Last week in NZ

Well it's down to my last couple hours in this beautiful country. I've got time to kill so be prepared for a long one.

We spent the past week (also our last week) on the sweetest farm out in a town called Little Akaloa on Decanter Bay. Our hosts were the best. Can't thank them enough for taking us in when we really needed it and on such short notice. Marie was so kind and helpful and we had some good laughs. Her five year-old son Felix, as loud as he was, he was one of the cutest little boys I've met. There was an eight year-old girl named Leo who was by far one of the smartest and most cunning eight year-olds I've ever met (She somehow managed to lock her sisters iTouch for over 40 years, yikes!). And then there was Brad, the husband, the dad, and the slave driver. Ha I'm kidding! It was such a wonderful family. They even catered for my gluten free vegetarian diet (I had tofu for almost every meal, but Brad not once cooked it the same way twice, thanks for keeping things interesting!). The work was often hard but it felt good after not working for two weeks. I did some lawn mowing, removing flax (super hard), weeding, harvesting, compost making, transplanting and my personal favorite, shoveling sheep shit for fertilizer (I kid, it was not my favorite, it was probably my least favorite job I have ever been given as a WWOOFer). But after a days work was done we would run to the beach and hop in. I learned how to paddle board, thanks to Claire, and we even were able to successfully surf (small waves) with the two of us on it! This family was wonderful (did I mention that already?), and we got along very well. And the instant they said that they had been to Point Reyes Station, I knew it was meant to be. Marie is French, while Brad is originally from New York, and they had only moved to NZ four years ago. And before that they were living in Seattle. So no, not true kiwis but they still had so much knowledge of this country and the area of the Banks Peninsula. We got to spend Easter morning with them, but they are Jewish, so we didn't celebrate too much, just got to watch the kids hunt for Easter eggs from afar while the rest of us put sheep shit through the shredder (part of the process of making it into fertilizer). Fun. I am going to miss that family and that farm, it was very impressive and inspirational how much they grew themselves (look out mom and dad, when I get home this summer lots of vege and fruit will be planted).

So now here we are, back in Christchurch, at the airport in fact. Time to look back at this trip and smile, because it has been so much fun.

It's true what they say, the majority of the kiwis here are some of the kindest people I have met in my life. They have been so helpful on our travels here. NZ sure does make it easy to travel in with all those i-sites (NZ's official visitors information center, there are over 80 in the entire country). Honestly don't know where we would be without them. So great you could go in and ask almost any question about NZ and they would try their best to answer, questions from the cheapest place to stay, to booking buses and ferries to telling us the best place to get a decent burrito, thanks guys!

I have crossed paths with so many amazing people here in NZ. From other WWOOFers, to our hosts, to roomies in the backpackers, to the people that picked us up hitching (have probably gotten well over 40 hitches by now, and I can most likely remember every single one of them if I tried). I have loved sharing the stories and experiences with everyone. It seems to be a pretty small country over here and we have ended up running into people we've met, more than once. It has been a lovely surprise to see familiar faces again (In fact we are hanging out in the airport with one right now, a roomie from Dunedin).

I am so thankful for the weather we have gotten while being here. With the exception of the couple days it hosed on us, the sun has been shinning bright. There are so many beautiful landscapes here, and I often found myself just starring out at the ocean, the mountains or the lakes for hours.

New Zealand has been a place of firsts for me. I first experienced hitch hiking here. I did my first real backpacking trip, my first time I drove on the other side of the road and my first time seeing a kiwi bird. It was my first time I tried bungy jumping (did I mention that already? Thank you AJ Hackett for inventing that, it definitely won't be the last time I do that) and my first time seeing a glacier.

This has been the longest I have been away from home and oddly I don't miss it too much. I guess that's because exciting NZ has been here to entertain me. I've been looking back but now it is time to look forward.

Time to keep following the sun, Australia is up next. What I have heard about Australia so far: deadly animals, more expensive than NZ (joy), very hot and dry, good beaches, good surf, nice people (but not as nice as the kiwis), and a BIG country. But I don't know what to expect. I guess I'll just have to go down under and see. Until then,

Cheers!

On The Road

It's been almost two weeks now of constantly being on the road. I haven't stayed in the same bed twice, with the exception of Queenstown. Queenstown was fun city. Crazy, but fun. If you haven't already read we went bungy jumping, one of the greatest decisions I have ever made. That night our roomies took us out on a bar crawl. Good times, and I didn't even have to spend over $10. That's what I am talking about. But do not be fooled people, Queenstown is not a cheap town, in fact it is one of the more expensive ones in NZ. Mainly because there is nothing to do unless you are prepared to shell out hundreds of dollars for activities. Hell our bungy was about $260, but so worth it. So just as people told us to do, we got in booked our bungy and then got out.
Next we went to Te-Anau a quite peaceful lakeside town, a good change from the bustle of Queenstown. But again you couldn't see much of the beautiful lakes or Milford Sounds without spending money on a cruise. So we just hung out at the lake, it was good enough for me. From there we found ourselves hitching a ride to Invarcargill, a town I could have enjoyed but we didn't stay long and headed further down to Bluff, the very bottom of the South Island and home to the very famous, Bluff oysters. Another cute quite town. We could see Stewarts Island from there too.
It was good to have some down time to try and beat this tickle in my throat. But it's hard when I want to pack my days full of sightseeing and exploring. From there it was on to Dunedin.
We spent two nights there to re-group, do some laundry and try and find more work. It was raining both days, but we tried hard not to let that stop us from seeing town. On our last day we finally found work. I can't stress how happy we were to hear that she had room for two wwoofers and as soon as the next day. Finally I can work again, I've oddly missed it.
Our last night Claire convinced to me let her teach me how to play pool (convenient because our backpacker was right above a pool hall). We made friends with a guy who turned out to be the son of the guy who owned the bar. That's was nice, free drinks, and free pool. It was a good last night. And then early the next morning we hoped on a bus and headed for Christchurch.
It was a crapy bus ride and there were tons of weirdos on the bus. But I guess that's what you get for a $35 bus ride. It beats six hours of hitching in the rain. From Christchurch we had to hitch another hour and a half to the small town of Little Akaloa, on the banks peninsula.
So now we sit here, waiting for our host to come pick us up. Time to play the guessing game.

Cheers!

Five Seconds of Free-Fall

I did it! I willingly jumped off a 43 meter high (141ft for those of you that don't know meters) bridge today, and survived.

I woke up this morning nervous as hell. I kept trying to tell myself that it was all in my head but I kept thinking about it, and I couldn't stop. After a 20 minute bus ride we got to the Kawarau bridge, the birthplace of bungy jumping. They checked us in, weighed (wrote our weight on our hand...man that's not embarrassing at all, having to walk around with your weight on your hand).
We made our way to the bridge, and I was going first. I stood there staring out at the steep mountains beautiful and serene, I look down, my heart drops a deep turquoise river is gushing 43 meters beneath me. Fuck.
"Alright! Lets get crazy!" It's that guy behind me telling me to jump. Suddenly my mind started to race. It started with small things; I wished it wasn't so cold, I wished they weren't playing sex on fire by the kings of leon, I wished I got a better nights sleep or that I ate a bigger breakfast because my stomach suddenly felt empty (I tried to eat that morning but I was too nervous to get much down), and then I found myself wishing for bigger things, I wished my family were here to see this, I wished my best friend Emah was with me, for the first time in over six weeks I actually missed home, but above all I wished I wasn't so scared to do this.
"3-2-1 bungy" he yelled
"Wait, wait, are you sure this is tight enough?" I said, anything to give me some more time.
"No but we'll find out" he laughed I could feel him tugging on my harness.
Fuck it. Jump!

One Mississippi - my mind is completely blank, I am not thinking anymore. Not thinking about anything. (Finally)
Two Mississippi - I'm falling, just total freefall!
Three Mississippi - My face is cold, and I am still holding on to my harness, let go.
Four Mississippi - hands out I can see the river getting closer, scream!
Five Mississippi - Wait I thought this was a four second freefall jump, fuck! And then I feel it, it's not as painful as it looks. It's a gentle pull on my legs, not my feet. And I start to swing back up.

Now I just hoot and holler because I know I survived. And I loved it.
A yellow boat that was waiting by the shore comes out to get me. One guy reaches for me with what I think was a long piece of PVC pipe. I grab on laughing after missing the first time. The girl holds onto my hands and tells me to look at my feet. I am lowered into the boat.
"How'd you go" they say once I'm in. "again, again, again" I say laughing. And we head for shore. Solid land.
The total jumped lasted probably less than a minute but the impact and memories will stay with me forever. It was the greatest rush I have ever felt. I need to get myself out of Queenstown before I book myself another bungy.

Cheers!

West Coast and St Patricks Day in NZ

Spent the past week making our way down the west coast, staying in hostels and backpackers. First stop was Westport. A small town with not too much to do, but it was nice to be back in civilization after backpacking. Also nice to finally see the ocean after almost five weeks. The next day we hitched down to Punakaiki, a very small costal town, I don't even know if I can consider it a town, it didn't even have a grocery store. There we stayed at the cutest beach hostel right on the water. We saw the famous Pancake rocks, went for lots of hikes around the rivers and along the beach, and we even found some self guided caves. Trying to fit as much as we could into our days we packed up the next morning and headed for Hokitika, the town of jade mining. We got our first hitch from a camper van to Hokitika, it was quite nice. Again we packed our day in Hokitika full of fun and adventure. We went to a farmers market, ate lunch on the beach and I saw my first kiwi bird (the national bird of New Zealand, and very endangered) we got to be about a foot away (ok I'll admit it was in the national kiwi centre, basically a small zoo, but it's really hard to see them in the wild because they are nocturnal not to mention rare). We also saw giant eels (quite scary) and some interesting amphibian that could regrow parts of its brain or heart if needed, I can't remember what the animal was called, oops. At night we went for a hike to see the glow worms. Very cool. Looked like I was starring up at the night sky, only I was really gazing up at a waterfall covered in little sparkling lights. The next morning I woke up to the sound of rain. Damn, the first thing I thought was, crap we have to hitch today. You are probably thinking that hitching in the rain sucks, and let me tell you, it does! When it is wet and windy no one wants to pick up soggy hitchhikers not to mention our soggy cardboard sign that is falling apart. Despite that we got a ride fairly quick from Hokitiki, but our ride wasn't going all the way to Franz Josef (our next stop), so she dropped us at a junction and that was where we have waited the longest for a hitch, nearly 45 minutes before we got a ride. (Not too bad compared to some guys we heard who waited three hours until they got a ride! Thank god we are harmless looking girls.) Once we got to Franz Josef we immediately went to check out the hot pools. Relaxing and hot, just what I needed on that cold rainy day. That night was St. Paddys, so we headed out for happy hour, yay for budget drinking! Our night consisted of green beer, tequila shots, fun cocktails and mixed drink and dancing, lots and lots of dancing. One shot which I cannot remember the name of, consisted of some unknown alcohol and Tabasco sauce. Damn that was nasty. Danced until the wee hours of the night, until the bar closed down and they asked everyone to leave. Got a couple hours of sleep before we woke up early this morning to go for a hike out to Franz Josef Glacier. Hungover as hell, it was still amazing and I made it all the way. This morning we also parted ways with Emah who has begun her journey back up north. I really enjoyed traveling with her and I will miss her a lot. So now our duo is headed to Queenstown, on a six and a half hour bus ride. Going to hopefully catch up on some sleep, seeing as almost everyone on this bus is hungover as well. Joy this is going to be fun.

Cheers!

Braemar Eco Village and Backpacking Around Lake Rotoiti

I meant to post before I left for backpacking but never found wi-fi, so I just kinda lumped the two events together.
Braemar Eco Village
I spent a week at Braemar Eco village where my travel mates and I worked for accommodation. I wrote a little bit about the village already but for those of you just tuning the village is made up of about five different families who share ten acres of land. Everyone works together and shares the profits from the land. There were chickens, sheep, a cow, a goat, lots of fruit trees and a slightly over grown vegetable garden. While Emily may have been our host through WWOOFing, all the other families felt like our hosts too. It was like having five different hosts, more people to share stories with. Everyone was so kind and helpful and very relaxed, a good change from The Playhouse. Our work consisted mainly of painting houses, and most times the kids around the village would come to lend a hand. Might I add that all the children in the village were all homeschooled, yay for homeschoolers! We were only working for accommodation and had to make/get our own food which was nice. Probably shelled out more money than I needed but oh well. Since we were close to town and only had to work about 2 1/2 hours a day we found a lot of time to explore the area. We went to the beach and discovered some waterholes along the Maitai river, so clear and beautiful (perfect for underwater photos!) We went for a hike up behind the Eco Village which was steep, hot, and we didn't make it that far until we stopped at a nice secluded tanning spot. On the weekend we were able to check some farmers markets as well.
Many nights were spent out on the town, but never too late because the whole town seemed to be closed after 12am even on a Friday or Saturday night. We did find one of the coolest pubs in Nelson, The Free House. Why it was so cool:
(1) All of their beers and wines are brewed local from Nelson or Marlbrough. They are also one of the only pubs in all of NZ that also brews their own beer.
(2) You could bring take away food from other restaurants or they had a menu of the restaurants near by and you could order off of them and have it delivered to The Free House (how awesome!)
(3) There was a yurt out front for live music one night was battle-ska galactica (it was ska reggae music, for those of you wondering) and another night was a Johnny Cash cover band (and by band I mean one guy).
(4) They had blankets you could borrow and board games for people to use.
It once was a church and now it is a place where hipsters and hippies alike enjoy good music and good beer. Our last day of work was spent cleaning the WWOOFer barn and ended with a good meal shared with everyone from the village. A good send off before we set off to backpack.
Nelson Lakes
For the past couple days we have been backpacking in the Nelson Lake National Park around Lake Rotoiti. This was my first backpacking trip...ever. And I wouldn't have it any other way. We stayed in huts around the lake. I had heard about the huts here in NZ. For those of you that haven't heard of what the huts are they are basically small cabins scattered along the trails, for backpackers to use. They are all bunk style beds with no electricity. One hut we stopped at had an indoor sink, wood burning stove, outdoor cold shower, and could sleep up to 28 people. The second hut we stayed in was smaller. It slept about 12 people, no indoor sink, no wood burning stove, and no shower. But it we decided to stay the night there because it was more beautiful and right on the water. The hike around the lake was beautiful and thankfully it was in the trees. We had some of the best backpacking weather, and ended up taking a dip along the way in the glacier filled lake. Cold, but refreshing. It was also my first time eating freeze dried food, not so bad. The only unpleasant part of the backpacking was the sand flies. I was devoured. It's a good thing they are slow, makes killing them easier.
We are now in a backpackers, still in the National Park, and tomorrow we head to Westport.
Let the next adventure begin,
Cheers!

Weddings, Hitching and Tending Bar

Well I guess I'm at it again.
I spent the past ten days work trading at The Playhouse cafe. I thought that we'd be in Nelson, but it turns out it was closer to Mapua, or Richmond an apparently also considered Tasman. Kind of in the middle of all those towns. Sounds great right? Lots of towns nearby to explore...nope. It was in a very remote area with the closet of those towns about a 15 minute drive away except we don't have a car. We were able to get out a bit, when we all had some time off we hitched around the Tasman Bay and to the Abel Tasman National Park (by far one of the more beautiful places I've been here, so far). And sometimes Nic (our host) would let us borrow the car. My first time driving on the other side of the road! It all went well, except that one time the car broke down (one of the more scary/stressful things that has happened to me here).
The work was fine, really, at first I was stressed about having to be a waitress at weddings and tending bar, but it was good fun. I worked about four weddings, two concerts, one music workshop, and a tea party for some cute elderly kiwis (local New Zealanders). I was setting up, waitressing, serving food, busing, prepping food in the kitchen with Manu (Nic's partner and chef of the restaurant), and of course bar tending. Man are kiwis picky about their beer. No foam! It's harder than it looks to pour beer from the tap without any foam. And some beers foam way more than others (the Mac's hop rocker was especially foamy, hated it when people ordered that one). It's all about a deep angle and pulling the handle hard, rather than gently. I learned some new kiwi sayings from working behind the bar, like; 'sweet as', 'good on ya' and 'chuck it in there'. 'Mate' was often added at the end, along with 'cheers'. But it doesn't sound right without the accent.
Hitching
I finally had my first experience hitching, and it has been so easy. We've never been on the side of the road for more than 15-20 minutes. Hitching here is so common, although you won't see many hitchers on the road, and that's because they are constantly being picked up. So far we've probably had about thirteen different hitches and only one was uncomfortable, so we just got out, easy. Besides that, they have all been amazing. There was one hitch who was a guide so he went on to tell us cool places on the West Coast to check out. He also showed us one of the original hobbit houses so cool! So many other hitches that were fun and interesting and I can remember almost each one.
We left The Playhouse early not because we didn't like Nic or Manu or any other Playhouse crew members, not because the work was unfair or the food was bad (I think the food was actually one of the best parts, Manu cooked us the most amazing meals), we left because begin in such a remote area we didn't get to see much and there is so much more of this island I want to see before I leave.
So it's back in Nelson where we are WWOOFing at the Braemar Eco Village. A very cute community of five families who share about ten acres of land. It's back to the composting toilets , back to chickens, sheep, goats and cows. We are living in a funky little caravan and I am totally loving it. We are only a 15min walk to the city center of Nelson which is nice. Lots to explore.

Currently blogging with my toes in the sand at the Tahunanui beach, soaking up some sunshine. Until next time.
Cheers!