Bay of Islands

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Hello All

Long time no blog.

I would like to pretend that I have been to busy partying - but that would be a lie. I have been far too busy shovelling pony pooh. Sometimes duck and horse pooh as well. Ponies pooh more prolifically than horses, but less messily. They are also most fussy about not eating where they have poohed, and who can blame them, but this does mean the grass in the poop areas grows very long - making it harder to scoop. And you all thought I could teach you nothing!

Pooh aside, you will be pleased to hear that I love NZ so much that I have extended my stay until the end of March. My first assignment as an unpaid slave was definitely an experience, but I have yet to decide whether it was good or bad, so for the time being it remains merely an experience - and one which I am hesitant to repeat.

The work was at a farm near Kawakawa in the Bay of Islands. Kawakawa is a little farming town famous for the Hundertwasser toilets - designed by the great man himself. I say 'great man' as if I had long admired his work, but in reality I had never heard of him until I landed up in Kawakawa. The loos, however, are very original, fascinating and funky. The smell is pretty much like any other public loo though, completely vile.

The farm was devoted to horse treks and quad biking. Being an expert on neither and a PA by trade I was the ideal choice for the job. My note on the WWOOFER website specified that I know nothing about farming, however I was clearly the only person available for miles and the farmer was obviously desperately in need of help. When he telephoned me I asked about what the working day entailed. He was vague and non-committal - which I was to learn was typical. He did state though that we would work hard, but that there would be compensation. I never found out what the compensation was. He also didn't mention that we would work for some 10 hours per day, but you live and learn.

The farmer and Steve, a huge, friendly Maori, ran the quad bike tours. The farmer's estranged wife plus Katie, a local girl, and Sonja from Germany, another unpaid slave like myself, did the horse tours. I did the odd jobs, collected clients from Paihia, took bookings, fed the chickens, saw to the shetland ponies, cleaned the loos, picked up the pony pooh and cleaned the house. Not because I was expected to or asked to, but just because houses need cleaning. My mother will be amazed at how house proud I became - and it wasn't even my house. It just drove me mad that nobody picked up after themselves, and the mess only bothered me, so only I cleared it up.

Our day started at 7.30. Breakfast was generally just the surly farmer, Sonja and myself. He is Danish and I never got his name quite right, so just stuck with calling him 'old man'. I am sure he found this both accurate and flattering. His wife lived in Paihia and came in during the day to do the horse treks. Their marriage was at the stage where they have the same row every single day, they just change the words, the spitting feathers and bloodshed remain the same. The temperature would drop about 20 degrees when the two of them were in the same place at the same time and when they squared up to each other for yet another bout of indoor fireworks we all would step back - synchronised diplomacy.

They had two daughters who coped admirably with the turnover of temporary workers as well as all the other crap that was flying around. Sonja, the other unpaid slave, and I got on really well, which was lucky otherwise I may not have lasted 24 hours. Even the surly farmer and I eventually got on quite well - although for him I think it was easier to just let my inane chatter go over his head than to try and shut me up.

Sometimes I had to watch children who were riding on Dippy, one of the shetland ponies, or on the kiddy quads. The children on the pony were generally around 3 - 7 years and mostly it seemed it was the parents who wanted this more than the child. I tried to fob the parents off with leading the incredibly stubborn pony - who would never move when I asked him too, but parents have an inate ability to avoid looking after their own children. "I'm allergic to ponies", "I'm ill", "I need to video this". Great stuff - so I get to run round the paddock with the poor, terrified child.

The parents with children on the quad bikes fell into two categories - berating the child for not being brave enough or panicking that their little darling was about to kill themself. One little boy was only 8 and clearly a bit wary of a 90cc quad bike. His father was standing up yelling instructions to the poor child, who couldn't hear me telling him how to ride the bike and was fast losing all his confidence because of the father's yelling. The mother, aunt and uncle just sat nodding inanely. In the end I walked over to the father, and told him in no uncertain terms that I wanted the little boy to listen to only one person, that person being me and I wanted him, the father, to sit down and shut up. The father sat down with his mouth open. I turned round and the little boy had a huge grin on his face - confidence boosted 100% already. But it was great fun seeing how much they enjoyed it and how adventurous they got after a few circuits. I was forever being told off for letting them get a little more adventurous than was wise - but with my driving who is surprised!

By the way - one day I crashed the minibus on one of my trips to pick up customers. I was so mortified. I was edging past a car with a big trailer to go into the filter lane, and I misjudged it - and hit the trailer. I rang the farm, almost in tears and all they cared about was that I was OK. Nobody cared that I had gouged a huge hole in the side of their bus. They were so nice about it. It was funny and scary and surreal.

I only went out with the quad bikes and the horse riders a few times, but it was still fun. One time my friend, Ursula, came to visit and we went quad biking in the rain. A couple from England came with us and the boyfriend was clearly fed up with the snail's pace that Ursula, his girlfriend and I were employing. He hung back and then raced after us - which meant he was covered in mud and we were sedately enjoying ourselves. You can tell a lot about a man by the way he acts when he gets on a quad bike - some try too hard, some try too little, all the morons have 'something to prove' and constantly try and do something very stupid. I thought it would be a great idea for speed dating. You could pick exactly the type of man you preferred - after all someone women actually go for men who behave like complete dickheads - luckily otherwise the human race may well have died out by now. The old man wasn't convinced however. He professed to loathe women even more than I professed to loathe men, but we both knew we were both lying.

The farm had a beautiful setting, in a valley set in the hills surrounding the bay of islands. There was a river where we could swim (always up stream from where the horses trekked through it, some made a habit of dumping in that river), they had glow worms, which we all went to see one night and which was an incredibly beautiful setting. The night sky was beautiful - if I've gone on about that before I'm sorry, but there are so many stars, it is incredible. We just never see them at home. Well obviously we definitely don't see these particular stars, we're in a different hemisphere, but to be in the middle of nowhere and miles from towns and streetlights and able to see so many stars is amazing. The downside of this was that if you got up in the night to go to the loo it was darker than any darkness I have ever known, you took two steps and were lost. Many a time I had to feel my way along the walls, not knowing where I would end up. And if you end up in the wrong place - what a great excuse for being there.

Sonja and I got on really well. She was always happy and always smiling. So was Steve. It just made it all easier to cope with having someone to laugh about it all with. The recommended working day in the WWOOFER guide book is 4 - 6 hours. We were working 10 - 12 hours for no pay. Read that again - me working my backside off, scooping up pony pooh, crashing vans and cleaning houses for NO PAY. Materialistic little me!!

Katie came and helped out with the horses and it was great to have people to have a laugh with. We got on well enough with the surly farmer. He took the micky out of me every time I got scared or stroppy. I took the micky out of him every time he got moody or despondent - which was a lot more than I got stroppy, amazingly enough.

Sonja left after my first week and for a week it was just me, the surly farmer and his two daughters. He got less surly, I got less stroppy. The girls just carried on as if we all weren't there - and actually we had quite a good time. Whenever I had to take Dippy for a ride with a 3 year old I begged 11 year old Holly to come with me, she was really helpful and the children benefitted from learning how to ride - rather than me whispering 'glue factory' into Dippy's ear to get him to move. One day I took 7 year old Helena to the cinema. When we got there I nearly had a heart attack when I realised she had no shoes on. I panicked and frantically texted her father, wondering if I should take her home or try and sneak her into the cinema. Then I looked around and realised all the kids had no shoes on.

Then Maiju arrived - another WWOOFER from Finland come to help with the horses. We got on OK, and our routine fell into place. I continued with my daily routine of driving into Paihia, losing everything I owned and cleaning the house. I left my bag in a bar in Paihia- and I had only had two beers. Funnily enough I never saw it, my earrings, or my iPod again. But I still had an ATM card I could use. Three days later I used it at BNZ. It was cloned within an hour and maxed out in Thailand. So I had $1.20 in the world - which is about 40 pence. Luckily the surly farmer was having a good day and said I could stay.

A few days before I left the surly farmer took a few days off and left us to fend for ourselves. This was mostly OK, although one evening I looked out of the window and saw the horses disappearing through an open gate. This was when Maiju and I discovered that we each had a different definition of 'the last gate', and had each thought the other had shut it. It was dusk, I was in my pajamas and I know nothing about quad bikes or horses. However I had drunk enough red wine to (a) think I did and (b) still drive, so I ran out to get Ruby, the sheepdog, and raced after the horses with the other two farmworkers giggling hysterically on the back of the quad. The horses just looked at me as if I were mad, but did eventually wander back to the right place. I was just putting the quad bike away when a car pulled up to the horse paddock, so being alone, in pajamas and it being completely dark I did the sensible thing - and wandered down in my pjs to see who the intruder was. Fortunately it was just a neighbour - who looked terrified when I appeared in my lurid green pajamas with my 'just out of the shower dried by the wind' frizz hair.

I enjoyed my time on the farm, for the most part. I liked the fact that I went from being terrified of horses to being able to groom, saddle and bridle them and clean out their hooves - although only the really placid ones who would let me do it and made life easy. I liked the little ducks - although they are terrible mothers and lose ducklings faster than I lose handbags. The chickens drove me mad - so stupid.

I loved the fact that I could get Ruby, the sheepdog, to round up the horses just by pointing at them. The surly farmer used real words, but I just made myself laugh when I tried to do the same, so I generally just pointed and off she went. Although once I said 'good girl' after she got rid of the ducks (they were unwelcome freeloaders due to their nasty little habit of crapping everwhere) and she ran back off to the house thinking her work was done, leaving me with 13 stroppy horses in the road and an empty paddock where the 13 stroppy horses should have been. When they rubbed their heads against me I thought they liked me, until the surly farmer told me that they were just wiping their noses or scratching an itch.

Towards the end I actually went on a horse trek as one of the guides, I said I would do it as long as I could ride Tirana (a pony) and not have to deal with the gates. So naturally as I was doing them the favour, and wasn't being paid, I ended up riding Hank (higher than the Skytower) and had to close all the gates. Hank is actually a lovely horse and an experienced gate-closer, unlike me. He will close all the gates for you and will even wait patiently whilst you hang precariously from his side trying to lock them. One gate has an electric fence by it, so I had to jump off him and shut the gate. Then I realised my dilemma - the only place within about a mile radius from where I could climb back onto my mountain of a horse was the gate - which he wouldn't go near because of the electric fence. So what is a girl to do but place one leg in the stirrup and leap up, swinging the other leg gracefully over the horse to sit back in the saddle. Actually it wasn't quite like that at all, it was more a case of contorting my ancient creaking bones so that one leg was in a stirrup. I then hopped around like a retarded rabbit until I got enough momentum to swing myself up - although even then my whole body was slumped across the saddle with my head facing down over the other side of the horse. Hank stood patiently by with a long-suffering look on his face, in fact I am sure I saw a smirk, whilst I grabbed hold of his mane and dragged the other leg over the saddle so that I look ahead rather than underneath his body. Any shred of grace or dignity I may have had left, after 3 weeks of farm work, was long gone. The customers were all very politely staring into the distance as if they hadn't seen a thing, tears were rolling down my face, part laughter, part complete and utter humiliation. I think Hank felt the same.

I can't say I was sorry to leave though - the last week got a bit fraught with too many different personalities coming and going - and some going sooner than expected. I missed the easygoing, happy atmosphere which had been largely down to Sonja. One of the new ladies who arrived to work claimed she was only their to ride horses and wouldn't share the other tasks - but Maiju and I suspected she was actually only there to ride the surly farmer - who hid from her a lot. She left abruptly one morning, and said goodbye to everyone except me - but I never worked out quite why. We never exactly hit it off, but we didn't fall out either.

After I left I spent a few days in Paihia, doing the tourist thing. I visited Cape Reinga and 90 mile beach which are amazing. I even went surfing on the sand dunes. You cannot imagine being covered in more sand than this. You get sand in places you didn't even realise you had, but it is such great fun. We went to a Kauri tree forest - kauri trees are so incredible. Hundreds and hundreds of years old - and some were 2,000 years old, but then the white man came and chopped them all down!! I was so proud when they told us that. We went to a shop which had a staircase carved out of one tree. It was so fantastic. you wouldn't think you'd get excited by a tree.... and then you do. On the way home we went to the "best fish and chip shop in the world" in Manganui. Obviously, being a 'pom', I declared it was merely the second best - not quite as good as Bankers fish restaurant in Brighton. However it was lovely fresh fish and more chips than even I could eat.

Then I went on a trip to the hole in the rock - this was meant to be a high speed, exciting trip to a hole in the rock. It wasn't that high speed and it wasn't that exciting, but it was a hole in the rock. The music was interesting though. On the daytrip on the bus the driver played all maori or NZ music. The 'hole in the rock' trip played everything from Tom Jones to Neil Diamond to Ronan Keating - music to hang the dog to, but quite funny all the same. In the afternoon I yet again did the dolphin trip. Ursula and I had signed up for this weeks beforehand. We only saw about two dolphins a few minutes before the end, so they gave us free tickets for another trip. I obviously got very lucky, because I had heard from locals that not many dolphins were around due to killer whales in the bay. However that afternoon we saw about 18 dolphins who chased the boat. We took it in turns to lie face down on the front deck of the boat with our faces over the edge. The dolphins swim right under and actually turn so they get eye contact with you. It is incredible. They are so playful as well, and even at top speed can out run the boats. They were all around us and it was an amazing afternoon. I had great fun.

On my last full day i went to the Waitangi Reserve to see where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. This was the treaty where the maoris finally agreed to let the English pretend it was Maori land whilst the English continued to milk it dry. Then I walked up to Haruru falls - which is 5km away through the mangroves. It was funny walking through the mangroves. The little mud crabs scuttle every which way and you can hear the continuous pop of the snapping shrimp.

My last morning I walked up the Paihia road the way I used to drive the farm's bus to get a photo of the first glimpse of Paihia bay from the road. No matter how many times a day I drove that journey I never tired of that view. Then I went for a last swim in the bay. The people who ran the hostel I stayed in offered to let me stay for free for a month for 2 hours cleaning per day, and I was sorely tempted because the Bay of Islands is, without a doubt, the most beautiful place on earth. But I have so much to see and so little time left I have to drag myself away.

I slept most of the way in the bus back to Auckland, and it was weird to wake up and see the Auckland skyline after miles and miles of hicksville. But it was also lovely to be back with Shar and Jodi and gossipping and laughing about the past few weeks. Last night we drove out in search of McCracken's comet - which we found ... but what a stupid name for a comet!!

And now I don't know what is next. I just know that I love NZ. My tenant is leaving my house and I had a moment's panic about getting back to the UK. But this is paradise and I could stay forever.

Sorry if the weather in the UK is really bad right now - but you should all take heart from the fact that I have decent weather. You can post me money to prolong my stay - after all one of us might as well be having fun!!

Take care, keep safe. Take loads of days off from work due to cold. I do!

Viv xx

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Photos

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The bay of islands

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Going out quad biking

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The poor ducks, unloved and unwanted. The cute little one didn't last long either.

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View from the farm - worth shovelling an awful lot of crap to see this every day.

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Steve - famous for saying 'take it easy Bro'

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Sonja - smiling as ever.

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Holly- doing my job for me. Bless!

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Paihia Bay

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Hundertwasser's toilets. what do you mean who is he?

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Katie and Tirana

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Me riding a horse

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Feeding time for everyone

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Horses obeying Ruby and ignoring me

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Bus trip - everyone frantically snapping away.

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Cape Reinga

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Cape Reinga Lighthouse

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Maori's depicting the ancient story of NZ

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Dune surfing

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90 mile beach - well a bit of it.

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Kauri tree staircase.

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A hole in a rock

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A dolphin - at last!

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My favourite view from the Paihia road.

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Haruru Falls, Paihia

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Maori warboat at the Waitangi treaty centre

Comments

[anonymous]

Viv, Photos look fabulous. Can't remember how much you overlapped with John Stace but, if you did, you should look him up now you are staying in NZ longer (maybe you already are, I'm probably behind the curve). I can give you his contact details if you email me. Weather here until about the last ten days has been the mildest winter ever but today we woke to 2 inches of now in SW8. Children woke up at 5am and decided it was only right and proper to run into our bedroom shouting "there's snow" at the tops of their voices. I'm sure you're sorry you missed it. One good thing about NZ is that, at least occasionally, we can beat them at cricket. Best wishes, Charles Pender