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| Akaroa Lighthouse |
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Akaroa harbor and the main wharf on a sunny day, from the lighthouse
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| photo shoot in the backpacker garden, plus some outtakes from when I tried to do it myself.. |
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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Akaroa! We have been very busy with work, both at the backpackers and at the restaurant. There has also been a lot of rain lately, so we haven't done much outside of working hours. But we are having fun and are enjoying living here. The town gets busy over the holidays, with a lot of Kiwis who have vacation homes here, plus a few days a week the cruise ships bring a couple thousand people in just for the day. Next week we aren't going to have any days off (which is great for our bank account). We get to talk to a lot of interesting people at work, and they are always interested to hear about our journey also.
We worked at the restaurant for a wedding last week. It was an interesting experience, it rained during the day but everyone had a good time. Weddings here aren't much different from at home. There was a nice dinner, TONS of drinks (we kept running out of beer glasses at the bar), and dancing into the night. It was interesting being on the staff end of a function like that. The bar tab alone for the 75 guests was over $4,000.
We also had a staff holiday party last week. We were all taken to another restaurant in town and had drinks and a nice lunch courtesy of our bosses, and then even went over to our managers house to continue the festivities. It was fun getting to know the people that we work with, especially since we live 15 minutes away from the town and don't really get time to hang out with people. There are two staff houses where most of them live, and Chris and I might move in for February.
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| staff party, breads and spread appetizer. yum |
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| chris and the owner's kids, libby and alex |
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| Here is Chris and some of the boys hunting for Christmas trees in the bush at 2 am... |
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| didn't quite fit but they made it work |
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| beautiful Christmas forest. |
On Christmas eve we went on a nice long hike in a reserve just over the hill from Akaroa. There were some great views of the ocean plus waterfalls, but the trail was pretty steep which made it hard since we're getting out of shape again!
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| Henewai Reserve, on the other side of the peninsula from Akaroa |
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| the start of the waterfall loop track |
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| weslie is dead after the hike... steep was a bit of an understatement. |
Christmas Day was really nice. Thank you to everyone who wished us a Merry Christmas and sent cards! I bought Chris a set of whiskey stones and he got me a trip to NZ for a year. Thanks babe!
It didn't really feel that 'Christmasy" without family and cold weather, and people don't really decorate with lights, or go to church, or any of the traditions that we are used to at home- but it was ok to have a different experience.
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