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.

Mooloo livin, the Organic way

Reeeewiiiind!  Sept 25-Oct 1: A week of wwoofing with Amanda and Lyndsey :) Beautiful rolling hills. 4 lambs. 3 cats. heaps of chickens. 1 dog. 5 kayaks. home-made cheese. 130 happy cows.

This is the paradise just outside of Cambridge is where Lyndsey and I landed for wwoofing destination #2, while Sandie and Jess stayed behind in Sunnvale for some more fun at Fruit Vans. What better place to spend a week than on the Bylands organic dairy farm? We were warmly welcomed into the bustling home of Phil and Tracy Bax, parents of 4 teenagers and owners of a working 130-cow herd, affectionately known as the 'Mooloo Clan'.

We spent the large part of our 4 hour working days helping out around the garden- weeding, trimming, mowing lawns, and planting berries and veggies. We also made it out to the local HoraHora elementary school where youngest Bax member is one of 50 students (grade 1-8 incl!), to do some planting.  Other fun included collecting eggs from the henhouse, AND we made CHEESE! Yes, real feta cheese- milk straight from the cow. Ohhhh man talk about delicious, this is something everyone should know how to do. YUM!

Our highlights were of course spent with the animals.  On the afternoon of our first day, as well as the last one, we witnessed the birth of 2 wee baby calves!  Even covered in embryonic goo, newborn calves are incredibly adorable, and we felt very lucky to be present for such magical moments ;)     Most everyday we got to go out and bottle-feed the 4 baby lambs who also called the farm home, and enjoyed thier antics almost daily, as they broke free of their paddock and ran and kicked their heels around the yard. They were like little fluffy white Houdinis!  If that wasn't enough cuteness, we also went with Tracy to feed the older calves (they're seperated from their moms and kept all together in another paddock. There's too many calves to keep them with their moms, since that would mean the moms not being milked for the people), filling up a big container of milk with teats all around the outside,

the 'Junior milk bar', or as Tracy called it, the calf-eteria. ha! It was really sweet to see how Tracy treated all her cows-- the calves are all given names, and for many of the older cows Tracy could tell us who their mothers and even grandmothers were! These people really care about their animals.

 
Of course we were not about to miss seeing the milking process in action. And so midweek Lyndsey and I dragged ourselves out of bed with the sun, went out to the milking shed for both a morning and afternoon milking to find out how it all worked. The first day Phil showed us how to put on and take off the 'milker', but at times we felt a little in the way! Second time around was much better, as we got the hang of it we were able to know when one was done milking, to take it off and switch it to a cow on the other side. We also sprayed teatree oil on their teats afterwards (feels better!), and watched Tracy give them different homeopathic remedies- all chemical free. Despite our best efforts at staying clean with our coveralls on, we both got thoroughly covered in poo- while on one occasion I even got sprayed in the face. Aughhh all hazards of the job!


When not working hard on the farm, we also enjoyed a bike ride through the countryside, and an awesome kayak ride down the river. Phil took us out in the evening, through the marsh and a small gorge up the river, where we stopped for a break on the bank and had a little fire. By that time it was dark, and as we floated with the current back downsteam, we were met with an army of glowworms all through the gorge! It as a magical site, and a wonderful surprise added to an already awesome trip. Had some great evenings cooking for the the family, tried our hands at homemade tortillas, did puzzles, and drank beer by the fire. This is the life :)

Awesome time in Waitopo, thanks Bax family!

Fruity Wwoofing

Fruit Vans!

A week at Fruit Vans and so far our first WWOOFing experience has lived up to all expectations :) We arrived last Friday in Sunnyvale, a suburb in west Auckland, to a bustling household tucked away at a deadend street. It's a different kind of 'farming' experience- since, well, there is no farm! It's a business started 3 years ago by Taryn and Marcello, an Australian/Brazilian couple (front-right) who began with 1 van selling fruit from local growers on weekends, and has now grown to become an operation so big, that they have 2 houses full of wwoofers (up to 20 in the summer months), and 25 vans. Yay for eating locally!

The house is filled with many other eccentric travellers from all over the world. Though English is dominant, there is also a lot of French, Spanish, and Portugeuse being spoken. We are having such a great time getting to know everyone! To say it is a house of laughter would be an understatement- there always something fun going on- cooking, games, wine, you name it ;)

As wonderful as the house activities are though, there is much work to be done. Our 4-5 hour work days started with the 'mouldly' unpleasant job of van cleaning, in preparation for the selling season. Sandie and I were assigned 5 vans in the backyard parked under some trees- opened the doors and watched the mold spores fly. ACK! Being in such a state we thought for sure they'd been there a number of years-- but nope- try 3 months. Turns out mold in New Zealand is out of control- and has even been known to grow in Taryn's spice rack. Bleh! It took the bulk of us wwoofers 3 days to clean out the whole fruitvan fleet- scubbing the vans mold-free inside and out.

On one of our first nights here we were in charge of cooking dinner for everyone. Amanda thought it would be fun to bring some Korea to Sunnyvale: on the menu was bibimbap, japchae, kimchi, and kongnamul. What a beautiful meal it was! Throughout the week we have individually been in charge of lunch/dinner and have cooked up many delicous soups and salads.

 

Then came Tuesday and a very special arrival- Lyndsey! Amanda's good friend from home has joined in on our crazy adventure for 3 weeks. She was eager to do some wwoofing so Amanda went to collect her from the airport (beautiful sign in hand) and brought her back to Fruitvan central. Jetlag wasn't plaguing her so she dove right into weeding work. So nice to have her here! You compost queeen you.

Late Tuesday evening Taryn opened up a rather important letter- a rental house inspector was due to arrive the next morning. dun dun dun- mobilize operation house clean and evacuation... = bonus day off!

Turns out all the Canadians in the house decided we needed to do some hiking despite the constant rain. Vicky, a spunky ex-pat from Montreal, loaded us in her car and we headed to the Waitakere Ranges with a quick stop in Piha at Lion's Rock for some ocean views. After perusing a guide book we settled on the Fairy Falls LOOP- a supposedly easy trail not requiring us to drag the guide book along . The forest was subtropical, very lush. green and filled with very wacky sounding birds. The views were amazing- decending down many steps we approached a stream which lead us to the falls. (There were no fairies.) The sun joined us as we basked in the wonderment that is the fairyless Fairy Falls. A few kms later we discovered we were slightly lost- as we emerged to a small with no sign of Vicky's car. Turning back into the forest we decided to follow another trail we recognized, heading up a rather steep hill. Luckily for us we found the car within the hour... lesson learned- never leave your trail guides at home kids! Quick coffee break at Elevation cafe where we see Auckland city spread out before us, and back to the house.

Later in the week Sandie worked on : organizing the growing clutter called a kitchen, decorating the living area with global community inspired posters, and general yard/painting upkeep. Amanda worked on: dismanteling big avocado crates with Vicky which included lots of crowbar/ hammer demolition. RAWR! Also weeding, and shovelling clay and rock soil to build up the compost walkway. Lots of dirty fun ended in a trip to the laundrymat.

PS.... Oh, and top it all off-- We were both offered PAID positions selling fruit at the other Fruit Van house 2 hrs south of here, in December. Did we mention how much we love these people? EEEE!