Advertisement
Published: October 18th 2009
So much to say...
WWOOFing was definitely an experience. It was the most labor-intensive week!! Sorting nuts was one thing, but raking them off the ground was so hard! Fortunately there was a lot of good food to make up for our sore arms and aching backs and the weather was pretty cooperative. After work yesterday we had a party, which was a lot of fun, but I am certainly paying for it today. Still. At 7:30 at night. UGGGGGHHHHH. Im trying to think food-settling thoughts.
Despite my ridiculous hangover, today has actually been a very good and productive day. I got up super early so I could get a ride into town, went online for a little bit and got my bus ticket to Hamilton, finished my book, and went over to the Landing Cafe for some breakfast. While I was there two women invited me to come sit with them since I was eating alone. They were super friendly and talkative (and I was still drunk at this point so I thought they were hilarious.) Lisa and Helen were their names, they work together as nurses at the local hospital. Once they found out that I hadn been to Pukekura Park they were so appalled that they got up right that minute and took me there. We walked around for a little bit, chit-chatting and such. The park was beautiful, they were right, it would have been quite a shame if I had left New Plymouth without seeing it- beautiful chinese garden with a pagoda, lots of ducklings, large red bridges, waterfalls. So then after we were done walking around Helen goes to visit her mum and Lisa takes me back to her house to meet her daughter, who is about the same age as me. She has this gorgeous old house with hardwood floors and a clawfoot tub and a huge garden (almost an acre in the middle of the city, she tells me). She then proceeds to feed me tea and banana cake and we talk about her upcoming visit to San Fran, about how plastic straws are the dumbest invention in history, and she tells me all the New Plymouth gossip (for example, my WWOOFing host spent three years in jail because he was growing pot in the garden next to the carrots haha). Then she takes me back to the busstop when its time to go, tells me to be safe ("No hitchhiking!!") and gives me her and her daughters phone numbers so that when we come back into town I can stay with them for a few nights. Seriously. This actually happened. When I thanked her (excessively) she just waved her hand like it was no big deal and told me that her daughter did a lot of backpacking and had encountered a lot of really kind people, so she was glad to do the same for someone elses daughter. OMG- I didn realize that people like this actually existed. But that wasn the only kind person I met today. When I was walking to the hostel from the bus stop a man on his bike got off and walked with me, giving me directions and telling me maori stories and making sure that I got a room okay. Holy shit. I didn feel like an asshole until I came to NZ. It made me realize that there are so many opportunities to be helpful, friendly, kind, in a day and I almost never act upon them. And if I ever see a backpacker at home, Im immediately stopping to buy them coffee.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.075s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 13; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0434s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Tracey
non-member comment
Yay!
Im so glad you have angels watching over you. What wonderful people. I hope you recover soon.