Hello all!

It’s been such a nice week! The weather was beautiful. Summer is in full force here in New Zealand! Our host Drew and Christine were great. They are such nice people with great senses of humor. One helper before me described Drew perfectly, a hippy without a cause. That is truly what Drew is and he is hysterical! The first day we helped Drew make a shed for his tools because he is a builder. He had all his tools all over the place and he seemed to be getting a bit sick of it so we built the shed for a bit more organization. For the rest of the week it was just landscaping for me. Nolan was painting a room downstairs that needed heaps of tending to.

I was digging out a plant that they call flax. It’s a plant that the Maori people use to weave baskets, hence how strong the plant is. One plant took me about 45 minutes to dig out of the ground it was some good ol’ hard work.

Yesterday Nolan and I decided to go up and around the Coromandel and go to the Hot Water beach. This is where you dig a hole in the sand and the thermal activity creates this super warm water and you basically just sit in it like a hot tub. It’s really great. I rented a surfboard for the day and had some serious fun four a couple of hours it was great! It was the first time that I had surfed in New Zealand. I’m almost ashamed it took me that long to get that out of the way.

The next host that we are going to tomorrow is a surf school about 35 minutes outside of the city of Auckland. If you work for three hours per day then they give you free usage of the boards and wet suits. Such an amazing deal to me! I’m really happy to be going there because I’d love to just work and surf for one week. I think that would be a really enjoyable experience.

We’ve now been at the surf school for about three days. It is not entirely what I had expected but that is quite all right. Martin is the guy who owns the surf shop and he is really laid back and cool. It is just unlike the last couple of helping experiences that we have had. Martin has a wife named Bridget and a son named Dylan. We were never really introduced to the son and Bridget doesn’t’ really talk to us. We live in a small hut overlooking the ocean, which is one plus to this kind of awkward situation. We are never told when to work and what time do be up by. For instance we woke up this morning and got ready for work around nine thirty and know one was even at the house. That is coincidently why I am writing this blog now…so I can by a little time until someone shows up.

The last couple of helping experiences we have had have been different in a couple of ways. One reason is the people that we stayed with before were a lot more welcoming and willing to have conversation and get that cultural experience that helpx is all about. It’s interesting because it is not even like Martin is using us for work because yesterday we barely did two hours of work. We are thinking of leaving Thursday, which is in four days. We are going to see if we can hitch from here to wellington. It’s about 600 K’s so I don’t really know if that is so doable . We’ll find out. Only one more month in New Zealand… Crazy!

The journey continues...

Hello there,

I’m currently sitting outside on a beautiful summer day in New Zealand. The weather is looking up for the next couple of weeks so I’m really happy about that. We have left the Somerville Farm to continue our adventure. Jodie and Scott were great host’s and I was really happy to get the true Kiwi family experience. Something that I hope to never forget because they were the host’s that I stayed with the longest. Although Jodie and I would seldom get in arguments about Netball versus basketball I guess she was alright :)

Jodie dropped Nolan and I off in Dannevirke, which is in the South East of the North Island. We needed to go to the North East and we figured that our journey was about a 400 K hitchhiking trip. It would be our second longest next to the trip we did from Queenstown to Greymouth about a month and a half back. It took us about twenty minutes but we got our first ride. It was two girls who were in there late 20’s that didn’t really say much. I have to admit it was one of the more awkward hitching experiences that we have encountered. They just played their music really loud and smoked their cigarettes haha! They dropped us in a town called Hasting, which is twenty to fifteen minutes from the next town we wanted to hitch out of called Napier. An older Kiwi man pulled over in a really nice red ford car. The only reason I mention that the Ford was nice is because all the other cars that we have been picked up in are generally not as nice. When a nice shiny care drives by Nolan and I usually look at each other and say, “Nope not that one”. This guy was the first! He was a golfer and retired. He actually brought us to a great place to hitch from that was leading right out of Napier to the next town we planned to hitch to, which was Taupo. We waited and waited and we were having no luck at all. We were getting a bit discouraged at this point. I decided to stand up…practically on the white line and put both of my hands over my head with my thumbs up. I realized that I may have looked quite foolish but I didn’t care at that point I just wanted to get a ride it was bloody hot outside! Suddenly I saw a gold little Nissan cruise around the corner and it came really close to the white line and I thought it was going to hit me. It didn’t, it just kept on keeping on and drove away. I turned to Nolan and said, “Jesus Christ that old Bastard almost hit me”! Within ten seconds that same guy turned his car around and pulled up next to me. He rolled down his window and said, “What did you just say when I drove past you”? I was confused so I mumbled back to him. “I just said that I thought you were going to hit me”. The man rolled down the window more and looked me in the eyes. “Bullshit kid do you want a ride or not? Get in”! I was really confused but I still opted to take the ride. As soon as we got in the car he said, “Jeez I wish I could have driven a little closer to the white line and hit you dam yanks”. Then I finally realized that he was being completely sarcastic and he was just messing with us. He introduced himself as Ron. He was 84 years old and was a dairy farmer all his life until the age of 57 when he retired. He was one of the most sarcastic and witty old bustards I’ve ever met in my life! He was going to originally take us to Taupo but he seemed to enjoy our company so we kept going. We drove for a total of about four hours. We stopped off at his daughter’s house for a cup of tea and that was quite pleasant. It was late so Ron offered us a place to stay at his house. We accepted the offer. Beats the hell out of paying 25 dollars for a night in a hostel. We got to Ron’s house and he cooked us a meal and made us sign his visitor’s book. He was very well traveled and he sailed a lot around the world. He was just a very interesting man with lots of stories to tell. We spent the night in a traveling bus that he had outside of his house. It was comfortable and spacious!

In the morning I woke up relatively early and took a walk on the beach and watched the boats leave the harbor. Writing in my journal and enjoying the morning sun I was so happy! When it was time to leave Ron took us around the town and showed us the surfing hot spots and the beautiful places that his town had to offer. Our time with Ron came to an end shortly after he showed us around his town. He dropped us on the road right out of town and we hitched from there. We only needed to hitch about 50 K’s to Thames, which was our next destination. We got picked up in about 15 minutes. He brought us 5 K’s outside of Thames where we got another short ride. Hitching is so easy! We phoned Drew and Christine and they told us that they would meet us in about an hour and a half so we had time to kill. We just hung out in a park and I continued writing.

Drew picked us up around three thirty. The lodge that we are staying at which is also their home is absolutely gorgeous! It an old Victorian style house. A Spanish Architect made it and it really has that feel to it. The property overlooks the water and sits on top of a hill. There are amazing sunsets like the one I just witnessed J I’m not to sure what we are going to be doing for work but I think some construction is going to be done. I’m thrilled with the opportunity because Drew and Christine seem really nice!

Cheers,

Jon

Somerville Farm

Hey everybody,

I’m still at the Somerville farm and I have been here for 11 days now. I am really enjoying my stay here. Nolan showed up a couple of days ago and we have been doing little jobs here around the house. I have grown closer to Jodie and Scott as they are really great hosts. The past four days they have had family here so it has been really busy. As far as work I just try and keep the house clean and make sure that Jodie doesn’t have to clean the kitchen and do the dishes and things like that. She says it’s a really great help. Although it doesn’t seem like much they say that it helps them a great deal.

There has been so much rain here this last week! Record amounts actually. Part of the house actually was flooded at one point and our room was ankle deep in water it was intense.

Five days ago today I got in an ATV accident and I hurt my back pretty bad. I’m not sure exactly what I did but my lower right hand side of my back has been feeling it ever since. Nolan was driving the quad and I was on the back. We road up this little hill and the quad flipped it was pretty scary. Once I leave the farm I’m going to try and see a doctor so I can get it all checked out. Hoping to get an x-ray so I can take proper precautions. (Sorry Mom and Dad I know your not to happy about that one) J

We are planning on making quite a big leap on the North Island. We are going to try and go to Coromandel and work at a veggie garden and live in this little community that we found. It seems interesting and I’m really hoping that they get back to us so we can make our next move up the island. It is crazy to me how fast the time is going here in New Zealand. Just like that…mid way through January. Only a month and a half to go before I leave and go to Australia. Time is really flying and I’m trying to stay in the moment and truly enjoy this unique opportunity.

Thanks for reading 

Jon

Already January!

Time is flying it is already January 7, 2012 can you believe it? Happy New Years to all by the way! We left Ian and Eva on the 28^th and decided that we would get to the North Island for the New Years. Wellington was our destination and it was a lovely trip on the ferry ride over. It is about a three and a half hour ferry ride and for the first hour and a half…two hours you float very slowly through the sounds and it is really gorgeous. On the day that we went it was a bit rainy and there were many clouds but we still managed to see the beauty. Nolan and I were talking, next time when we head back to the South Island we are going to plan it out so we take the ferry on a really nice day. Either go at sunrise or sunset so we can take some really good pictures.

When we finally did arrive in Wellington the weather was unforgiving to say the least. There was a bunch of rain and very high winds. That is why the Kiwi’s call it, “Windy Welli”.

We had a really great New Years. We met up with our Swedish friends that we met in the hostel that we stayed in at Picton…the town where we caught the ferry to go to Wellington. They were in the same hostel as us and we basically just hung out with them for the next four days. New Years was how you would think it would be for young travelers. A lot of drinking and relaxing for a couple of days. Mind you the Swedish can drink, I have never seen anything like it before. HAHa. The two Swedish kids names were Johan and Kris and they were both super nice. Kris has been traveling for the past two years and he was gone a bunch of different places. He was telling me that I must go to South East Asia. I’m going to keep that in mind because he is not the first one to tell me that.

Nolan and I were again having trouble finding our next host. We e mailed about five people on the first of the month and heard back from two people that said yes. One of the places was on the lower southeast coast. They seemed to really spark my interest because their farm is 1000’s of acres, which mostly is sheep and cattle. We sent them an email back and let them know that we were going to try and get there as soon as possible.

Nolan met up with our French friends that we had met about a month and a half ago working at the fruit orchard. They had a car and they wanted to go on this tramp that would last about three days. Nolan convinced me to go with them to do that. We ended up spending an awesome night out on the beach and we camped and swam in the ocean. The ocean water on the North Island is significantly warmer! The next morning they were all getting ready to do the tramp and for some reason I didn’t really feel like tagging along. I just wanted to go out by myself and do my own thing for a bit. I told Nolan and he was perfectly ok with it and he understood. He ended up just doing the tramp with our French friends and I decided to find some free Internet and let Scott and Jodie know that I wanted to come that day. I found out there phone number through a couple of e mail exchanges and I gave them a ring. They told me that if I could hitch to Palmerstone North then they could pick me up that day. I didn’t waste anytime and I found a good place to hitch out of New Plymouth, which was the town that I was in. I had to travel a pretty good distance back down South. I knew that it was going to take me about four to five hours to hitch the distance. This was the first time that I had hitched by myself and I loved the idea of it! Being on my own felt really liberating. I got a ride really quick. It took me four rides in total to make it to Palmerstone North with a total travel time of about five hours. I rang Scott and he told me that Jodie was waiting in town for me and we made an agreement on where I would meet her. I met up with her right in the town center practically. She was very pleasant. There were two of the four kids that they have in the back seat, Maddie and Lizzy. Maddie is ten and Lizzy is eight. They were both very nice and surprisingly outgoing. From Palmerston North it was still another hour and a half drive from there to the farm. Once we made it into Pangora, which is the town that they live in. It was still another twenty-minute drive from there. Once we got to the farm we had a 10 Killometer drive down the driveway. The farm is massive! They raise both sheep and cattle so they need all of that space. They utilize all of it really efficiently.

Since I have been at this farm I feel that I have gotten the true Kiwi family experience. Scott hunts for most of his meat and really lives off of his land it is really cool to watch. The atmosphere is so relaxed. Jodie’s policy for HelpX is a bit different from the other places that I have been so far. There are no specific work hours, for example you don’t wake up at nine and work to twelve. Everyday can vary. Jodie just told me that as long as I am here and “using my brain”, as she calls it. Then everything will run smoothly. What she means when she says using my brain is to do the little things that she shouldn’t have to ask me to do. For example, clear the table when it is dirty, empty the dishwasher, sweep the floor. Little things that she would have to do normally but it just makes it easier on her that she doesn’t. She is busy as well. She has four kids to take care of. The other two youngest kids that they have are little Jimmy who is three and Zenthia who is 6. I just met them a couple of days ago because they were at their grandparent’s house when I first arrived.

Yesterday for work I went scuba diving for crayfish. They call this work. I call this fun J Today I cut down a couple of trees and then used the ATV to bring the rubbish down to the dump. They also call that work I call it fun! It is a very relaxed place here and being apart of a family is different from what I have experienced so far. I really enjoy it. Playing with the kids and just being apart of that family atmosphere is a good change!

Sorry it took a while for the blog by the way. I have been caught up just enjoying myself here J

Cheers,

Jon