Funky Fruit and Sunshine

Golden Bay!! It's such a fantastic place. Yummy. I've been staying with Brett and Jane who live just outside of Takaka. They have a magical spot with hundreds of fruit trees dripping with fruits, from avocados to tangelos (small and very sweet oranges), bananapassionfruit to black boy peaches, feijoas to chillean guavas, and a polytunnel packed with the biggest tastiest softest tomatoes I ever saw. Yum yum yum.

Sunny tangelos -


Avos ripening up -


Brett picking avos -


Just a few for now -


Many luxurious times in the kitchen making marmalades and whipping of salads of all sorts. They have a lovely house here that Brett built from scratch when he first moved here. It's a house of many little treasures, and also the most ingenious soap holder I ever saw (very lakeland plastic...)

Nell enjoying evening sun on the wisteria clad deck -


Brett is also a trug maker (I hadn't a clue what trugs were until I got here, and thought it may have been a spelling mistake, was he a rug maker or a drug maker??). But trugs are baskets used for harvesting veges from the garden.

The workshop -


The finished piece -


Veges waiting to be trugged up -


Wwoofing here has been awesome as well. There's been some other wwoofas staying while I've been here, so it's been fun to work with them. Here is David fulfilling his childhood dream of driving a tractor (with a trailer full of horse poo behind!) -


I also got a wirl on the tractor after David left which was great fun, and have spent a lot of time digging and harvesting potatoes and tomatoes and picking up horse poo and destroying blackberries.

And celebrating my birthday with a bbq. It was lovely and slightly strange to have a day spent in perfect sunshine (it usually manages to piss it down on my birhtday) with shorts and t-shirts and bbq. But the nights are getting much much shorter - it gets dark here at 7ish now, and I am unpleased at the idea that the UK is getting more daylight than I am. Humph. But I can't have it all.

Birthday bbq with Brett and Jane -


Another birthday treat was a day long flax weaving course with Maureen, which was really cool. She taught me alsorts of techniques and bits and pieces about the tradition of flax weaving, and I made up a few different flowers, bags and a box. I'm now inspired to try and make a hat.

The green pieces in the picture are what I fangled, the hat was not made by me - no where near that competent - but is my ultimate flax weaving goal.

Other delights of the Golden Bay area are Wharariki Beach, right up near the northern most point of South Island, which has amazing rock formations and sanddunes.


And the brilliantly named PuPu springs which are either the biggest natural springs in Australasia/the Southern Hemisphere/the World!! I've heard different reports so don't know for sure, but they were pretty cool. Very crystal clear water -


And now it rainsrainsrains pittar patter splash splot tipapatatipapatatipapa. I was going to do some hiking around and about, before heading to the next woof in Nelson, but that may be rained off. Cinema and chocolate eating is plan B. Not a bad plan B....

Upside down and Inside out

What a crazy world we are living in!! Fresh snow down to 1000m here in Nelson Lakes, and oh so very cold (5degrees) and apparently minimal snow in Switzerland but hot hot sunshine!! What is going on?


Went for a beautiful long walk around Lake Rotoiti yesterday -

Had planned to get up onto the hills, but too much snow and cold has disuaded me from doing so. My nose is, how do they say it?, like a firemans hose. All insides out! It didn't really cross my mind that I might get ill while travelling, but it is nearly gone.

Wild Wild Waitaha West

I've been woofing on a dairy farm for the last week milking 197 Jersey cows. They are happy cows - very well looked after. And friendly too - especially Roz - she likes talking to me when I walk the cows in.

Milking starts early!! We get up at about 5am to walk the cows to the milking shed where they are then lined up to be milked. All the cows get hosed down first then their udders washed and 'stimulated' (a rough massage!!) to make the milk flow, then you put the machines onto to udders which act like a gentle rhythmic vacume cleaner. Sometimes their a bit kicky with the machines, especially when its cold outside, but most of the time they are easy. Then once they've given up their milk you then give the udders a quick spray with some antiseptic and glycerine and then let them out to pasture. All the time dodging pee and poo - they aren't shy about this while being milked. Then, hose down all the poo and Voila! Usually we're finished in time for breaky at 10 - then snooze/garden whatever and start all over again at 5pmish. It's quite repetative work, but you are always on the go and listening to classic hits FM so you get a bit of a rhythm going and plenty of peaceful time to thing.

Walking the cows in at 5am -


Cows enjoying the sunrise while waiting to be milked -


In the parlour -

Poo pushing -

It's nice to be working here too as there's usually at least 1 other wwoofa working. I've met Viv, a very excellent lady from Kent who speaks her mind and has a good sense of humour, Christiane, my funny dance floor partner from from Germany, Rina, a very sweet and tiny girl from Tokyo who came so well equiped with luggage about 3 times bigger than her!, and Maurice and Helen a friendly couple from Ireland full of good/bad Irish jokes.

Last weekend we all got a rest from milking and readied ourselves for the Hokitika wild food festival where I flew caution to the wind for a day and ate Shark (can't really say that it tasted any different to most other white fish), Crocodile (like very tough pork) Kokodo (very nice Fijian? recipe for fish) Crystalised worms truffles (just crunchy, nothing more to be said) and "Mountain Oysters" (ie. ram's testicles - and do you know, this was actually my favourite - very tender, slightly salty and a bit like pork).

Many mountain oysters -

Being sliced up -
I couldn't eat the cow udders though!! After milking all week I think my mind would prevail over my madness with this one. But the guy siad they were nice - just like eating the fat on a pork chop.

Fried cow udders - tasty titties!

And boy did I drink! There was some wonderful stuff on offer. Raspberry Cider, Gorse wine, Rose wine, home made Kowlua, Dried prunes soaked in gin...

Viv and Christiane enjoying some raspberry cider -


After all of that we went to digest on the beach and I had one of the wildest swims I've had so far. Crazy waves!! Still have the bruises. It was a great time on the beach - many of the festival goers ended up down there and once it was dark you could see heaps of fires all the way down the beach with people wondering from one to the other in a drunken happy haze. Before I knew it we were watching the sunrise by the still roaring fire!

Viv admiring the sunset -


Sunrise by the fire -


Juggling on the beach on Sunday morning - the best way to beat a hang over....?


We were very lucky to have such beautiful weather for the weekend. The west coast is very verdant and lush (read rain rain rain) and now it is bucketing it down outside... Stormy beautiful west coast...

Aspiring

More lovely views and knobbly knees in the Mt Aspiring area where I stayed overnight in the very comfortable and well equiped Mt. Aspiring Hut. The walk up to the cascade saddle is steep as, but well worth it, better than the corrogated iron 30km long track that poor old Pat had to drvie along to get here - not sure how many favours that did to the suspension...


Apparently in NZ the 1st of March is the start of Autumn, which I didn't quite believe until yesterday when I saw these turning trees...

Glacial Adventures

Mt Cook! Tis very splendiferous views. A steep steep climb up to the Mueller Hut, but well worth it on a good day. This is Mt Cook in the background, and Adil a friendly Isreali chap that we met at the top.


Me and Mikael (from Otekaieke - one of the earlier farms I've been wwoofing at) planned to go up to the Mueller Hut this weekend, and were going to get to the bottom of it on Friday night so as to be able to bag a place in the Mueller Hut (something like 1800m up I think) , which is limited to 28 bunks or so. But the weather on Friday looked pretty poor, and the weather forecast even worse, so we decided to not bust a gut on Friday and just see what happened on Saturday.

And to my great suprise and glee the weather on Saturday morning was fantasticly perfect, so I pegged it from Wanaka, picked up Mikael at Omarama, and drove onto the base of Mt Cook where, unfortunatetly, we found that the hut was full already. Boo hoo. But it is not a long walk - jsut steep - so easy to do in one day.

This is me and my knobbly knees surrounded by the sound of crashing snow and hot sun - happy to be at the top and within site of the Hut.


This is part of the magnificent view from the Mueller Hut where we stopped to make angels in the snow. Racing clouds curling over the peaks.


And some very friendly Kea who led the way back down again as dusk began to pull shadows up the valley sides.


Again again the foredcast lies. Sunday morning was another beautiful morning, so we went to see the biggest Glacier in NZ - it's harder to see than the one from Mueller Hut because it is covered in alot of rubble (arhh I'm sure it has a technical name - not Moraine? - my GCSE Geography is beginning to fail me...). It is also getting smaller incredibly quickly which is what all this water - or "slump" is about. The island in the bottom right corner is actually a muddy wee iceberg cruising. Apparently the glacier is receding by 0.5% a year, which is incredible.


And then a swim in a turquoise coloured lake (I promise it is turquiose - those damned cameras are failing me again in painting a true picture)

Sweet Georgia Brown

This is 3 month old Georgia - a very smiley little one who likes singing and farting and flying. I've been babysitting her a bit for the past week or so and have really enjoyed it - she is a cool baby! But I'm not getting broody (sorry mum, you'll have to wait).


Georgia lives half way between Te Anau and Manapouri on a deer farm, with her mum Christine and dad Grant. I didn't really do that much farm work what with mainly spending time with Georgia - but did get to help tag some fawns and also help treat a lamb that was badly flystruck. Mmmmmm maggots.


I'm usually only babysitting in the afternoons so have been able to get out and about for some adventures in the mornings.

Picture from a bike ride with Brian's mum Bev.


The day was finished off relaxing on the balcony outside (or deck as they like to call it here - amusingly and confusingly pronounced dick...) watching the sky change.


The next day started off not quite so sunny, but I decided to brave it anyway and head off up Mt Luxmore earlyish. Got this fantastic rainbow as a result...


And also the first Kea that I've seen in the wild on the way up the mountain (the summit of Mt Luxmore is in the background) to Luxmore Hut. This is the first stretch of the Kepler track, and incredibly scenic. But also quite busy and windy.

A couple of days later I did the Circle Track on Lake Manapouri early in the morning. More super early morning scenery - lots of mist around the valley.

This was a lovely little walk, mainly through bush, but with a little stretch along the beach at the end. Did plan to do a bit of sunbathing, but the sandflies decided it was lunch time...


Then on my second last day I decided to give Postman Pat a treat with a drive up to Milford sound. Here is Pat enjoying the scenery.



After getting a bit hot and bothered Pat wanted to go for a swim in Lake Gunn, but I managed to stick the handbrake on just in time. Plan to get inflattables fitted soon though so that we can do a bit of sailing...

It was a bit cloudy when we got to Milford - but made for some dramatic pictures. Not how it looks on the postcard - but I quite like it - probably more representative of Fiordland weather.


There's a couple of really nice short tramps around Milford. Up to Key Summit was pretty good - two hours up and one down, with a DOC ranger at the bottom giving out sweets (if you fill in a questionairre of course, but I took it to be a reward). But best of all was the walk up to Lake Marian and Lake Marian itself. The track was a little steep in places, but good fun over tree roots and up dried up river beds. And also a lot quieter than the Key summit track which made for a very peaceful walk. Then Lake Marian. Which was just beautiful. This picture doesn't really do it justice... But when I got there there was only one other person, and he was chilling out playing th e harmonica, which echoed sweetly up the valley. Swimming in the Lake was brilliant - clear turquoise water (if that makes sense!) - straight from the glaciers right above. I think possibly my best swim in NZ so far.


Enjoying random road signs along the way, including this one -


Where is the question mark? Is this a question or a statement? Men:Women::Female:Male? A good road sign anyhow, but not so sure what it is trying to say. Other amusing gender things - just was in a second hand bookstore in Wanaka that classified all its books by either "Male Authors", "Female Authors", or "War". Made for slightly random browsing at least.