Two very different WWOOF experiences

W- world

W- wide

O- opportunities on

O- organic

F- farms

This is a volunteer organization Brian and I are a part of and have been utilizing in our time here. For those of you not familiar with the organization, WWOOFing is a great way to travel and learn without spending any money. There is a database set up almost like a social networking site where hosts and potential WWOOFers can make profiles to showcase what they have to offer eachother. If a traveler sees a host that looks like a good fit, they get in touch over email to discuss logistics, such as what type of tasks will be expected of the volunteers, what hours will be worked, and what is included in the WWOOFer's stay. On average the host provides you with a place to sleep, and 2-3 meals a day in exchange for 4-6 hours of work per day. There are wide varieties of options available, even for those workers who might be very specific in their search (not us). It is an amazing organization and I hope to take part in a lot more WWOOFing exchanges over the next 10.5 months.

That being said, WWOOFing can go many ways. The first experience we had was wonderful in every way. Waiheke Island, 45 minutes by boat from Auckland, is known in the area as an artists' retreat, and has two small main towns and 26 wineries spread throughout. It's very relaxed and pretty, with minimal traffic and good opportunities for cycling. The farm we stayed at is owned by a couple of doctors who have a modern vacation home on the property that they use some weekends. There is also another unit; half of which is used as a toolshed, the other half being the farm manager's living quarters. The cooking and hanging out area is an open-air room with a homemade pizza oven(!!!). Our accommodations were a HUGE tent on the other side of a garden bed. Some of my favorite features of the farm included an outdoor shower made of green and blue bottles and a composting toilet. The bathroom was SO cool. Forget about smelly old outhouses caked with sludge and swarming with bugs; this place was artistic and smelled fresher than a household bathroom. After you do your business, you cover it with a scoop of woodchips, and there is a tube (that's the technical term for it) that goes out of the roof and has a spinning fan on it. The waste and woodchips go down into a pit beneath the toilet, where they begin composting. Apparently human compost can eventually be used to mulch and help trees grow, and because of some scientific thing I don't know about, the bacteria does not go into the tree and the trees are happy to use it as normal compost. I realize how dumb I'm sounding explaining it like that, but... wikipedia "composting toilet" for the more accurate description. It was SO COOL! I want to have one of these someday for my vacation home. ;) Or maybe I'll just get a house without a bathroom in it and just use a composting toilet in the backyard! Kidding! (or am I)... I digress.

Uma Ripiti Farm, Waiheke Island

Amazing shower

the bathroom! <3

Betty Blue, cutest puppy around

A typical day looked like this: wake up about 7:15, cook and eat breakfast with the two other Americans (one being the farm manager) and a German. Around 8am we'd start the day's work, which included weeding, collecting mulch, mulching trees and plants, transplanting seedlings from the greenhouse, and building fences out of shadecloth. And weedwacking for Brian, which he seemed to really enjoy. Then around noon or 1 we'd call it a day, and have free time until dinner, which we would all help cook together. It was so much fun! I learned a lot and the people were great and we all got along really well. One night we had a pizza party where we got to use the awesome oven, and had a little dance party on the deck. Amy, our host (the farm manager, from San Francisco) was really well-informed about all the innerworkings of the farm. She taught us a lot and was also very sweet and accommodating of my special annoying vegan needs. All in all, it was amazing, and we wouldn't hesitate to go back and stay for a lot longer than our previous stay of 4 days.

biking to the beach after working

tidying up the eating area- oven is ready to cook pizza!

YUMMMMMMMMMMM

Fast forward to a few weeks later when we drove from Whangarei to Kaeo, a tiny town in the Bay of Islands. The unfortunate beginning of that WWOOFing experience all began with a misunderstanding as to who we would be staying with and where they lived, as we had emailed a ton of potential hosts and confused our email responses. John Beard lived 8+km up from little Kaeo, on a windy gravel road. As we were driving we felt very far from town, a feeling that only got worse when we saw the address and began trying to drive up the "drive way," 600 meters of bumpy, wrecked dirt and gravel, and promptly got stuck in a rut in the side of the road (later to find out no one dares drive up there without a huge truck and "hubs" (what the hell are those)). Feeling stressed and frustrated, we walked the steep hill up to where we hoped a house was, and were greeted by a ramshackle, paint-peeling, cobweb-covered house with a yard so unkempt you could barely tell where you should be walking and where there might be a fruit tree growing. No response to our calls, "hello?" but a dog ran out and at the time even that seemed frightning- will he attack us? It was all feeling very horror story-esque at the time. We walked through what we thought was the yard to a rickety old deck where a clothesline hung, and we saw the sign "Beard" over the door. I was ready to run and throw in the towel on this one, but Brian persisted, and when I saw this ship-captian of a man answer the door I thought we would surely be murdered. It turned out he was hard of hearing, which is why he hadn't answered the door. He took us on a tour of the house, which was better-kept inside, although the room we would stay in looked like a haunted child's room from the '80s. John walked down to help us get our car out of the ditch and on that walk he began talking and did not stop for 7 days.

Initially the Keao WWOOF was kind of awful. John's wife would leave for work at 5:30am and not get home until 6pm or later, during which time he was left at the house to "work on the garden" or whatever it is he was supposed to be doing. We didn't do any work the first afternoon we got there, and when we asked him what time we'd start in the morning, he said "sometime between 8 and 9, whenever I get up, no rush," which was simultaneously cool and annoying, since we wanted to know when we'd start and finish work for the sake of utilizing free time. For the first few days we slept in, had a leisurely breakfast and reading session (2-3 hours), talked/listened to John talk, and then around 1 or 2pm would go out to the gardens to see what there was to be done. Usually Brian would go off on his own weedwacking or mowing (later to be scolded that whatever work he had taken upon himself to do was "unnecessary"), and I would follow John around for a few hours while he talked and I tried to interject with questions. We did not like being there; we felt like we weren't being helpful and we also weren't able to utilize any free time since we didn't even start the day until the afternoon. But eventually we realized that John just liked to have the company. We started to really enjoy "getting away from it all" and spending 7 hours a day reading. He baked fresh breads every day, made us some dinners, and even took us out for dinner in town one night. He was crazy and hilarious, and with his hearing problem couldn't hear soft-spoken Brian 75% of the time so he just talked and talked and it was entertaining to listen to him jump from one topic to the next. Politics, family affairs, the state of the world, his days "playing hippie," you name it. He really grew on us and I think the story of John Beard is one of the best we'll get in our time here.

I think the only thing I actually did to help out there was help build a stone walkway, mow a little bit of the lawn, feed the chooks (Kiwi word for chickens), water the plants, and plant a few seeds in cups. We stayed a week.

the love of my life, Cosmo

chooks finding grubs

a little bit haphazard

so long John, we will never forget you

You just NEVER know what you're going to get with WWOOFing. That's half the fun. I can't wait to do more. We're hoping to work with animals at some point, maybe some cow milking or working with horses, since I love horses oh so much. I told Brian if we can't find any paid work right now and we need to save money we will just look for more WWOOFing because the hosts provide you with meals in exchange for your work. Or sometimes they just bake you fresh bread in exchange for your company.

The dreaded job search

Napier: the art deco capital of New Zealand! The sun came out today which makes this town a whole lot nicer. We are currently staying at a hostel across the street from the water, and trying to ignore the fact that almost all the towns we've been to in New Zealand look almost exactly the same (city center = strip mall). We are on the quest for a seasonal job, probably fruit picking or something like that, and feeling slightly daunted (already) by jobs not just falling into our laps. ;) We have registered our contact information with a few different fruit picking companies and all they can tell us is that "when and if a job opens up" they will text us with the information. So we may go door-to-door to businesses and hostels to see if anyone needs any help, because our money is spreading thin.

On a happier note, we have seen lots more beautiful stuff! We spent a few days on the Coromandel Peninsula northeast of Auckland it was stunning. The first town we stayed in is called Tairua and we spent 2 nights in a backpackers (that's what they call hostels here) that lends out kayaks for free! We only used the kayaks once because the body of water that lines the beach we were staying on had about 2 feet of water in it at high tide. And that was at the deepest part; most of the water was less than a foot deep, so it wasn't the most productive kayak experience. Still, nice to have that available. We planned to go to Hot Water Beach while we were there, which is a beach with geothermal activity under the surface of the sand, so you can dig a hole and sit in your own hot pool. We decided to go for a hike first, which was the best decision, because Cathedral Cove was breathtakingly beautiful. Afterwards we drove to the beach, but it seemed really touristy and kind of lame, and we weren't there for the right tide-time, so we skipped out.

After Tairua we traveled to the north tip of the Coromandel to do an ocean-view tramp, aptly named the Coromandel Coastal Walkway. It was 6.5 hours of rolling hills, beach views, turquoise waters... you get the drill. I need to start using a thesaurus to write this blog because I can only think of so many ways to say "beautiful" and all the other things I've been saying over and over again- but it really IS that nice here. I still kind of can't believe it. Anyway- back to the hike; about 15 minutes into it, my boots (that I've been wearing this whole trip) suddenly turned on me and started rubbing in all the wrong places. The rest of the 6 hours was spent walking slowly and awkwardly as I tried (and failed) to avoid the blistering. **Unfortunate flashbacks to one of my most traumatic middle school memories and the dreaded boots that caused me so much physical and emotional pain (you remember the slipper, mom)** Note to self: when on a long hike, bring moleskin just in case!

The next day we made a nerve-wracking drive back down south on verrrryyyy little gas. Imagine: narrow, cliffside gravel roads that may or may not have had heavy machinery taking up the whole space, and coasting down hills in neutral as a means to conserve precious resources. But we made it! I had to pay Brian a dollar for losing the bet.

Our journey continued down to Rotorua, where our short stay only piqued our interest in the city and all its geothermal offerings... Because of our lack of excess funds, we have been fast-tracking down to Napier to look for work, so after a quick night in Rotorua we spent one night camping about 45 minutes outside of the city (highlights included a waterfall hike with a chilly river swimming-hole session) and then continued to our current location. I am trying to use up precious MB of pre-purchased internet usage to FINALLY update any readers with a post on this thing- but I think I better get back out there and start actually LOOKING for a job while it's still daytime, and before all the businesses close at 3pm. :)

the view from the backpackers in Tiarua

on the Cathedral Cove hike

at Cathedral Cove

Coastal Walkway

Coastal Walkway

Our first tramp

I'm a little behind on my posts so I will start trying to catch up now! A week or so ago Brian and I went camping at Piha beach, about 45 minutes west of Auckland. Even though we don't LIVE in Auckland, it really felt like a nice weekend getaway from the city. This is Piha:

Not too bad, huh? When we arrived the weather felt really similar to the Washington coast weather; rainy, grey, windy, and cold. It rained for the first day/evening we were there but was pretty nice the rest of the time. Before setting up camp we walked around the drizzly beach and made some beach art:

We set up our tent and tried to set out our damp clothes to dry but we didn't have a line or clothes pins so we had to improvise. Here's a photo that makes us really look like backpackers. (10 min after setting this stuff out, it started to rain and we had to frantically gather everything back up) ;)

In New Zealand there are no indigenous land mammals. There are tons of birds though, and lots of crazy looking ones I've never seen before. There were a lot of ducks at this campsite and they were so tame, like pigeons at home, which was kind of cute and kind of annoying. Everytime we went toward our car to get something out of the trunk they came running over to get ready to jump into the car and search for food. Here's a pic of a pukeke which is a very common bird here.

We've been playing a LOT of bananagrams. This photo was taken right outside the communal kitchen area where we ate all our meals. We were excited to find out that the campsite had a kitchen, but when we got there we realized that you're supposed to bring your own cooking utensils/pots/pans, etc. So we had to improvise again; cooking all our meals in one giant pan/wok they had in the kitchen, and the front desk lent us a knife, fork and spoon.

and here are some of those ducks

Piha beach reminded me a little of Cannon beach, with a big rock called Lion's Rock as Haystack Rock. This is a gorgeous view of the beach from the drive into town (also a great place to watch the sunset).

So after our first night at Piha we went on our first tramp. "Tramping" is the Kiwi word for "hiking" (**sidenote: for Germans "tramping" means "hitchhiking"**). We drove to Karekare beach (where 'the Piano' was filmed) and started our hike from there. Instead of "trails" they call them "tracks" and our tramp consisted of several different short tracks to make one long hike. As soon as we parked the car at the trailhead a torrential downpour started, of course. We sat in the car for a few minutes and it got nice after that. A few minutes into the tramp I was a little annoyed by the mud...

This picture is funny because when I took it I thought I was SO MUDDY and my boot had almost submerged in a mud puddle, but then as time went on I realized this was probably the cleanest/driest my boots were during the whole hike!

It was so slippery and muddy that it took probably 2.5-3 times as long to hike the trail than it would have if it had been dry... so we spent awhile walking carefully and trying to avoid stepping into deep puddles of mud, but about 30 min in we got to river that didn't have a bridge or rocks to walk across it and we realized we'd have to just walk right through.

After crossing the river it was better because our boots were filled with water and mud, and we didn't care how dirty we got after that, and it was easier to hike a little bit faster. All along the tramp I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the place- tropical trees, vivid colors, blue skies, singing birds.

This is how dorky I am now, you guys

After a few hours we approached a beach. This was one of the most breathtaking scenes I've come across yet... Huge rolling hills of bright greens and brown, black sand, and me waiting for a dinosaur to come running out of the hills. It felt like Brian and I were the only people alive in the world. It's hard to believe there's no trace of anyone around you when the place you are in is so beautiful. It felt like it should be swarming with tourists and photographers, but there weren't even any footprints or evidence that anyone had been there (ever, it felt like). Magical.

The tramp was amazing (hehe) but it was strenuous for those of us who haven't been working out or hiking in awhile... so the next day at Piha we just had to relax and rest our muscles.

That evening we went to the bowling club to watch the rugby match. The bowling club is for lawn bowling, but is also a restaurant/bar that hosts all the locals of Piha beach. It was so cute, there was a guest book you had to sign upon entry, and if you're not a member of the club someone else has to sign you in. The President himself came out and chatted us up and signed us in, giving us just another example of that genuine Kiwi friendliness. It never ceases to amaze me.

On our last day we were rejuvenated and spent the day hiking around Piha and Karekare beaches, and here are some photos.

Piha:

Karekare:

This trip was amazing and definitely a highlight of our trip so far. Brian and I also celebrated our 2-year anniversary, yay! :) It was also really fun to camp since I barely did any camping this past summer, and I'm really looking forward to doing a lot more in the next few months.

Driving on the left side of the road

I wanted to title this blog post "driving on the wrong side of the road," but I'm working on not saying that anymore; just because it's the opposite from the way we do things at home doesn't make it the wrong way. But I should call it "Brian driving on the left side of the road," because I haven't done any driving yet and if I had my way, I never would. ;) We got our car!

Here he is, my handsome chauffeur, in front of our handsome car. I own a Subaru, you guys! We got it yesterday and Brian has been driving us all over the city, getting us lost and therefor helping us get our bearings of Auckland. I really am falling in love with this city and it makes me wonder if we might just end up back here to live eventually, although first I think we'll give the rest of the country a chance. Brian is already getting comfortable driving on the left side, and I just silently have a heart attack in the passenger's seat and try to support him as he does a good job. I "intend to practice driving" once we are out of the city...

Today we had a lot of business to attend to, like getting a cell phone, buying a bunch of stuff that we already had at home but didn't want to pack, and applying for a tax ID number that will allow us to work. Running errands gave us plenty more time to experience and gush over the friendliness of strangers in New Zealand. At the post office the workers seemed to have all the time in the world to attend to our every need, flipping through every page in the notebook full of postage stamps she had so I could find just the right ones to send home for a souvenir (to a certain Circa regular). After I picked out 5 different stamps, the post office lady fashioned my receipt into an envelope and tucked the stamps neatly inside, then found a tiny ziplock bag to enclose them in before handing them to me. Why did she do this? Because customer servicepeople here LOVE their jobs!! No, Kiwis are just friendly; they go the extra mile. Small things like that make all the difference. We have multiple experiences like that per day here. I'm getting so spoiled here, I may never come home! :)

A couple of days ago we took a ferry to Devonport, another Auckland "suburb" which reminds me a bit of West Seattle, but with even better views. Maybe throw a little Seaside, OR beachtown-vibe in there as well. Anyway, the ferry ride was less than 10 min and when we docked at Devonport the railing along the boardwalk was covered in knitting of all different colors and patterns. So cute and artsy. We had the sweetest picnic basket with us that our host lent us, and were headed toward the most beautiful, romantic picnic destination I could imagine- Mt. Victoria. It's one of two extinct volcanoes in Devonport and looks like more of a giant hill than anything else. It only took a few minutes to walk up to top and the view was breathtaking. 360 degrees of water fading from turquoise to almost plum, the edge of the city, and all the surrounding mountains/volcanoes. On the top of Mt. Victoria we opened our picnic basket, clinked our plastic goblets together and worked on our sunburns. After lunch, we did a walk around the town as mapped out by Lonely Planet, which took us up another "mountain" (hill) with more spectacular views complete with hang gliders. It was such a nice day and after adequate sunburns we came back to Ponsonby and went to our local pub to watch the All Blacks defeat Argentina. It was a perfect day.

on the ferry, aka West Seattle water taxi

view of Auckland city

on the dock at Devonport

with our charming picnic basket

the greens are so green here...

Getting started in Auckland

We are relaxing in the "sitting room" of Leila's house (our host from airbnb.com) after a nice lunch and another long walk around the city. One of the three cats is sleeping on the couch next to us and the sun is out. All in all, things are really great so far. Brian and I both expected that Auckland would be just another big city we'd want to get in and out of as quickly as possible, but that isn't that case. We are staying in Ponsonby, described as a hip "suburb" of Auckland. I have come to realize that "suburbs" here are not the same as those at home... I think it's actually the Kiwi word for "neighborhood." Ponsonby is wonderful. The main street, which we have walked up and down many, many times in the last 2 1/2 days is chock full of boutiques, gourmet food shops, hip restaurants and bistros and yoga studios. I feel right at home! And after realizing how wrong I was about how I'd feel about Auckland, I have the feeling I am going to fall in love with every single place we go in the next year...

After a long 24 hours of traveling we were greeted so warmly at the Auckland airport! It was almost disturbing how friendly everyone was right away- not something I'm used to at airports in the US. While going through customs, the officer was almost apologetic while asking kindly to look through a few things we had brought. All the things I've heard about Kiwis being friendly have been true so far! We were able to get a shuttle right away which dropped us off at the door of our temporary home, where our host has been accommodating, friendly, and extremely helpful with tips and maps and guidebooks.

On our first day we had a fantastic Indian dinner down the street from our house and then walked downtown and to the North Wharf to watch the sunset. It was beautiful and the pier was all decked out for the Rugby World Cup, which is an obsession in this country. We were just noticing that every single business, storefront and home has at the very least an All Blacks flag hanging up, even the banks! There are billboards and murals all over the city adorned with photos of the beloved rugby team. I was a little nervous that we'd arrive and it would just be absolute mayhem in the city, but despite the subtle buzz of excitement it seems to still be pretty relaxed. Maybe we're just too far away from the stadium to notice it. :)

Yesterday was spent tending to business... which is probably going to be the worst/most stressful part of this year, which is why we'd like to get it all over with in the first week. We are in the process of buying a car from the Backpackers Car Market and should have a Subaru Grand Legacy in our possession by Monday or Tuesday! The car market is nice because the people working there are not pushy like used car salespeople and they have no incentive to push cars on you, because backpackers are the ones who will make the profit off of the car, and they are paying the lot to hold and display their car there. One of the guys working there took us out for a test drive in the Subaru and said that he thought it was the best car on the lot that he'd seen all month and it came back from its mechanical inspection with a nearly clean bill of health (very rare). This is all great news because if we take good care of the car, we should be able to sell it back once we're done with it for the same or close to the same price we are buying it for. Now the issue is trying to get enough money out of the bank to pay for it in a timely fashion without getting ripped off with transaction fees. So far, no luck there. I'll keep you posted. If anyone has experience with a cheap way to wire money overseas... we'd love your advice! :)

One thing Brian and I are trying to work on right now is fighting the urge to get caught up in our "vacation mentality," which is difficult in such a darling neighborhood with many culinary delights to offer... Money is burning up quickly with the purchase of a car, insurance, and cell phones, with no real income in sight. We are thinking of trying to find some temporary work right away, instead of waiting a few months, so that we can replenish some of the immediate funds spent.

I am so happy here! This place is already amazing, and we're just in the big city now... I can't wait to see what the unpopulated areas of New Zealand have to offer. It turns out almost half of the entire country's population lives here in Auckland, which leaves not much to be dispersed around the rest of the islands. I know it sounds so cheesy, but it's true: there are so many new experiences and adventures to be had this year, it's almost mind blowing. I can barely wrap my brain around it. Might have to go take a nap ;)

our home at 6 Ponsonby Terrace

walking around Ponsonby

in an alley off of K Rd, Auckland's former Red Light District

view of the city center from North Wharf

Go The All Blacks

palm trees in the city

skytower reflection

happy to be here :)