Tag: wwoof

90 Mile Beach/Farming/Sand Boarding

January 28, 2011

Two more days and we’re headed to Australia! At this point, it just feels like “life”, and not traveling. I guess we’re used to being on the road and it feels very natural and normal.

We worked the last four days on a farm. The farmers, Peter and Suze, had contacted me through a website I was signed up on; helpex.com. They have farmed for 30 years (relocated here from Germany) and rely on farm workers from around the world that are traveling through and looking for work, to help them run the place. It’s a good deal for them and for the traveler. They feed you all your meals and give you a bed to sleep in and you help out with the farm work. But more than that, you’re forming relationships and life time memories. I feel like they’re the “relatives” and I sense they feel the same way. They rented a hydrolic log splitter the day before we arrived. We all worked together on and off for 2-3 hours at a stretch for two days, getting fire wood for the winter split. This wood will sit for two years and then be ready for the fire. We also tagged along on four wheelers for the herding of the livestock, to move then around different paddocks. They have Border Collies to do the job, and it’s great fun to watch. I rode on the back of Peter’s bike to help the dogs move the bulls and man (!) I just about feared for my life! The quick turns, stopping, pealing out, I think he forgot that I was on the back. They gave Eliot little jobs that required the four wheelers because they knew he loved riding on them and felt he was very responsible. Yesterday the kids stabilized fencing in a back paddock and Suze and I did felting. She has a workshop in the loft of the garage and creates the most beautiful felted pieces. Her goal was to teach me all she could and help me create what I wanted. I love her! We also learned a lot about farm animals and their behaviors. Suze is a teacher at heart and loves sharing/teaching about what she knows.

Before getting to the farm, we went to the northern most point of New Zealand and I think we really felt like we were in the most beautiful place in the world. It was the picture we’ve seen on so many postcards that don’t seem real. The Tasman Sea and the South Pacific meet at the tip and it looks like a giant whirlpool. Just before the tip, along “90 mile beach”, there are giant sand dunes, they stand out in the distance looking like white mountains. We rented boogie boards and went “sand boarding”! It was such a hike getting to the top of the dunes, and what a scene! I felt like I was in the desert in Egypt. So, then you get on your board and ride down the dune. It was very scary for me! I did it twice and that was enough to satisfy my curiosity. We got the boys doing it on tape and Julian wiped out at the bottom; it was hilarious to observe! Lol! We also swam, at a different beach close by, and the water is/was so amazing. The South Pacific is such a beautiful shade of blue, it’s very clear, the white water in the surf is snowy white and clean looking, and of course, it’s very cold! That was a good day.

I met a man from the states traveling by motorcycle. He said he has worked very hard and long all his life, had a minor heart attack recently, and decided it was time to make his health and life a top priority and travel to parts of the world he had always wanted to see.

What an adventure it was when we left the northern peninsula. We needed to get to the car ferry by 8:00 because that’s when the last ferry runs. We took our time at first, and when we realized we had an hour to go we buckled down and focused on getting there. It was the windiest road through the mountains and we just couldn’t imagine any rivers or lakes up so high and saw no signs. If we missed the ferry, it would add three hours to the trip and we did not want to have to find this farm after dark. We finally came around a corner, saw the ferry, and pulled right on with six minutes to spare! It was exhilarating! Lol! I reminded the kids about always having faith and how everything always works out.

So, we’re on the road again. Today we have a four hour drive to Auckland. I am so grateful to Julian for doing all the driving. Eliot has “shot gun” today, so he’s up front with Julian. I love watching the chemistry between the two of them. Julian loves talking about history with Eliot and teaches him so much. Eliot loves the attention; it’s a symbiotic relationship.

We stopped in a little town along the road and Sadie and Julian grocery shopped while I took Eliot in to a Physiotherapist. He pulled a muscle in his back and it was painful. The next time I blog will be from Australia. We’re all excited about meeting up with Nick there!

Wwoof’ing and Yurts

January 15, 2011

Last night we spent the night at a wwoof home. We slept in a Yurt! I have been wondering about Yurts for three years and I slept in a very beautiful hand made one. The family we did wwoof’ing for was a youngish couple with a five year old, a two year old, and mama is eight months pregnant. They “sort of” live “off the grid”. He is a circus performer and a craftsmen and hand made the Yurt we slept in. He also makes primitive weapons and is a wonderful husband to Hannah. Hannah home births (lotus births) the babies, she organic gardens, grinds her own grains, preserves food, makes her own yogurt, makes waldorf style toys for her children, and is a most wonderful woman to be with! Some of what we did to help them was: scrub and paint the outside of their caravan, move the wood pile, and make batches of sourcrout .

After working all day with Daniel and Hannah, we came to a hostel in a lovely little beach town. We are aching for the beach! It has been pretty chilly everywhere we’ve been and now that we’re in the northern part of the north island and summer has really set in, we’re getting warmth! The kids were happy to be back at a hostel where life is busy and there are interesting travelers all around.

Leaving Wellington, New Zealand

January 12, 2011

Today was our last day of house sitting in Wellington. We are ready to move on. Staying put for three weeks was a good break but was also a long time. The house was very accommodating. We saved a lot of money by being there and we got to experience living like the New Zealanders live!

From what I gathered by some of the books in the bedroom, the woman of the house, Mandy, has/had breast cancer. In the beginning of our stay there, I felt like I could feel her energy and the sadness of the disease; it was heavy at times. It subsided at some point. She and I have a lot of similar interest. I read four books from her book shelf (which is a lot for me in a short amount of time), her jewelry looks just like mine, and she has my favorite cd’s on her shelf! I also love her kitchen and all that goes along with it!

We have had numerous day trips into Wellington and are feeling pretty at home wondering the streets. Joe, Sadie, and I went to Martinbourgh last week and worked on a vineyard for the day. We did it with the WWOOF organization. There were other wwoofers there working and staying. We were just day workers since we were staying so close by. Learned a lot about growing grapes and it was very interesting. Had a delicious meal with everyone. On the day we worked, Julian and Eliot went to a park called “Adrenalin Forest”. It is a forest full of rope ladders, pulleys, zip lines and all sorts of “balancing” type things to walk across, each level getting higher than the last. It took them about three hours to complete. There were areas that made Julian think twice about his abilities; some were a challenge to Eliot but for the most part, he had no fear. In Welliington yesterday, I filmed Eliot doing Parkour in various places. He also went down last week end and met up with a local group that does Parkour. I tried my hand at driving again yesterday. As long as I have someone with me helping me navigate round abouts, I’m pretty confidant. They have very few traffic lights and stop signs here. For the most part everything is either yield or a round about. There are a lot of funny little differences here. I’m going to try to start a list of them. We play Rummy every single night! Seems like it could get old, but we’re still having fun at it!

Being with the same people 24/7 for three months is going to be the experience of a lifetime! I laugh sometimes at the dynamics of it all. And sometimes I get very irritated, bothered, pissed off, the whole gamut of feelings have surfaced at some point in time. Today I realize that we are all so much alike and what bothers one bothers the other in the same way. Like, Sadie has this thing where she says “stop looking at me” (lol!) and I realize sometimes I glance at her and she’s staring at me and I feel the same way, like “stop looking at me!” (lol!) We all have our very sweet moments and then moments where nothing is tolerable. Julian is so much like me. He has a lot of patience (like extremely patient!), is very accommodating, always ready to help out and is just down right “nice”. However, he is also quite sarcastic at times and I hope I don’t have so much of sarcasm anymore; I used to.

Kids are so smart and have such excellent memories that sometimes they can tend to make me feel like I’m losing my mind. They remember every little detail of everything seen, read, or heard, and I have to be reminded of details. Sometimes I don’t even remember a movie Eliot says I watched!