Greetings from the South island, the most magical place in the world! Maybe it's because it's autumn here and everything is the most lovely shade of lovely it could be, but I'm totally enamored. It's mountainous and beachy and green and orange and red and sunny and there are horses and sheep and cute little birds everywhere. I'm currently in Abel Tasman national park and we'll be here for 5 days. We just finished a 5 day stint WWOOFing and, let me tell you, it was awesome.
On the three-hour ferry crossing to the South island I took a chance and called the WWOOF site I originally wanted, instead of the fourth-choice-out-of-six site that I got (weed-whacking for 5 days? nothankyou). The guy who answered, Willie, was fine with me being the fifth person on the site. I got to stay with some of my favorite peeps on this site, too: Liz, Amber, Carissa and Alice. So happy!
(The guy who these pups belong to looked like a total biker dude...)
We stayed in Nelson for a couple of nights to have class and load up on rations. I found it hilarious that our two-hour venture into town turned into a hunt for wine and liquor for our WWOOFing time. I've drank more here in one month than I have in the last three. It's such a social atmosphere, it's hard not to have every night turn into a drink-around-the-campfire kind of thing. Plus this region has some awesome wine. While I'm not normally a huge fan of white, I have had some of the best Sauvingon Blanc here. We had a big group dinner the last night and made hamburgers (haven't had a good one in a long time!) and I contributed broccoli blasted, from Black Bottle restaurant. Every day I'm here I get a little bit more excited about going home. I haven't really allowed myself to think about it much but moments like that (making that broccoli) bring back a flood of happy Seattle memories.
The WWOOF site was a little bit outside of town. It's a farm, sort of, with a nursery in the back. They have sheep (I thought I saw a llama and got really excited then got a strange look from our hosts who politely explained that was just a big sheep. I had glasses on and everything!) and chickens but mostly we worked in the nursery. Willie is a super chill, mid 30's dude and greeted us with a fedora on. He looked like he belonged in some hipster band. Liz was instantly in love. Later I mentioned the band thing and that I couldn't think of what the band would be... Squirrel Nut Zippers? and she suggested "Sexy Bastards" because he's so hot. He also was the best cook. I ate goose for the first time! And home made pate! He made goose fried rice for our first dinner with a purple peach cobbler. We had spaghetti with beef from his cow, goose-ball burritos, lamb with homemade chutney, chocolate "pudding" (every dessert here is a pudding and this thing was not a cake but not a pudding... somewhere in between. Wherever heaven is.), pumpkin and barley soup... Oh man. I ate so well. And everything is from their garden or his dad's garden down the street. Unbelievable. Later we found out he and his wife, Rewa, used to run a B&B at this farm. Then the gourmet cooking and their hospitality made total sense.
They have three kids, Hazel is 6, Rosa is 4 and Nikau just turned 1. Every day Rosa came to "help" us in the nursery while Hazel was at school. At night it was story or play time. Every meal was with the family and both Willie and Rewa are super clever and smart and had a lot to say about our little school adventure. Willie is a geneticist and has built double helices around trees in the garden. There are also double helix sculptures everywhere. They also run a small movie theater in town and we got to see "Boy" on our way to Abel Tasman. (The whole class went... we filled the place. It's such a good, sweet, sad, funny movie. See it! If nothing else, for the Thriller Haka at the end and Michael Jackson references throughout. So fun!)
(Rosa, playing Doctor for us)
In my 5 days there I rolled giant logs around and re-planted a butt-load of native plants. I saw creepy alien-looking cicada grubs and touched more spiders (by accident) than I care to talk about. I also received some of the itchiest sand fly bites ever. I look like I have the chicken pox with all of my little red bumps. (Thank God I unknowingly stole Gwenn's hydrocortisone! It's been a lifesaver.) We slept in bunk beds and had snack time in our "lounge" (a couch between two beds) every day after work. Have I mentioned Tim-Tams before? They're this delicious little sandwich cookie covered in chocolate. They have all sorts of flavors and everybody here is addicted. Tim-Tams and peanut butter is the bomb. We also enjoyed scotch (from our city provisions) and tea and shared our bounty with our hosts every evening. They had some sort films from a festival they ran a while back so we got to see some local shorts, too. There was a lovely one about magical milk followed by a super creepy one about a witch who eats babies. Rewa said the NZ has a reputation for being a bit dark when it comes to films.
(Alice, Carissa, Liz, Amber, Me, Rewa and Willie with Hazel and Rosa)
Saying goodbye to our hosts and joining the larger group was a bit traumatic. We went from this total serene, slow, lovely life to chaos and noise and schedules and Dave's awful wrong-side-of-the-road, vomit-inducing driving. I think all of us wanted to cry. (Some of us actually did.) Willie and Rewa asked us to come back to stay and I think Amber is going to try to WWOOF there for a couple of months after she graduates. I'd love to go back too. In exchange for some time working you can enjoy these fantastic meals and feel like part of this family... it's pretty amazing.
OH! And I had my highest Scrabble score EVER. 391 to 176. Yeah, that's right. Carissa said she's never playing Scrabble again. Hazel kept score for us and kept saying things like, "I've looked through aaaaallll the other papers and there are no scores more than 200!" Pretty sweet game twat moment for me!!!!!
So now we're at Abel Tasman. We have class again tomorrow then we drive 6 hours the next day to Westport to see some glaciers. And hopefully penguins! Today I went for a horseback ride in the bush and on the beach. It was my first time paying for anything major on this trip. I've been fortunate that most of the things on this trip have been paid for, except my food and booze.
And now I'm off to warm up by the fire and enjoy some soup. Everybody is back from their various activities on our day off and I'm eager to hear about the adventures. Some folks went for a two day hike and stayed at huts along the way.
Tata for now!
