Bone carving in Barrytown

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Back on the stray bus and I had one of the same drivers as I had before which was cool. We had a long drive ahead of us to get to Barrytown. We had to drive back to Motueka and then down past the Lewis pass. We stopped along the coast and did an hour walk all along the coast and saw a few seals. It was beautiful there!

Pictures

Barrytown is a blink and you miss it kind of place. We stayed at a place that is a pub/hostel and is known as Bazvegas haha. SO cheesy but it’s a stray stop so they usually always have a dress up party there. There was a whole room full of just clothes and stuff you could dress up in.

I got to know 2 girls from the States and a german girl and we all hung out together. After breakfast the next morning a few of us on the bus who wanted to got to do a bone carving. For $55 we got to design and carve our own jewellery.

I picked a koru design to do (a koru is the beginnings of a new fern branch) and is a spiral design. Maoris have meanings for all these things you can carve and my Koru means: New beginnings, growth and harmony. I found that really fitting for this trip for me which is why I chose to do it.

Basically, they give us a chunk of a cow’s shin bone and we trace on our design. They cut it down smaller and then cut out the hard part (inside) and then we get to use an electric sander and sand down all the edges closer to our tracing lines. Then we sand down the back side to get our bone to be thinner. Then over to a grimmel to curve all the edges inside and outside. Then we have to sand the whole thing with like 3 different sand papers to get it super super smooth.

When they think you’ve sanded enough they polish it up with wax, put a hole in it where you want and then put it on a strong and voila! It’s such a sweet necklace, I love it and it was so much fun to make myself!

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