Another Home

I made it to Wanaka, but not without effort! The day before I was to depart another storm raged through! The rain there is no laughing matter. This one caused 7 slips that we could identify and driving from Franz Joseph to Wanaka. One was caused by a river diverting itself from it's bed and and crossing the road instead of going under the bridge. That was the biggest and took most of the day to clear up! It was all worth it though to see the waterfalls raging through the canyon!

All the plans I had to hike and camp around Wanaka disappeared with each rock climber I met. the first three days were spent climbing, the fourth watching a few better climbers and doing short hikes in the area, the fifth, climbing. I suppose that's not ALL I did though. I stayed with the young lady I met on the Nelson Lakes hike who was hiking with her dad. Her roommates took me in without question and we had some awesome group dinners all week long! We also spent a day playing acrobatics in the park, I have learned a bit about juggling, though I need a lot of practice still!! Here's a pic of Claudia, my hostess, juggling on her friend's shoulders! Slack-lining was taking place just behind us :)

Wanaka is by far my favorite city/town in NZ so far! There was never-ending opportunities to meet new people and have a little adventure each day!

Leaving Wanaka I hitch-hiked, headed for my next set of roots. Grapevine roots! Misha's Vineyard! My new office!

Mishasvineyard.com

The website is lovely but doesn't come close to showing how awesome these guys are! Misha grew up an opera woman's daughter. The star of and center of the stage in her mom's life. She doesn't, and never did, have any inclination to raise children. She's been a successful dancer, having grown up in the theater, naturally she took up an aspect of theater. But her big success has been in business and marketing. She made a name for herself working for Dell and a few other big names. Born and raised Aussie, lived and worked in Singapore for the 17yrs leading up to starting her vineyard.
Andy is a whole 'nother story! Having been married and divorced, he's got a few kids wandering the world, popping in and out of his life. I can't wait to meet Dean, he's a high class chef! Andy grew up with a number of siblings, so the thought of having a young lady, such as myself, barge into their home with no departure date wasn't quite as daunting for him. Born and raised a Kiwi, Andy has lived in a few countries including Singapore with Misha. He's done well for himself starting out in type-writer maintenance, moving along to selling personal computers, managing people, working for IBM and a few other big names...

They take really good care of me and feed me well! :) Which is a very important part of my happiness...full tummies make happy people. Proven fact. I was at their house a mere week before my first full wine tasting of Misha's Vineyard's wines.  Andy is a great chef. He's got breakfast on the table every weekday by 7am and always an interesting dinner! Anything from home made pizza to poached pork to a melt in your mouth steak!! It's lovely!

Each Sunday we make eggs benedict. I'm in charge of the hollandaise sauce. Which has been working out quite well. On this particular day ----->
 we were distracted by a few people that required a vineyard tour. Sadly, breakfast was put off until lunch time (LATE lunch at that) so we pulled out all the stops! We accompanied the eggs benny with sausage, bacon, caramelized tomatoes, and champagne!



I've now been here a month. I work on the vineyard most days and man I have some beach workouts to do if I think I'm gonna get rid of the tan-lines made from working on the vineyard! Luckily the tan-lines all match the various, and few, shirts I have here. I am a professional leaf plucker and tucker, and we've just started to thin out the grape bunches. I gotta say,  cutting off bunches is one of the most painful jobs. I understand WHY we do it and I fully support it to make better wine. It still makes me sad to see potential fall to the ground, but I have tasted their wines and they know what they're doing so I continue to chop off bunches and bunches of unripe grapes.

A good friend Heather Krebs will be arriving to wreak a bit of havoc with me in just a few days time, so I'm sure there will be more pics to share with you all when she leaves!

I think I left off somewhere with a plan...?

Right, luckily it had no details to it! Leaving Kat's place I dove back into Abel Tasman park, took a boat ride past all the tourists and the fur seals(have I mentioned they aren't actually seals? They are sea lions) I digress, lovely coastal track they've got there, I hiked there two days and had a flushing toilet and toilet paper provided everytime! Amazing! I was spoiled. My next stop was Nelson Lakes National Park.

After two days of hitchhiking and 7 different drivers (longest ride was 1.3hrs, shortest was 2mins, not alltogether sure why some people stop) I finally arrived! Got a decent start by 11am that first day, a solid 7hrs on the trail, I felt awesome! (ok that's a lie I was horribly cranky cuz I skipped breakfast in order to get a ride) but once I ate I felt awesome!!

Day two was planned to take the brunt of the hike, if you check out the travers-Sabine loop trail there is a gorgeous mountain pass, the travers saddle, completed base to base from the east to west in one day. Ooooh my knees and my feet hurt, I may be exaggerating but I think it was a 1200m climb soo what is that 3k ft? I give it a 14er rating for you Coloradoans back home :)

http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/tracks-and-walks/nelson-tasman/nelson-lakes/travers-sabine-circuit/

Day two was successful got to the bottom on the other side and crashed, I think I slept on a rescue heli pad, apparently there were no emergencies. (seriously though, who puts those along a hiking trail in an idyllic camping location?!)

The most astounding part of this trek was the rivers! There were waterfalls and river crossings and little lakes all over the place! I have never seen so many water bodies in one general area.

Unfortunately I had to cross each of them. Occasionally there would be a bridge but typically the bridges were for marshy areas not raging rivers, no you had to balance on rocks or wade through the rivers, they spared you from the mud. Stupid.  Though I suppose it could be lightening mud or something that I don't know about.!? Thankfully I only slipped in one river crossing and the walking stick I decided to carry along like an old english person did me well!

Day three was an adventure!! I slept late and conversed with a couple from the north island that we should make a lazy day of it and stop at the next hut. They had a nice big fire place there and we could dry out our boots for the first time in three days! They took off and I carried on shortly thereafter. Now anyone that knows me well, knows that direction is not my forte. At all. Left from right is tricky enough and mountains always mean west to me (thanks to the view of the Rockies from Foco). I was in the middle of the mountains. I was screwed. So I left headed east, naturally, if I came down the mountain the day before east was the only option. (I was actually supposed to head north. For those of you that checked out the trail map)

I was so excited for that big fire and cozy hut that I hit the trail running (not really running, my pack was somewhere around forty lbs at this point).  Long story short I hit the next hut after 3.5 hrs, I was shocked (it was supposed to take 5) then dismayed...I had gone south. It started to rain as I stepped up to the hut. Blue lake is a gorgeous little side track but completely out of the way and some of the worst river crossings I had done yet, and I had to backtrack. After thoroughly berating myself I settled down to have a nice night of solitude. There was no way anyone would follow me up there in the rain that was pouring down. So I had the luxury of a fire and a bath!!! It was lovely :) I just tried not to think of what the water level would be like going back the next day!

Day four was absolutely beautiful!!! And I made it down to where I had intended to go the previous day...and at that hut I met a cool groups from Nelson city that invited me to hike back out with them and they'd give me a ride into Nelson!! Score!  They continued to include me in their pre-holiday activities, Christmas eve BBQ Christmas day beach fun, etc and I got to ride around in their shiny new corvette!! (they use buttons now to open doors, I had to ask how to exit the first time!) anyway, total success in the end :)

I do well in groups.

That being said, I left Nelson alone for another hike that goes in to a large overhang (they tried to call it a cave, but it's definitely not a cave). More river crossings. There were actually parts of the trail where you just walk along IN the river. My feet are so tired of being wet while hiking...but it's the kiwi way! I think that's why I see so many guys walking around in short shorts (like 1970/1980s basketball shorts) and gum boots.

I continued down the coast pitching my tent where no one could see me but I could see the ocean :) it was awesome! Though the further I go south the worse the sandflies seem to be (they look like fruit flies but they are worse than mosquitoes! They leave sores not just itchy spots, not sure why they are needed on this planet)

I hit Franz Joseph on new years eve and met a nice guy at a hostel that had a car and drove a handful of us around to seethe glaciers and do some hikes, lovely really. And a good thing!

New years day I wasn't really too keen on adventure, let alone movement, but I met a nice couple that run a hostel and offered me a room, dinner each night, and free laundry in exchange for 2hrs work each day cleaning at their hostel. I'm still here. Hahahaha! The rain started on he second and didn't stop until the fourth. Next thing we know the bridge to the north fell out due to a landslide (they call them slips here) and all the hiking trails were closed for two-three days. I've finally seen the tops of the mountains here though and the bridge was just opened up last night. Just in time for the next rain storm starting tomorrow. So I decided to skip hiking this area and jet down to Wanaka, which is the next city south of here but inland a bit. And perhaps do some camping out of there. I thought I was in summer here, I'd hate to see the spring showers if this is nice summer weather...

I think I actually have a plan for the next few weeks!! But first, I'll tell you about the last two weeks...

It all started hitch/hiking. A wonderful thing really! I met a nice lady at a hostel in Dunedin that gave me a lift up to Picton. The hitch/hiking started when she dropped me off. I didn't have much distance to cover really, check out a map from Picton to Motueka. Very pretty!!!
https://maps.google.co.nz/maps?hl=en&q=picton+to+motueka+driving+time+google+maps&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bpcl=39967673&biw=1270&bih=599&wrapid=tlif135565512894510&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl

 I get antsy so I started walking and about 30mins later a little red car pulled over! I got so excited!!! My first solo hitch/hiking experience! It turned out to be this super awesome guy (I totally forget his name but it started with a "W". Doesn't matter, he's cool). He's from Sao Paulo, Brazil, and he just quit his good paying job with a pharmaceutical company to travel around the world for a year and figure out what he wants to do with his life...need I say more? We had such a lovely chat for hours he drove me right up to Katerina's door to drop me off. I hope this is a good sign for my future hitch/hiking and not the best ever experience that nothing else will compare to :P I intend to test this.

A nice little lady (I swear they are all tiny in this country) requested some help with what I saw as a destruction job, naturally I responded. This is via Wwoofing, for those of you that are unfamiliar with the program, you should totally check it out! It's really big here in New Zealand and a few other countries and it's a great way to see more of the country and how people live AND to learn all the secrets of the area :) I digress. Katerina, my newest host, requested help with a gutter job (or spouts as they call them) I thought I was coming in to tear down some old ones, slap on a bit of paint and throw up some new ones.

To my dismay, the destructive part of the job was done the day I arrived by a gent hired to put up the new ones. Very nice of him I suppose. I was thrown into scraping the old paint off. NOT an easy job. Two days later Romaine from France arrived to help me out !! And two days after THAT we finally finished scraping and started to paint! Katerina, in the meantime was one of the best hosts I've had yet! She kept us fed and we had our allotted 'cuppas' every three hours just like all Kiwis do!! She was also one of the more socially active ladies I've stayed with yet! She even coerced Romaine and I to participate in a parade with her Greenpeace group! (pics to come later, connection is too slow today) or just go to facebook :P

We road all over the place on bicycles she lent us and went to the beach, toured the city, and just had a grand old time!

This past week she had a tramp planned to go through the Abel Tasman National Park with one of her good friends. She was so kind as to include us, it was awesome!! We packed up our gear (which took nearly a whole day!) we had to keep weighing our bags, mine was just too heavy. She kept telling me to get rid of stuff, but I had planned to take my tent as well instead of staying in the huts provided to the general public. Anyway...my pack was stuck at a solid 16.5kg, Romaine's was the lightest at 11kg, and Katerina's was in the middle at 13kg. not sure of the exact weight conversion but mine was somewhere around 37lbs. (they recommend 20% of your body weight to be the max). Whatever, I had a lot of good food in there!

The hike was a solid climb the first day and continued to be a nice variety of up and down for the next three days :) It gives different muscles a break, I liked it!! But we all got some solid thinking space and gorgeous views. I slept SOOO well in my tent the thought of a hut made me shudder! In  my tent there's no fear of other people snoring or moving about to disturb me. In my tent the birds let you know when the sun is coming and the sun warms you right up to entice you out of bed! In my tent I can do whatever I want for as long as I want with no interruptions or distractions. Totally the way to go. Which is why I'm actually planning (I know I know...deep breath, I'm not lying!) I'm planning my next few weeks out to be able to tramp/camp my way down the west coast of the south island. There are some amazing sights to be had and I'm really excited to utilize this tent I've been carting around with me :P Now of course you need to take this planning thing with a grain of salt, it's more of a narrowed down options list.

OOOH!! Katerina, Mania (her 5yr old grandson), and I collected cockles yesterday at the beach. Best thing EVER! Free food that anyone with feet and hands can get and cook up! you even get a surprise crab in with your cockles occasionally! again there will be pictures eventually...

Katerina also taught me how to make my own camp stove...ask me for details. It's mostly free and genius!!!!

I'm a bit behind so here goes!

From the pig farm I saw Ben off to Auckland on my way up north! I spent ten days in Northland on an old man's orchard. Easiest ten days I've ever spent "working for my keep" We built a patio one day and did a bit of mulching. The rest of the time we watched the rain fall; "another shitty day in paradise" was the favorite comment of our host. I say 'our' because I met up with a German girl on the way there. She was a trained chef in Germany!!! SCORE! So she cooked every night and I was her 'sous chef'!! Delish... after many awkward creepy old man jokes, Sabrina and I decided it's time to move on to warmer climates. (That's funny, laugh. Northland is supposedly the warmest nicest climate in NZ and the weather the pretty much sucked while we were there). The poor guy was pretty lonely after coming out of winter and seeing where he lives I totally understand that he would host for wwoofers just to get some fairly regular company. A series of unfortunate events also lead to his internet being shut off for up to 13 months. That's how far off the grid he is. absolutely gorgeous countryside though.

Anyway, I left for Jo's house! Jo owns four very big horses, one of which I got to ride a few times!! Lots of fun! Jo was a bit more of a social butterfly and definitely ran all over town. Harder on my pocket book, but tons of fun! We went horse back riding a few times around her property, visited the winery ACROSS THE STREET, as well as a couple others, went to the movies, hit up a few local markets (which are all pretty fabulous around here, so much fresh food and 'different' stuff, ie; buffalo yoghurt, macadamia butter, and lots of other yummy stuff). Jo is a natural path and was very insistent that people become gluten-free.  So after a few days of living with her I decided I'd try out this gluten-free thing. I'm not going to get into it, if you want details on what I've found out about gluten-effects on the body then email me directly and we can chat...

I noticed nothing different, though supposedly it takes three months to kick in and I have not been the most faithful...I slipped and ate a sausage the other day, darn things have bread crumbs. oops.

Jo and I had some great commentary on Jesus, Buddha, and a few other random deities. All in all it was a wonderful place to be and I'm glad I was there to help her out with her chores etc! She expanded my views of other people, other religions, and a few random 'life' things. It was great :) She and a few of her friends successfully drank me under the table with wine. The only excuses I have is there was no dinner involved that evening and they have more experience drinking than I do.

I left Jo and headed back to Marissa Licon's place and spent more time with her landlady Julie (such a lovely lady!! Anything goes as long as you say 'pardon me' with the proper accent when necessary) than I did with the younger crowd. Though Marissa and I did have an awesome time up in a little Cessna 4-seater. Luckily for us there is a young man working on his pilots license that was able and willing to take us up for a ride during one of his training sessions. It just so happens he has a thing for Marissa, works for me! I also finished all my christmas shopping BEFORE Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving itself was a bit of a bummer for me. No one here really cares about it...being another country and all. OOH I did finally try running in my Vibram 5 finger shoes. That was probably the most painful session of running I've ever had. I might not have done it right. And I really shouldn't have had my first go of it the day before I left for a new city, took a whole week for my calves to stop hating me. dumb.

Carly, a friend from Colorado currently studying in Tasmania AU, flew in just a week ago and we covered quite a bit of ground!! I must say Wellington is absolutely wonderful for a cheap day of sight-seeing! I discovered the botanical garden,

a tour of parliament, Te Papa museum (5 floors!), the best view ever from the top of Mt Victoria, and general shenanigans! Lori, a local audiologist who is friends with a friend of mine back home in CO, was kind enough to treat me to some wine and allow Carly and I to crash in their spare bedroom for a night following a celebration of her partners graduation as a helicopter pilot! We picked up a plane ticket the next day and flew off to Dunedin!

Dunedin...not such a friendly city for free touring. However!! We did find an awesome little campsite in the middle of a public park and our tents in the trees! A wonderful little secluded space not too far from the city center where we could look out over the buildings while drinking a Gisborn chardonnay :)  A day car rental turned into a two day car rental as there is poor transportation to nearby attractions outside of the city center. But no worries!! It worked out for the best! Day one was spent up on the Otago Peninsula. A beautiful day!! We saw baby seagulls, baby ducks of paradise, fur seals, little black shags, little blue penguins (adults as well as babies!) and even a few albatross soaring overhead!! We stayed for the evenings 'penguin walk' and watched all the mom and dad little blue penguins emerge from the ocean in little 'rafts' as they were called. The guide with us claims to have counted 207 penguins emerge from the ocean in the hour that we spent watching, though many more are claimed to continue to arrive as the night goes on. Typically they will leave about dawn and return to the nests by dusk. It was about 9:30pm before we saw the first 'raft' set shore. Either way it was an amazing night and well worth the $20 fee to stand and watch penguins :)

I do wish there was a better way to see the albatross. The only option was a $40 tour in which you 'might' see something, I think I need to borrow that helicopter pilot for a day..


Long beach was on our menu for the following day, seeing as we didn't have to return the car until 1pm we thought we'd head up and get some bouldering in on the shore! The drive took twice as long because there was a bit of a road block consisting of about 200 sheep...



but we had a nice chat with the shepherd and got to watch his dogs do all the work, and man did they love barking at those sheep!! When we finally arrived at the beach it was such a nice day and there were so many caves to pick from we decided we would just have to extend our car and stay overnight. Best decision ever!!

We climbed a bit, set up camp, laid out in the sunshine, had a campfire and ate a pretty awesome bowl of cereal for dinner! :) It was only about 66F outside but the sun is so intense as long as there are no clouds it doesn't need to be that warm. And I'm most recently from Colorado. People in Colorado say the sun is intense, you don't really know what that means until you've been to the south island of NZ. I mean, you can really get a sunburn in about 15 mins with a 66F sunny day. It's amazing!

My biggest problem the last few weeks has been telling people that I do not have an address. I've recently applied for an IRD number (internal revenue some-thing-or-other that allows you to be legally employed and get paid) as well as a bank account. The young man I rented a car from for a day was even pretty bewildered as to what to do with me, since I gave up my place in the States as well! Next time, mom and dad, I'm just gonna use yours...


I hope that's enough of a story for a few weeks!! I'm not sure where I'm headed next but I'll let you know when I've gone there and done whatever. Happy Holidays!

Hawke's Bay!

I honestly had every intention of posting sooner...alas here I am, finally!

I stayed with Mark and Monique on their pig farm for four+ weeks! It was a lot of fun and there were so many vineyards in the area it was hard to leave until I'd visited them all!!! I didn't quite make it to all of them, BUT I did make a good dent in the list and kept track, so I can hit the rest next time I run through the area:
Selini
Ngatarwa (don't ask for the pronunciation)
Salvare
CJ Pask
Elephant Hill
Vidal - found them at the Hawke's Bay Sunday market
Black Barn
Te Mata
Craggy Range
Black Barn (yes, it's on here twice! Ben and I had such a wonderful time that we went back!!)
Vidal- stumbled upon the cellar door and figured why not?!
Ngatarwa (I went the first time solo, second with Ben)
Mai mai
Sanderson
Abbey

It was here in Hawke's bay that I discovered the "hottie" and why these went "out of style" I have NO clue. It's a rubber water bladder you fill with hot water and tuck into your bed, it's wonderful!!! I used it every night to keep my feet warm and sometimes to hug for a nice warm tummy. This may sound odd but trust me, it's better than an electric blanket.

Number one highlight of the pig farm; wrangling pigs. Wrangling isn't a word often associated with pigs. At least it never was for me, but you only have to watch your boyfriend dive into the dirt face first to tackle a pig once until you decide it's an adventure everyone should experience! Likewise I can no longer say that I've never faceplanted due to an animal before! Great times :)

Mark and Monique were wonderful folk that took me in and shared their family and everyday life with me. I truly enjoyed helping them establish themselves in the free range pork business. Seeing the farm change change drastically before my eyes, knowing I was an integral part of that growth was really rewarding. I had my first tasting of whitebait (see pic to the right, little disturbing at first but doesn't really have much flavor) which was a gift to Monique for her skills as a lawyer, as well as anchovies (they snuck these onto the pizza. gross, don't eat it)

Some of the skills I learned while on the pig farm:
tackling pigs
ear tagging pigs
nose piercing pigs
taking cute lil boy pigs and creating eunuchs
honing my egg hunting abilities
assisting in the birth of goats
improving my balance (only need to lose one gumboot in a muddy paddock, it's amazing, a 5 sec time frame for huge jump in skill level)

I'm convinced they studied the NZ culture a bit before they filmed The Lord of the Rings series here...there are some serious similarities. The most obvious being that they have tea every three hours. The second, almost as obvious being that they are a very merry, friendly group of people. And thirdly, there are a lot of homes made of mud and straw as well as a few built into the side of hills...proof that this is the shire--all I want are my feet to turn to leather on the bottom!

Testing; 1, 2, 4, 8...

This is just a quickie so people will stop teasing me for slacking so much...

My trip really hasn't been all THAT exciting as of yet. Touch down was in Auckland last thursday after approximately 30 hours in transit. I drank Fiji water during my layover in Fiji :D lovely stuff. I also met my first Kiwi of the trip in Fiji customs! Mike was headed home after 27 years of work in the USA and he gave me his name and email (after 27 years he didn't have a number either, so we couldn't really do that swap...) and said if I ever found myself on the south island near Marlborough and needed some help, to ring him up.

I decided before landing in NZ that all the rumors are true: The Shire is a lovely place, and Kiwis are very friendly :)

I hung out in a hostel in Auckland the first night where they fed me dinner for free and gave me a free SimCard for my cell. Just more proof that Kiwis are awesome.

I then jumped a bus down to Palmerston North and stayed a few days with Marissa and her landlady Julie. They were wonderful hosts, feeding me wine every night and making me feel like a time honored guest! I got to drive on the left side of the road and didn't play chicken with anyone!!

I'm currently living with a couple and their two daughters on a pig/mini horse farm. They were kind enough to pick me up from Marissa's house. Again, see, lovely people these New Zealanders! :) The exciting part is coming soon though! They have one goat and one horse ready to birth here in the next week or so!!!

A few things I have noticed/completely random stuff along the way so far:

• During a lengthy lay-over in LA I received a fortune cookie that read "Lavish spending may be disastrous. Be careful"
• I highly recommend starting trips with full batteries. Kindle was dead the first time I turned it on. Thankfully I had a real book.
• A LOT of people were traveling with yoga mats. I do not understand this.
• My airplane had ashtrays for each seat. How old does that make it?
• Every airplane should give you a breath mint before landing. Especially if the flight is long enough to serve you food!
• Figian police officer; they wear skirts and sandals. If this outfit is fully functional for what they need to do on the clock I want their job. (pic to come soon)
• People of New Zealand are chronic jaywalkers. One hour after arriving in Auckland I had conformed...
• They have 'Private Karaoke' Seriously. What fun is that?!
• First store I noticed was called "nood" acronyms for "new objects of desire". So appropriate!

I think that's enough for now :)