Dogs and horses and chickens

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Well turns out I did in fact not keep you updated, so this might be a long one. I stayed with Ella's family for 11 days, which I spent painting in the mornig, going on long walked on the beach in the afternoon and playing cardgames with my hostfamily or facetiming friends and family back home in the evening. On october 3rd I moved in to my next helpx stay, which I'v been staying with for the last two weeks. Sharon and Nigel live on a smal farm surrounded by a bunch of green hills 30min out of motueka. They have three horses. Taking care of those is my main job here. Besides that I feed the chickens, help moving cows from one padock to another and do cleaning and gardening chores. Most of the day at least one of their five dogs follows me around and in the evening you'll find at least one curled up on the couch next to me (or on my lap). October 7th and 8th I went on a overnight hike with Ella and Grant. We met up in Kaiterteri and took a boat into the Abel Tasman National Park to Anchorage bay. At the hut I met some lovely kiwi girls with whom I spent the day. We used the afternoon to walk up to Kleopatra's pond, where I went down a natural water slide. In the evening I was playing card games with Ella when a big surprise happend: I was just casually looking out of the window and what did I see? A familiar looking face. Funnily enough Elizabeth was staying at thecampgrounds next to the hut we were at. She was at anchirage for two nights with some people she met woofing. The next day we hiked back to Marahau and out of the Park. It was exausting but the views were definetly worth it. Which is why I've decided to do most of the rest of the Coast track. My efforts to find someone to do it with weren't leading anywhere so I've decided to di it on my own next week. I'm sure I'll meet people along the way. After that my plans is to do a roadtrip to discover more of the southisland over the next few weeks. I'm currently in contact with other packpackers about becoming travelbuddies, so hopefully that will work out. Some of the things I wanna do in that time are skydiving and swimming with dolphins.
Today marks one month since I left home but it feels like both more and less time than that have passed since then. Especially up here where I'm surrounded by nature and spend more time with animals and on my own than other people it feels like time dosn't exist. While I enjoyed the quiet I'm now looking forward to meet new people and go see new places.
I promise this time I'll get back to you sooner!
Take care <3

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