Kiwi Hospitality

Last Friday was our final night on the South Island.  Since we had a 1:00 reservation for the ferry on Saturday, we decided to stay in Picton that night.  We found a Bed and Breakfast, the Echo Lodge.   The owners really showed us some Kiwi hospitality.  When we said that we’d like to take a walk, our hostess Sharon pointed out a walking trail that would take us to the wharf and some nice restaurants for dinner.  Then she gave us her card and told us that when we finished eating we could call her and she’d drive over to collect us so that we wouldn’t have to walk back.   When she did collect us, Sharon stopped by a bank so Glenn could use the ATM.  Then back at the B&B, she offered us tea and sweets, and she and Russell visited with us and treated us like family.  The next morning as we departed for our ferry, she even gave us some homemade muffins to take with us!

While we were at the B&B we had a strong and reliable internet signal (not always easy to find here), so we arranged for Katy and Beth to have a Skype session with their classmates.  The class seemed excited to talk with us, especially when the girls told them about swimming with dolphins.  They had lots of good questions about New Zealand, and it was fun for all of us to be able to touch base with home.  Although Skype sometimes freezes up, it’s pretty amazing that we can have a video call—for free—from halfway around the globe. 

The return ferry ride was on the largest in the Interislander fleet.  It even had a small playground for the children, where Katy and Beth met a pair of sisters from Malaysia.  It doesn’t take kids long to make friends, so they entertained one another throughout the three-hour passage.  The girls’ mother and I exchanged email addresses so that we could share pictures we’d taken on the boat.

I also met a very interesting woman from France.  She didn’t speak much English, and I don’t speak much French, so we conversed in Spanish.  She told me that she has been travelling around the world since August 2008, and that the trip would be three years in all.  She’d been all around the South Pacific, South Africa, some of South America, and would be visiting Australia and—I think—Greenland before returning home to France.  Some of the place names may have been confused in the translation, but I thought we communicated pretty well considering we were both using a second language!

We got back to our house Saturday evening with just enough time to do all the laundry and repack so that Glenn could go to Lower Hutt (just north of Wellington) on Sunday evening to begin his two-week supervised practice there, which he has to do before he can work in the hospital in Masterton.  He is staying there all week and will come back to Masterton late Friday night.  Since we only have one car, he’ll come back up on the midnight train so that the girls and I won’t have to drive over Mount Rimutaka late at night.  Meanwhile, Beth, Katy and I are spending this week getting the house organized and making Christmas decorations, since I didn’t bring any ornaments from home.  We’re having fun making God’s eyes, cinnamon dough ornaments, and anything we can think of using the materials at hand.  And though it’s hard to think of Christmas when it’s summer outside, we’ll make it look festive and have a nice holiday together.