Farming, Fishing and Frodo

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Catching up

13 hours of flying, 4 movies and 3 plastic meals later I arrived in Auckland. It was all very confusing as I set off at 9.45pm on Wednesday 3rd August and arrived at 5.30am on Friday 5th August, where did my Thursday go?? I didn't sleep a wink on the plane as I was right in front of the big movie screen the whole way, I did manage to get a couple of hours sleep in the afternoon at my hostel and then somehow managed to go out drinking and playing pool until about 4am with some folk from my dorm. I have to say I played some absolutley fantastic pool (completely out of character) and had the word 'awesome' repeatedly shouted down my ear by some locals. Jet lag obviously suits me.

What wasn't so awesome was having to get up at 9am the next morning to check out of the hostel, but it was for a very good reason - to meet up with an old work friend, Kristy, and her fiance John. It was really good to see Kristy again I'd not seen her for a couple of years since she left to come home to New Zealand. They live over in Devonport and get the 10 minute ferry ride over to mainland Auckland every day for work - it certainly beats the tube. I stayed with them in their gorgoues flat - a converted church - for a few days just catching up, being fed lovely food and generaly being looked after very well. They took me out for drives around the area, up the hills and along the beaches, we didn't explore too far due to the rain which pretty much didn't stop the whole time I was there. The houses all look almost American to me, wooden slatted houses with raised front porches and steps leading down to the front garden, but a lot of the countryside looks English, until you look again and realise it couldn't possibly be England as you see the size of the trees and plants and the palm trees popping up everywhere. Auckland didn't really grab me as a city, it wasn't very attractive and as a lot of people say there isn't really a heart to it because its sprawled over a large area with no real centre, but maybe this had a lot to do with coming straight from San Fransisco which jen and I loved so much. But Devonport was a lovely place, really peaceful and pretty, I can see why they love living there so much, Kristy took me on a walk one evening and we looked back at Auckland by night and it looked a lot more stunning lit up at night with all the yatchs bobbing away in the water.

Oop north

I got myself an Intercity flexi-pass, 60 hours worth of bus travel to see me around both the islands hopefully, and set off up north to the Bay of Islands to a little place called Piahia. Kristy sent me off with bags and bags of New Zealand sweets and chocolate to make sure I didn't starve and I headed off on the first of my many bus journeys.

In the summer Piahia is overrun with people on the beaches doing all the different kind of water sports activites you can think of and heading out on dolphin watching trips. But this being winter it was fairly quiet and peaceful, although the sun was still shining and it certainly didn't feel like a winter as I know it. The hostel I stayed at was nice and I met some nice folk in my dorm so we headed out for a few beers. Someone came in the bar and told us that a space shutttle was going to be re-etnering orbit and would be passing over our heads at 10.45pm so we all headed out and stared up at the stars, blocking out the street lamps and neon glare of the hostel sign with our rasied hands, looking like a bunch of idiots...... We stayed like that for about an hour and then people started to give up hope and head back inside, but oh no, not me. I was out there for about another hour with a few other true believers. I would like to say our patience and perserverance paid off....but alas no. After a while we realised we had all been looking in the same direction going on some flimsy information about where it was meant to be in the sky, so chances are there was some amazing once in a life time display that went on right behind our heads without us even knowing it and we all we got to showe for it was an achey left arm and a stiff neck.

Animal magic

The next day 4 of us got the little taxi ferry over to 'Romantic Russell' and explored the area, on the boat back one of the guys got very excited and shouted out pointing over in the water at a fin, and then all of a sudden there were loads of them, a pod of dolphins swimming by!!! They moved suprisingly slowly through the water, looking very calm and serene and much bigger than I imagined, 2 of them came up close to the boat which was amazing. We were really chuffed because we'd been discussing how expensive the sight seeing boat trips were, and you're not even gauranteed to see anything and I am on such a tight budget here there's no way I would be able to afford to do anything like that. I took us all off on the walk I'd done the day before, over to the Treaty House and flag - the symbol of the signing of the Treaty between the Maori people and the English. The day before I'd been followed by these gorgeous little fantail birds that follow you around and fly up really close to you, around your legs, they were there again and we spent ages just watching them dance around us. Then two parrots flew by, absolutley brilliant geeen and red colours, so we had quite a day of animal spotting, more than your average stroll around Clapham Common anyway!

Down on the farm

Before heading off to the explore the rest of the north island, I decided to get myself a weeks work on a farm, what with New Zeland being such a farming country I thought it would be the best way to find out all about it. I signed up with Wwoof (it stands for willing workers on organic farms before anybody starts with any dog jokes) and got in touch with a couple called Jason and Anne, I did warn them that I have never worked on a farm before and know very little about organics but they didn't seem to mind at all and so I headed out to their farm in Whangarei. Its a small farm with about 10 acres of gorgeous rolling fileds, they have pigs, chickens and cows, mostly just for themselves not really for money. But Anne runs a greenhouse full of organic vegetables and salad and sells it at the local market on a Saturday and she also does a course for the local college for students learning about Organic Farming. There was another girl there when I arrived, Aya from Japan and it was our job to feed the pigs and chickens and help Anne out in the Greenhouse for a few hours a day, picking lettuce, weeding, planting seeds and shoveling lots of manure around - yum yum.

The farm wasn't what I was expecting at all, none of the buildings in New Zealand were really. Not many of them seem to be made from brick or concrete (apart from in the bigger cities of course), for example a lot of the farms are made from corrugated iron, as are a lot of the shops, and are mostly one story high. Jason and Annes farm was one big room with their bedroom, bathroom and the spare room for the woofers and then Jason had built on a lot of outdoor storage space with thick plastic sheeting as walls and ceilings and almost double the size of the place. At night I heard something quite hefty running around on the roof (reminiscent of times in Thailand) and I presumed it was a possum or some such fluffy creature, but Jason assured me it wouldn't possibly be a possum and was no doubt just a large tree rat.......

Makin' Bacon

I have to say, however much I like piggies, tipping out great big buckets of unused food from the local restauraunts at 8.30am in the morning just after eating breakfast, wasn't that much fun suprisingly. The pigs come running as soon as you get near the trough and they stuff their noses in and so you basicaly have to end up pouring the food over their heads - delightful. But they eat very well, every couple of days we headed off to 5 or 6 restuaraunts in Whangarei and pick up fresh buckets of food for them, they get Thai and Indian and all sorts and they do seem to love it judging by the speed the scoff it down at. But every time I fed the pigs I felt a little sad though as I had been told of their imminent demise, probably on the weekend, they were just ready for being made into bacon and they were some new piglets waiting to be bought to the farm to replace them.

I was treated to some fanastic food myself while I was there, on my first night when I arrived Anne cooked us all up a big steak - from one of their own cows, although I tried not to think about those cute little bovines I'd been patting in the field earlier.... - and loads of veggies. She said everyone always arrives starving having eaten packets of cheap instant noodles every night for the past however many weeks of travelling, so she fed us up very very well. All the food they eat is either their own or from a friends farm pretty much and it was all delicious, you could tell it was really fresh and home grown and tasty.

Gandalf's weekly shop??

On the Friday we spent the whole day picking and packing and getting it ready for the market the next day - a horrible 5am start. We were set up and ready by 6am, still dark and very very cold. I'd chosen Whangarei beacuse it was up north and theoreticaly warmer than down on the South Island, but it was FREEZING, when I got back to Auckland a few days later Kridsty told me about the warm speel they'd been having down in Wellington and on the South Island, typical. Luckily the market is all finished by 10am so we could go back and get warm, but I did enjoy it, everyone seemed to know each other and was really friendly. I had one weird moment when it was still almost dark and not many people were around, a tall man wearning a big black cloak with a hood and enormous boots strode past eerily, it was all very lord of rings and a bit strange.

Night fishing

We all had a day off on the Sunday, Aya had left by now and so it was just me left. I had expected to do some work get fed and then have to make myself scarce in the evenings but Jason and Anne just treat you as part of the family. They have wwoofers coming and going all the time and yet they seem really at ease with having strangers sharing their home. Jason and Jamie (Anne's son) had been working on an old boat and doing it up ready for Jamie to take it out fishing, so on the Sunday they headed off to the East coast to try it out, I went along with them cleary stating that I was not, I repeat not, going to be getting in the rusty old thing that hadn't been on the water in years.

They took the boat off round the bays to go diving for a couple of hours while I walked, read and avoided the sand flies (little creatures from hell that have since become my nemesis as I travelled round the South Island). They came back and grabbed the fishing stuff and assured me no water had leaked in and the boat was entirely safe and sea worthy..... so off I went with them feeling more than a little nervous. By this time it was coming up for 6.30pm and the sun was just about set and as soon as we headed off from the shore it went compleley and there was just the stars in the sky and the twinkling lights of the few houses on the shoreline. Jason suggested going round the rocks to a better fishing spot, I tried to calmly say I would prefer to stay in sight of the lights on the shore but he just laughed at me, we didn't move though, I think he saw the terror in my eyes! It was great fun though, Jamie caught a Red Snapper but that was about it. Jason spent ages cracking open Kinar, basically a type of sea urchin with fish eggs inside that most people have warned me against eating but that Jason seemed to be enjoying eating raw and then throwing the rest into the sea to get the fish to come up, but they must have all been asleep. With a few beers and the stars above we didn't really mind though and they had managed to get a whole load of muscles from their dive, the size of which I have never seen before, ready for a chowder when we got back. This was not to be for some time though as I sat and watched them battle with the soggy sand under the van wheels for nearly 2 hours to get the boat out of the water. So, very cold and hungry we headed home for Muscle chowder, which even I, as only a recent convert to the ways of fish eating, really enjoyed, I wasn't so sure about the Kinar fritters the next day though I have to say.....

The pigs pardon

After witnessing the poor Red Snapper have a screw driver driven through its brain I wasn't so sure I was going to be able to watch the pigs I'd been lovingly feeding go the same way (not with a screw driver in the brain of course). So I was very pleased to hear that the pigs were to have a reprieve! Jason was too busy so they would have a few more weeks of stuffing their little snouts with Chicken Vindaloo yet. I had also just missed the killing of the Rooster that Aya had recorded on her video camera, whilst it would have been interesting to see these things, I have to say I was quite glad they all happened or were going to happen without me there. I know its hypocritical but I just don't think i could manage to watch it all.

On my last night I went with Anne and Jason to Jason parents place for dinner, it was the most beautiful house, Jasons Father had built it himslef and it was just stunning, looking out over the sea and moslty made of big thick dark wood but all very modern inside, we were treated to new Zealand lamb roast which was gorgeous and Jasons mum got out her teliscope and I saw Jupiter and 3 of her moons and got a really close up look at the moons surface. It felt sad to be leaving the next day, I was just getting into the swing of the greenhouse work and mucking in with the animals. I was also sad to say goodbye to Sledge, a beautiful Alsation and Malamoot cross, very big and scary looking but so well behaved and cuddly, he had been having to content with a new member of the family a 6 week old puppy of the same cross breed, she was a naughty little thing and tried to bite everything and everyone but she was so very cute and Sledge kept her in line most of the time.

I can't get over how welcoming Anne and Jason, or how good Annes home made tomato chutneys were....... I felt like I'd got to know New Zealand a bit better and learnt a lot about; the wildlife and the bush in the North Island, a fair bit about Organic farming shaming me into being better about what I eat in the future and also a little bit about building fences that may or may very well not be useful to me in the future.....

Time in Taupo

So, without any time to lose I made a quick stop off in Auckland to say goodbye to Kristy and John and bought a couple of warm things for the south island, after the unexpected cold of Whangarei I wanted to be ready for when I hit the real cold spots down south. Then I headed on down to Taupo, a little town that lies on the north of Lake Taupo. As we drove into town there was an amazing view of the lake stretching out in front of you with the snow capped mountains, the 3 big volcanoes, behind it in the far distance. Again the architecture of the town struck me, mostly one storey corrugate iron buildings or wooden house, nothing here looks like its built to last, but then I'm just so used to everything being made of brick I suppose. I had been expecting a quaint little town by the descriptions from people but beacuse they are so modern they don't have that feel to them at all but there's something wonderful about towns made up of 1 storey buildings, you can see the stunning surrounding views everywhere you turn.

I stayed in a lovely little hostel and immediately met a couple of lads who are on their travels working for greenpeace and we settled down for a night of beer and Alan Partridge DVD's which made me very happy. Everytime I arrive somewhere new I wonder if I'll get talking to anyone or just spend the night with my book but it seems you can't help but meet people out here and every hostel I've stayed (bar the stinky one in Santa Barabara) has been really cosy and friendly.

I had really wanted to do the Tongariro crossing, a days hike up the moutain and over the volcano crater, but because its winter and the weather can turn bad very quickly you have to go with a guide and hire the right equipment so I just couldn't afford to do it. It's said to be one of best one day hikes in New Zealand and something I would love to come back to do (which is what I found myself thinking about a lot of places over here). Instead I went on a really nice walk along the river and on to Huka falls then to the 'craters of the moon'. Due to it being such a volcanic area the steam from underground billows out and sometimes creates pools of bubbling mud, I'm not sure why its called craters of the moon though, it was wonderful to walk around and beautiful to be in midst of all the steam vents coming out from the ground but it didn't look a whole lot like the moon comapred to my viewing of it the other night, then again, who knows?.........

On the way to Wellington

After a night out on the town in a few of the pubsand clubs Taupo has to offer I had to head off again on down to Wellington, I'd arranged to meet up with Amy and Randal down there for the Saturday night and to stay with them for the weekend. I wish I'd had more time to spend in Taupo though, I really liked it and could have sat looking out at the clear water of the lake and over to the mountains for hours and hours. I felt sad leaving, maybe it was just the blue sky after the rain of Auckland and Whangarei but I really fell for the place. Mind you even with the sun shining I still had my scarf wrapped up tight, but alas my new hat purchased in Auckland but a few days before was no longer with me, it had gone the way of my prescription sunglasses and two of my tops..... I can't believe how quickly I can lose things.

So setting off on yet another bus journey we drove on down through to Wellington along the desert road looking out for the fabled pack of wild horses said to run free in the hills, munching on a bag of pic n' mix (me that is, not the horses) and looking forward to my next stop with the bus driver happily telling us that 1 of the 3 volcano's - Raupahu, has errupted 60 times since 1945, and has recently been showing signs with steam coming out from it in the past few weeks........I began to really look forward to getting to my next stop......

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Photos

Auckland through the rain
Looking over to mainland Auckland from Devonport

The Kiwi Soaps namesake!
After many years I am finaly amongst people who appreciate this classic soap opera Jen!

Blue skies in the Bay of Islands
Just at the end of my road - very nice

Getting to grips with the camera timer....
day out in Russell

Dolphins!
It was impossible to catch them when they were up in the water as I was too busy gawping at them!

Weighing the new puppy
down on the farm in Whangarei with Jason and anne

Comments

[Dad]

Printing problems
After the heading "On the way to Wellington", the words don't print and neither do many of the photos. Is there something different about the format?? Otherwise brilliant BLOG.

[Mia]

the littlest hobo
you're turning into quite the little adventurer, miss stokes!! i'm glad you passed through NZ safe and sound, and i'm so happy to hear you enjoying the delights of a more organic diet ;)!! i continue to be jealous as all hell that i'm not there with you, but am content to be vicarious. love ya xxx

[Glynn]

Glad thas avin a reet teem!