We left our island paradise on Saturday morning, on a boat filled to the breaking point with puau. Puau that we had neatly stacked in lovely blue crates that very morning. It had been a delightful week… especially when we no longer had to go destroying tawenie.
Kate and I played teacher for our last week on the island, helping to supervise the three children as they completed their lessons from correspondence school. Our afternoons were spent completing a variety of household/childcare activities. My favorite werethe ones involving baking. We made the world’s most delicious oatmeal raisen cookies, if I do say so myself (don’t worry mom, I copied the recipe). We also did a far amount of walking around the beautiful island, swimming, and I got Sarah playing puzzle!
So we were sad to go, but also excited.
It was rainy for our bus ride from Picton to Christchurch, so many of our travel days have been less then sunny. The bus took us along the beautiful Kaikoura coast. In the interest of time, Kate and I had opted to skip staying in that region, it’s amazing how fast three weeks goes!
This was the windiest, hilliest road we have been on yet. It was bad, even by New Zealand standards. But there were rewards for enduring car sickness, again… Lots and lots and lots of seals!! These things are so cute. Especially when they undulate their entire body in an attempt to hop along, or reach their tail forward to scratch behind their whiskers. I never imagined a seal scratching itself!
After arriving in Christchurch on Saturday evening, we hopped a bus to Rangiora to meet our new host, children’s book author, Jane Buxton. She is a woman with many hats. Author and LLAMA/ALPACA farmer! Yup, we spent the last week on a Llama and Alpaca farm. While most of our work involved weeding and aiding some native trees in their fight to become re-established, we did get to spend some time with the animals (not just the dogs and cat).
We got to lead the Llamas for walks. They like to get all close to you. We got kisses from them, Misty was especially affectionate. We got to see a newborn baby, although unfortunately, Jessica decided to give birth before anyone was awake. And we got to practice for our future careers with the discovery channel/animal planet. We got to see how baby llamas are made, twice. Lucky guy. The interesting part was the sound that he made.
The reproductive system of a llama does not work the same way as the reproductive system of a human. Shocking, I know. Llamas have induced ovulation. That lady isn’t wasting any eggs. She only ovulates when the male is around, so he has to make this strange gurgling noise to get the eggs moving.But once he’s got that going for a while, all the ladies are ready. His first mate, was a little difficult, it took some persuasion on his part to get her ready for 350 days of child bearing. That’s right, 11 and a half months to make a baby llama, WOW! The 2nd llama, sunshine, was quite ready to go, having listened to mating noises for about 45 minutes before it was her turn. And she wasn’t the only one, there were a few ladies in that barn ready to try their hand at motherhood. But only two lucky ladies.
Aside from the discovery channel scenario and walking the llamas, we also got to help trim toe nails. So all in all, for not much time with the llamas, we got to do a fair amount. The thing that amazes me about llamas is that they are like no other farm animal. They are highly intelligent and curious, not at all frightened of humans. Also, they respond to verbal directions. Llamas come to you. If you want them, you just call “Llama llama” and they all arrive, eagerly awaiting directions. You don’t need dogs, scary noises, or imposing positions to get them to herd up and switch paddocks or head to the barn, just call them and they come. Amazing.
But, no more llama farm. Kate and I spent the day in Christchurch and we are now at our new home in Akaroa, on Banks Peninsula. A beautiful piece of land that is a bit of a tourist destination. We’ll be here for a week, working with flowers and helping to replant native species (yay for not weeding!). Then we have a big adventure planned for next week! We’re running away from our island on Sunday, to hit up a neighboring island, that’s just a bit bigger. Australia to dive the Great Barrier Reef!! (One week in Australia is going to cost us about as much as our entire time in New Zealand, ouch… but so worth it!)
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