Big decisions, big changes

Yet another roller coaster of a week with ups and downs trying to figure out what we're doing. The campervan we saw last weekend failed quite badly on its pre-purchase check and both the mechanic and our housemate said they wouldn't touch it. So we ended up back at square one, yet again. There's such a demand for decent campervans but they are either tiny and awful inside or mechanically unsound. This week did start out pretty nicely though with a trip to Chipmunks soft play centre with Nick, Candy, myself and the girls. We all had a great time and it showed when Cassidy, Eliza and myself fell asleep in the car on the way home. That night we had our works Christmas dinner which was lovely although the food was a little disappointing. There was a set Christmas dinner menu so we were expecting a nice traditional New Zealand Christmas dinner but what we received we were told by the kiwis on farm wasn't the usual dinner so that was a shame. We had a nice time though and even landed ourselves some movie tickets in the present game we played. Oh and a car cleaning kit for the van we don't have! We decided we had no choice but to come to Christchurch and move out. We'd spent a week not working and didn't want to take liberties and hang around too long. Although we have ended up doing that slightly by leaving most of our stuff at Bruce's and Candy's house. Packing was horrible especially when it was never meant to be that we packed our bags after working, we were meant to pack everything straight into our campervan we were suppose to have now. We also cleaned the whole house for our final inspection to then discover we only needed to clean our room for it which you had to laugh about really. At least the girl moving into our room the day we left would of had a nice clean house to arrive to! We arrived in Christchurch and after checking in began our campervan search in a very upbeat positive mood. After checking every possible website and Facebook page we soon realised how many other people are hunting for vans in Christchurch and how few are around. The ones available are either way overpriced for what they are or just a car with a bed in the back. We soon realised we may have missed the best window of opportunity to buy one and that we'd end up paying so much for one if we were to buy now. After a few days of discussing and pondering we have arrived at the conclusion that we will extend our visa to 23 months. Our plan is to get jobs for after Christmas and buy a car and work for maximum of 4 months before buying a van at the end of the summer season when hopefully most people leave and we'll get more for our money. We will then travel for a few months before returning to work on the farm in July. We've saved so much money in this job and have both really enjoyed the experience that we've realised we would love to do it again and have the opportunity to. We'd then come home sometime at the start of 2019. That's the plan for now anyway. We've applied for 6 joint cleaning roles today alone and for au pair and farm jobs as well. It's looking promising so hopefully something comes from that in the next few days. It will mean 2 years away from home but we'd be a great position coming home and with even more experiences and memories from it. Everything might change as it usually does with us but for now that's what we're aiming for. Christchurch on the other hand still bares the scars from the earthquake last year with many damaged crumbling buildings and construction works going on. It's a strange feeling seeing a natural disaster up close and it does make you realise how lucky the UK is to not suffer from many if not all of these disasters. We visited Catherdral Square the first night to a street food event which moved me to see the community out coming together in the square surrounding a damaged catherdral that has been in need of repair since the 2011 earthquake. It just shows how long something takes to build and how quickly it can be destroyed. We also went to see a installation of white chairs tonight where each chair represents one of the 185 lives lost in the 2011 earthquake. The individual chairs showcase the person's characteristics, age or heritage from example there was a wheel chair, baby car seat and high chair. It was a very moving and harrowing memorial that really brought the tragedy into perspective even more so than the remaining damage in the city does.Leia mais