WWOOF-ing - North Island style

Wow, too much time has passed since we last posted, and I bet a lot of people would like to see some pictures, huh?  

Well, they're in the works, but I thought I'd at least continue to the posting thread since it has been so long.  We were "out in the bush" as they say for 5 days last week completing one of the nine great walks of New Zealand, but in this case we didn't walk.  It was on the Whanganui Journey, a 3-5 day canoe paddle down the second longest river in New Zealand.  The paddling and weather was mostly good, and we stayed two nights at Tieke Kainga, a Maori compound featuring a Maori Marae, their meeting house.  Three Maori women were in residence while we were there and we found them very friendly and interesting to talk to.

Immediately after that, we went on the advertised "best one-day walk in New Zealand" the Tongariro Crossing in the middle of the North Island.  We were initially hesitant to do it, as it tends to be crowded and kinda "busload-touristy" but we were glad to find the scenery largely outweighed the negatives of the crowd and we had a great time.

And now, now were staying on our third WWOOF, in a village near Wellington called Paekakariki with Marianne and Gabriel, who are ex-Californians six years removed, and their black lab, the very friendly Brinco.  We've been having a great time exchanging American ideals from afar and learning about the outsiders view of New Zealand.  In short, a great time to have by all.

Well, that should be about enough out of me for now.  Many stories to catch up on, but that'll have to be next time!

And I see we went over 1000 hits on our counter!  WOW!  Amazing to be able to connect with everyone in this way.  How exciting!

Consider me lucky

So in Corey's record of the past week's events, he forgot to mention that I lost my ipod. Yes...the one that I bought brand new from one of those Best Buy kiosks in the LAX airport, because I originally forgot my first ipod with all my belongs in Fremont. We were here at the internet cafe checking email and charging the ipods. And when we left, I must have forgotten to pick up my ipod. Unfortunately I didn't realize that I had left it or where I left it until at least a couple hours later. By then, I thought there'd be no chance of getting it back. In a cafe full of gamers, who wouldn't take the chance to pick up a free ipod? But we went back to the cafe anyways, and in some miracle, the guy working the counter had said someone had found it but didn't want to leave it in the Cyber Cafe's lost and found bin. He had left his name and number and when I called him he told me he had taken it to the police station. Wow, was I super lucky to have such an honest person find my ipod. So I went to the police station and the officer who helped me just had a smirk on his face the whole time. The kind that said you spoiled lucky kid. I get it. I was lucky. And ever so grateful that such a considerate and kind person was honest enough to turn it in.

But apparently my luck hadn't run out (thankfully)....
Monday there was no work, so as I think Corey mentioned we took off to see more of the Marlborough Sounds....Okiwi Bay and French Pass. At French Pass we decided to take a 15 minute hike down to the beach and enjoy the afternoon reading Time magazine's account of the upcoming challenges for the new president. But just as we were getting to the bottom, seriously we were 10 steps from the sand, I slipped on the steep decent. And instead of waiting for Corey to give me a hand of support, I decided to step backwards (don't ask me why) down this slippery slope. My foot caught a loose rock and I went tumbling. Like a full 360 degrees or more of a turn and landed at the bottom hitting my head against a tree. Corey was above and I can only imagine the whole thing going in slow motion over and over in his head. I AM OKAY MOM. I was lucky. I ended up with a couple bruises and scratches all over my body, a pretty sore big toe on my right foot, and a hole in my dress. I was a little shook up, but everything was okay. This morning I was a little sore and stiff, but I'm grateful I'm moving alright.

Tomorrow we are planning to wake up at 5:30 AM to watch the coverage on the inauguration and then a full day of leaf thinning in the fields.

Some things from this past week...

WEDNESDAY - We continued our work in the vineyards with a loooooong day. I'm really glad my nice wife convinced me to bring along my full brim "Seattle Sombrero" hat as the sun was beating down. I can tell clearly due to the amazing sun fading effects on my Navy "I'm very excited to be here" shirt (now my work shirt).

THURSDAY - Another hot one in the vineyard but we were saved by completing our work by lunchtime when we went for a swim in the nearby river. Ah, that was rewarding!

FRIDAY - Hmmmm. no work in the vineyard. John, our boss, was kind enough to give us a few hours work in cleaning the company work vans. Janwyn was so excited to do some real vacuuming, that we unfortunately burned through the motor in the vacuum! (vacuuming three work vans in the 35 degree weather will do that, I suppose.)
Later that night, we met up with new Californian friends Diana and Austin, who ended up in New Zealand via sailing from Baja Mexico. (Wow). Later, we ran into other fast friends from the fields, Loreto and Juan from Chile. We indulged in a few Speights and ended up talking until two in the morning. For the record, Corey's Speight's limit should be around 6-7.

SATURDAY - We took a leisurely day driving down to Kaikoura. We stayed at Bad Jelly Backpackers. Bad Jelly is a cartoon witch. Who knew?

SUNDAY - Got ourselves up early to catch the 7:15 Whalewatch Boat out of Kaikoura. We were successful in seeing three Sperm Whales as they surfaced for air. Corey was successful in keeping his breakfast down despite the four foot swells. Janwyn was successful in a few very nice pictures of whale tails.

MONDAY - No work again, but that's OK. We didn't come to New Zealand to walk rows of vines anyway. We're going to take a picnic lunch and head to Okiwi Bay and French Pass to watch the currents sweep through. It's a very nice day for it, at around 24 degrees, partly sunny!

First day in the Vineyard

Today we begun a new form of accommodation/holiday as we became seasonal workers in the Marlborough Wine Industry!

I'm now acutely aware why "Migrant Worker" is not a popular program selection for college sophomores.

Don't get me wrong, it's actually not bad work ... it's just working with the boredom that gets to you!

Our job today was to walk along the rows of grapes (Cabernet Savignon, since you asked) and trim off any stray branches. This allows the vines to concentrate on those bundles of grapes it has and bring them to full fruit. We were mercifully allowed to bring our iPods with for entertainment.

Janwyn personally seemed to take to the task very well, enjoying the aspects of gardening and the luck of having a good weather day.

We'll do this for at least the next four days, before heading back to Kaikoura and attempting to do the Whale Watch again. Should be a experience full of interesting tales!

Confirmed to Samoa!

Yesterday on our way back from Golden Bay to Blenheim we stopped off in Nelson (Yes, you should all know where these are, there will be a quiz later). There we found an Air New Zealand travel agency and stopped in to check on our itinerary. We confirmed our layover on our return in Samoa

(Oh my gosh, as I'm writing I was just taken off my train of thought ... the asian guy across from me at the Internet cafe [NOT Asian-American, mind you] has a shirt on that proudly claims "Barrack Obama is my Homeboy." Well, that sight aught to distract anyone.)

Anyways, we confirmed out return layover for a week in March in Samoa. So with any luck we'll be hanging out at this place, enjoying the tropical breezes for a while.

Back in Picton

We just returned to Picton today. We hiked the Queen Charlotte Track for the past 2 days, but yesterday my right knee decided it had had enough walking and I started to feel a sharp pain on the outside tendon, especially on the descents. After 2 eight hour days of hiking with some pretty strenuous climbs and sore feet, it's easy to see why. So instead of waking up early this morning and starting another 7-8 hike out, we took it easy and rented a double sit-on-top kayak and explored the Kenepuru Sound. It was GREAT to get out on the aqua blue water (except for the wet butts -- we didn't realize sit-on-tops have holes in the seats to "drain water"). We even saw a bunch of sting rays, which were pretty neat. For those of you who know how much I enjoy kayaking, this was definitely preferable to hiking another 24kms. We caught a boat ride back to Picton after Corey check-mated me in a game of chess. Those darn sneaky rooks!

Enjoying another beautiful sunny day in Picton before we continue our journey. Right now we are scheduled to catch the ferry to the North Island on the 22nd.

BTW, if you ever want to hike the QC Track....you have the option to do it in 3-5 days. Our suggestion is at least 4 days. Don't over extend yourself since it's quite a hilly track and take advantage of the nice accomodation places along the way. I would've traded a foot massage/pedicure for either of the camping nights that we opted for.

pictures from the West Coast

Here are some pictures from our travels on the west coast. See the slide show below, or click here.

Where are we again?

Hi all, we were lucky enough to find a Internet Cafe open in tiny Blenheim on a Sunday!

So, to answer my own question, above we're in Blenheim in Marlborough, on the North end of the South Island. (Blenheim is pronounced 'Blen-um' to rhyme with 'Denim' not 'Mannheim' as I initially thought.) Marlborough is one of the premier New Zealand wine areas, specializing in Savignoin Blanc and Pinot Noir. We came though this area briefly on our first trip to NZ, but we're planning on staying much longer this time!

Since Christmas, all the Kiwi's have been on Holiday, thus making accommodation quite tight! Their "Holiday" ends tomorrow, January 5, so that should loosen up, but we'll have to see if that happens. Currently "home" is our Hampton tent, stationed at White's Bay, 16 kms SE of Picton. It's fine for now, but having a break from tenting it will soon be in order.

Getting out of the tent will be critical when considering our next adventure, tramping the Queen Charlotte Track in the Marlborough Sounds. There we'll be camping each night. We're working out what timing would work out best for us, but we may be out there as early as tomorrow. It's a 4-day, 3-night tramp and is the one track where pack transfer occurs - you can have your pack transferred via water taxi to your next night's stay, what a relief!

From there, we're hoping to do another wwoof, but they seem busy as well. Hopefully we'll be able to work a time out with somebody.

And then, we have our tickets for the ferry to the North Island purchased - January 22 - which might move back if we find something more interesting down here.