Hello to our new home

Don't you just love an early morning flight when you're in a hostel that puts a communal area outside the rooms and the noise continues until the early hours?! That was this morning. We woke up at 2:30am after around 3 hours broken sleep to get ready and packed up for the flight to Auckland. Luckily our hostel did have a 24 hour kitchen so we were able to make our eggs for breakfast before heading out. After wondering around following a pretty poor leaflet map we finally found the stop we need to be on to catch the skybus to the airport. We gave ourselves enough time to work out where it is and if it wasn't a speedy process we had a back up bus time to get. We arrived at the airport just before check in would begin so we did feel we didn't need to be there that early but it's better to be there then to be rushing around. We got a coffee to help get us through the task of rearranging our things across our bags to meet the weight limits. Check in was easy and we had an hour until boarding so just chilled out on comfy chairs wishing we were in bed. Our flight left at 6am which meant as we headed over the South Island the sun was rising. The view over the snow covered mountains with the sunrise glow was incredible. It was hard to determine which areas were clouds or mountain tops. I was sat next to a man we got talking to who actually ended up taking Nick's email address with the potential of work if he wanted more work after our farm roles. We finally touched down on the South Island and caught the bus from the airport to the centre of Christchurch. We were dropped at the coach station and had a few hours to kill before our bus. We spent time walking around the city centre and soon realised there is nothing around here, it may be from the earthquake last year but the centre has basically no shops. We asked a passer-by who advised we head a few blocks south to a shopping centre that has a supermarket. We spent time buying essential bits for our stay including toiletries and some food. We plan to do a food shop once we have arrived but got some bits in case we aren't able to go to the shop straight away. We had the most amazing curry for lunch at the centres' food court. We shared a portion but do wish we had our own when we tasted it. After a while we headed back to the bus station and had a coffee while we waited the last hour until our bus arrived. By this point we were really feeling the lack of sleep. The bus arriving was a relief and we both had a little nap on the journey. Finally we arrived and within 5 minutes Bruce picked us up from the bus stop. We had a tour of the farm before meeting Candy and the children. They helped us move into our new house and meet our housemate. It was quite overwhelming really with so much going on but we got settled in. Originally the contracts hadn't arrived so we had tomorrow off waiting for them so we decided to head to the supermarket to do a big shop. This meant I drove my first automatic jeep for the first time and it was daunting but super easy compared to a manual so I'm quite pleased it's automatic with 5 months not driving. We were so happy about not starting tomorrow but then Bruce text us saying the contracts had come through so we could start tomorrow. We were rather gutted but after showering we headed over once the children were in bed to discuss it. We sat down and talked it through while Bruce filled in all the bits. With a 75 page contract and lack of sleep we said we couldn't sign it tonight and needed tomorrow to read it. He was disappointed but he legally has to give us up to 3 days to read it. I think the main disappointment was that Cassidy the oldest daughter is at preschool tomorrow and then isn't again until Tuesday so I think they wanted to show me her routine with heading there tomorrow. We are glad we told them we needed that day though because as much as you want to trust the contract and people you never know what you're agreeing to and especially in a country where you don't know what the employment law is. We didn't get back until gone 11 and just headed straight to bed. We've set no alarms so we have a good sleep before our day of contract reading tomorrow, yay!Read more