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!
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