Advertisement
I just received the distressing news that Cafe Iguana (work-place before i left the UK, and home of many many many happy memories and friends) has closed its doors for the final time. Not at all happy about this, and i'm even more unhappy that i wasn't able to be there for the final bow. So there's no more Zed's basement, no more fez and no more iguana. Rubbish.
Onto a happier note. The party that i was doing fire performing at and cooking for last saturday went off without a hook. It was a really good day and night, and i managed to perform all my stuff without alighting myself. I was working with 4 other wwoofers and essentially put in charge of them as my cooks, it was cool, a fun day was had by all (although we started at 8.30 and didn't finish till after midnight).
However, the next day it was discovered that a friend of our hosts' had killed himself on the sunday morning. No great suprise, our hosts (Bruce and Sharon) wanted to leave the island for a couple days, go look after the family and go to the funeral. It was therefore necessary for
the wwoofers to leave also. It was a shame, the 5 of us only spent 48 hours together, got on well, but had to go our separate ways.
We were deposited on dry land and the two Hawaiians (Laura and Jesse) went their separate ways, but Ben, Theresa (from San Fransisco) and myself hitch-hiked north to the Karikari peninsular. This is an area near the very north of NZ and one almost untouched by tourists. We weren't sure what to do with our time (we'd been expecting to be on the island for almost another week) and it was raining pretty hard and consistently. We got a left a little further north and really weren't sure what our next step would be, but being sure fate would work something out for us.
We hadn't even dropped our bags to begin hitch-hiking out of Kaitia when we were offered a lift to Auckland by 2 Samoan guys. Now, before i left Kerikeri to go to the island i'd been in contact with the Kahikatea eco village in the north of Auckland about wwoofing there. The idea was quickly discussed between the three of us and we decided to go to Kahikatea
(even though we wouldn't be ariving there until after 7 and after nightfall) and hope there would be someone there and be allowed to stay there. As i hadn't been in contact with them for a little while, we weren't sure exactly where they were, Ben and Theresa had no idea what it was and were just trusting me and as they had had no warning that there would be 3 of us it was a risk, but we tried it and it worked out perfectly.
In 1978 the site was a hippie-commune that was pretty far out there, some very strange things went on here (they were against the idea of privacy; everything was done in public, from going to the toilet to sex). But it collapsed in 2000. Since then a new 'eco-art village' had been getting started - far more middle of the road and village like - and that's where i am now.
It's cold here these days. Very cold. Summer has well and truly come to an end and i'm feeling somewhat jealous of the good weather i'm hearing about in the UK
Ben and Theresa left last saturday (we arrived on tuesday), which left
me a little distraught as whenever i make a connection to another person they or i move on a few days later. But i've had a good time here anyway, i've been to a yoga class, a dance workshop and a silk climbing workshop. The wwoofing 'work' i'm doing at the moment is to paint the walls of the craft workshop with murals (you should be able to see them). There's also a fair amount of sitting around drinking tea and reading and talking to interesting people to do. I think i'll be here until next weekend because there's an exhibition/mini-festival happening and i'll be required to spin more fire play music and help in the cafe. Should all be fun. After that i'm gonna head south to New Plymoth for a little while (to another community) and then back up to Auckland as Richard and his friend arrive on the 15th after that i'm not sure where I (or them) are going. I might have to earn some more
Miss you all, Chris
Advertisement
Tot: 0.117s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 12; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0588s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Frog
non-member comment
Silk climbing! COOOOOOL!
Glad to see you're still looking stunningly gorgeous as ever Chris - at first I couldn't see you in the group photo and feared you were the person with the excessively curly mop. Struck the fear of God, yes THE FEAR OF GOD into me. Silk climbing sounds truly amazing. I'm ever-so-glad you didn't set light to yourself when poiing. Today the weather in the 'Ding was beautiful today, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. You may well have loved the Cave Rave during the anti-summer ball - it was pretty darn cool, though no doubt not in the league of what you've been up to! Miss you lots, especially now I've read your travel blog. You take care of you - I will keep you in my thoughts and wish you good things Froggie