Once Upon a Time in the West

Hey Folks,

Sorry for the delay in posting, we've been moving around a bit doing a lot of wwoofing. After returning to Golden Bay, where we were the 'house chefs' for a meditation and yoga retreat at Shambala, the backpackers we had wwoofed at before, we finally crossed Cook Strait and made it to the North Island. We hung out in Wellington, the capitol for a few days, soaking up the culture in New Zealand's most hip city. We were both quite smitten: nice waterfronts, great pedestrian malls, cool museums. We also scored cheap merino at a clearance sale down by the docks. We then came up the west coast, stopping only at a local chocolate factory and then a beautiful beach to camp the night in our van.

We stayed with an amazing couple, Alex and Eileen, and their new little daughter Ranui on the west coast near New Plymouth. Fellow Vipassana meditators, Alex also teaches yoga, and they are working to transform their property using a five-year permaculture plan to one day include a community center, meditation hall, yoga space, market gardens and orchards. Views of the ocean in all directions as well as Mt. Taranaki, a towering stratovolcano that kept watch of its eponymous peninsula. We did lots of gardening (yay!) and help them put their gardens to bed for the winter.

After leaving them, we drove across to the east hoping to hike the Tongariro Crossing, one of New Zealand's classic tramps: an 18km trek along the flanks of the dominant volcanoes of the area - Ruapehu, Ngaurohoe, and Tongariro. Sadly, this was not to be, as our alternator blew it's bearings and brushes and we managed to roll downhill into the nearest town with a battery so beat that not even our turn signals would work. We spent the night in the parking lot of a very kind auto electrician named Doug, who also set us right in the morning. When we finally made it to Tongariro it was pouring down, and snowing at elevation.

So we abandoned the plan and hit it to Rotorua for some hot spring action. We spent long stretches soaking our weary bones in lovely hot pools. The Rotorua area is an intense geothermal province, and they have built their city right on top, at the edge of Lake Rotorua. This means that in places sulfurous fumaroles are shooting right out of the sidewalk. No joke. A lot of people have ovens/stoves/and hot water heaters in their houses that are supplied directly from hot steam shooting out of the earth. Very surreal. We also checked out some other hot spring areas nearby, and Conor took way too many geeky photos. See what wasn't culled below.

After Rotorua we came up to where we are now, Cambridge, to be the first wwoofers for these folks who have just started on plan to build Adobe earth brick housing on their property to run as a B&B. We also learned how to make cheese since they had some friends who are dairy farmers and provided us with gallons of fresh from the cow milk free of charge. And Conor learned how to use a chainsaw :) Some photo documentation below. We're off now to the Coromandel peninsula, and then from there up to Northland. It's getting pretty cold here as winter kicks in, but we have had a specactular fall, and are actually looking forward to our first real winter in several years.

We hope all you topsiders are appreciating your oncoming spring and summer :)