Heya!

Welcome to the super spectacular blog of Sandie and Amanda :) Join us as we travel west on a roadtrip through Canada, and south through the Western USA; fly over to the wonderful South Pacific islands of Vanuatu; and make our way to New Zealand for adventures in WWOOFing and working.
Stay tuned, even we don't know what might come next...

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Horses and Hiking

 My last bit of wwoofing for the month of October was spent at Ruapehu Homestead in Ohakune, the picturesque little town famous for being the carrot capital of NZ!  Ohakune is located pretty well smack-dab in the middle of the North Island, in the shadow of Mt Ruapehu. It was here that I found a wonderful place to stay with Sue and Don, and of course Mia, Apollo, Cherokee, Apache, Angel, Tane, Dot-com, Jimmy... the horses ;) Sue and Don run a horse trekking business in this small tourist town, although in my 10 days here I only saw 2 tours go out... so the horses, many saved from the meatworks, lead a pretty chilled out life!  My working days were spent with Marie, a fellow wwoofer from France, working hard caring for the horses- feeding them carrots and hay, brushing them, and cleaning stables. We also looked after the goats, sheep, barn cats, 3 dogs, AND chopped firewood. Heaps of firewood!  Marie and I shared a caravan in the yard, where we enjoyed lots of tea in the evenings cuddled up with our books and some good French music, and woke often in the night freezing our butts off. Pretty easy going days mostly. Sue and Don were often quite busy with work and other projects on the go, so Marie and I did our own thing on the farm.

Of course I couldn't leave without doing a proper horse trek myself! And so their daughter Veronica was sweet enough to take me out for a few hours, with Tane and Mia, through the trails and across the creeks of a neighbouring conservation area. Such a wonderful ride, and such a great place to stay. Couldn't be happier spending my days with the animals, getting cuddles from the cats watching the horses' antics in the paddocks. Such characters!

On one of my days off I enjoyed a magnificent hike on one of New Zealand's best treks- The Tongariro Crossing! This alpine trek runs between 3 mountains, including Mount DOOM, and other landscapes popularly known as Middle Earth :)  Although the day I chose to do the hike turned out to be a cloudy one (as it is 75% of the time up there), the views were still spectacular. My boots treaded across mosses, scrubland, lava rocks, and snow! The only snow I'll be seeing this season actually-- so crazy to be having 2 summers in one year. The best sight was the Emerald Lakes up at the top, a perfect, albeit chilly place for lunch. 8 1/2 hours later I was met by my ride on the other end, and back to the homestead. 

My great days in Ohakune ended on Halloween- and although my heart was breaking to not be celebrating my favourite holiday, it was time to move on to my first job since Korea- Seacliffs Dairy farm in Hawera!

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Hot spots in Rotorua

Tues Oct 19:  After leaving the macademia nut farm, I had a few days to kill before I was on to my next wwoofing destination. Since it was on my way south, and we had skipped over Rotorua during our roadtrip, I thought I might as well explore the place all the tourists flock to see. I luckily found myself a place to stay with Couch Surf host Jackson, and his 8 year old daughter Tao.

With hot pools bubbling up all over this volcanic-bed of a city, the smell of sulpher hung in the air when I arrived downtown. I spent some time exploring the many shops, and later met Jackson and Tao before dinner. They were very welcoming, and sweet enough to take me to see some of the hot pools traditionally used since way back in the day, in a Maori community outside the city.

Wednesday morning Jackson dropped me off in Kuirau Park on his way to work. It was really great, because instead of spending an arm and a leg at some of the main tourist hot spring locations, I got to wander around and see plenty of steam pools and boiling mud, for free! It was neat to read about how before we all become so paranoid and fenced off all these 'dangerous' pools, people used to come here to bath, kids would play after school, and ladies would do their laundry!

From there I walked down around the coast of the big, beautiful Lake Rotorua, and through the Maori village of Ohinemutu. There were some really neat carvings to see in the main square, as well as a traditional meeting house, or 'whare', a church, and a crafts shop. Poking around inside I also met a few guys doing some spectacular carvings, something like  totems, representing mythical characters and stories about healing, since the carvings were to be placed at the entranceway of a new hospital. So cool! Later I walked down to the Goverment gardens and old city hall building, saw some spotless cricket fields (a popular sport here), and went to the art museum. Finished off the evening cooking up a great quiche dinner with Tao, who happens to make some very delicious croissants ;)  Thanks for the great stay Jackson!  Next stop, Ohakune...  
 

Friday, November 12, 2010

A Nutty Week at Ohiwa Macademias

After our roadtrip, we spent a few more days back at Fruit Vans, a familiar and friendly place.  We returned the vans, painted some signs, sold some fruit, had some laughs. Best of all, we pitched in with 3 other Canuks in the kitchen, ensuring the rest of the house could experience Canadian Thanksgiving, complete with a McDonald pumpkin pie and some Ammon stuffing. YUM! Sadly from there, the paths of 'team knapsack' have gone seperate ways, albeit for what we hope to be a short amount of time.  And so here is an entry from Amanda, and what happened at wwoofing destination #2:  Rewinding again, back to October 12th. 


Arrived by bus in Opotiki, east of Auckland in the lovely Bay of Plenty, to be welcomed into the home of Anne and Paul, founders of Ohiwa Macedemias. Nestled in a quiet spot up in the hills with ocean views, Paul and Anne have over the past 18 yrs built up an impressive orchard of macademia nut trees and replanted native bush, from land that was once overgrazed pastureland. What a beautiful place! Besides the orchard of nuts, there were also chickens, 3 cows, and a herd of sheep that lived in amongst the trees. Of course we can't forget about Smudy, the little old Jack Russel blind in 1 eye, and Lennie, the big golden lab that chases opossums up trees in the middle of the night, barking until Paul comes out to shoot them! (Australian opossums are a destructive invasive species, destroying habitat and killing many native birds, so Lennie is doing her part ;). 

As for the nuts- they made for a great week :) Everyday was a little bit different, and I basically got to help out in the process from start to finish. There was a great deal of nut-picking, along with fellow wwoofers, Tanya and Hennie from Germany, and Renelle from NWT. We laid tarps around the trees, and climbed right up into the branches with long snippers to drop the heavy bunches of green nuts from the treetops. We helped out in the husking room, where the nuts are emptied into a bin that removes the green skins to reveal the small and sticky nuts. They're then weighed, and moved to a drying room, where they'll spend around 3 weeks before being cracked open, and made into a delicious array of treats by Anne. This is by far the best part- helping in the kitchen, sampling the spreads, crumbles, and yummy chocolate-coated, honey-roasted, or salted nuts, all to be sold at the market. Talk about fantastic! There's so much more to macademias than cookies, we don't know what we're missing ;)
Other odd jobs around the orchard included shifting the cows into different paddocks, removing a fallen tree from the driveway, driving the tractor, spreading compost, and getting accidentally shocked by an electric fence in the process... owww! We also enjoyed many long hours cooking together in the kitchen, and were lucky enough to try some fantastic German dishes, healthy breakfasts from Paul, and tasty sushi by Anne.  Renelle and I found time on a clear Sunday afternoon to head out to the coast for a 4 hour hike along Otarawairere Bay to Ohope Beach. Passing up over spectacular cliffs, she was good enough to humour me in posing for frequent photos, shared lots of great stories about life in the Territories, and her love of moose ;)

I really loved it at Ohiwa, it was such a treat to feel so 'at home' so far from home, with such warm and caring people.  So if any of you ever need some quality nutcrackers, macademias, or a great place to wwoof, Paul and Anne's is the place to be.


Thursday, November 11, 2010

Roadtrip- Campervan styles

Oct 2nd-9th: Time for a wwoofing break to get out and see what we could see of this beautiful North Island. With Sandie, Jess, and fruitvans friend Vanessa from Belgium at the wheel, a team of 2 camper vans arrived in Cambridge to collect  Lyndsey and Amanda from the farm. Reunited again!


Day 1: From Cambridge we headed a few hours south to Taupo for the night, walked around a largely deserted downtown, had an Indian supper, and camped out in the vans in the parking lot of a hostel. Turns out we were far too early in the season for campersleeping- it was freeezing outside!

Day 2: We had a chilly breakfast overlooking the lake and snowy mountains in the distance, and made a quick stop at a Gypsy Fair- how fitting! After passing many a pastureland full of sheep, our first touristy stop was the thermal springs Orakei KorakoWe had to take a short boat ride across the river to walk amongst features like the 'Artists Palette', 'Devil's Throat', 'Diamond Geyser', 'Hochstetter Cauldron', and 'Aladdin's Cave'. Add on some boiling mud, a mineral waters that can polish silver jewelery and you've got a pretty dynamite place!   North to Rotorua, hotspring capital of NZ, we skirted outside the downtown to see the Buried Village, a museum and archaeological site telling about the volcanic explosion of Mt. Turangi that buried the English/Maori settlement, Te Wairoa, as well as 5 other Maori villages in 1863. From Rotorua we drove to the west coast, parking it in a surfing town called Raglan

Day 3: From a list at the info centre of, 'Things to do in Raglan', Sandie made the excellent selection to choose to visit a little-visited site called Te Toto Gorge Scenic Reserve. The ocean-side road turned inland and UP, pavement gave way to gravel, and signs marked only with an '!' warned of obstacles ahead. Rounding a bend we were met by a gorgeous grassy meadow high on cliffs beside the ocean. Excellect photoshoot location! Not far outside Raglan our mini-convoy got seperated through a gas station stopoff-mixup, and so with 2 in one van and 3 in the other, and only 1 cell phone between the 5 of us (with the 2 people having said number all being in the same van as the phone) we resigned ourselves to continue north to the other side of Auckland to find each other at Orewa springs. After some backtracking and more confusion, fate intervened and we happened to pass each other driving down the street! Crazy times on the road we say!         That night brought us to the quaint town of Warkworth, where we chose to treat ourselves to a proper sleep at a motel. We earned it! Pizza, beer and a warm bed can only lead to good things ahead.

Day 4: Our lovely sleep had us ready for a leisurely day to enjoy stopoffs at Mangawai Heads for views of the Hen and Chicken Islands, and nice long break at Langs Beach. One of the things on Lyndsey's to-do list was to see a winery, and so just outside Whangarei we turned off into Longview Estate Winery, for a $5 wine tasting :) NZ wines- 2 thumbs up! After a frolic in the park and a visit to an internet cafe, we stayed in Whangarei in the parking lot of the info centre- complete with showers and 24hr toilets :)  

Day 5: Early rise and coffees to fuel the day, our first stop was the Kiwi house and Bird Sanctuary. Finally we get to see a real kiwibird!  We got a short lesson about them before heading in- Fun Facts: Kiwis lay the biggest eggs of any bird in the world (going by weight ratios), and the chicks hatch fully feathered and ready to go!  Inside they had a close to genuine nocturnal environment, where we were lucky to see the little big-bummed kiwi foraging around for bugs. Very cute!  Like so many other birds here, the kiwi is endangered, and this particular one was bred in captivity. We also visited a bird sanctuary next door, where sick or injured Tuis, Pukekos, Petrals, Mawpaws and other birds were being rehabilitated to be re-released into the wild.   Before leaving Whangarei we stopped to see the Abbey Caves and clambered over some crazy rocks in the forest- rushing back to the vans early thanks to more than a few warnings about break-ins there.  Onwards to Paihia for another sleep in the vans at a nice hostel, complete with hottub and swimming pool!

6: Paihia is a small beach town, beautiful, and nice and quiet this time of year.   Sunny weather called- time for some biking! Lyndsey and Amanda headed out for ride to see the Waitangi Treaty Grounds/museum where Maori cheifs and the British crown signed the treaty in 1840, founding New Zealand as we know it. Sandie, Jess and Vanessa headed out on a bike ride through some trails along the creek, and we all met up later to drive on to Kaitaia. North north north! There isn't much to this town, so we stopped on the outskirts at the Ohaka Motel. The hotel was pretty much right out of the 60s, with plush red carpet and wood panelling in the restaurant- but the food was great and the beer cheap :) 

7: Big day today! Being the big tourists we are, we joined the Sand Safari bus tour to take us the last leg of our trip heading to the 'Top' of NZ. We visited the 'Gum Diggers Museum' to learn about the ancient buried Kauri trees there that were dug up to extract sap, or 'gum', used for lanolium and furniture polishes back in the day. Stopped for the best ice cream in the northland, before finally arriving at Cape Reinga! There were gorgeous views all around, from the forest park reserve in the south and east, the crashing waves over the cliffs below, north over a blue sea where the Tasman and Pacific collide, and west down 90 mile beach.  After a quick lunch it was on to the sanddunes, where the driver pulled our some sleds and had us give it whirl! It was worth the hard climb up the sand, and we all had a few great runs, complete with mouthfulls of sand.   We enjoyed the view all the way back to Kaitaia, as the bus drove us the entire length of 90 Mile Beach, right across the sand. We saw only a few people collecting shellfish, a lone seal, and the rusted remains of a car that got itself stuck in the sand years ago.  Wicked day!

Day 8: After a few pitstops to see some 2000 yr old, enormous Kauri trees along the way, and 4 hrs of driving our hectic week came to an end. It was back to Auckland to return the vans and move on. A sad night with Lyndsey leaving us the next day- but we enjoyed our last visit the best we could with a devilish dinner at 'Hell Pizza', and some beers out at the pub.    Off to the airport once more- so glad to have had such a fantastic adventure with ya Lyndsey!  Wind-up kiwis 4 life ;)    Great times, great company- campervan roadtrips are the way to go.