2011 French Festival @ Akaroa

28 - 30 Oct 2011

French festival was held from 28th to 30th in Akaroa town. It was my first ever festival experienced in New Zealand. My friends (Hikari, Ivan and Daisy) came here for the festival and also paid me a visit. On Friday night, we went to the town. The festival started with an ice carving by a man who carved an Iffel Towel. The rest of the night was entertained by the army band playing on stage and the audience dancing on the street. It wasn't as happening as I expected unfortunately. New Zealand is always quiet.....

Akaroa used to be quiet but on this Saturday, it was full of visitors coming for the festival.

There were food stalls selling varities of food including snack, sandwiches, meat and dessert. At there, my friend and I bought a vintage T-shirt which costed NZD19.

The day was scheduled with different kinds of activities. There were speech, haka and performances throughtout the entire day.

My home sweet home - Onuku Farm Hostel

21 Oct 2011

After working hard for three days, we decided to escape from the busy hustle Christchurch city during the weekends. We checked out from Rucksacker BBH and headed to Akaroa with all our belongings.

I did have a thought of not going back after that. I started to apply for other jobs and asked about working for accommodation in other towns nearby.

When we arrived in Onuku Farm Hostel, I was so fancy in it that I asked the manager, Gemma about working for accommodation at the moment when we checked in. We were glad to hear that we were welcomed to work if we would like to stay here.

Onuku Farm Hostel has 1000 acres and 2000 sheeps. It used to have a working farm years back. I was captivated by its advertising poster that I saw in Rucksacker BBH. In the poster, there was a rainbow and a slogan 'It is not just a stay, it is a destination'. We made the right choice. Onuku Farm Hostel didn't let us down.

The House Area

The Camp site

There were peacocks, cows, sheep, chicken, camping ground, and van park. There were also a few private tracks which were only opened to the guests. It was definitely my ideal place to stay as I can always do the track as my daily exercise. Onuku has become my home sweet home in New Zealand since then.

The Ridge walk

It takes you to an altitude of 450m. You are at the highest point on the farm where you get great views of both-the farm and Akaroa Harbour. Allow 40min one way. It is my favourite track among all.

Look out rock

On the way of ridge walk, it takes you to the lookout rock. The rock is a great vantage point over Akaroa Harbour and was used as a lock at by Maori. The whole trip takes about one hour.

Swimming beach

It is a steep walk which brings you down to the beach. It takes about 30 to 40 minutes one way. It is also an ideal place to catch mussels.

Reserve walk

It is a relatively gentle walk to the reserve. You get fantastic views of the rugged cliffs on the farm and the head lands in the distance.

Fishing beach
A split from Reserve Walk which brings you to the fishing spot.

Cleaning the New Zealand's Housing Area and Corporate Offices

12 Oct 2011

The cleaning company that we worked for was also a sub-contractor of New Zealand's government, responsible on the deep cleaning in the New Zealand's houses before new families move in.

It wasn't an easy job. My colleague even thought that it was even harder than working in a farm. Basically we cleaned every corner in the house, from the ceiling to the floor.

It could have been easier if we were allowed to use a water pipe to wash away the dust and dirt. Unfortunately, all we could do was wiping with a cloth and sanitizer.

There were four of us working on the house and it took us 5 hours to finish. We went home with dusty faces and smelly shirts.

The next morning, we woke up and found out we had musle pain on the body. We received a bad news from Mr D. We didn't have any house to clean for the next two days. We had no choice but to work at night, doing the cleaning in offices.

We prayed that cleaning the offices would be better and easier. Indeed, it was. But the pay rate was based on contract and we had to work really fast in order to earn. Supposed that an office was assigned one hour to clean the pantry, desks, floor, rubbish and toilets, we would have to finish everything in half an hour if there were two people assigned to do the cleaning in that office (one hour divided by 2 persons).

Because we were too new and we had to work with another two seniors originally from China. So there were four of us and and we had to finish in 15 minutes. It was a mission impossible!!! We took 5 minutes to open the door and de-activate the alarm. What could we have done in the remaining 10 minutes? Sometimes, we also spent time in waiting for the other precedent tasks to be finished by our colleague. We ended up getting around NZD5 per hour and it was even more tiring and killing than cleaning the New Zealand's housing area.

We complaint to the boss. He explained that this situation was due to having too many staff assigned in an office. He convinced us that it should not happen when two of us were good enough to work on our own in an office.

Meeting the Boss of the Cleaning Company

11 Oct 2011

We made our way to Christchurch from Lake Tekapo. We headed to Mc Donalds at Riccarton, where we had an appointment with the boss of the cleaning company, Mr D.

He is a Malaysian, originally from Penang. From the conversation, I didn't feel he was a friendly and easy-going man. We were told to work for at least 3 months. We finally signed the employment form after reading the terms and conditions. There wasn't any terms saying that we had to work for 3 months. We can quit anytime legally.

The end of the travel journey

10 Oct 2011

We ended our travel journey in Tekapo today. It was also a day we said goodbye to Naomi and Zin. From this moment, we had only one thought on our mind, that was job hunting.

We walked into a few motels and asked for job opportunity but unfortunately to no avail. When we were most disappointed, we received a call from Christchurch, offering us a cleaning job in the Christchurch city.

Christchurch had been always a must-not-go city in New Zealand for me, due to its frequent earthquakes. But at that time, we made up our mind to give it a go since it is not far from Lake Tekapo and at least we have some earnings while we were getting a better job at the same time.

The Milky Blue Lake Tekapo

8 - 10 Oct 2011

It was our last destination in our itinerary. Lake Tekapo is well known for its milky blue lake, shephard church, starry sky, nubin flowers, and Kohan japanese cuisine.

Mount Cook, which is the highest mountain in New Zealand (3,754m) must not be missed if you are in Twizel or Lake Tekapo. It lies in the Southern Alps and it is about 90km away from Lake Tekapo. We went to Mount Cook in the second morning. On the way to the destination, we were fascinated by the stunning view on both sides. We were also lucky to see a big group of sheep were herded along the road.

There are 10 short or day walks around Mount Cook Village and into the main valleys. The most popular are to Kea Point and the Hooker Valley. We picked the Kea Point which brought us to the wonderful views of the Mueller Glacier, its lake, and Mount Cook.

On our last day, we went to Mount John in the morning. On the summit of Mount John is the University of Canterbury's astronomical observatory. It was chosen as the best observatory site in New Zealand because of its high number of clear nights throughout the year, the stability and transparency of the atmosphere and the uniquely dark skies in the Mackenzie Basin, devoid of city light pollution.

Waitaki Valley - Amazed by the scenic hydro power station

8 Oct 2011

Instead of going to Lake Tekapo through Timaru, we used the other route which took us to Waitaki Valley.

First, we stopped by at Duntroon, one of the stop point of Vanished World Trail. There were fossils including shells and remains of penguins, whales and dolphins. Yellow-white limestone near Duntroon formed in the deep sea, while sarsen stones are made of cemented white river sand. Dark red-brown basalt crystallised from molten rock. Gold-bearing schist formed when rocks were heated, squeezed and deformed.

We continued our journey and we passed by Kurow. We saw three big columns of straw, with colorful painting on them. They were just located at the junction, decorated for the 2011 Rugby Cup.

Waitaki Power Station was the first of eight power stations built on Waitaki River. Aviemore Dam is a dam of the Waitaki River. It was built from earth and concrete in 1962 (commissioned in 1968) to dam Lake Aviemore.

Benmore Dam is the largest dam within the Waitaki power scheme. There are eight other power stations in the valley. With a generating capacity of 540 MV, it is the second largest hydro station in New Zealand.

Clay Cliff is a private land and each car is charged 5 dollars. But this place is definitely worth being visited with no regret.