Biscuit race! Today we're traveling in style... I'm writing this post from an Intercity bus on the way to Wellington from Gisborne. This $60 bus ticket is going to save us 9 days of biking, and is helping us avoid a dangerously narrow road with heavy traffic... plus it has free WiFi! We've spent the last few weeks at a farmstay in Rere chasing sheep, and the last few days in Gisborne chasing waves, and now we're ready to head to the South Island and get our butts back on those bikes! We were told to spend 1/3 of our time on the North Island and 2/3 on the South, because somehow New Zealand gets even better than what we've already seen, so we'll be taking the ferry over as soon as possible so that we can have a few months to bike around before we have to interview for ski resort jobs in May.
Skurfing In Rere we stayed with the Hickling family on their sheep and cattle station and had just as much fun working during the week as we did playing on the weekends. Our first weekend there they took us along to Wairoa to a waterski race where we spent more time on a boat in two days than I think I have my entire life. They were volunteering as one of the safety boats, so we got to watch the racing from front-row seats on the river, and we even got to participate in the womens race... Kerry drove, Jazz skied, I observed and Steve dressed up as our mascot! We also got to go out at the end of the day and try our hand at skurfing, getting towed behind the boat on a surfboard which we enjoyed even more than the wakeboarding we did in Taupo. On the second day of the event there was a biscuit race, and I made my racing debut hanging on to an innertube for dear life while we zoomed down the river into second place.
Thousands of sheep waiting for their haircuts The next week on the farm they were shearing a couple thousand lambs, so we spent three days chasing the sheep from one pen to the other to help Grant and Jazz sort them, give them medicine and cut all the poop off their bums before they went for their haircuts. Sometimes the sheep cooperated, and sometimes they would do the exact opposite of what you wanted them to, but after some trial and error we both figured out the most efficient means of startling them into action. After a few long days of sheep startling we had a day off and ventured out on our bikes to the Rere rockslide, a long steep section of rock that acts as a natural waterslide. We borrowed a boogie board and spent the better part of the day sliding down on our bellies and skimming across the pool at the bottom. The weather wasn't particularly warm so we had the whole thing to ourselves! Our last few days on the farm we got to make use of our Alaska skills and split some wood, and we helped take down an old fence and put up a new one at the back of their property line.
Rere Rock Slide We had such a good time with the Hicklings that both of us were a bit reluctant to leave, but we're also anxious to continue our adventure on the South Island, so Kerry gave us a ride into Gisborne where we spent the last few days exploring the town. Both of us have been wanting to learn to surf, so we celebrated our anniversary yesterday by taking a lesson from Surf with Frank. Our instructor Matt was from the Czech Republic, and is doing the working holiday scheme here just like we are so it was cool to compare experiences as foreigners in New Zealand. We had a lot of fun with Matt, and after a few tips on the beach he had us standing up on the boards in no time. We were just catching broken waves to get the feel for popping up on the board in the right stance, but now we've got something to practice along the coast on the South Island. We'll probably take another lesson after a few more practice sessions so we can learn to catch unbroken waves.
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