Still working in the bakery, and got a few more hours last week so a bit of extra money coming in which is always good. I’ve now been trained to use the till and make coffees and milkshakes, so I can help out the front and am not always stuck in the kitchen washing dishes!
Silke, a former cleaner at the Dusky Lodge, and I decided we wanted to try surfing so we booked ourselves a lesson. Originally meant to go out on Paddy’s day but the weather was pretty awful and Dave, the surf instructor, said we should hold out for the better weather the following day. So after enjoying a good night out in the Strawberry Tree we went out yesterday to a surf spot about 10 minutes north of Kaikoura for a lesson with two others. After getting our wetsuits on and doing a few stretches Dave gave us a quick on land lesson on how to stand up and then we got into the water. Paddling onto the wave is quite tricky so Dave pushed us on to each wave. We rode the first on our bellies just to get a feel for the wave and the speed, then the next one we tried to stand up. Everyone managed to managed to wobble their way to some kind of standing position and we enjoyed around two hours in the water. Paddling out is pretty tiring when you’re not used to it and though we were all exhausted by the end I think we all wanted to do more. It was great fun and definitely something I would like to try again. With so many surfers around Kaikoura hopefully I’ll get a chance to borrow a board and give it another go!
I think that’s all for now, a couple more weeks and we should be getting back into the research, and definitely in to autumn.
