Preparing for sweet goodbyes

Hello followers!

Time at the farm is coming to an end unfortunately... Only 1.5 weeks left and then my adventure of living on a New Zealand farm for 3 months is all over. I can't believe how fast time went, I can remember arriving here like it was yesterday! Harvey, Rachel and the boys made me feel so home from day 1 and I have been so lucky having them as my host family. They really feel like family now :) And surprisingly living on a farm so isolate is actually really something I enjoyed. I kind of see myself living on the countryside in the future, in particularly in New Zealand haha. Sorry mum and dad ;) I just LOVE this country: the
people, the landscape, the way of life, the atmosphere, just everything :) The only thing I have to do is find myself some nice kiwi cowboy so I can stay here and live on pretty farm. Rachel will try to find me one (he obviously has to be handsome), so I can stay here with them haha.

Here some more of my adventures that have been happening in the last month. In the beginning of June, Rachel took me and the boys to the aquarium in Napier. First we met up with Kim and Kaylee (Rachel's friends) and their kids in the bikepark at the seaside, were we eat some DELICIOUS cronuts (crossing of a donut/croissant: Rachel and I can't get enough of them) and had some coffee. Kaylee brought her girl along called Felina, a German girl, and she shared some of her travelling adventures of the south island with me. Then we went to the aquarium which was pretty cool, besides sharks, piranas, turtles, they even had some rare kiwi birds! Funny little creatures.

I have also been driving a lot of vehicles here, from the usual dirtbike, to the quadbike and I even picked up Lochie from the schoolbusstop in Elsthorpe (which is 20 minutes down the road) with Rachel's car. That was pretty cool, driving on the left-hand side through the hilly landscape! What also has been pretty cool is seeing Harvey's working dogs shift some cattle up in the hills. We drove up the hills, found the grazers and the dogs pushed them down the hill. You have two different working dogs: huntaway dogs (dogs that bark, to push the cattle forwards or 'away') and heading dogs (dogs that run at the sides or the front of the cattle to head the cattle into the right direction). All the dogs have their own whistles and instructions, so they know what to do. We would be standing at the bottom of the hill and Harvey would whistle and the dogs which were on top of the hill (about 150 meters away) would know what to do and bring the grazers down. Pretty amazing to see!! The dogs do exactly what he says or whistles, although there are two younger dogs who are still learning. Especially when to back down from some cows, as cows can be pretty aggressive towards dogs. But these dogs are tough, nothing like the dogs we have in Holland (one looks like a wolf, man he is huuuuuge).

Something pretty scary happened last week, baby Joe got pretty sick and had to be rushed into the hospital. He had been off for a little while, and as he is teething we thought he was just being a little bit grizzly. However, he got sicker and sicker and at one point he was looking so weird that we decided to take him to the GP. This was at 5 pm in evening, so before we got there it was 6 pm. There he got diagnosed with scarlet fever and he had to be rushed into hospital to the emergency department. Scarlet fever is caused by an infection with group A streptococcus bacteria. The bacteria make a toxin (poison) that cause the scarlet-colored rash and it also made his skin swell up. You couldn't recognize him! On top of the scarlet fever, he also got a different bacteria infection around his mouth and eyes, which made it all icky for the poor little fella. In the emergency department, 4 doctors/nursed jumped on him and immediately gave him an IF-drip, antibiotics and penicillin. It all was very scary and emotional, as it was pretty dangerous because of his young age. Around 10 pm we got shifted to the paediatric ward and we were given a private room.
Rachel and Joe stayed there and I had to stay in a nearby motel as only 1 parent is allowed in the room. We didn't bring any clothes or a toothbrush, so the first night was a bit rough. However, Harvey picked me up the next day to go home and he brought some clothes and stuff for Rachel and Joe. In the end they had to stay in the hospital for 3 nights and they were released on my birthday! So that was a really nice birthday present :) He is getting better and better each day and hopefully he will be the same happy boy as before!

My birthday was really good, although weird to celebrate it on the other side of the world. Also it was the first time ever, that I was already 23 years old while Leonie my twin sister was still 22 years old. Weird eh! I got some pretty neat birthday cards and presents, Jude (Harvey's mom) made me a chocolate birthday cake, got me some sparkling rose and picked me a pretty bouquet of flowers from her garden. Rachel picked up my favourite chocolate cronuts filled with custard and brought some lovely champagne home. Harvey got me 6 delicious chocolate bars. You guys see why I am gaining so much weight? ;) I also got a very beautiful Kathmandu wind/rain jacket from Harvey, Rachel, Forbes, Lochie, Sam and Joe. Everyone here made this day very special for me so that was really sweet. They even sang happy birthday during dinner haha. Now Sam can't wait for his birthday (which is next week), so he can get presents and people sing happy birthday to him haha.

So while I am looking forward to get started with backpacking, I am pretty sad to leave this lovely family. However, I promised them I will come back next year and besides, Rachel is going to find me a handsome kiwi cowboy so I will have to come back :P Thus to be continued....

Alrighty, the next time you probably here from me will be when I am on the south island and everything will be very different. Nonetheless awesome, because I am going on a bus tour with fellow backpackers. So hopefully I will meet some nice people! Enjoy your summers, I am going into the winter season (lots of snow down on the south island). Hope you all have a good deserved summer vacation and speak to you soon.
Lots of love,

xxxx