Soaking up the Sun in Sumner

Hi

I guess it's about time that I sat myself down and updated this blog!

Well after heading back to ChCh Steve and I started work at the Gormack's flower farm in Redcliffs just outside of ChCh commuting everyday from Foley Towers Hostel in the centre of town. As it was becoming a pain to get up every morning and commute in we decided that it would be a good idea to head out to Sumner, a town a little closer to our work. Its technically a suburb of the city but it really has a feel of being a completely different town, full of surfers. We ended up staying in the Marine Pub and Backpackers (what more could you want from a backpackers other than being attached to a pub!), a nice little place run by Mel and Doc. Steve and I have pretty my ended up with our own private room as there is not many other guests coming through at the moment so the owners put all of the other backpackers in the other rooms, sorted!

Apart from picking flowers everyday, which is killing me I might add, we have cleared timber piles, dug ditches, trimmed hedges, done some dump runs, bunched flowers for fathers day! You could say that this job couldn't get any more polar!

Through work colleagues we have sorted ourselves out with some good contacts and gear. Robin the boss, lent Steve and I his old ski gear (hideous 80's one pieces I might add, I was going down the slopes with a huge silver bugs bunny on my back!) to go snowboarding on Mt Hutt and skiing at Porter Heights, bloody good fun! No doubt we returned with bumps and bruises! Lana's husband runs a surf school so that has sorted us out with some cheap private lessons at Taylor's Mistake beach down the road. Kerry owns a two seater kayak that Steve and I are going to borrow to go camping on Quail island just off the coast in this large bay next to Lyttleton. Weekends are going to be spent in the not too distant future camping in some of the nearby national parks. Saturday, our nights out are spent [usually] playing snooker at the local RSA (the same as the British Legion) for 40 pence an hour along with super cheap pints at about 1.70, before frequenting the local bars before heading back to our 'pub'!

Well I haven't been up to much else really just the general routine that one gets into with work only this time it's in NZ! I can't wait to Finnish work and get back on the road again, not too much longer 3 weeks!

Adios for now.

Jared