The Sterks Take on New Zealand! January 3rd 2012

We are here! We arrived bright and early at 5am to be exact in Christchuch New Zealand on Jan 3rd. With nothing being opened at 5am in the morning especially on a holiday (NZ holiday) we quickly rented a car from the airport which we will drive to Auckland (doing a re-location) on the 16th. We headed downtown Christchurch to get a bite to eat and possibly find an internet cafe. We were taken off gaurd immediately. We knew Christchurch had suffered from a serious earthquake in 2009 and even just recently suffered from another but we had not expected to see so much damage.

Seeing so many abandoned homes (some very beautiful) shattered windows, torn up streets and sidewalks, flooding, demolished buildings ad churches etc. Maybe it's being naive, or un-aware, or mainly because we have never been affected by such a disaster(which we know that we are really lucky!) but we felt very disheartened for all these people (whom we don't know) who have had to pack up their lives and leave. We saw the damage first hand and in some instances homes were torn in half with most of the remants and belongings still left inside.

Most hostels and hotels were not accepting customers due to the fact that they were unsafe so we had a very difficult time finding a place to stay for the night. We ended up staying in a hostel called, Point Break, in Brighton just outside the city. Covered in scaffolding on all sides we got a room and relaxed as we had been quite tired since being up for most of the night. The next morning we even felt a mini earth quake- it was a bit scary but it was just small.

Near our hostel you could see the mountains- which were calling our names so the next morning we were off!

Touring in Wine Country- Jan 2nd 2012

Our flight to New Zealand didn't leave until 11:45 pm this day so since we were in Melbourne we decided to tag along on the Yarra Valley Wine tour with newly arrived Alisha Koot and Kendall Owen- fellow Canadian friends from Ontario! Rianna came home early from Sydney so she was also able to join us on the wine tour.
We took a tour bus from downtown Melbourne to the Valley which was filled with many beautiful homes, pastures, golf courses, dairy farms, and of course...vineyards. The Yarra Valley is known for its many fine wineries which make some of the best wine in all of Australia, and even the world. It is also known for its rich dairy production as well- fine cheeses are also made within the Valley. It was very hot this day (around 40 degrees!) so thankgoodness for the air-conditioned bus and free glasses of wine!

Our first stop on the wine tour was as Yering Station- which, for non-wine drinkers, or "likers of wine" - had some of the best tasting wines among the wineries that we visited. Here, we learned the art of "tasting" wine. We had to smell, look and swish wine around in our mouths. It was here that we tasted some sweet dessert wines and even iced wine, which was very yummy!

Second stop was at Rochford Winery, a little bit more modern looking, and bigger than Yering station where we were all served a gourmet lunch! Alisha, Kendall, and Rianna all had fresh fish and salad and Mark and I opted for Chicken Breast with a fresh tomatoe sauce served over greens and salad. It was quite yummy!
The third stop was Yering Farms- a small, very rustic (and cute) winery which also had some delicious wines for tasting! We didn't stay here long but the view was quite nice!

Final stop, or what the tour guide called, le piece de ressistance, we visited Chandon, one of the top producers of Champagne! This winery was very beautiful and had some of the most amazing views! We were given a tour of Chandon, including where they make the wine, and learned how they get the bubbles into the bottle!

We tried lots of different wines and along with the heat all of us were quite wiped by the end but it was a very yummy, educational day!

Pre-Travel Festivities -Dec 27th-Jan 1st

Schools out for the summer and farming chores have come to an end..well, this celebration of holidays began over a week ago so let me catch you up on what we have been up to since we now have all this (wonderful) free time on our hands!

We started our Aussie adventure mainly because I wanted to gain full hands on experience as a teacher...and even better a fully qualified, paid, fully responsible, lesson plan all night long teacher. As the job hunt for teachers is significantly low in Ontario I felt coming here would be an amazing oppourtunity to jump start my career. And what a boost it gave me! As I have mentioned several times I worked very hard over the past few months and feel very comfortable on who I am as a teacher. I plan to come home and show this confidence in job hunting (keeping fingers crossed here!) Mark was very supportive in this decision to come here and it also benefited himself as he learned more about farm managment, breeding, and different ways of doing things. But we also thought this would be an amazing oppourtunity to travel, try new foods, see new things, and enjoy this time together as we both know we will never have the oppourtunty to do this again.

So with all the hard work done were off to complete the second part of our mission- travel!  In our last post you saw us celebrating Christmas, Aussie style with shrimp-on-the- barbie and all! Our trip to New Zealand was to begin on January second so in the meantime, a day after Christmas we left for Lakes Entrance- a beach town along the coast- it reminds Mark and I of Grand Bend only just a bit bigger.

• On Dec  27th we arrived in Lakes Entrance with our campervan that Mark and I purchased(complete with bed and kitchen) and set up for the night. We arrived late so we had gone to bed. 
• Wed Dec 28th- We met with Dave and his family at Lakes Entrance. Have a mentioned Dave yet? I dont believe we have mentioned him unfortunatly. Dave is the brother to Steve (who is Mark's boss) Dave and Mark became really good mates while we have lived in Aussie and we often hung out with him and his family. His partner's name is Donna and she has two daughters, Kaitlyn(15) and Eryn (12). It has been really great getting to know them since we have been here! 
• Thurs Dec 29th- Mini golfing, ice-cream, and beach time in Lakes with Dave, Kait, and Eryn. 
• Fri Dec 30th- Camping on the beach at Lake Bunga (right outside Lakes) 
• Sat Dec 31st- Drive to New South Wales to camp at Eden- a wonderful spot along the coast. 
• New Years Night- Lakes Entrance with Amanda!
• Jan 1st- Goodbye (for now) Barbeque at Dave and Donna's house, then off to Melbourne 

It was quite interesting living out of a small campervan for a few days..We have now been forced to travel with a limited supply of clothing, wash up in cold water, do laundry at little old laundromats when passing through a town, continuously have bug spray on, and of course resorting to the good ol' nature pee.