Living in Golden Bay

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I'm now in Welly but for the last month I've been living in the most beautiful place. I didn't really want to leave but it's time I moved on to the next stage of my travels.... more of that in my next journal entry but in the mean time here are the highlights of my last month......

I've been 'woofing' in a hostel and generally looking after the place whilst the owner went on holiday - essentially in exhange for a bed, food, vino and use of a car I've been doing a few hours work each day making beds, cleaning bathrooms, feeding chickens, walking the dog and chatting to the guests. Oh and driving people to the start of the Heaphy track in the 4 wheel drive. That was soooo much fun - especially the three river crossings! So all in it was quite a good deal I thought!! I've also become a bit of an expert on tides...... not really things you ever need to know about in London but here it's essential knowledge if you don't want wet feet ;0)

The hostel is in a small place called Collingwood, which has a post office, a pub, a shop and a cafe. Oh and the chocolate shop! Yum! That's about it though. It's really small. It's also right on the coast and the hostel itself had the most amazing views out over the esturary and towards the sea. Washing up was almost a pleasure given the view from the window!

So when not 'working' in the hostel I spent lots of time walking (and even running!) along deserted beaches. I went back to Wharariki with Valeria (Italian girl who was also woofing at the hostel) - although this time it wasn't in the pouring rain! Sunset there was was amazing. We didn't see any seals this time but I did go back to Separation Point on the Abel Tasman with one of our guests, Veronika, and sat watching them there whilst having lunch. I also went back to Cape Farewell, the most northern part of the South Island, with Valeria and Michi (another woofer from Japan), and walked along the cliff top path to Pillar Point, where there were the most fab views down over Farewell Spit and across to Separation Point. The weather was amazing given that it's now 'winter' - it wasn't hot but most days the sky was blue and the sun was shinning. On the odd occasion where it rained all day we spent the day reading (no TV in the hostel!) and warming up in front of the wooden fire... and when it stopped raining I spent a lot of time on the veranda looking at the view and sitting in the sun. Such hardship ;0) Another hardship was having to go to the pub to watch the Lions matches..... ahhhh. It would have been nice to watch them in a pub full of Brits rather than Kiwi's (who really don't like loosing very much!) but we had some English guests and I even managed to persuade some German guests to come and support the Lions so I didn't feel completely outnumbered by the locals!

So what else... well there was yoga. Can you believe it was only $1??!! Gosh I used to pay 10GBP a session back in the UK!! Apparently there is a yoga and meditation retreat up in Auckland where you don't speak for a week, well you're allowed to ask the instructors questions but you're not allowed to speak to any other guests! Oh and you get up at 4am, do a bit of yoga, have some breaky at about 7 and don't eat anything else until the evening... Whilst I enjoyed the yoga clasess that I did here I'm not sure that isn't all a bit hard core for me...

The other thing I discovered here was that cockrels don't just do their blimmin cockle-doodle-dooo thing at sunrise cause that's been happening at 8am which would be quite a sociable time of day to do it.... oh nooo they start at @3am and then go at 4am, 5am, 6am.... infact almost at any time when you are trying to sleep!! I tell you it was almost enough to make me rethink my vegetarianism!!!! But not quite... seeing cow tounge being cooked quickly put me back on the right path... although i'm told it was very tasty.... hmmm.

The day before I was due to leave I'd been given the day off!! My first full day off for a month and it felt so strange. Anyway the night before I'd been talking to Christina, one of our guests, about going down the coast to watch sunrise from a beach where a friend, BJ, lived. Somehow the conversation turned to swimming in the sea which BJ does every morning... in the summer when it's nice and warm. Despite being quite adamant that there was no amount of money that could get me in the sea in the middle of winter I kind of felt a bit guilty the next morning when we were getting ready to go and Christina had her swimming costume with her. Or maybe it was the fact that it was 7am and I was still a bit sleepy but it suddenly seemed a good idea. Until of course we were running down the beach and jumping in the sea! I'd lost feeling in my toes before we even hit the water but oh my god it was soooooo cold! We came out again pretty quickly only to be told by BJ who was warm and killing himself laughing on the beach that it didn't count if we didn't put our heads under. Strangely when we were coming out the second time it seemed warmer in the water than out so we went back in for a third time. By that time we'd definately had enough! Did we feel invigorated?? definately.... would I do it again?? ;0) And the amazing thing is I didn't get a cold!!

I've added some photo's of my time in Golden Bay - I've got more to add but won't be able to do that till the end of the week so watch this space for updates!

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Comments

[Katie]

You Jammy Dodger
Love your blog Wendy - think of us poor saps at GSK form time to time wont you? (though I have to tell you that we'r having a heatwave here - almost due for hosepipe bans any day now! Love Katie x

[Colette]

gorgeous photos
Hi wendy - I am waiting for your next installment .... hurry up girl, stop having so much fun and do some typing :) Love - col