Tipis, surfboards and houses made of pooh

Okay, I know it’s been a really long while since I have updated the blog… SORRY! It just seems to be very hard when travelling to find the time and energy to update! My NZ trip continues to be FANTASTIC..It is unlike anywhere else I have been before. It has flown by though…it’s so hard to believe that I have been here for 2 ½ months already.

Since the last time I wrote, I spent about a week in the Coromandle, still in the North Island…it’s the little peninsula on the East coast that looks like a little arm waving at you. The Coromandle is really rural, so not many people but a lot of reeeaaaally gorgeous scenery. I went all the way up to the top of the peninsula and back down, doing a lot of camping, hiking and sightseeing along the way. Staying at hostels and paying for camping is quite expensive here so when I am not WWOOFing I usually do some “pirate camping,” which basically just involves finding a secretive place to put up my tent for the night where no “authorities” will see me! The week in Coromandle was so wonderful! I even got to do a little bit of snorkeling there! The Coromandle has some of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen and is just stunning in general.

After my holiday in the Coromandle, it was time to get back to work and start WWOOFing again! So I started my work in the “earthship,” which is basically a house that is built entirely out of recycled materials. It is called an earthship because, like a spaceship, it is supposed to be entirely dependent only on itself for survival. The idea is that all food, electricity, etc is produced and used there, so they are not at all dependent on anything else. My experience there was…..INTERESTING, to say the least! They used solar power for their electricity and for some of their hot water. Some of the hot water was heated by a special stove they used when there was not enough sunlight to heat the water. My main duty at the earthship was just helping with some finishing touches of the building, mainly plastering the walls. The foundation of the walls of the house were made of used tires and old cans and bottles, then covered in a plaster, which I had the pleasure of both mixing and putting on the walls. The mixture for the plaster was sand, dirt, water, and whole lot of reeeaaaallly runny, reeeaaally stinky cow pooh. Basically, I was covered in cow pooh everyday I worked on the earthship! Haha it wasn’t as bad as it may seem though…I learned a lot, met some really cool people and had a lot of fun there.

I then spent about a week back in Auckland, just staying with Adam, son of one of my WWOOF hosts, who I have been doing some of this traveling with. It was a nice break from the cow pooh! And on Thanksgiving, I made Thanksgiving dinner for some Kiwis who had never celebrated before! There were only 5 of us, but it was really fun to still get to celebrate my favorite holiday! And yes, I made everyone go around and say what they were thankful for!

My next WWOOF host was at an “eco-retreat,” Solscape, which was basically like a hostel that incorporates as many environmentally conscious principals as possible. There, I stayed in a tipi for the first few days I was there. Yes, I said tipi! Haha, it was a really fun experience...that is until it rained and I found out that my tipi was not waterproof! All my stuff (and me) got SOAKED! It’s pretty funny looking back on it now, but at the time it was not all that fun! When the rain came, I got moved into a caboose (the hostel is made out of old train cabooses), which was indoors so much better. At Solscape, I basically just cleaned the hostel (mostly toilets and bathrooms) and helped them build an “earth dome” (same principals as the “earthship”) for two hours a day in exchange for a free nights stay. This was a reeeaaally cool setup for me because Solscape was located in this awesome little surf town called Raglan. When I got off work, I would just try out some surfing, go to the beach or hang with people from the hostel. There are always really interesting people around a hostel so this was a really great place! I had so much fun there! I even took a kite boarding lesson in Raglan (a lot harder than it looks!) I stayed there for about two weeks and could have stayed longer…I might have to make a trip back there!

NOW, I have made it a little further south, to the Taranaki region. I am now working at an organic brewery called Mike’s Premium Organic Beer. You can check out their website at www.organicbeer.co.nz if you want. This place is really cool. First, the Taranaki region is absolutely beautiful (haha, like the rest of NZ). It is where The Last Samurai was filmed, for those of you movie buffs. The brewery is located on a really pretty piece of land and the owners are really nice. Here I am just working at the brewery doing odd jobs like labeling bottles and other things. When I first arrived, the owner gave me a tour and explained how they brew their beer. The tour concluded with samples of all their beers and the wines the sell. It was pretty awesome.

SOOO in conclusion, NZ is great. I continue to learn a lot, have a lot of great experiences, meet interesting people and see lots of amazing sights! My next adventure is on an organic farm for a week and then off to Fiji to meet up with Jimmy for two weeks for Christmas and New Years!

How are all of you?? I want to hear updates on what you are doing and your plans for the upcoming holidays!

Love and miss you all J

the pics are of: the tipi i stayed in, the earthship, thanksgiving dinner crew, and the Coromandle

Long hike and free internet

allllrrrightttt, hope everyone's Halloweens were fun! Id love to hear stories and what you dressed up as! Unfortunately for me, Halloween is not really celebrated here so I did not have the pleasure of dressing up and making a fool of myself like the rest of you! HA! I think that means I'll have to go twice as big next year! I love Halloween!

ANYway, i think i left off in Teheke last so ill just pick it up there! SO, some of you know this, some dont but I really love hiking..got really into it when i moved to Colorado and had some of the best hiking partners ever (ie Jessie!) SO, that was something i was really looking foreward to in NZ because the hiking is supposed to be good. Cut to me going on a 3 day, 35 mile hike along the West coat of the northland! The son of the last family i was working for was planning to go on this hike and invited me to come along when we got to talking about hiking. It was amazing! Every day was very challenging (we hiked for about 6-7 hours a day!) but also very rewarding because of how beautiful it was! A lot of the hike was along the beach and through green pastures but there were also some very steep hills and bluffs that we had to climb. It was a coastal hike, but it was so great how diverse it was! For a lot of it, we walked along hills with beautiful green cow pastures to our left (the cows all stopped what they were doing and stared at us for sooooo long. it was hilarious!) and the gorgeous Tasman Sea to our right. We had 2 major river crossings, where we had to take our shoes off and do thigh deep into the water...haha praying that we didnt get pushed over by the tide! We went up a really steep bluff, which was the tallest point in eye distance, through forest, which was completely overgrown onto the trail so we had to just push our way through the bushes and trees, and walked along the beach for hours! We didn't even really see any other people the whole time because it is such a secluded area...it was awesome! We camped out the first night along the beach and the second night on top of the bluff and watched 2 of the most amazing sunsets ive ever seen! i dont think many people take the trail, so it was reeeaaalllllly poorly marked and we lost the trail a few times, just because there simply wasnt a sign! It was quite the adventure! One time when we lost it we ended up having to climb this ssuuuuper steep hill, creating our own switchbacks. it was so hard. we never did find out where we were supposed to go up, but it was a 500 meter (1650 ft) gain, all in one go! on day 3 we lost the track again so ended up having to cut across someone's property and climb over a few fences (they probably had 40-50 acres so its not like they were sitting there watching us)...if anyone was rerecording how many times ive been electrocuted by fences here, you can add one more because i tried to climb a fence i thought was off....i thought wrong so ive concluded that us americans are wimps when it comes to hiking because our trails are so clearly marked....as in theres only one way to go...here its so confusing! it didnt rain on us once, which is amazing for spring in NZ...guess mother nature was on our side! all in all it was a great trip! it felt so good to dip in the lakes at the end of the trail and it felt even better to have a cold beer and some pizza that night!!

NOW i am a section of NZ called the Coromandel. It is the little peninsula that sticks out at the top of the north island. it is reeally beautiful here (are you sick of hearing me say that yet?). the town i am in is right on the water on an inlet, the water is so blue and the hills are so green! The town itself reminds me a little of Durango (so of course i LOVE it!) because its a small town (muuuuuch smaller than rango...pop is 1600) but it still has everything you need. it has beautiful surroundings, complete with mountains and the sea. theres lots of little cute cafes and a beach and a few bars and all that good stuff. it feels good to be in a town that is not as much in the middle of nowhere! i like the middle of nowhere but it was catching up with me i think...the place im working is really cool. it used to be a tranquil gardens that people would pay to get into, just to have a look around. theres a little creek that runs though it (this is the creek where gold was first discovered in NZ, thus sparking the gold rush here), 3 ponds and tons of flowers, bush and trees. it is really cool to just be staying somewhere that people used to have to pay to see! the guy im working for also owns some posh villas up the road where i have also been working. you can check out the villas at http://www.drivingcreekvillas.com/. my set up here is sweeeet. he only wants me to work 4 hours a day and then i have the rest of the day to do as i please (this is where the cafes, beautiful scenery, hiking and beaches come in). he also gave me a bike so i can get around easily, and he has wireless internet!!!!! it has been soooo nice to just be able to use the net whenever i want! its been great to be able to catch up with emails and all that good stuff! if you go to an internet cafe, which are slim to none as it is, the cost is about $2 for 15 minutes! last friday night, i went to a guy fawkes festival (he tried to blow up the english parlament building and got caught before he could do it, so every year england and commonwealth countries celebrate with a big bonfire, which sometimes contains a stick man meant to represent guy fawke and fireworks) it was fun to watch the fireworks and bonfire...it was 4th of julyeske...

i will leave here tomorrow, to go further up the peninsula for some hiking and camping, i think auckland for some city time for the weekend, then its off to my next farming job..this time it is at an "earthship," which is a home that is made COMPLETELY out of recycled materials...its pretty cool. theres a website,http://homepages.callplus.net.nz/~b.gubb/ if you want to check it out!

the photos:

1. coromandel town...i ust took this on the side of the road

2. view from the kitchen @ sunset

3. coromandel, from above

4-5. the gardens

6. guy fawkes celebration

the rest are of the 3 day hike....including my excellent fence jumping skills and the cows staring us down....

WWOOFing

I know it has been a while since my last update, so sorry to those of you who have been checking and not finding anything! Long internet time is a bit of a luxury, as I am in the country…waaay in the country… so its not that easy to update the blog! If you don’t want to read the whole thing (its long) you can just skip to the life lessons ive learned at the end J

So I have to say that all the rumors about people in NZ being reeeaaaaalllly friendly and hospitable all totally true. Within 2 days, I was invited to morning tea (everyone here has “morning tea” around 10 after they have worked for a few hours as a bit of a break before lunch. It is fantastic.) by a woman we met at a bar the night before, been driven across town by a woman who insisted on helping me find a way to get to my first farm work job when I found that the bus drivers were on strike (she even waited with me to make sure I got my ticket and drove me back to town!) and had a total stranger assist me in test driving a car on the opposite side of the road when I was thinking of buying a car (when I asked about the car, the owner just handed me the keys and told me to take it for a drive haha)

My first WWOOF (world wide opportunities on organic farms…it’s the farming stuff im doing) experience was in the country outside of Mangawhai, a costal town. The couple, Jim and Ngaire, were absolutely fantastic! They didn’t own a farm so much as about 10 acres of land, which they were in the process of building a home on. They had a beautiful veggie garden, where I spent quite a bit of time and hens, which produced all the eggs for their home. I worked about 5 hours a day, working my ASS off! My main job while I was there was to make “earth bricks”, work in the garden, make compost (using a LOT of horse poo, which I had the pleasure of collecting). Most of the ingredients of the earth bricks were things they just had on their property (clay, dirt, paper…..), which was pretty cool. This was quite an interesting project and a lot of hard work! Manual labor is a tough business and I have a new found respect for anyone who does it! I did a lot of shoveling and wheelbarrel pushing, which are both a surprisingly amazing workout. One day, one of my jobs was to climb this 20 ft tree and cut down some of the limbs! Haha While I was there, I slept in a trailer that was on their property, and did my “business” in a compost toilet that was also on the property (see photos). It was quite interesting, and pretty cool to learn how people use and re-use everything, literally everything, they can! Jim and Ngaire were quite educated about NZ history and culture so they really taught me a lot about it. They were both very interesting and we had lots of great conversations, and N was a great cook!… they introduced me as “their surrogate daughter” to their friends haha. One Friday night, they took me to a swing dance lesson that they always go to…the nest youngest person to me was in their 50s! haha, it was really fun though… not exactly the craziest Friday night ive ever had, but it was definitely fun. They also took me on a couple really great hikes, which im sure I will post some photos of on here. I had a really great experience here, J&N really made me feel like I was a part of their family, which was really great.

I am currently in a tiny town on a farm in the northland of New Zealand called Teheke. They have tons of different fruit and nut trees, cows, chickens, and a huge veggie garden. There are two huge waterfalls ON their property! Its pretty cool. We went smimming the other day and jumped in by the fall…soooooo cold! Its still really cold here in general. I cant wait for summer! (should start around December or so) The house they live in is reeeaaallly cool. They have solar power and produce most of their own food. Everything is home made and the food is reeeaaaallly good. It is a definitely a different lifestyle here, one that I find really incredible because they try to make and produce everything they have and use....So you have to plan your meals and lifestyle in general around what you HAVE, not necessarily what you want.. There is very little trash because everything is recycled or made into compost for the garden. It is a very simple lifestyle, but it takes a loooooot of hard work to make it work. Its pretty great to see how its all done! My main duties here have been thisseling (thissles suck :)), weeding, planting and doing other gardening stuff, feeding the chickens and collecting eggs, cleaning and doing various activities that involve cow pooh. (I’m starting to realize that WWOOFers get the jobs that no one else wants to do) On my first day, the woman of the house handed us machetes, and told us that we were going to have a long day. Haha. We were to use these machetes to cut down the thissles and then we had to go back and shovel out the roots. ..haha it was fun! After that, we were given wheelbarrels and shovels and told to collect three wheelbarrels each of cow poo for the compost. In my dad’s words, they are working me like a borrowed mule! Its funny that as a kid, my two least favorite chores were weeding and cleaning the dog run….and now here I am, doing just that. The couple that I am staying with now have kids in the area who are around my age and visit a lot so that has been really great…they have taken me under their wings a bit. I had my first day off since I started farming on Sunday and one of them took us on a hike to the tallest point in the northland…umm soooo steep! And then we all went to some hot springs and had a few beers…it was a great day off! The other night, I got to see the glow worms they have on the property, down by waterfall number 1. There is an entire wall covered in glow worms! SO cool J Today, added to my list of fun activities, was to build a drain, haha. We had to dig a drain for excess water that was going under the house…using a shovel and our hands.

So far, my farming expeince so far has been really great. I am learning a lot about myself, New Zealand, and well…farming, haha. NZ still amazes me everyday with how beautiful it is! The countryside here is amazing! This program is a great way to see the culture and meet real people..and its all for almost nothing moneywise! Haha,a little hard work never killed anyone J

So, these are the top few things I have learned while working on farms:

1) If someone asks you to “thissle,” your reply should be that you would rather be poked in the eye with a sharp stick.

2) If someone hands you a machete for your job of the day, it’s a BAD sign

3) How to tell the difference between horse poo, cow poo, and just piles of dirt.

4) How to drive a tractor, make compost and earth bricks

5) How to do a swing dance!

6) Any fence, even if it looks like a thin piece of plastic or chicken wire, can be electric (been shocked somewhere around 5 times)

7) How to make ginger ale from scratch!

8) Cow poo is easiest collected when it is somewhere between new and old, so it has a nice crust over it

9) Eating/producing your own food is really cool, healthy and a lot of work///but it is worth it!

10) How to set possum traps and collect the dead possums afterwards…NOT fun

11) Farming is really HARD, but rewarding

the photos are of me driving the tractor, with my first WWOOF hosts, one of the waterfalls on my 2nd host's property, some scenery from some hiking i have been doing, me on the farm, the trailer and compost toilet from the 1st farm and the bricks i made!

Northland

New Zealand is absolutely beautiful. I can’t imagine that there are many places in the world where you can drive through endless fields and hills of green with a mountainous backdrop, go swimming at a beach surrounded by tiny islands, go sand boarding down huge sand dunes and walk through a rainforest all in the same day. My trip of the northland was really fun. For those of you that care where exactly I was, I am on the north island and all of this trip was the area that is above Auckland. I saw an ad posted in my hostel by a guy named Romy who had rented a campervan to do the trip and needed a travel buddy. (public transport here is not that good so the easiest and cheapest way to get around is to rent a campervan so that you can sleep in it too and save on accommodation.) So I answered and we went on the trip together. Some friends of Romys live in the northland so they were our tour guides for the first two days and for the rest of time we were on our own, trying to find all the hotspots J we saw the most amazing country side…it basically looks like something out of a fairy tale haha. We went on a bunch of short hikes that all ended in beautiful waterfalls..NZ is definitely not lacking in the waterfall department J We went on hikes through the forest and saw some great beaches and huge sand dunes..I think my favorite part was the bays in the north though. There are tons of little bays, all scattered with these tiny islands. SOO beautiful. We went SKYDIVING over the Bay of Islands so we got a view of the islands from above. It was pretty amazing. It was kinda cloudy so we didnt see as much as I hoped but it was reeeeaaaalllllyyy cool flying through the clouds. I loooove skydiving and was getting talked into getting certified to do it on my own by one of the guys there so I am looking into it……haha don’t have a heart attack Pop, ill be fine J SO the trip of the north was pretty amazing. The "campervan" was…interesting, haha. It was basically a van that had seats that could be transformed into a bed and a gas stove in the back. So showers and sometimes even a toilet were pretty luxurious haha. Romy and I got along pretty well, which was a plus since we were in such close proximity the whole time…he just made fun of my American accent the whole time haha (hes English). I absolutely loved it up there. It is sooo secluded with all these small towns. On Saturday night we kinda wanted to party a little so we drove for about 1 ½ hours longer than we would have to find a town that had a bar in it…then when we got there we were the ONLY ones there and they said they were closing. So our big Saturday night party was one rushed drink haha…..

Looking at all the farmland made me really anxious to start my farmwork…and also to have free rent! NZ is pretty expensive so I am looking forward to not having to pay for hostels every night! I have my first farm scheduled for Tues the 13^th and have tons more all over the north after that. I am thinking about buying a cheap car here to make it easier to get around…the busses kinda suuuuck to travel on because some of the towns I am going to are so small there is no bus that goes through them….so its just another thing im looking into…

Now I am in this little beach town called Orewa, staying at this cute hostel that is really nice. It feels great to have a shower and a bed!

Welcome to NZ

weelllllll here i am in Auckland, NZ! I got here on Friday morning after my 17 1/2 hour flight from L.A...luckily, i slept almost the whole way so I didnt really notice. I also watched the Hangover, which wasnt as funny as i expected btw...anyway, i met these two canadian girls when i was still in LA who both were doing the same work holiday visa as me and were going to the same hostel as me by chance...so we all got the bus to the hostel together. it was sweeeet. ps, when i was in LA i checked the website one last time to make sure i did everything...i was a little pariniod because i did everything so last minute...and it said i needed to have health insurance..which of course i dont have so i was like SSSHHHHHHIIIITTTTTTT i freaked out and spent 250 bucks on getting insurance online at the airport literally minutes before my flight....so typical haha. when i got to the immigration checkpoint they didnt even care about it whatsoever....but they stamped for a year...so i have a work visa for until october 2 2010...crazy huh?
the people in the hostel i am at are pretty cool and i have been with all the same people the last few days...there are 2 girls from holland, 2 german guys and one dutch guy. this whole experience reminds me sooooo much of malta because there are so many people from all over doing this work holiday visa....we all went out together the 1st night and had a blast. the next day i was pretty much hungover and letlagged but went to a rugby match which was really fun. i dont think i ever realized how CRAZY that sport is. those guys are insane! and that night went out again to watch this boxing match between 2 NZ boxers...it was CRAZY haha and fun. yesterday i went out to this volcanic island and went hiking all day on the island. it rained pretty much the whole time so i was freeeeezing but it was beautiful. sidenote it is freezing here and i am wearing like 50% of all the clothes i brought with me right now as i type this..haha

today i feel like i am really settling because i got a tax # (like a SS #) and NZ bank account and all that stuff...

auckland is a cool city but its pretty much a city....i am really anxious to get out of the city and see the stuff i really came here for. tomorrow i leave on a week long trip of the northern tip of the north island. i rented a car with a friend and we will do the trip together. i also set up my first farming experience...so i will be working on a farm on the north island from thw 14th to the 21st of this month...im excited to not have to pay for a hostel :)

the people here are some of the nicest i have ever ancountered in my life. its great.

i love and miss you all and keep me posted on your lives!!