Blogs from Oceania - page 7366

On Sunday myself, my roommate Laurence and my friend Matt left Waiheke for a couple days to go to Matt’s house in Te Puke ( Yes ha ha, Puke!). Before living we went on a tour of the Stony Batter vineyard where Matt worked. The vineyard is huge it takes up about a fifth of the island. The vineyard is very cool, it has roads going everywhere, it's very hilly and there where miles of fences which kept the sheep and cows away from the thousands of grape vines. We did the tour it Matt's pickup and I wanted to explore roads which went down to beaches but we didn't have enough time. Before getting onto the ferry we stopped at Mudbrick winery and got a free tasting of there wines, which were ok but the ... read more

David and Beth were my original fruit picking contacts. However, when I had first called them, they didn't need any extra pickers, so they gave me the number for Koolkuna. After 3 weeks at the berry farm, I was collected by Campbell and taken to Balnagowan Organic farm. Balnagowan is in Walcha, whose small country town is a half hour drive away. It is a working sheep and cattle farm, as well as being an Organic farm employing backpackers and marketing fruits such as zuccinis (corgettes to us Brits), yellow button squash, potatoes, snow peas, beans and shalots. On the farm live David and Beth, who are parents to Kristin (residing on Norfolk Island), Angus, Zoe and Campbell. David and Beth both picked the fruit with us and gave us other jobs to do. Beth cooked ... read more

With heavy hearts, we awoke early and made our way to the main jetty for our airport transfer. We stared glumly out of the window as the bus made its way to the airport - neither of us wanted to leave. It felt like we'd been here a lot longer than a week and this place had definitely touched our hearts. The people - so friendly and quick to smile, the surroundings - so lush and green, the waters - so clear and filled with beautiful creatures. This place really felt like home. Before we'd even landed back home in Brisbane, we were already talking about the next trip and what we want to do... and joking about maybe moving to Vanuatu for a 3 month working holiday sometime :P maybe we will... who knows??... read more

Woke up about midday with a bit of a hangover. Can't really blame us with all that free drink. Went for a walk in town, ate some lunch, slept some more, then arranged a trip to the Tongariro Crossing for tomorrow with the nice people in our room; 2 German girls, Anna and Isobel, and the owner of the car, Bram, otherwise known as Dutchie. No prizes for guessing where he's from :-)... read more

Days 95-98 We chilled out in the park before catching our bus to Newcastle! No, not that Newcastle! It was just a 3 hour bus ride, we got picked up and dropped off at the hostel. Our room was gorgeous, we had a little house of our own to share with 3 other rooms. It was so nice. We then took advantage of a free backpacker meal at one of the bars where we also got bargainous drinks. It was a fun night with a pub quiz and live music. And all for just pennies! The next day we were driven to the beach for a day of surfing. There were loads of horrible rocks in the sea which were pretty dangerous when jumping (or rather falling) off the surf board so it put us off ... read more