Hello, Dear Friends!
Well, here we are again. After a few more crazy weeks Brandon and I are in yet another house in another city in another region of New Zealand. Right now Brandon is in the lounge watching coverage of ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) Day with Paula and John Gilson (the lovely and hospitable parents of our Auckland friend, Geoff) while I’m sitting in front of Brandon’s computer wondering how on earth to attack this blog.
Did I mention that while we were passing through Wanaka on the way to Milford Sound we stopped at a place called Puzzling World? It was a really neat theme park/giant maze on the outskirts of town, and, ironically, even though B and I didn’t feel like spending money on the entrance fee, we spent some time in the gift shop, which is where we bought ourselves a giant book of brain teasers. We both really enjoy logic puzzles, and the book has been an invaluable source of entertainment. B and I did quite a few while camping, and our Quebecois friend from our WWOOF spot on Stewart Island actually did quite a few of them during our free afternoons at the restaurant.
In the end, the Quebec girl, the British guy, and B and I ended up making quite a fun little crew. We bonded on our second day together when we did a trek through the bush to Maori Beach. Now, being a Southern California girl, when I think “beach” I think sunbathing and cold (but not Arctic) dips in the ocean followed by a sun-kissed picnic and some shopping in Laguna Beach, but this beach was isolated from everything – not that there’s much on Stewart Island to be isolated from – by a four hour hike, and the water was FREEZING. Stewart Island is only 900 miles from Antarctica, and iceberg sightings are not unheard of off their coast line. We all brought our bathing suits, and everyone took at least a brief dip in the ice-cold water. That is, everyone except me. I tried, I really really did, but it was just too damn cold. Anyway, I found some pretty shells and enjoyed the view immensely.
It was so great to have a group of friends on the island. We brought out Brandon’s laptop a few times and watched movies together (Men in Black, The Lion King, and Ghostbusters). Most days we made our lunch together, and as the initial cheery environment at the restaurant disintegrated we were there for each other to offer moral support. Because for some reason the happy environment that formed our first impression of our hosts and our situation on Stewart Island did just fall apart by the end of our three weeks there. Initially our hosts were making a big deal about how important hospitality was to them, about how dining was a sort of communion, and about how much they loved having WWOOFers. The fact that they were nice to us made us not care that we were sleeping in a shed where we could see our breath as we shivered in our bed every night.
It started with nachos. One night, instead of actually making us dinner they just put some corn chips and cheese on plates and popped them in the microwave, leaving the four of us to eat that for dinner while they took smoked salmon back to the house. Then the laid-back attitude they had about our work schedule changed when they made a list delineating our duties and taped it to the wall. The new list had duties for us to do in the morning and then also after dinner, which, added to the work we did serving and cooking during dinner, was somewhere between six and eight hours of work a day, even though WWOOF hosts are only supposed to ask for four to six hours of work. New Zealanders don’t, as a rule, tip wait staff, but when we did get tips our hosts were always quick to remind us that tips went into the till (aka not to us). Suddenly we couldn’t have the coffee they were offering us during our first few days there; they were leaving B and me to walk back to the house at night in inclement weather; they were adding other things to our workload like scrubbing the outside bath tub. It was a bizarre transformation.
The other WWOOFers and B were annoyed, but making the best of it. I was crushed that our hosts, who had made such a show of being friendly at the beginning, were turning sour, but I was still happy to have our little circle of friends. However, the prospect of WWOOFing for another five solid months seemed less and less appealing. Thoughts of changing our plane tickets and being back in the states for a California summer loomed large in my subconscious, and I was ready to start looking at our options, but B was determined to stick it out. As the environment deteriorated further my nerves must have been wearing very thin. Hardly a day passed when I didn’t hide in the bathroom and cry a little, and then one night when our hosts had driven the van home on a rainy night without even offering to give us a ride, leaving B and me to wait until 1am before the weather cleared, I just broke down, collapsing in the middle of the road.
The next day Brandon and I looked into plane tickets, but even if the exchange had been easy, neither of us liked the idea of leaving the South Pacific without getting to Sydney and the opera house. Still, we were leaning toward changing our plane tickets and going back to the states early.
Then it was Easter weekend. A solo musician named Dave Kennedy came over to play at the restaurant for the weekend, which meant that B and I were moved to a single mattress on the floor of one of the rooms at the back of the restaurant so that Dave’s kids could sleep in the shed. Luckily, those nights got a bit warmer so they didn’t freeze out there. As for Brandon and me, we liked being at the restaurant instead of at the house, so everyone won.
Dave Kennedy came with a ton and a half of equipment, which he arranged around him into a fort of sorts, raising his flag in a corner of the restaurant. It was a busy weekend, and it was also scheduled to be the last weekend that our crew would be together – the Quebec girl would leave on Tuesday and the British guy left the day after that. B and I had contacted our next WWOOF host, who sent us a list of the jobs that she needed done – things like stuffing manure in cow horns to bury in the ground as some step in a permaculture farming process. We wrote back to her to say that we didn’t think it would work out, and she must have thought that we were older, or something, because her reply was this: “I don’t blame you at all. It looks like a lot of work to me, too. Most WWOOFers are young and poor. They need it.”
Anyway, I’m glad we didn’t go there.
Dave Kennedy ended up extending his stay slightly, but then after he and his family left, the restaurant was very quiet and awkward as we said goodbye to our friends one by one and tried to make a decision about what to do. Finally, B and I decided definitively that we would come home early and we told our parents about our change of plans, but as we were taking our ferry away from the island a cloud seemed to lift from the horizon, and we decided to give New Zealand another try. It was late notice to set up another WWOOF job for the interim vacated by the manure-in-cow-horns woman, but we weren’t worrying about that yet, especially because we were going to pass through Dunedin that day, which is home of the New Zealand Cadbury factory.
Brandon and I had heard great things about the factory tour, but that was closed for a holiday weekend, so we went on a shortened tour, which was also fun. The tour ended with a chocolate fountain, which was impressive, and we got some free candy, so Brandon and I considered it a very successful excursion.
After that we camped for six nights at a Department of Conservation camp site in Trotter’s Gorge, just north of Dunedin. Those DOC campsites range in price from $5-$7 per night, which was pretty great, even though they don’t have running water or anything like that. We drove a few kilometers to a town called Palmerston to get more water one day, but we used stream water for things like washing dishes. One day I even had Brandon pour the stream water from a jug over my head so I could wash my hair – a frigid, but refreshing experience. During those six nights Dunedin got its first frost for the season, which was chilly for us in the tent. At various times B and I were the only people in the campground, so one day we actually never got out of our pajamas – a pure luxury after working full time at the restaurant without a day off for three straight weeks. On two separate days we did the hike up the gorge to a beautiful vista point that looked west over the rolling hills and east to the South Pacific. One of the times we did the hike we actually declared a day of silence, which turned out to be a bit tricky since the trail was steep and poorly marked.
The day of silence was actually really fun. For one thing, we couldn’t discuss what we should do about these next five months, which, believe me, is a subject we’ve talked to death, and secondly we used makeshift sign language to communicate things like “What should we make for dinner?” and “Where’s my toothbrush?” and “The weather is beautiful today.” We ended up laughing a lot, and even though we didn’t quite make it through the whole day without talking it was a really fun experiment.
The next time that B and I hiked up the gorge was the day that I washed my hair with the stream water, but it was also the day that twelve cows wandered into the campsite. We were the only people there at the time, and it was almost scary because they were mostly bulls and were running around ramming their horns together in our enclosed little area. However, after they calmed down a bit they were sort of funny company, like our friend Carlos at the Waikawa River, and their sudden appearance made for an amusing afternoon. In general those six nights were a great chance for B and me to have some quality alone time, which was wonderful.
But after six nights we were ready for a real shower, so we drove a bit further north to a town called Timaru, where we camped at a holiday park (more expensive than a DOC park, but with all the amenities). There we met a guy from Iowa who has five months left on his work visa as well, but was able to find some work, which gave us hope for another paid job before we leave NZ. We made use of all the park’s facilities: laundry, kitchen, even the TV lounge, where we cranked up the radiator and channel-surfed between the three available stations until heavy eyelids absolutely demanded that we retreat to our tent for some sleep.
We continued to move up in the world of accommodation when we stayed in an actual room at a holiday park in a town called Ashburton the next night. Even though we still had to walk through the cold to get to the toilets, we liked that place so much that we almost stayed another night, but we’d contacted our friend Geoff in Auckland, who said that we were welcome to stay with his parents in Christchurch when we passed through there the next night.
After a whole WWOOF-free week I thought that I had wound down sufficiently, but as soon as we pulled up to the Gilsons’ house I practically started to tear up. Now, before coming to New Zealand I had never been the crying-type, but I’ve developed almost a phobia of staying in other people’s homes since we’ve started WWOOFing, and my reaction to coming here was immediate and abrupt. However, every apprehension slipped away when we met our new non-WWOOF hosts. They’re lovely and welcoming and have made us feel completely at home here. Today was
ANZAC Day, as I mentioned, which is one of the holidays that New Zealanders really embrace. It’s a remembrance day for all NZ and Australian veterans, but particularly for the ones that died at Gallipoli during WWII. Cities across the country hold “Dawn Services,” and Brandon and I attended the Christchurch one with the Gilsons this morning. It was held in the center of the city at 6am, involving a parade and a complete hour-long church-style service, with hymns and a benediction and everything. What was really remarkable to Brandon and me was the turn out. Thousands of people got there at 5:30am on a Saturday to have a good view. We were a bit later and standing in the back, but we were still surrounded by a sea of solemn and reverent Kiwis, singing hymns and paying their respects.
This evening B and I made fajitas for the Gilsons, and tomorrow they’re taking us to the French settlement at Akaroa. It’s a lovely weekend for B and me, but at the same time we’re starting to think about getting to our next WWOOF host in Blenheim on Tuesday. But there’s plenty of time between now and then to enjoy our time in Christchurch. We’re also hoping to visit our Quebec friend, who should be back at her sister’s house now, after doing a three-day track near Queenstown.
I think that the trick from here on out is to try not to think about it all too much. I’m already anticipating the questions when we get back to the states – friendly inquiries about our year abroad phrased something like, “How was it?” At this point I think we’d have to say that the first day was amazing, the second day was exciting, the third day was exhausting, the fourth day was discouraging, the fifth day was encouraging, and so on and so forth. There’s no way to generalize how this year has been or will be, so we’ll just keep taking it one day at a time, leaving the brain teasers to our brain teaser book so that we can focus on enjoying the good times, seeing the humor in the bad times, and honing our sign language skills.
Love from your Autumnal Kiwis,
Brandon and Jenny
Well, here we are again. After a few more crazy weeks Brandon and I are in yet another house in another city in another region of New Zealand. Right now Brandon is in the lounge watching coverage of ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) Day with Paula and John Gilson (the lovely and hospitable parents of our Auckland friend, Geoff) while I’m sitting in front of Brandon’s computer wondering how on earth to attack this blog.
Did I mention that while we were passing through Wanaka on the way to Milford Sound we stopped at a place called Puzzling World? It was a really neat theme park/giant maze on the outskirts of town, and, ironically, even though B and I didn’t feel like spending money on the entrance fee, we spent some time in the gift shop, which is where we bought ourselves a giant book of brain teasers. We both really enjoy logic puzzles, and the book has been an invaluable source of entertainment. B and I did quite a few while camping, and our Quebecois friend from our WWOOF spot on Stewart Island actually did quite a few of them during our free afternoons at the restaurant.
In the end, the Quebec girl, the British guy, and B and I ended up making quite a fun little crew. We bonded on our second day together when we did a trek through the bush to Maori Beach. Now, being a Southern California girl, when I think “beach” I think sunbathing and cold (but not Arctic) dips in the ocean followed by a sun-kissed picnic and some shopping in Laguna Beach, but this beach was isolated from everything – not that there’s much on Stewart Island to be isolated from – by a four hour hike, and the water was FREEZING. Stewart Island is only 900 miles from Antarctica, and iceberg sightings are not unheard of off their coast line. We all brought our bathing suits, and everyone took at least a brief dip in the ice-cold water. That is, everyone except me. I tried, I really really did, but it was just too damn cold. Anyway, I found some pretty shells and enjoyed the view immensely.
It was so great to have a group of friends on the island. We brought out Brandon’s laptop a few times and watched movies together (Men in Black, The Lion King, and Ghostbusters). Most days we made our lunch together, and as the initial cheery environment at the restaurant disintegrated we were there for each other to offer moral support. Because for some reason the happy environment that formed our first impression of our hosts and our situation on Stewart Island did just fall apart by the end of our three weeks there. Initially our hosts were making a big deal about how important hospitality was to them, about how dining was a sort of communion, and about how much they loved having WWOOFers. The fact that they were nice to us made us not care that we were sleeping in a shed where we could see our breath as we shivered in our bed every night.
It started with nachos. One night, instead of actually making us dinner they just put some corn chips and cheese on plates and popped them in the microwave, leaving the four of us to eat that for dinner while they took smoked salmon back to the house. Then the laid-back attitude they had about our work schedule changed when they made a list delineating our duties and taped it to the wall. The new list had duties for us to do in the morning and then also after dinner, which, added to the work we did serving and cooking during dinner, was somewhere between six and eight hours of work a day, even though WWOOF hosts are only supposed to ask for four to six hours of work. New Zealanders don’t, as a rule, tip wait staff, but when we did get tips our hosts were always quick to remind us that tips went into the till (aka not to us). Suddenly we couldn’t have the coffee they were offering us during our first few days there; they were leaving B and me to walk back to the house at night in inclement weather; they were adding other things to our workload like scrubbing the outside bath tub. It was a bizarre transformation.
The other WWOOFers and B were annoyed, but making the best of it. I was crushed that our hosts, who had made such a show of being friendly at the beginning, were turning sour, but I was still happy to have our little circle of friends. However, the prospect of WWOOFing for another five solid months seemed less and less appealing. Thoughts of changing our plane tickets and being back in the states for a California summer loomed large in my subconscious, and I was ready to start looking at our options, but B was determined to stick it out. As the environment deteriorated further my nerves must have been wearing very thin. Hardly a day passed when I didn’t hide in the bathroom and cry a little, and then one night when our hosts had driven the van home on a rainy night without even offering to give us a ride, leaving B and me to wait until 1am before the weather cleared, I just broke down, collapsing in the middle of the road.
The next day Brandon and I looked into plane tickets, but even if the exchange had been easy, neither of us liked the idea of leaving the South Pacific without getting to Sydney and the opera house. Still, we were leaning toward changing our plane tickets and going back to the states early.
Then it was Easter weekend. A solo musician named Dave Kennedy came over to play at the restaurant for the weekend, which meant that B and I were moved to a single mattress on the floor of one of the rooms at the back of the restaurant so that Dave’s kids could sleep in the shed. Luckily, those nights got a bit warmer so they didn’t freeze out there. As for Brandon and me, we liked being at the restaurant instead of at the house, so everyone won.
Dave Kennedy came with a ton and a half of equipment, which he arranged around him into a fort of sorts, raising his flag in a corner of the restaurant. It was a busy weekend, and it was also scheduled to be the last weekend that our crew would be together – the Quebec girl would leave on Tuesday and the British guy left the day after that. B and I had contacted our next WWOOF host, who sent us a list of the jobs that she needed done – things like stuffing manure in cow horns to bury in the ground as some step in a permaculture farming process. We wrote back to her to say that we didn’t think it would work out, and she must have thought that we were older, or something, because her reply was this: “I don’t blame you at all. It looks like a lot of work to me, too. Most WWOOFers are young and poor. They need it.”
Anyway, I’m glad we didn’t go there.
Dave Kennedy ended up extending his stay slightly, but then after he and his family left, the restaurant was very quiet and awkward as we said goodbye to our friends one by one and tried to make a decision about what to do. Finally, B and I decided definitively that we would come home early and we told our parents about our change of plans, but as we were taking our ferry away from the island a cloud seemed to lift from the horizon, and we decided to give New Zealand another try. It was late notice to set up another WWOOF job for the interim vacated by the manure-in-cow-horns woman, but we weren’t worrying about that yet, especially because we were going to pass through Dunedin that day, which is home of the New Zealand Cadbury factory.
Brandon and I had heard great things about the factory tour, but that was closed for a holiday weekend, so we went on a shortened tour, which was also fun. The tour ended with a chocolate fountain, which was impressive, and we got some free candy, so Brandon and I considered it a very successful excursion.
After that we camped for six nights at a Department of Conservation camp site in Trotter’s Gorge, just north of Dunedin. Those DOC campsites range in price from $5-$7 per night, which was pretty great, even though they don’t have running water or anything like that. We drove a few kilometers to a town called Palmerston to get more water one day, but we used stream water for things like washing dishes. One day I even had Brandon pour the stream water from a jug over my head so I could wash my hair – a frigid, but refreshing experience. During those six nights Dunedin got its first frost for the season, which was chilly for us in the tent. At various times B and I were the only people in the campground, so one day we actually never got out of our pajamas – a pure luxury after working full time at the restaurant without a day off for three straight weeks. On two separate days we did the hike up the gorge to a beautiful vista point that looked west over the rolling hills and east to the South Pacific. One of the times we did the hike we actually declared a day of silence, which turned out to be a bit tricky since the trail was steep and poorly marked.
The day of silence was actually really fun. For one thing, we couldn’t discuss what we should do about these next five months, which, believe me, is a subject we’ve talked to death, and secondly we used makeshift sign language to communicate things like “What should we make for dinner?” and “Where’s my toothbrush?” and “The weather is beautiful today.” We ended up laughing a lot, and even though we didn’t quite make it through the whole day without talking it was a really fun experiment.
The next time that B and I hiked up the gorge was the day that I washed my hair with the stream water, but it was also the day that twelve cows wandered into the campsite. We were the only people there at the time, and it was almost scary because they were mostly bulls and were running around ramming their horns together in our enclosed little area. However, after they calmed down a bit they were sort of funny company, like our friend Carlos at the Waikawa River, and their sudden appearance made for an amusing afternoon. In general those six nights were a great chance for B and me to have some quality alone time, which was wonderful.
But after six nights we were ready for a real shower, so we drove a bit further north to a town called Timaru, where we camped at a holiday park (more expensive than a DOC park, but with all the amenities). There we met a guy from Iowa who has five months left on his work visa as well, but was able to find some work, which gave us hope for another paid job before we leave NZ. We made use of all the park’s facilities: laundry, kitchen, even the TV lounge, where we cranked up the radiator and channel-surfed between the three available stations until heavy eyelids absolutely demanded that we retreat to our tent for some sleep.
We continued to move up in the world of accommodation when we stayed in an actual room at a holiday park in a town called Ashburton the next night. Even though we still had to walk through the cold to get to the toilets, we liked that place so much that we almost stayed another night, but we’d contacted our friend Geoff in Auckland, who said that we were welcome to stay with his parents in Christchurch when we passed through there the next night.
After a whole WWOOF-free week I thought that I had wound down sufficiently, but as soon as we pulled up to the Gilsons’ house I practically started to tear up. Now, before coming to New Zealand I had never been the crying-type, but I’ve developed almost a phobia of staying in other people’s homes since we’ve started WWOOFing, and my reaction to coming here was immediate and abrupt. However, every apprehension slipped away when we met our new non-WWOOF hosts. They’re lovely and welcoming and have made us feel completely at home here. Today was
ANZAC Day, as I mentioned, which is one of the holidays that New Zealanders really embrace. It’s a remembrance day for all NZ and Australian veterans, but particularly for the ones that died at Gallipoli during WWII. Cities across the country hold “Dawn Services,” and Brandon and I attended the Christchurch one with the Gilsons this morning. It was held in the center of the city at 6am, involving a parade and a complete hour-long church-style service, with hymns and a benediction and everything. What was really remarkable to Brandon and me was the turn out. Thousands of people got there at 5:30am on a Saturday to have a good view. We were a bit later and standing in the back, but we were still surrounded by a sea of solemn and reverent Kiwis, singing hymns and paying their respects.This evening B and I made fajitas for the Gilsons, and tomorrow they’re taking us to the French settlement at Akaroa. It’s a lovely weekend for B and me, but at the same time we’re starting to think about getting to our next WWOOF host in Blenheim on Tuesday. But there’s plenty of time between now and then to enjoy our time in Christchurch. We’re also hoping to visit our Quebec friend, who should be back at her sister’s house now, after doing a three-day track near Queenstown.
I think that the trick from here on out is to try not to think about it all too much. I’m already anticipating the questions when we get back to the states – friendly inquiries about our year abroad phrased something like, “How was it?” At this point I think we’d have to say that the first day was amazing, the second day was exciting, the third day was exhausting, the fourth day was discouraging, the fifth day was encouraging, and so on and so forth. There’s no way to generalize how this year has been or will be, so we’ll just keep taking it one day at a time, leaving the brain teasers to our brain teaser book so that we can focus on enjoying the good times, seeing the humor in the bad times, and honing our sign language skills.
Love from your Autumnal Kiwis,
Brandon and Jenny
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