A weekend away

After getting a ride into Auckland with our last WWOOFer's neighbor, we spent a night in Auckland at a hostel before catching a 12 hour bus ride to the south of the North Island. The ride went through some beautiful scenery but because we kept getting behind schedule we didn't get to stop at any one place for very long, and the one time we did stop for any duration, we got out to stretch our legs and got back on the bus to find our seat was now occupied by a quite large woman and her daughter. We explained that she was in our seats (even showing her our water bottles that we left in the mesh net on the back of the seats) but she didn't care. So...we had to ride the last eight hours not next to each other and not by the window. (The bus was a double-decker and our original seats were on the top by the window.) It was a little bit annoying, but such is life with long-distance bus rides. At least I loaded up the iPod with my favorite podcasts before leaving (although I'm not sure listening to five hours of podcasts about the financial crisis helped my mood much...) Jaimee entertained herself by reading three-quarters of a real page-turner.

In any event we arrived in Wellington, had a quick beer at the pub in the train/bus station (we needed it!) and caught the train out to the town of Upper Hutt to meet Brian, the Harley Davidson-riding kiwi who Jaimee's aunt and mom met last August when he was cruising through Idaho.

Brian is a awesome, although not exactly your stereo-type New Zealander. About the only thing typical is his business - he runs a fencing company, which I assumed meant farm fencing for the numerous farms around New Zealand. But, no, he said he does mostly commercial jobs that require tall barbed wire fences, like prisons. He also rides Harleys (he leaves one in Montana for his frequent visits there) and collects muscle cars (there were three Cameros, two Mustangs, a couple of Ford pickups and a Corvette, among other cars I couldn't identify in his garage). He fixes them up (even converting the driving side in some cases) and re-sells them. Who knew there was a market for 1980s Corvettes in New Zealand (or that there were so many prisons that needed fencing)?

Brian lives above his garage/work shop, which is decorated quite interestingly. Here I am working on the blog:

From A Bach Weekend

But we didn't stay here long. In the morning we went out to his land (he owns about 700 acres which he's subdivided and hopes to develop). Continuing with the WWOOFing theme, we helped him replant a tree, although if this was a real WWOOF situation we would have dug the hole by hand. Instead we used Brian's tractor:

From A Bach Weekend

After this task (and a cup of tea, of course) we drove a couple hours up the coast to his bach (pronounced batch) which as mentioned previously is like a small cabin or weekend home. His bach was a bit rustic, but the setting was phenomenal, literally across the street from the beach. The weather was a bit blustery for a swim, but we enjoyed walking along the water and playing with his three dogs by the beach. We also drove out along a beach road to a light house and seal colony.

From A Bach Weekend

We also got to do some work on the grounds (mowing and cleaning up). Once we tell people about WWOOFing I think they think it means that we want to work. We didn't mind, although the grass was pretty unruly and long and the mower kept stalling out by choking on the grass.

From A Bach Weekend

Now we're back at the workshop, but leave early in the morning to take a train back to Wellington, a ferry across to the South Island and then a bus to the town of Nelson. We'll check out Nelson (it's supposedly the sunniest place in New Zealand) before heading to our WWOOFing hosts in Westport on Tuesday.

Here are all the pictures (don't miss the one with the American Flag!):

A Bach Weekend

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

Life on the farm

Just a quick update, but we're still at Puriri Flat Vineyards and still having a great time. We're falling into a nice routine of working half days, and we realized that we've now been here for seven nights straight which is the longest time we've been stationary since we started our trip.

Our hosts Doug and Jean-Ann are kind enough to rotate the tasks so we don't get bored. We've done a variety of different activities so far: mulching, weeding, making fertilizer (it smells!) and filling a retaining wall. We even got to dig out and move (or shift in NZ-speak) a lemon tree. We also had a moment of sadness this morning: one of the lambs born last Saturday was unable to nurse, and despite some bottle-feeding by Jean-Ann it didn't make it and died this morning. The cries of the mother sheep were quite sad and loud.

There are several lambs on the farm and one more pregnant ewe. Here's a quick shot of some of the sheep in the first pasture (before we herded them to the upper pasture):

From WWOOFing in Warkworth

We're here through Saturday, and we don't know where we're going after that. We've sent some e-mails to other WWOOF farms but haven't heard back yet. Maybe we'll have to call some of them to line up another farm stay.

A WWOOFing Thanksgiving

As we write this, it's Thanksgiving Day, which of course means nothing in New Zealand. Also because of the timezone/international date line, it won't be Thanksgiving in the US until tomorrow. However, we're having a blast on our farm.

As some background for those that don't know, WWOOF stands for Willing Workers World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. The idea is to link up farmers with workers. You buy a year-long membership to each country you want to WWOOF in and you get access to a database of farms that take on workers. We decided in the beginning to try it for New Zealand (we're open to trying other countries later in our trip, but we only bought one membership thus far. We didn't do it in Australia because we figured we'd have other stuff to do there). As mentioned previously, we sent out some requests and Doug and Jean-Ann of Puriri Flat farm said we could stay/work with them.

Jean-Ann picked us up at the bus station in Warkworth (about an hour north of Auckland) and we went to their farm. It's on a beautiful hill (nothing flat about their farm at all) overlooking a tidal river.

From WWOOFing in Warkworth

There were two choices for accommodations: a small house with bunk beds or a semi-permanent caravan (trailer) at the top of the property. We chose the caravan as it contained a double bed and was unbelievably cute as well as being private.

From WWOOFing in Warkworth

So far we've worked two days. Breakfast is at 8AM, we start work at 8:30, have tea (Doug is originally from England) around 10:30 and then go back to work until 1PM. After lunch we are free to do whatever we want in the afternoon. Lunches have been sandwiches or leftovers, but for dinner Doug or Jean-Ann cooks up something yummy.

Thus far the work has been manual labor type stuff. The first day we cleared and mulched brush along the side of their driveway (it rivals my Uncle Neil's driveway for steepness - although this one is made of cement sections). Today we took wheel barrow loads (33 loads to be exact!) sideways across a hill to fill in a retaining wall. It would have made a perfect Amazing Race task as it required teamwork to keep the wheel barrow from falling over and was also very tiring. Phil would be proud - we didn't drop one load!

Today Doug gave us a ride into Warkworth, although we have to hitchhike back. Their farm is about 10km from town, although they said people hitchhike all the time so we shouldn't be worried.

One other quick note: Doug showed us pictures of all the other WWOOFers who'd worked on their farm (they've been doing this since 2001 and have had probably close to 100 groups come to work, taking pictures of each person for their book) and we felt very unremarkable. They've had Japanese who've brought sushi-making materials, a philharmonic clarinet player who gave a concert in their yard, a fifth-generation mason from England who built them a stone wall and artists who've done beautiful artwork for them. Jaimee has some funny stories about autistic kids to share and I was able to chat with him about which band of service to use for his cell phone (GSM vs UTMS). Not sure how memorable we'll be. Although it has only been two days so we'll see what we can come up with.

We're scheduled to work here through December 5, and I sheepishly asked if they work on the weekends, and the answer was, "If you're staying here, yes" although the days might be shorter. We'll see...

More about Auckland

We're loving Auckland. As we noted, Auckland reminds us a lot of Seattle so we're very comfortable here. On our second day we took a ferry trip out to the island of Rangitoto, a park reserve about a half-hour ferry from the city harbor. It's an old dormant volcano and reminded us a lot of Wizard Island in Crater Lake National Park. It was a nice climb to the top where there were great views of the city. The day was kind of overcast and hazy but it was still a nice outing.

From Auckland

Yesterday evening our couchsurfing host, Young, had some people over for dinner and games at his apartment. There was also a french couple, Estelle and Christophe, who were couchsurfing with Young as well for the night. This couple has been traveling for almost three years, biking their way around the world. They started in France, biked across Europe, through India, Iran and Pakistan, into China, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore. They then spent about a year in Australia before coming to New Zealand. They had some cool stories and were surprisingly laid back about all their travels.

Young also invited his neighbors over, Christine, an American who went to high school with Young and the first New Zealanders we met, Bronwin and her daughter Cass. The french couple made a lovely quiche and Bronwin brought a yummy salad. It was a wonderful evening hearing stories of everyone's travels. Interestingly, of the non-Americans, only Christophe had been to the US (once to New York City). (Christophe's biking jacket reflected from the flash - we tried "photoshopping" it out but only made the picture worse so we left it.)

From Auckland

We're leaving Auckland in a few hours to catch a bus to our WWOOF farm in Warkworth. We don't know what the Internet will be like there, but assuming we can connect we'll post our impressions after a few days.

Here are the pictures we took while in Auckland:

Auckland

Seattle of the Southern Hempishere

We left Australia and flew from Melbourne into Auckland, New Zealand. Based on first impressions only as we've been here less than 24 hours, Auckland is a great city. It reminds us of Seattle in many ways. We mentioned earlier in our travels that we thought Austin, Texas was the Seattle of the South, well, Auckland is like the Seattle of the Southern Hempishere. This time though, the comparison has more to do with the climate and geography.

We took the airport bus from the airport and arrived at our couchsurfing accomodations. Our hosts were two guys, one born in Chicago and the other born in England who had both lived here for about three years. They were pretty well traveled and we enjoyed talking with them about places they've been and places we've been. It was also fun to talk to them about our impressions of Australia and the differences between Australia and New Zealand.

We got up this morning and the sky was overcast, drizzling a little and about 55 or 60 degrees - which would be typical for a Seattle spring day. We're staying in the Eden Terrace neighborhood of Auckland which is very similar to Capitol Hill in Seattle. We walked into downtown and crossed an overpass that was surprisingly similar to Pine Street and Boren in Seattle:

From Auckland

The downtown is right on the water and is full of coffee shops, bookstores and other stores similar to Seattle. There's even an island close to Auckland (Waiheke Island) that by description sounds very much like Vashon Island. We even saw a coffee shop named Seattle Espresso:

From Auckland

Then, the cost of two bagels with cream cheese and two coffees was $15, just like we'd pay at Mr. Spot's Chai House in Ballard. To be fair, if we paid $15 in Seattle we'd get lattes, and with the favorable exchange rate, $15 NZ dollars is about $10 US. The exchange rate is actually helping us here. Australia was terribly expensive with the US dollar being worth less than $1.10 Australian. Here a US dollar is worth about $1.35 or so New Zealand dollars, and so far the prices seem pretty comprable to what we were paying in Australia. So, this is good news for our stay here.

We've also lined up a WWOOF host for next week. It's about an hour north of Auckland in a town called Warkworth. They grow olives, grapes and lavender. Not sure exactly what we'll be doing yet but their website is here. We'll be sure to post what that experience is like after we get there. We don't go there until Tuesday afternoon so tomorrow we will look around Auckland some more, maybe even take a ferry ride somewhere.