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!