Camping Trip 2010 - by Alyssa

It's been more than a year since our last post. Which means we've had to put our adventures on hold and join the daily grind. We're so happy to be taking our first official vacation in over a year-- 8 days of camping in New York, Maine, and Canada!

Last night we went to a drive-in movie theater in Bridgton Maine. We were there a few years ago and couldn't resist the urge to go back. This novelty is not lost on our generation. How cool is it to sit in your car (with a beer) and watch a movie on the big screen on a hot summer night?

This morning we woke up in the beautiful lakeside community of Standish, ME. Which reminds Alyssa of something like the camp in "Dirty Dancing" where families come to stay all summer in beach-side cabins and everybody knows each other's names.

We're on Sebago Lake. It seems big in size because we can barely see the faded grey mountains on the opposing shore. However, I just looked at a map and saw that Sebago is but a spec on the map of the Maine wilderness. There's something in the air here - it maybe something lacking (like pollution), but Maine seems so crisp and pure. We haven't seen much wildlife yet, but we did definitely see evidence of a bear yesterday and today we are heading up to Acadia National Park where we hope to get a good trek or two in.

The beginning of our trip was a bit of a reunion in the Catskills with some of our old friends, Nick, Emily, Scott, and some lovely new additions (such as Emily's husband, Lenny, and their new baby in vitro). We will post some photos of that leg of the trip, plus cliff jumping into a waterfall, next time.

See you all soon!

Exploring the North Island

Lots to report on our adventures from the North Island since you last heard from us.

This week we have explored Tongariro National Park (home to many Lord of the Rings scenes, including Mount Doom), WWOOFed, and visited Raglan and Rotorua. Autumn has hit New Zealand in full-force. The air is crisp, the leaves are changing and pumpkins are in every dish you can imagine. Kiwis pretty much call anything a pumpkin, even the stuff we call 'squash.'


Shortly after our sad departure from Fay's house, we headed to the Tongariro National Park. There are 3 volcanoes there, and a very dramatic landscape with large, powerful waterfalls. We didn't get to do the famous "Tongariro Crossing" (one of the world's best day walks) due to low visibility and snow cover, but took an excellent hike around different parts of the park with stunning views.





After our short vacation we headed to the outskirts of Hamilton, one of NZ's biggest cities, to participate in a 3-day permaculture intensive. Our host Judy has an organic asparagus farm, as you can see sunrise over the fields in the photo below. Judy brought in an American teacher named Nelson who is currently pursuing a PhD in sustainable education. We worked intensively on her permaculture gardens, and along with night-time mini 'lectures' over dinner, we learned a lot about being "lazy farmers", i.e. doing as little work as possible while getting the most out of the land.



We spent a night in Raglan, which according to the locals is where every surfer in the world dreams of visiting. It's small town, very relaxed. Most of the people here look like their lives are lived on vacation. Lots of tanned people with blonde highlights, just about every vehicle is either a station wagon for carrying their surfboard or has a roof rack for the same reason. We spent a couple of hours watching them out there. It's so interesting to see what everyone is wearing when they arrive before changing into their matching wetsuits.





After Raglan we headed over to Rotorua- NZ's volcanic activity center. The whole town smells like sulfer. Alyssa didn't care for it much. Steve started craving hard boiled eggs, so me made some. Thanks to Fay's nephew Neil and his fiance, Brook, we had a clean, safe drive to camp for the night, and running water in the house. We are greatful for their hospitality. The next morning we spent cleaning out the ENTIRE van. All the dirt and grime and cobwebs that have piled up over four solid months. It was perfectly spotless, ready to be sold.


Our lovely hosts, Brooke and Neil




Two days in a dark, dingy garage trying to sell the van to backpackers didn't help our spirits much, as busy Auckland bustled outside. We decided to be more proactive, posting the van on NZ's website "TradeMe," which is their version of Ebay. Within 2 hours we got 5 phone calls, and one guy came down. We eagerly pushed the sale on him for less than half the price we bought it for, but that is unfortunately the nature of the 'low' tourism season. In the end, we still saved a lot of money with the investment, so we're feeling okay about it. At least now we are free to explore the city.

Today we head over to the Coromandel Peninsula for our last NZ WWOOF.

Moving on...

Well, we have happily spent over a month at Fay's and are not that eager to leave but know that we must move on as we only have 2 weeks left in New Zealand!

We had a great time. The greenhouse is 'practically' finished (enough for Autumn to already plant Strawberries on one side); the winter garden is fully planted; the chooks (chickens), rabbits, ducks, turkeys and sheep are well fed; and so are we.

We conclude our stay here with a beautiful Easter weekend and 60th wedding anniversary for Fay's parents. Sunday we will have a party where their 6 children, 13 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren will all attend. Alyssa is making some gluten and dairy free goodies for the party, including a chocolate cake and pumpkin pie (yes, pumpkins are ready!).

On Monday we head over to Hamilton for a 3-day permaculture intensive 'bee' where we will work hard while learning even more about organic living. Then it's time to sell the van and get ready to come home.

We also just got word that we will be WWOOFing in North Carolina from May 15-June 15, and then attending a friend's wedding in West Virginia on a farm for 1 weeks. It looks like our summer is filling up already, which is weird because we're enjoying fall here in New Zealand right now!

(here we are collecting timber from the local mill for the greenhouse)

Life at Fay's

WWOOFing around NZ has certainly been a challenging experience, and has taught us a lot about interacting with many different personalities and lifestyles. We hadn't necessarily found a place that we felt truly connected to, until we happened upon Fay's homestead. I guess you would call it fate that brought us all together, as we all work really well together and feel perfectly at home. In fact, last night I had a dream that we went back to CT and I was missing Fay so much that she suddenly appeared while I was shopping and told me that she missed me, too. We have extend our stay here twice, and are dreading the day that we must move on.

But for now, our days are full of chicken chasing, eco-building, harvesting, lighting fires to heat the outdoor bath, eating yummy home-cooked food, and on the weekends, playing with two of Fay's grandchildren, pakea & xiau lu (pronounced pike-ia and chow-loo). The list of activities just goes on and on.




A few WWOOFers have come and gone while we have been here, including our favorite traveler, Liz, who spent countless hours in deep conversation, sharing the lessons of ancient mythologies which brought enormous insight into our journey. She also is the toughest Scrabble player we have ever met. You can see her here in two photos, one resting on the trampoline one afternoon, the other after an morning of work with Alyssa at Fay's brother's organic apple juice factory.



The most important lesson that both Steve & I have learned is how a truly permaculture-orientied homestead operates. Many of you many be unfamiliar about permaculture, so I will try to give it justice in a description....It comes from the abbreviated words "Permanent" and "Agriculture," but this is a bit of a misnomer because it is indeed ever evolving. It is the exercise of designing and running a self-sustaining eco-system with the most efficient use of every element to maximize production while minimizing impact on the environment. For example. the weeds from the garden and leftover food go to feed the chickens; the chicken manure goes into a compost that in turn is used to fertilize the garden; the sheep and the geese help to keep the seagulls away from the compost; the ducks live in the fruit orchard and eat all the little buggy pests; the fallen fruit goes back to feed all the animals; and the list goes on.... Meanwhile, we humans take a little bit of everything to eat ourselves, including fruit, veggies, eggs, and meat. We've been here for two weeks and haven't taken out the trash. Almost every by-product of our activities can be somehow utilized for something else. It takes an enormous amount of creative energy to make this a reality, but when it's a lifestyle that you're passionate about, it just doesn't feel like work.





Life here is a bit like pioneer living, as we only have outdoor toilet and bathing facilities, but it really makes us appreciate the luxuries that many people have, like hot running water that comes pouring out of your faucet. One really starts to appreciate the preciousness of our resources when they are not so readily accessible.




Steve spends most of his time working on building a greenhouse out of mostly reclaimed or recycled materials. Luckily the nails are brand new :) He has made tremendous progress on strengthening an existing structure that needed a lot of work, completing the roof, and is about to begin work on the siding. The most challenging element has been creating a cohesive structure out of the remains of three previous WWOOFers' efforts.




Alyssa runs back and forth between feeding the chickens and rabbits, preserving fruit, planting trees, collecting firewood, weeding, shoveling random things, and generally being Fay's assistant in just about anything that needs work. She even learned how to drive a tractor as you can see in the photo.


Fay has a large family that comes in an out frequently, including 2 active parents, 4 siblings, 4 children and many grandchildren. We certainly feel like part of the extended family. One thing that I have found truly inspiring is her close relationship with her neighbors, who are very valuable in this type of lifestyle. Back home, we often forget that we have a community right at our doorstep. Here, neighbors flow in an out of the house, sharing produce, tools, and many other resources. They are there to support each other when needed. This lessons is one that we will certainly take home with us, and will carry on to our own farm (fingers crossed).






Depending upon where our journey takes us next, we many end up WWOOFing at one more place for before we depart NZ, but currently are not willing to budge from this little taste of Eden.

Fiordland

We took a cruise and a nice 3-hour hike during our short stay in Fiordland. We figure its beauty can be described a lot better in photographs, so we'll let them speak for themselves.

Stewart Island - Church Hill Cafe

Well, let's start with a few facts. Stewart island is home to not only half of NZ's Kiwi population but also the southernmost fish & chips shop in the world. In a town with a population of around 400 everybody knows one another.

The trip from Bluff to Stewart Island was rough. The waves got to be about 8 feet high at times, and I had my first experience with seasickness. I was really surprised how much of a whole body experience it is, it's not like motion sicknes, it's more like being drunk (and not having fun) and having a fever at the same time. Alyssa and I weren't the only ones who threw up, and I played the gentleman and let her go first. I said to Alyssa "I think that was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life."

Once ashore, we didn't want to do anything but go to sleep for a while. Flopped down in the information centre, just by the dock, the staff came over and asked if we were ok, we just needed time to recuperate. After we'd dozed for a few minutes Alyssa walked me over to Just Cafe and we replaced our recently lost lunches. The woman at the counter was from Idaho. It's amazing how quickly we can pinpoint American/Canadian accents when we're out here with all these other nationalities.

I'm writing this post from Invercargill, we just came back on the ferry yesterday and stayed at a campground last night. There's so much to say about Stewart island though, such a different world than we've lived in so far. Any supplies or special items have to come "from the mainland", and people just don't mind waiting a few days or a week for them to arrive. The whole time I was conscious of the feeling that we were at the bottom of the world. In fact, if you were to get into a boat and head south the next stop would be Antarctica.

Church Hill Restaurant is situated at the top of a hill overlooking Halfmoon Bay. It has a nice old fashioned feel with Tigger, the cat, lounging on the couch by the open fireplace. There were lots of birds as well, Kaka, gulls, etc. Out back of the restaurant there was a small vegetable garden, where Gary (the owner) and the other wwoofers collected some of the ingredients for the nightly meals.

Gary told me he used to work around 100 hours a week, but recently he's let most of his staff go and runs the place with his manager, Nic.

There were three other WWOOFers there, Marko, from Slovenia (former Yugoslavia), Rotemm and Dor from Israel, and Bryn from NZ. Oh yeah, wait, that’s four, MOVING ON!

This host wasn’t like a ‘typical’ WWOOFing host, as we didn’t spend our time outside in the garden. In fact, we spent the past week learning how to wait tables at a high-class restaurant – something that neither of us ever expected. We learned about pairing wine with food, serving and bussing tables, and acting as accommodating hosts.

We got to play in the large kitchen as well and served everyone our speciality, Lemon Caper Chicken. For the vegetarians we made some delicious lentil burgers, along with the Church Hill signature salad at we are already missing now.

I had some time to play around with Gary’s two computers. He mentioned that he couldn’t get internet on the desktop, and at least four other WWOOFers had taken a whack at fixing it. I sorted it out in about 40 minutes. It was a Stupid broken firewall program, and disabling it didn’t work, I had to uninstall it. (Dad?!?!) Then I borrowed an iPod sync cable from the nice woman down at Just Café’ and hacked my iPod with rockbox since I’m so far away from my own computer, now I can add and play whatever I want without wiping my whole collection. (google it :-p)

The local library was interesting too, I think they had about 2000 books in total. I overheard one of the locals say “it’s so great that you have internet now”, welcome to the 21^st century guys. J Not only that, but it was run by volunteers, there was only one person on staff at a time, and only open four days a week for an hour each day.

As for the home life, we got to stay in the shed behind Gary’s house. There was some critter scuttling around at night, but we never did meet face-to-face/ face-to-beak/ face-to-snout, maw, whatever, with it. The beds were nice and we did get about a dozen pillows to work with. We’re getting quite used to adjusting to new beds/ showers/ kitchens/ toilets every day or so…ahh, the hidden joys of travelling.

After a full week of work, we’re heading to Fiordland, possibly NZ’s most famous landscape, the Milford Sound. After that, a visit to Queenstown and Wanaka, and some driving up the West Coast until we reach the sunny Golden Bay.