Kia Ora! We are finally settling down here in a Marae outside of Christchurch nestled on the harbor banks following our four day experience with student directed travel! After leaving Family Farm, we bussed down to Wellington and spent two days exploring New Zealand’s city life. Wellington is the capital of NZ and reminds us of a small San Fran meets Seattle with endless coffee houses, bookstores and vintage shops. We then took the Interislander, aka a luxury cruise (quoted as one of worlds’s most beautiful ferry rides). If you weren’t concerned with blowing chunks, the view was more than all it was cracked up to be. Our luxury cruise ended in Picton, where we immediately hopped on a bus for a scenic coastal tour of the South Island, where the snow capped Alpine mountains met the bluest ocean we had ever seen. We spent the night and following day on the Banks peninsula in a small and cozy farm hostel preparing for the final leg of our time in New Zealand. We, in the incredible landscape of Le Bons bay, aided in the eradication of invasive plants from the coastline, and were blessed enough to have Garry, a high school teacher.
We’ll spend the rest of this week learning from Ngai Tahu Iwi with Yvette, our host on the Koukourarata Marae, delving further into Maori culture and way of life. From Yvette, we’ve already learned the deep meaning, and correct way to preform and participate in a powhiri, which is the greeting and acceptance onto a Marae.