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 :)