REFERENCE MAP AT BOTTOM OF PAGE
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| sky tower |
We spent most of Easter out of the rain in Kate’s apartment. We were catching a bus in the afternoon to go
to Whangrei (pronounced Faun-ga-rey). Kate escorted us to the bus stop and even had
a the bus schedule all figured out for us.
She is a sweetie. The trek from
one bus stop to the other was uneventful, but we did see the famous tower on
the way. That was pretty cool.
In Whangrei we were
picked up by Sally, our wwoofing host who lives in Tutukaka. She talked a lot. I loved hearing her stories. When we got to her house she had a cottage pie
ready for dinner and we met the other wwoofers that she had staying wither her:
Freddy and Linette. She also gave each
of us (the wwoofers) an easter egg. What
a sweetie!
This lovely lady, I feel like has done so much with her
life. She started her own cleaning
business. She has traveled to India, the
United States and few other places. She has two adorable boys, who she was
breastfeeding and taking care of when she started her business. And after all that she decided she has enough
room in her life to host wwoofer and try and share the New Zealand culture and
hospitality with us. How fabulous!
Brenton is her husband. We didn't see him too much because he had shift work at the oil refinery. But when we did see him he was quiet and mild mannered. Definitely calmer than Sally and didn't talk as much. The kids, on the other hand, we saw all the time. Jamie and Alex are full of energy and questions. But luckily, when we wanted a little calm or quite we would just get them on their computer games and do our thing.
Tutukaka is known for its rocky shores, pristine white sand
beaches, stunning coastal bush walks, and the Poor Knights Marine Reserve. We didn’t get to do too many of these things,
because we were cleaning quite a bit, but we did get to see some spectacular
views from the holiday houses we did clean.
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| pictures from cleaning houses |
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| making a fort with Alex |
So we start generally at 8am. This is when we left to clean houses. So we
had to have had breakfast and be all awake and stuff before that. The first day I cleaned two houses in the
morning with the other wwoofers and then we went back to the house for lunch. After
lunch the boys were asked who they wanted to watch them and they picked
me. God knows why. I had talked to them a bit, but I hadn’t
played with them yet. So after lunch I
got dropped off at the beach with the boys.
We made forts, played pirates, and eventually everything evolved into
war games. This led to fighting, as
brothers do. Linette got dropped off at
this point so we continued playing then walked to the store for ice cream and lollies
(candy).
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| The girls in the hot tub |
At the house Ashlie and I decided to make Indian food for
everyone, and it was a hit. I always
feel like Ashlie is much better at making stir frys than I am, so I just end up
chopping up everything and opening cans.
I don’t mind at all. It gives me
the allusion that I am cooking and keeps Ashlie's eyes from welling up over
onions and garlic. The last thing we did, after that long
day, was we hopped in the Hot tub. It was
very relaxing.
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| view from Sally's house |
The rest of our time with Sally was split up between babysitting,
cleaning houses, ironing and laundry.
She had a staff shortage over Easter weekend; so usually we would not be
working this much. At the end of our
wwoofing stay she gave us a little bit of money and drove us to Kerikeri (over
an hour away) to say thank you and compensate us for being a bit over
worked. In the end I didn’t mind so
much. We did get to see the beaches, and
I even did the lighthouse walk with Linette.
I also enjoy cleaning and cooking.
And cooking for the whole family plus four extra people was reminiscent
of dinner parties to me.
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| The lighthouse walk |
While we were there Ashlie also got to do scuba diving on
the poor Knights Island. This was the whole reason we came to
Tutukaka. She had a blast, but the
weather hindered her dive. In the end
she didn’t get to dive the Middle arch (the best and most famous of the dive
spots), but she did get to see the largest cave in the world and that’s pretty
cool all by itself.
To go to Kerikeri we had to be ready at 7AM. We had a few things to do before we got
there, so starting extra early was key for Sally. We got on the road and after the erands were done Sally decided we should see some of the sites around Kerikeri.
So our first stop was a public bathroom in Kawakawa. This beautiful bathroom was designed by Austrian artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser.
Next was a famous and delicious Kerikeri chocolate shop. Unfortunately the chocolate was too expensive for me to buy any. Otherwise I would have gotten the gorgeous macadamia butter toffee crunch that we got free samples of.
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| Makana chocolate shop |
After this bit of site seeing she took us right into Waipapa where our couch
surfing host lives. This is quite close
to Kerikeri and Sally’s son was going to visit a friend there as well. We knew we were super early to go to Russell’s
house, I had told him we would be there in the afternoon. Regardless I called and text to no avail,
so we settled in for coffee and some pastries.
When I found out later I found out he was out on his boat
with his current couch surfers. Ashlie and I discussed a plan of action. He said he wouldn’t be back until afternoon
and it was still morning. We could hang
around there, reading, computing and drinking coffee or we could try and hitch
somewhere. We decided on the
latter. We were going to try and hitch
to Paihia. Ashlie had looked it up and
it had some historical stuff she wanted to visit.
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Stick out your thumb and smile big. The Key to successful hitching. It didn’t take us long to catch a ride. But they were heading to Kerikeri. I shrugged “why not” and we went to Kerikeri
only about 20 minutes away. On the way
our driver told us about a historical site there. It was the oldest stone building in New Zealand
and had a tour, café and garden attached to it.
It sounded pretty interesting. He
was even kind enough to drop us off there after he dropped off his son to catch
the bus to Auckland. 
The stone store is connected with the oldest building in New
Zealand, the Kemp house. This is where we started our tour with a little old lady dressed in period clothing. The Kemp house was a missionary house built
in the early 1800’s. In order to build
or even live in this house the missionaries needed to get permission from the
local Maori tribes and essentially get protection from their chief. This was never a problem for the missionaries
because the Maori knew that they could get guns from them. Whoever had the most guns were the most
powerful tribe.
The house reminded me much of my friend Eva’s childhood
home. It was a similar style to a
colonial house. This house had hard wood
floors, made of the native Kauri wood.
We had to remove our shoes before entering to make sure we didn’t damage
the 200 year old floors. The inside was sparsely
furnished with narrow beds and a few nice pieces of furniture in the sitting
room. My favorite part was the
kitchen. It was open hearth and you
could tell the cooking technique was much different than what we would do
today.
The store was a missionary trading post and built about ten
years after the Kemp House. It was built
in order to make the stealing of supplies more difficult. They had a less well built building before or
stored the supplies in the Kemp house.
After more settlers moved to New Zealand, and created their own provision
stores, the missionary leased out the building to be used by kauri gum traders.
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| mamma pig |
After our little historical tour we just chilled out waiting
for Russell. He picked us up at the
stone store and brought us to his lifestyle block. Life style blocks, also known as hobby
farms, are quite common in New Zealand.
They are kinda like mini farms. It’s
a way for people to get out of the city and muck around with chickens, gardens
and what not. Some people aspire to be
farmers and this is a way to get a taste of it, but I think most people in New
Zealand see it as a way to become, in some little part of their lives, self
sustainable. They will often have rain
water, solar panels and try to grow/raise all their own food.
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| the piglets |
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| skinning the sheep |
Russell’s block had sheep, pigs and gardens. He butchers all his own animals and hunts as
well. He seemed really proud of his
animals. That day he was scheduled to
butcher a couple of the neighbor’s sheep and he said I could watch. I didn’t see the animal killed but I did see
it gutted and skinned. It was fascinating. Now I understand how bear rugs could possibly
still have the heads attached.
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| the skins after |
Ashlie was not keen of this idea. She put her headphones in,
played her music full blast and started cooking. We made another curry that Russell loved,
then had a few beers and some good conversation about Russell’s kids and past
time activities. Ashlie and him had a
long conversation on diving, and we talked more about hunting. I’ve never hunted, but always have wanted
to. I found it fascinating that there
really wasn’t much of a hunting season, or too many regulations.
In the morning
Russell made us eggs, homemade bacon and toast. Then he and I headed out to a hike. Ashlie wasn’t feeling well, so she rested up
a bit. I ended up hikking in the rain,
but I loved it! Russell runs every day on
the Rainbow Falls, Kerikeri River Trek.
I didn’t see any rainbows, but I did see a beautiful river and
waterfall. I really enjoyed myself.
After that he dropped us off for the bus and told me to come back again. We both really enjoyed his hospitality. Next
we were off to Kaitaia and 90 mile beach, one of the most northern parts of New
Zealand.
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