Waimete, New Zealand, Part 2!

Ahhh Monday. A day dreaded by most, but welcomed with wide arms by those of us who are jobless and commitment-less. We had only been in Waimete for 3.5 days, yet we had done so much. We were excited, but weary for the week ahead, as we were soon realizing that while we would have all day to do what we please, what us there really to do in a small town with no car while everyone else in town is working. Hmmm time to get creative!

We started off our week with a nice little sleep in and movie sesh before deciding it was time to get out of the house. We bundled up to take a walk to the store and grab a few essentials. As we exited the store into the now pouring rain, we realized we forgot one crucial ingredient, the wine. With our box of wine in one hand and our fancy cheese (sweet chili Philly cream cheese) and crackers in the other, we braved the cold and rain and headed for home. We spent the afternoon playing a few riveting games of Rummikub while snacking on our cheese and crackers and forgetting how much wine we were drinking. Finally our relief came when our police friends decided to come over for dinner and take us out hunting for the night! We made a delicious meal of reheated leftovers (and fresh broccoli!) before heading out to the bush for a bit of shooting! We found a few hares on the way in, but by the time the boys showed Jaimie and I how to manage the guns, they were long gone. So we were off to do a little 4 wheel driving to find some new targets, but the rain managed to ruin it for us, so we decided to call it a night. Lucky us, we spotted a wallaby right in front of us on our way out and managed to follow it for quite a ways, damn are they fast!

Tuesday was the day of the grand return by Jacquie and Graeme, so as soon as we woke up it was time to clean! Dishes, tidying, vacuuming and we were ready just as they pulled up! Soon after them the policemen arrived to take us back out hunting, but this time just an innocent target practice, or so we thought. We started on bottles at 75m away and Jaimie and I didn't miss a shot! Let's just say we were more impressed with ourselves than the guys were! So they decided the bottles weren't challenging enough for us, so we went for a little bush walk (hike) to see what we could find. We immediately spotted a hare asleep in the grass about 70m away, so the guys set Jaimie up with the .33 to shoot away. After about 8 minutes of aiming and trying new positions, Jaim shot her first shot and up went the hare, 2 feet in the air! In pure shock and awe, we all screamed and congratulated her like she had just scored the winning goal, meanwhile she didn't know whether to laugh or cry at her achievement. That evening when we returned home, we were greeted by a delicious spread of food made entirely by Jacquie. For the last 3 months, the most constant thing out of Jaimie's mouth (besides I'm: hungry, hot, cold) was "I can't WAIT for Jacquie's meat pies and mash in NZ"! Well, here we were, judgement day for me to decide if they were worth all the hype...they were...and she's currently making them for us again for our farewell dinner!

Wednesday came and Jacquie was quite excited to take us by Jaimie's old stomping grounds, the high school, to visit her old teachers. It was cool getting a look into this small town high school and meeting all of Jaimie's teachers who still remember her! Afterwards, Jacquie took us on a driving tour of the town, showing us the houses of anyone and everyone we could possibly think of. We also went and visited the adorable wallabies with their joeys and the peacocks in the neighboring park. When we got home, Sam and Matt came and picked us up to spend the afternoon in Kelcey's Bush, a local forest area with creeks and waterfalls. We spent a while sitting by the creek and enjoying the sun and amazing weather that had finally graced us with it's presence!

Waimete High School

quaint little Waimete

wallabies!

Enjoying the hot hot sun with Sam

teaching Jaim to drive stick, on the left=scary!

Jaim and I swung on that branch...until it broke from under us :/  ooops!

Thursday we were up bright and early to head up to neighboring Timaru for the day. Jacquie took us to her 3 favorite stores to do a little shopping and then to the beach for our first glimpse of NZ coastline. When we got home, we were swept up again by Sam and Matt to go swimming in the local swimming holes. The water was freezing, but certainly not as bad as the lakes, so we jumped in for a refresher! That night Jacquie slaves away making us a traditional NZ roast for dinner, including lamb and mint sauce, potatoes, and about 6 different veggies! So delicious! After dinner we made the trek down the street to Matt's house for a quiet night in watching Summer Heights High.

so many deer!

Timaru beach!

Don's Hole

Black Hole

What's a trip to NZ without trying your hand at sheep shearing! Friday morning was another early one, as we were heading out to the paddocks with Sam to learn how to shear sheep! Sam is a professional shearer and he travels the world shearing alpacas. Sounds weird, but until you give it a shot and see how friggin difficult it is, it makes much more sense why someone would pay big money to have someone do that for them. From catching the sheep and dragging them out, to maneuvering them correctly so you don't cut them, to merely picking up the 10 lb razor. The process was pretty cool tho, and Jaimie and I were excited to experience it first hand! Later that day Tim And Hamish took us out to a new swimming hole with Tim's police dog Winda! On the way out, Tim decided to attempt to teach me how to drive a stick shift. Not only have I never really done it before, but doing it on the left side of the road with all gears and such switched around made it quite difficult. Hope his fancy truck isn't too damaged! Needless to say, he took over driving quite quickly, but being the gentleman he is said I did an excellent job, ya right! When we got home, we had a family outing with Jacquie and Graeme to the local Waimete Hotel restaurant to treat them to fish n chip Fridays and to thank them for being such wonderful hosts all week!

the pro

did you know all the fur comes off in one piece?

Waimete "beach"

black hole with Tim and Hamish

Winda!!

And now our last day in Waimete is upon us. We skipped breakfast in lieu of a meat pie and mash lunch, our last meal by Jacquie! We spent sometime just hanging out with them, they have been so great to us it will be hard to leave them alone! That afternoon Tim and Hamish picked us up to go swimming at the black hole, but upon arrival the sun had disappeared, say Jaimie and I remained warm(er) spectators. We drove back into town, and because they were on-call they had the police car, so I got to ride shotgun! Meanwhile Jaimie was trying (and nearly failing) to drive Hamish's car on the left side of the road, and she went so slow and was so bad that Tim and I had to pull her over. Very serious business here of course as I went up with handcuffs to get her license and registration, because I knew she would resist. Good laughs by all and we ended up parked on the side of the road trying to gain our composure for about 10 minutes. We came back to Jacquie and Graeme's house to do a little BBQ'n with them because the weather was so nice. We cooked up Hamish's newly killed venison and tahr (mountain goat), as well as some NZ sausages and a whole slew of steaks. It was a feast for kings, with enough food to feed about 15 people, even though it was just us 6! After dinner we ha to say out first goodbyes to Tim and Hamish, which was quite sad because they were so good to us! After they left we walked down to Matt's house to watch a charity boxing match on tv called Fight for Life, benefiting men's prostate cancer. The fighters were all Kiwi rugby players who had only been training for 3 months, so the fight was quite intense, but actually fun! We had a nice time afterwards just hanging out with Sam and Matt before we said goodbye to Matt and headed home to get to bed early in preparation for our roadie starting bright and early the next morning!!!

Hamish and Tim manning the barbie

it's a powerful feeling!