The following post features student writing.
We arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand, at around 12 a.m. after a long day of plane travel from Australia—everyone was exhausted and it was pouring! Little did we know that this rain would affect the activities of our next two days! We drove about 15 minutes, then settled at the Top Ten holiday park! We woke up early the next morning and drove for two hours through fields of sheep and pouring rain. A two-hour drive turned to four, and the roads began to flood, so we soon found ourselves stranded at the Timaru Top Ten holiday park. We missed a day of homestays but quickly made up for it with a fun movie night featuring a New Zealand-based film titled Hunt for the Wilderpeople. The next day we were rained in again, and so we explored Timaru!
We ate at the Purple Lizard Café, and then wandered for a while before napping and getting Thai food! It was a good recharge for our bright and early start on our way to Oamaru! We took the rest of the four-hour bus drive and anxiously waited outside for our homestay families to pick us up. CC and I discovered we were sharing a homestay family. Our homestay mother greeted us with their youngest daughter, Lauren. We quickly bonded about boys, school, and food! It was a 20-minute drive to their 150 acre farm, but it was so worth it! We drove up the never ending hills and reached their house. A giant dog named Gus greeted us, and we were instantly excited. We met our homestay dad and elder homestay sister Caitlin. We then were shuttled to do the most amazing thing: see day-old baby calves! CC and I spent neatly two hours lying in the hay with 10 newborn calves. After this we went home and had a spa (fancy way of saying hot tub soak) and then had dinner. We were given loads of vegetables and some New Zealand classics like L&P (fancy Sprite) and pineapple lumps (I still don’t know). We then stayed up quite late bonding with our homestay sisters. The next day we walked Lauren down the hill to catch the bus, and embarassed her lots! We then met up with the group and rode penny farthing bicycles around the old Victorian district of Oamaru. After that we drove to the coast to see the spectacular and mysteriously spherical Moeraki boulders. After exploring on the beach we went to a farm!
At this farm we had tea and toasties and then sheared some sheep! We walked around in our muddy gumboots, and explored a nearby dairy farm.
After this we went back to town and ventured around Oamaru until our homestay siblings got out of school. They then picked us up and we went home to relax before our Tongan feast. We all gathered at the fire station and had a giant feast. We ate traditional Pacific Islander foods like roasted pig, and Maori bread, and watched some amazing cultural dances. We then bonded with the other homestay families and met a plethora of people including potato farmers! We then were driven home by our eldest homestay sister Ashleigh and learned about university in New Zealand. This was our last night so we stayed up quite late talking about netball (a sort of basketball sport) and other things. The next day we walked Lauren down to the bus for the final time and we all cried! We ventured back up the hill and said goodbye to the Judds and Pie and Gus (the two best dogs ever). Overall I wish I had more time at my homestay because I had an amazing time and really bonded with my family. I was so sad to leave but hope that they will come visit me in the States!
– Grace T.