A Week in Canterbury, Part I

(This will be part 1 of 2, this one will focus on my week in general, the next on my thoughts on organic farming as I've experienced it in the past week will follow in the next day or so.)

Reporting from Yaldhurst, Canterbury, New Zealand:
For about 6 days now, I've been out here at the beginnings of the New Zealand countryside (the beginnings of suburbia and it's little planned subdivisions peek up just down the road), about 2 miles from public transit and without a car. It's here that I've realized my first mistake of my trip - not working out the car situation 100% before I started planning stuff. Like most of America, it's quite difficult to get around without some sort of transportation, so I've more or less been almost entirely on the farm, with the exception of helping my host Carla's daughter move, and me getting out on foot to see stuff like the farmer's market about 4 miles down the road and going to the local hotel pub, about a 20 minute walk from here.

So yeah, definitely going to get that car situation worked out on Friday. I've bid online for one, and if that falls through I'll check out what Christchurch has to offer me. After that happens (and ONLY after that happens) I'll move onto Mount Cook - may skip out on Banks Peninsula for now, since I can get hiking and hilly-ness at Mt. Cook and dolphins further up the coast at Kaikoura when I go on a whale cruise (which Carla recommended)...also the weather's supposed to be decent in the western mountains and want to take full advantage of that.

But, back to this week - as I've said I've been more or less confined to the farm with a few exceptions when Carla was going out on an errand.
The positives:

• I haven't been spending any money at all, other than a few bucks at the farmer's market and at the pub just now (where I met some nice local farmers and we chatted a bit, one of them explained some more technicalities of cricket to me, so that'll help next time)
• I have had time to really sit back and think about the trip ahead - some more planning will probably help me out on this trip. Other than the four days I'll be doing the Milford Track and various days to explore the wilderness, I have a feeling I'll be spending much of the next month and a half fluttering between Dunedin and Queenstown - Dunedin supposedly being the hip, chill, Williamsburg-y type town, and Queenstown being the bungy jumping/high adventure/melt off your face with awesomeness type town (CAR PEELS OUT!!1). I guess I won't know till I get there what I want to do.
• I have gotten a better idea of how much farming I want to do compared to how much tourism - I want to do more tourism, to the extent that I can afford to do so. I will probably have the opportunity to pick up the occasional odd job to supplement my cashflow, as I did today when Carla asked me to make a simple website for the business she's starting, so I'll keep my eyes peeled for those. Basically, I've realized that WWOOFing should be used as a tool to prolong my stay in an area I've grown partial to. That thought continued in part 2...
• I think I might be getting buff, or at least less of a fatty than I was when I left NYC.
• I have really caught up in my sleep, seriously. I was over my jet lag by late last week - but I've been sleeping like 10-12 hours every night. I haven't slept like this since high school. I don't know if it's the air, the physical work, the lack of stress, but my sleep has been of high quantity and quality (I've also started having dreams and remembering them like every night, which hasn't happened in a damn long time.)
• I have witnessed emus in person, and they are some badass creatures. Stay away from their legs though, they have a mighty kick (from the bruise I saw on Carla's leg my first day). Goats and pigs are pretty cute too, even if they are dirty, dirty creatures (especially goats - seriously, who poops where they sleep? Even dogs don't do that.)

The negatives:

• I haven't been able to explore at all, in terms of people or scenery. The trip started out pretty nice, was meeting some people briefly at the hostels, but then came out here and was essentially confined to the farm. Even with a car, would have been difficult, because 5 hours a day is more than it sounds.
• Farming isn't all that easy.
• So is separation from the interwebs.

So yeah, positives outweigh the negatives, definitely. But that first negative, the not being able to explore thing is a big one (that's sort of the main reason I'm here). So, yeah, may alter course slightly. Though again, all depends on me getting a damn car.

That's all for now!