I Am No Man

It’s been a little while since my last post as we have been traveling around and wifi is tricky as I’ve mentioned before. We left our place in Rotorua on Tuesday and rode the bus to Gisborne where our new host picked us up. Our place here is very different from the one in Rotorua. Here we are staying in a big canvas tent and eat very healthy hippy food from the garden. Our previous place had really good food as well since the husband was a chef, but it was very heavy and meat centric. Here we eat meat occasionally and when we do it’s meat that was taken from their farm, but mostly it’s veggies and some kind of grain. Today we had an amazing eggplant dish with lots of olive oil and dill.

The family we are staying with is great. There are five of them: Josh (the dad), Natacha (the mum), Tahi (he’s 9), Miro (he is 6), and Qwehe (she is 1 and a half, no idea if I spelled her name right). They are the kind of people who would fit in well in Ashland, and I can imagine the kids running around barefoot downtown (they never have shoes on) and Josh and Natacha shopping at the co-op. They live on a fairly big farm, at least a couple of acres, where they keep sheep, goats, cows, chickens and ducks. They also have a huge garden that is thriving with veggies of all kinds. Every morning we have fresh milk from the cows and sometimes we have fresh cheese that Natacha makes.

The work here is pretty awesome. We are helping them set up their new house so we put some gravel and clay on the ground (kinda like cob) and we pressed it down with a machine and water. Hopefully we’ll still be here when it’s time to put the layer of cob on the floor. Today we showed off our muscles and moved a lot of wood and bales of straw. We are hoping to be really ripped by the time this trip is over. We are being badass women with massive muscles. 😉

The hard part is that it’s been super hot. Today was in the high 90’s and the past week has been in the mid 80’s so it’s been pretty awful. Thankfully we are just a short drive (or long walk) from the beach and the water is pretty warm. It’s been really nice being able to cool off in the ocean after working.

Last weekend we went to a beautiful beach and spent most of the day there. Then after lunch we went on a half hour hike through the bush to a secluded swimming hole. The family has been great about taking us around places which has been lovely. There is another wwoofer here, Roxanne, who is from Switzerland. She’s really great and has been spending a lot of time with us.

We’ll be here for another ten days and then it will be off to Wellington! We have a friend who we’ll be staying with for a few days and then we’ll take the ferry over to Picton. Hopefully we’ll find some WWOOFing in the Nelson area which is close to the Able Tasman National Park.

Our trip has been going very smoothly and it’s great to be in Gizi (nickname for Gisborne) with like minded people. Plus here we get to hang out with Gigi, who is a six day old lamb. She is too cute for words.

Until next time!