Almost like leaving home again

We've had such a nice time WWOOFing here in Mangawhai that it's hard for us to leave. Although our hosts Craig and Jeanette welcomed us to stay through the Holidays with them, we've decided that as tempting as the offer is, we've got more things to see so we're heading south tomorrow morning.

We had a lot of fun here. The work wasn't too bad, and we got to see some beautiful areas of the coast. We went on a cliff walk in Mangawhai, part of Te Araroa - a 3,000 km long trail that covers the length of New Zealand. The entire thing isn't open yet, but the section we hiked was beautiful.

From WWOOFing in Mangawhai

Only the cliff part is part of the trail but we made a loop of it by hiking along the cliffs and back along the beach, stopping for this picture along the way:

From WWOOFing in Mangawhai

Craig's neighbor is giving us a ride to Auckland in the morning (he has to go there for business anyway) and then Friday morning we're taking a bus to Wellington, the southern point of the North Island. There we're meeting up with Brian, an acquaintance of Jaimee's mom and aunt in Idaho. (He travels to the states each year to attend the Sturgis Motorcyle Rally, riding through Idaho which is where they met him.)

Brian invited us to spend the weekend at his "bach" somewhere on the coast near Wellington. Then early next week we've lined up another WWOOFing gig on the South Island coast near Westport. It's been hard to coordinate WWOOFing around the Holidays as New Zealanders travel extensively during the Holiday period; the entire country is essentially on vacation. In fact, commercial trucks are not allowed on coastal roads from this Monday through New Year's weekend.

But our next WWOOF place is a farm/hotel/pizza restaurant so they are open and busy during the holidays. Not sure what we'll be doing but they want us to show up next Tuesday.

So, we're on the move again; it will be good to travel again after being here for over a week...

The pictures of our WWOOF stay are here:

WWOOFing in Mangawhai

Making ourselves at home

As we said at the end of our last post, we are doing our second WWOOF gig and so far it's going great! Our host, Craig told us "to make ourselves at home" and we've had no problem doing that. Especially since our schedule is to work one full day (which we spent weeding the decorative garden along the driveway) and then one day off, the morning which we spent out fishing with Craig and his friend Gibby. We had to get up at 5AM but it was super beautiful out on the water at that time of morning.

From WWOOFing in Mangawhai

Craig is a great guy - he looks like John Goodman and acts like he's from Texas. He's a libertarian organic farmer. In other words, he loves to recycle and compost but doesn't want anyone to force him to do it. He also hates Al Gore, Michael Moore and doesn't know what to think of Obama yet. He's the first New Zealander we've met so far that likes Americans (compared to Australians who generally like Americans). This is especially in contrast to our last WWOOF hosts who didn't really hide their animosity to America. In fact from 2001 to 2003 they refused to host American WWOOFers because of what George Bush was doing.

But, enough politics...let's talk fishing. Today Craig took us out in his boat to the bay nearby to literally fish for our dinner. We've been having fish every night so far, and since his stock was running low we went fishing (you don't need a fishing license, he pointed out). I hadn't fished since I was a kid and Jaimee hadn't fished since she was 18. It was surprisingly easy - we used poles with three hooks each and we just dropped the lines to the bottom and waited for the fish to bite. I reeled in this Snapper (which goes for $30/kg in the store):

From WWOOFing in Mangawhai

We definitely have enough fish for the rest of our stay here (which will probably be through the weekend or Monday).

The weather has been outstanding too - mid 70s with a slight breeze. Jaimee got a slight sunburn while working outside and my allergies have been pretty bad, but otherwise we're safe and sound and really enjoying ourselves.

A lightning tour of Northern New Zealand

As mentioned previously, we rented a car for a few days to go on a tour of the northern part of the North Island of New Zealand. We didn't really know where we were going except that we were expected back at our next WWOOF hosts by Monday evening.

We rented a car in Warkworth from the chattiest rental person ever - he told us that the USA used to drive on the "correct" side of the road until Henry Ford for some reason put steering wheels on the left-hand side of the car. He also insisted on going over all of New Zealand traffic laws before letting us part with his Toyota Starlet (we learned that you can only get a Starlet if you import it specially to New Zealand) rental, as seen here by a bush along the ocean:

From Northland Whirlwind

As it turned out we ended up driving 850 km (530 miles) all the way to the tip of New Zealand and back. We used our Spot device to check-in at various points of interest and I created a map with some of the photos geo-tagged to where we took them here.

We actually had great weather for this trip - lots of sun with clouds scattered around but no rain. Northern New Zealand is beautiful. It's super rural with lots of little towns and beaches around every corner. It reminded us of Whidbey Island in Washington.

From Northland Whirlwind

Here's the link to the full album of our trip:

Northland Whirlwind

We are now in Mangawhai Heads for another WWOOF stint. It's a beautiful setting - olive groves and a small farm amongst rolling hills. There's also a swimming pool and hot tub. I'm not sure what the work will be like though as our host asked us if we'd "done much concrete work before." I guess "organic farming" can take many shapes around here. And he drank a low-carb beer before jumping in the pool to get his exercise. We should be in for an interesting time...

On the road, briefly

We've finished our first WWOOF "job" and have lined up another one that starts Monday night. Until then we've rented a car to explore the Northland region of New Zealand's North Island.

The weather the last few days has been quite rainy - one storm dropped almost 4 1/2 inches in about 12 hours. Luckily our hosts found us indoor work: Jaimee cleaned and sterilized new vinegar bottles and Asa cleaned old olive oil bottles in preparation for a new batch.

From WWOOFing in Warkworth

We also were there for the last sheep birth: it was a set of boy and girl twins.

From WWOOFing in Warkworth

Here's the link to all the photos from our stay at Puriri Flat.

WWOOFing in Warkworth