drove further away from town into the countryside were spectacular. I couldn't believe there wasn't a single cloud in the sky.

Upon arrival at Pete's Farm (I had randomly googled and chose this place), seemed like we were the only ones there.

Us and Lancer bebeh!

So what did we do? We found a door to the house and we walked right in.

It felt unbelievably cosy and warm inside! Not to mention, the house was huge with 4 bedrooms for guests and a big bathroom (and tub) for use. It's even got a fireplace.. sua ku i know, but I've never seen one before ler.

Gaye, Pete's wife welcomed us and showed us to our room; which also happens to be the same one you see in their website. Even the bedsheet's the exact same one :)

Check out the awesome view when i look out from our room's giant glass window.

Poor dear was so tired, he so wanted to take a nap.

Then I went 'hey, why waste the afternoon away when we already paid NZD 160 for this farmstay!' (chuckle)

So, once we checked in, we checked out Pete's 15 acres of farm!!

Gaye even got me pink boots to put on just in case I stepped on poop on the farm......Speaking of poop, do you know another name to call it is 'meadow muffin' or 'cow pies'? golly..gonna look at those pastries differently now..lol.

We got to roam around a bit on our own coz Pete wasn't back yet.

But we WEREN'T alone - Meg was with us the entire time.

Meet Meg, the friendliest dog ever who just loved being around us and would come whenever we called.

The couple had 2 other dogs, Tess (oldest at 12 yrs, not seen here though) and Danny (their damn playful trained sheepdog).

Here I am in the open fields. Can you tell how windy it was?

Dear having some trampolin fun in a mini children's playground that Pete built.

There were close to 200 sheep as far as the eyes could see.

(Sidetrack a bit...the difference between a

"lamb" - is what Mary had

"sheep" - an adult lamb with a hanging tail

"goat" - where you get mutton from..oh, and its tail goes up)

To me, sheep are much prettier creatures than goats, esp the kambings in Msia.

Most of the time, the sheep just nibbled at the grass, minding their own business...

but once they saw us coming,

they all came running to us.....thinking we got food or something.

Later, Pete brought us slices of bread to feed the sheep. Some aggressive ones came storming at us. But they were the most harmless four-legged creatures, plus Pete already had their horns cut off.

Then I ran out of bread and looked a bit lost there..hehe

The little lambs were the most adorable; I wasn't sure how to react, I was petting and stroking them like it was a pet dog. The best part is they don't stink! 'cept for when they pooped.

Dear's red-colored jacket certainly caught some attention too.

And this little fella kept head-butting him.

'He's the youngest yet the bossiest one around', says Pete.

Far out in the open, a sheep was seen working out.

My first time seeing an alpaca, a smaller version of llama. Pete has 4 of them sporting the trendiest hair style (!) and they are great producers of wool.

They sure look happy living on Pete's farm!

Then we saw Pete's 6 steers...which brings me to one of our arguments about the differences between a

'cow' - is a female that has had a calf

'heifer' - is a female that has not had a calf

'bull' - is a male (for breeding)

'steer' - castrated male used for making beef (and your fave HAMBURGER)

and 'cattle' just means a group of the above.

Me with Big'ol Pete.

Pete's most used phrases were 'Bee-yooooo-tiful' and 'Can you understand?'

Don't mess with Pete - he'll make sure you understand every single word and work he does around here.

Pete's goes around showing us how he tends to his sheep with the use of Danny-boy, his ultra obedient dog. It's a wonder how Danny was trained to bark and run and instil fear in those sheep while he rounds them up back into the manger. Pete said it took him 4 months to train Danny.

Jeng Jeng Jeng......which (un)lucky sheep will be picked to be slaughtered now.....

kidding!

It was time to show us how a sheep is sheared.

An educational section on the many many many breeds of sheep in NZ and Pete has about 3-4 types.

Pete brought out his sheep shearing tools and showed us how it was to be done.

While a shear is typically used to get a good clean shave of wool, scissors are used to trim the wool just so the sheep still gets to keep warm during winter.

Those scissors were so sharp, you could use it for a haircut. I started picturing a horror movie where Pete would suddenly start cutting us up and no one would hear us scream from this dark, old manger. Me and my imagination! HAHA.

Amazingly, the sheep that Pete chose to be sheared, suddenly went all limp. It's as if SHE KNOWS!

Let the shearing begin!

Pete told us the older sheep produces the best wool quality. Once sheared, it takes a whole year for their wool to grow before it's sheared again.

Pete started as a sheep shearer then 15 years ago, he opened up his farm to tour groups and only 3 years ago, started to run the business of farm stays.

His best record was shearing a sheep in 2 and a 1/2 minutes and doing some 200 sheeps a day!
Wowee.

Too bad dear didn't dare try shearing, for fear he would cut her or kill her instead and end up having lamb for dinner.

Look, sheep gets their teeth cleaned too.

Dear claims they only have teeth on the lower jaw.

Pete has a little shed selling his own wool products as well.

In fact, he gave us some raw wool (like you see below right) as our wedding gift. Still wondering what I can do with them though.

Those woolly sweaters were freaking soft and nice to touch, but quite pricey too so we didn't get any.

Last event of the day was feeding this 2-week old baby lamb. Cute thing went all "mehhh..mehhhh.." bonkers when she saw us coming with a bottle of ...

...Sprite.

containing milk of course.

Later that evening, Gaye prepared us a delightful traditional farm dinner for an additional NZD 40/pax. Quite a price to pay I know, but where else would we get dinner right in the middle of nowhere?

Still, it was nice to sit down and eat with locals Pete and Gaye in a homey environment; chatting about their lives and ours. I was pretty sure dear was having a hard time controling himself from telling them his Msian jokes. LOL.

Dinner was fried chicken and scrumptious! We had wine to complement too.

Gaye made the best croissants we've ever tasted.

and her homemade Choc mousse dessert was ooh-la-la.

Me and Gaye ~doesn't she look just motherly... :)

With their children all grown up, I'm sure Pete and Gaye will have a wonderful life out here in the countryside and be real successful in their farmstay business.