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Published: October 31st 2007
Hello everyone. Sounds like Brendan's Bday was a hit. I will check out your video tomorrow probably Uncle Phil. I heard good things 😊 And it is not too cold here Kam the Man. You totally ripped my e-mail name off. It's probably been upper 60's, about 70 today in Tokomaru Bay here. From our experience of WWOOF-ing so far, it seems like there is a lot of weed pulling that needs to be done. And according to other WWOOF-ers, most other places are the same. So prepare to kill lots of weeds! And hopefully I will post pictures tomorrow. We are going to Gisborne so we can get to some high speed internet, and maybe an ipod adapter so we can listen to other music besides the 3 CD's we bought. If anyone is interested we got RATM, the Garden State ST, and The best of The Velvet Underground. Good stuff, but we have listened to each of them about four times, so we would like some more variety.
So yesterday was intense. We got up around 7 and headed out around 8, to a small cove that our WWOOFing hosts trek to a couple times a year.
A Waterfall
We bush wacked to get to this.The hike was about 3 hours each way, so this would be the longest hike we have done thus far. I would guess maybe 100 people have ever been on this hike and even less to the cove we went to. There was somewhat of a trail, more like a dried up stream in some areas that took us into a ravine and up a 60 degree incline to the other side of a mountain range. Along the way we found ourselves walking through brush, making our own tracks. This is called bushwhacking, and about a 1/4 of the trip was us doing that. Sometimes straight up the side of mountains where we would use brush to pull ourselves up!
We got to the coast, but we had to wait about an hour for the tide to go down before we could get to the cove. Once we got to the cove we found ouselves at a secluded beach, with a stream running into the ocean which produced a beautiful 15ft waterfall a short ways from the coast. There was also a camp site that Gordon, our host, said sometimes he would drive his boat just off the coast,
Another waterfall
The same stream, just a little further down. anchor it, and swim to shore, staying there up to a week. He and his wife are very outdoorsy, and have a lot of knowledge of nature. They are very interesting people to talk to.
After hanging out at the beach reading for a couple hours we checked out a 30 million year old baleen whale fossil before heading up the coast to hunt abalone. We found around 25 abalone which we brought back with us to eat. We also got to see a ton of tide pools. Pretty much every coastal area I have seen seems to have very shallow waters, where when the tide goes out you can check out tide pools. They are home to many a sea snail, but also some star fish, sea urchins, and abalone.
We made it back to the house after another 3 hours, by way of much bushwhacking which produced many scratches on my arms and legs, and very tired feet. I slept very well last night 😊
Today we got up and put in our 4 hour day of clearing weeds and sawing branches. It got pretty tiring because the sun was beating down on us all
Secluded bay
An area of the bay we hiked to. day, but I dreamed of a free dinner and wine, so I was happy to do it. Afterwards I finished reading The Road, which was a beautifully stark book and then we headed out on Gordon's fishing boat.
We dropped fishing line attached to pieces of wood, very homemade but it works, to catch what looked like red snapper. We caught about 5 fish after an hour, and pulled up some crayfish from a trap. Fun. One of Gordon's friends that was with us caught a fish and as he was pulling it in a shark ate it and caught itself on the line. That was pretty crazy. They had to pull it in, probably about a 4 ft reef shark, and hold it down as they pulled the hook out. Everyone survived, so it was all good.
Now we are about to eat a dinner of pasta with abalone sauce. MMM...I think. I'll let you know how it is next time I log on.
Daniel
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Mom
non-member comment
Wow!
WOW!