Golden Bay

I apologize in advance for the lack of photos. I don’t want to use too much internet of the vineyard I’m at.

Ricky’s house is located in the Golden bay, about 25 minutes north of Takaka.

He lives in a beautiful little cottage nestled in a valley surrounded by native bush. The house has two small but cozy floors. The bottom floor is a kitchen with long wooden counters and a metal sink. There isn’t any garbage disposal, dishwasher, large oven or even microwave. And the he mountain of dishes waiting to be hand washed gives very rustic feel.

Right next to the kitchen is a long wooden table with benches of either side ready for a game of cards or to be eaten on. Upon closer inspection you can see round burns from hot pots being put down and the remnant pieces of paper with names and scores left over from an intense game of rummy the night before.

To the left of the table is an old couch with a white throw over it, chilling in front of the tv waiting desperately to be used for movie viewing.

Further to the left of the couch is a small side area decorated with various paintings and picture frames, of Ricky’s children when they were younger. In the corner of the room is my bed.  A foam pad on a raised platform with my possessions hap-hazardly scattered over it. Directly next to my bed is a wood burning stove with a raging inferno billowing up the smoke stack helping to keep us warm from the chillier nights in the valley.

Continue looking left and you’ll find a door that is almost eternally tightly shut. In it you’ll find Ricky’s teenage daughter probably watching a movie and texting her friends.

Walk back to the table and you’ll see a set of French doors leading out to a small deck. A small chair and futon sit around a stump-made-table. On the other side you’ll find a drying rack for clothes, with the small pants of Toby dwarfed next to my pants drying in the sunshine. You’ll also find a grill that has seen many sausages and vegetables.

Walk down to find and open area with a small fire-pit in the center, where on clear nights we could sit around drinking beer and talking.

That’s my memory of the place I spent the past week. The area I described is where I spent most of my time hanging out, eating or watching movies.

Down the hill from Ricky lives Raina, Tony, Bo and Naya. Raina and Tony are together, and Bo is Raina’s 10 year old son. Naya is a 53 year old women who lives in an awesome house truck. It’s an old school bus tricked out with a kitchen, living room and loft with a bed.

Aya, Ricky and I spent many hours playing cards over at Raina’s, or drinking tea in Naya’s “living room”.

Raina and Tony have a dog named Lovely that just had six puppies. When I got there they were six weeks old. They are probably the cutest thing I have ever seen. When we would bring them out of their kennel they would run around you, play together, get lost in the garden and gnaw on my finger. The best part was that each one had their own personality.

 Freckles was a tan and white mix who had a lot of fight in him. Rose and James Bond were both black like their mother. Rose was the quieter puppy who would happily sit and have a cuddle while James would run circles around everyone and get lost in the garden. Bruiser was tan with a little black. He loved to play and climb on me. Honey was the prettiest. She was a great tan color with a personality that seemed to be a mix of the others. The last puppy was Sassy. She was just like her name implies.

Rose

I wish I could upload more pictures but just image 6 Labrador puppies running around.

When I wasn’t playing with the puppies we would go on other adventures.

One day I helped Ricky collect some firewood for the bonfire and fireplace. We spent like an hour climbing into the bush and lugging tree’s back out. After we had enough we cut them up with a chainsaw. At this point I was sweating like a pig. The sun made it VERY hot. So we decided to go to the beach and swim. When we got to the beach it wasn’t very crowded. I didn’t waste time, and jumped in right away. The water was cold. Do you know how when summer is just starting and the air is hot but the water is cold because it’s only been hot for a few weeks? Kinda like the jersey shore in late May, early June? Yeah, the water was like that. I stayed in but Ricki and Aya hopped right out. After a while my body got numb and it felt great.

On a different day Aya and I decided to go shellfish fishing at the same beach.  Ricky’s house was about an hour walk from the beach, so we hitched a ride there and back. It was low tide and we could walk out reallllly far. We collected a bunch of Pipis, Cocos and a few Muscles. The shellfish cooked in a broth of garlic, oil, and white wine was delicious. None of the shells were bigger than my big toe, so it wasn’t a full meal, but did make a great snack.

A different night, Ricky had some friends from Christchurch staying at the house. Their names were Cleve and Jimmy, and they both had some killer dreadlocks. Jimmy himself was an electrician but also a part time DJ. He had brought some of his gear so we set it up to hear him mix. He wasn’t like the DJs at school dances; he would mix tunes he knew well into great beats. It was mainly trance and other techno music. His mixing turned into a dance party with nine of us that went to 4 AM. At one point we hooked up some of Ricky’s stage lights that flash different colors.  It sounds kinda lame, but it was actually a blast.

Those were the four big adventures I had when at Ricky’s house. Aside from that we played a lot of cards, watched movies and just relaxed. I did some gardening, lots of dish cleaning and other small chores along the way. Some days I would help cook dinner, like on thanksgiving, when we had tacos.

I was only able to stay a week before I had to go to my next farm to wwoof. I left on the25th and hitch hiked down to Nelson where I stayed in the same hostel as the last three times. Got the bus to Blenhium early the next day and got picked up there.

The crazy thing is that, as I post this, I have exactly 3 weeks till I leave New Zealand.

Cheers

Trip North: Part 2

I left off with me driving north to Kiakoura.  It’s about two and and half hours from Christchurch to Kiakoura, but the drive took me about 4 because of various reasons. One was due to road work, another cause I got tired and took a nap halfway, and the last was because I stopped along the way to explore the shore a little.

After my brief stop I continued on to my hostel called the Dusky Lodge. It had a great communal area with a pool and jacuzzi in the back. I made myself some mac ‘n’ cheese for dinner again and did my last post. I also went and chilled in the Jacuzzi for a while, which was very relaxing. Then I went to sleep.

The next morning I got up around 9, took a shower,  checked out of the hostel and spent the morning in Kiakoura exploring.

Kaikoura itself isn’t all that spectacular. It basically has one main street with hotels, stores and restaurants populating it. The thing that draws all the tourism is the beaches, mountains and wildlife in the area.

 Since Kiakoura was built on a peninsula a beach runs the northern length of the town. Parts of it are rocky and parts are sandy. But from what I hear, in the high summer it’s a really popular beach location. On the other side of the peninsula is a shallow rocky ledge that has been worn down by the waves constantly beating against it. During low tide it is possible to walk on it, giving it the feeling of the deck of a ship. (or so I hear)

In addition to the beaches there are huge white capped mountains that dominate the landscape.  It’s like the mountain range decided not to have hills before the mountains. Or they were worn away by erosion. It can be surreal to stand on the end of the peninsula and look out at the endlessly blue Pacific Ocean then turn around to see towering mountains. It was awe inspiring to say the least.

There is a really cool hike that runs around the tip of the peninsula that I did that morning. You can either walk on top of the bluffs or take the low road that runs right up against the sea. What I did was walk on top of the bluffs going one direction then turning around and walking the sea rout back to my car.

After about 3 hours I was done with my hike and decided to drive to Blenhium to stay the night. At least that was the plan. Once I got to Blenhium is realized that there is literally nothing there. Or rather, there is nothing of interest. It’s only touristy things are the vineyards. Other than that they have a handful of hotels and one hostel. I decided just to head up to Picton, where I would have to drop the car off the next morning.

When I got to Picton I went to the I-site to try to find some good hiking routes, it was only 5 and I still have 3-4 hours of sunlight. Yeah. 3-4. The sun literally never goes down. 

I-sites are these awesome New Zealand things that we don’t have in the states. They are at basically every respectably sized town (about 1000 people).  The sites have people who are thing solely for helping tourists. You can book hotels, tours, buses, and basically anything your heart desires. While I went to the i-site to find some hikes, I ended up booking my bus for the next day and my lodging for the next two nights. The lady does everything and I just hand her my credit card. No fee included.

I first stopped at my hostel, where I found at they had free bike use during the day and apple crumble at 8. Aspraw[0ehraw[0eifa9fj FREE APPLE CRUMBLE! It’s basically apple cobbler. Before the much anticipated apple crumble I decided to go on a bike ride, on nearby mountain biking routes. When I was getting ready, my roommate, who was a 40 year old guy from Tabago, but lives in Australia, walked in with a bike helmet. His name was Sherwin and we went biking together.

We didn’t really know where we were going, and ended up going on a hiking trail instead of biking. I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried to bike ride UP stairs, but it isn’t easy, much less possible. We had to carry our bikes half the time. At one point I fell down a small cliff and Sherwin caught the bike so it didn’t fall on me.

Once we found the actual biking trails the ride was enjoyable. The trails were easy and smooth. They also had some great views. Sherwin and I took a break on a stone beach and watched boats come and go for a while.

We ended up getting back to the hostel at around 7:30, which gave me half an hour to make dinner before apple crumble. I made myself ramen. You may realize how unhealthily I eat. That’s because cooking a real meal takes a lot of money and time, and I’m just lazy. After my delicious ramen, Sherwin and I made friends with some Scottish girls. We ate our delicious apple crumble and ice cream and talked for a while before getting an early night. 

Not much happened to me after that. I dropped off the car. Took the bus to Nelson where I stayed the night. Ironically I ran into some wwoofers from the orchard that left a day or two after I got there, and talked with them. Then I got the bus too Takaka where I got picked up by Ricky. (The same ricky that gave me a ride and let me stay in his truck.) It’s been at his house that I’ve been staying for the past week.

My next post will describe my crazy and fun adventures I’ve had while I’ve been here!

Cheers

Trip North: Part 1

After my little sky diving experience I set off traveling north. If you remember, I had to be in Picton in four days, so I had time to stop at some cities and stay the night.

The day I left picton I got off to a late start, probably around 5 or 6. The problem with that was  between Queenstown and Christchurch there is nothing. At least on the east coast there isn’t, which the direction I was traveling up was.  Not much happened to me the rest of that day, I drove a bunch, tried to find a good radio station which isn’t possible in the middle of New Zealand, and drove my Mt. Cook, the tallest mountain in NZ.

Then I slept is the car. HORRRRRIBBBLLEEE idea. I didn’t so much as sleep and closed my eyes. I figured I’d try to put the back seat down and sleep with my feed going into the trunk. Nope. Seat didn’t go down. So I was left trying to find a comfortable position in a super small Nissan sedan.  Needless to say it wasn’t possible. I got up at 6 and started driving toward Christchurch.

I got into Christ church around 11, after taking an hour nap along the way, and started looking for a hostel to stay at. Usually the first one I go to has space, and if not the first then the second. That wasn’t the case in Christchurch. I was able to get a room at my FIFTH hostel I went to. This was mainly because of the earthquake.  

I’m not sure if you remember hearing about it in the news, but Christchurch had two major earthquakes in the past year. It was the second one that did a lot of damage. It’s very evident as soon as you drive into the city. You drive by countless empty lots where buildings used to be, or buildings fenced off that have yet to be demolished.

In fact the heart of the city is totally fenced off. The city center was the worst part hit of the city. The buildings were older, taller, and not earthquake proof. The city center was also where most of the restaurants, bars and active part of the city was.  It left the city feeling dead. There wasn’t much to do and tough to get around. I kinda felt like I was in a war zone.

I explored the area for a good two hours before going to the hostel.

After making myself some mac ‘n’ cheese for dinner I took my car and headed for the beach. I thought that I would just head toward where I thought the shore was and get there easily. It didn’t really work like that. I got really lost for 20-30 minutes before finally finding the shore.

I spent about two hours there before heading back to my hostel. I watched a movie and feel asleep.

The next day I decided to go out to the Banks Peninsula, toward Akaroa. I got really lost again, but eventually got there. It reminded me a lot of Frenchtown, New Jersey. It was small but had a lot of personality. The beautiful sunshine also helped I’m sure.

Cliffs collapsed because of the earthquake making the roads unusable and hard to get the Akaroa

Didn't mean to get soooo much ice cream...

Low tide

After that I drove a few hours North where I stayed in a hostel in Kaikoura for the night. 

Queenstown

I left off with my description of my less than stellar time that I had in Roxburgh. Luckily, since I left I’ve been having a great time! It’s late Tuesday night right now, and I left Roxburgh on Friday. That is about 5 days since I’ve been gone.

My first destination was Queenstown.  The city is known for being one of the most popular and EXPENSIVE tourist destinations in the southern island, if not the country. It isn’t very big though, only about 11,000 permanent residents.

I got there kinda late, around 6:30, so I figured I’d probably just stay in that night and explore the next night. I could not have been more wrong. After checking into my hostel I went to go find a bank. After that I walked back to my hostel to probably just watch a movie or read. When I got to my room I found two other Americans in my room! We were all pretty pleased with this because Americans in New Zealand are endangered. We had a room of six but there were three of us, Joe, me, and Jess.

We hung out for a while in our room just talking and cracking jokes, while Joe and Jess drank. I didn’t have any beer so didn’t, which will I would be thankful for later on…

ANYWAY, at about 9:30 or 10 we decided to go out! Queenstown has heaps of bars, and a lot going on a Friday night. Our first bar we went to was called the Broiler room. We got there and it was hopping. It was really small and there were a lot of people dancing. I wasn’t exactly sure how to order alcohol so Jess showed me how to. I was confused cause I’d only been used to what actors do in movies which I knew wasn’t true.

After about 30 minutes a lot of people had left so Jess ,  Joe and I moved on to Altitude. This next bar was more popular than the other. They had some drink specials and a dance floor.

We stayed there for about an hour then moved on to the Buffalo Club. There was a small dance floor but a lot of people and great music. It was part bar and part club, which we all liked cause we liked to dance. I think Jess and I more so than Joe… This was by far our favorite bar. We stayed there for a while.  Joe and I talked to two girls for a while. One lived in Christchurch and the other there in Queenstown. I wish I could have told you their names, but, no dice… Jess also picked up a guy there named Gouli. Or so we think. He was a mysterious guy which made him the brunt of many of our jokes. None of which he knew were about him.

After a while we moved on to the world bar. Joe needed to smoke a cigarette and Jess had brought Gouli along, so I just stood there waiting for Joe to come in. According to the bouncers, standing and waiting means I’m really drunk. I got kicked out. I had had a bunch of drinks but was by no means drunk. Heck I saw people who couldn’t walk strait get let in, and I could hold a reasonable conversation and stand straight! Oh well.

After 15 minutes Jess and Joe realized I was gone and came out with me and we went to the next bar, Winnie’s. It was really similar to Buffalo. Small space, loud music, alcohol. It was like 2 am at that point so I was getting tired. I danced a little, then just sat and chilled while Jess danced with Gouli and Joe tried, successfully, to pick up girls.

At 2:30 we said goodbye to Gouli and headed back to the Buffalo club. We each had another drink, danced some and then went back to the hostel at 3 am. And passed out.

If anyone had observed us the full night, there is no way they would have been able to tell that the three of us had met a few hours previously. We acted like best mates and laughed a lot. I know I said that I had my best time in New Zealand with, Selina, Richie, Anna, and Aya but that night was just as fun!

The next day both of them had flights to catch. I would’ve liked to hang out, but obviously they couldn’t. So I explored Queenstown during the day.

Crafts fair

Beach on the lake

Massively delicious burger from Ferg Burger

Read there for awhile

Self-Portrait what do you expect.

I stayed in that night because I spend a BUT LOAD of money the night before and I don’t like drinking 

multiple nights in a row.

The next morning I got up and checked out then went to go pick up my car. WHAT CAR?! Yup. There is a cool service in New Zealand that connects travelers with rental car businesses that need their car relocated. It happens everywhere. Since there tends to be a flow of cars southward in New Zealand there are always large numbers of cars in places like Queenstown, Dinedin, or Christchurch. The service connects the travelers who, get the car for free, but have a time requirement and final destination. In my case I have a small Nissan Sedan that needs to go from Queenstown to Picton. I have it for 4 days, with free insurance, and I only have to pay gas. It’s a win win situation.

I named him Blue originally. Then remained him Squeaky, cause he definitely needs new brakes.

Me driving on the left side of the road, nbd.

And on the right side of the car.

Before I left Queenstown, I noticed how nice of a day it was.  So I went skydiving.

I walked into the store front of NZone and said, “I want to go skydiving.” Four hours late I was falling 172 mph straight toward the ground.

I paid for a 12,000 foot free fall, and then filled out safety forms.

After that they take you on a twenty minute bus ride to their airstrip and landing zone.

They divided us into two groups, so they plane did get too full. Most people had paid for photographs and a video, but I refrained. It was too expensive and I didn’t really care for it. I was in the second group, so I had a cup of tea and chatted.

After the first group had gone, my group got suited up. We wore a harness, goggles, gloves, a jumpsuit, a hat thing and whatever clothes we had one. The harness was to strap me to Mira, who was the pro, and who ironically didn’t spend English too well.

It wasn’t until we were all piling into the plane that I got anxious. We all sat on our buts with a person in front of them in-between their legs. Then the plane took off.

And we climbed, and climbed, and climbed. Until we got to 15000 feet. I had unintentionally gotten a few 3000 feet. At that point they open up the door and toss you out. I remember my stomach just dropping as soon as we jumped. The next 60 seconds of free fall are a blur. I remember it being REALLY cold and my eyes watering up. Then floating to the ground and landing. I didn’t pass out or anything I guess my epinephrine was just getting produced in overdrive.

It was a blast.

After that I drove to Christchurch, but not before getting another burger. :)

But that’s another story, I’m too tired now.

Cheers 

Fruit Galore

Last time I left off I was on my way to my next farm in Roxburgh. That didn’t last too long. I didn’t like it. So now I’m on the road again! Right now I’m blogging from a hostel in queenstown… Buts let’s rewind to the farm in Roxburgh…

The last farm I was on was a huge sprawling orchard with cherries, apricots and many, many, many more fruits and veggies. The only problem was that the fruit was just starting to grow, so I couldn’t eat any of it. Actually for being a fruit orchard the farm didn’t have any fruit at all, which was disappointing and annoying.

It didn’t take too long for me to realize that I didn’t like this farm. The host was crazy, work boring, accommodation limited and food sparse.  

The name of the host was Dave, and he was just a rotten guy. On three separate occasions he told me to pack my bags and get off his farm, when I had done absolutely nothing wrong. After a while I started to feel very uncomfortable around him and avoided him the best I could. It was at that point that I decided it was time to leave.

At this farm I realized that I have no patience dealing with tediously repetitive jobs. In this case it was fruit thinning on apricot trees. Every apricot tree grows lots of fruit very closely packed together. You may think, oh that’s good, more money for the farmer. Wrong. If he left the trees to grow normally the fruit would push on each other ruining most of it. Our job was to pick off most of the immature fruit to give enough space for the apricots to grow.

A branch would start like this:

And end like this:

Do this for 28-30 hours a week. I was honestly ready to shoot myself. No lie.

When I slept I felt like I was in a jail cell.

Sometimes our host would just disappear and not show up again till the next day leaving the group of 

us to cook dinner from whatever we could find. So sometimes it was just toast for dinner!

Now that I’ve properly vented let me describe the things I DID like about this farm.

The people. This farm had a lot of wwoofers like myself. At one point there were 31 of us, from France, Germany, USA, Ireland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Canada and New Zealand.  Of those, about 90% were either from France or Germany. This abundance of people made it easy to made friends, play cards and just be social. I actually became really good friends with a guy my age named Jonasch. He was a German who had a really similar sense of human. We would always work out in the fields together and hang out after work and at night.

Another great thing about the farm was the free wifi. Wifi, or internet in general is tough and expensive  

come by. If I had to rank the top things I spend money on it would be, food, alcohol J, hostels and internet. So the fact that this farm had unlimited free wifi was fantastic. I was able to torrent a lot of the TV shows I was missing and skype family.

The final good thing was dinner. When the host was present at dinner time he would made really delicious big dinners. I had Asian, French, Spanish and American food, as well as many others. After a hard day at work it was a welcomed relief.

I only stayed there for a week and a half before leaving for Queenstown, where I am currently staying. Look out for another blog post soon about my Queenstown adventures!

Cheers

Adventure

Same Post + Pictures

Wow.  So a lot has happened since my last blog post. I’ll start from the beginning.

I left the farm with Jenny and Perry last Tuesday because we had finished the work and I was getting this subtle vibe from them pushing me to move on. I left Tuesday with only that day planned and a goal to be at my next farm on Saturday. I had a little anxiety not knowing what I was going to do for the next week but I figured that everything would work out.

I took the bus down to Wellington on Tuesday and stayed the night there. I didn’t really do much that night. I went to the bar with the guy in my dorm that was from England and found out that they don’t call the city windy welly for nothing. The wind there literally blows you over as you walk.

I got up really early the next morning so that I could catch the 8 o’clock ferry to Picton, which is on the sound island.

It was a biggg ferry.

You know, just putting some tanks on the ferry.

That was basically the end of my planning. I knew kinda where I wanted to be, on certain nights but nothing super solid. I planned on trying to hitch hike to Nelson that day where I would stay the night and move on the next morning. It kinda worked out like that. I was able to get a ride from Picton to Blehiem, both of which are very boring towns. After waiting in the pouring rain for about 45 minutes another older man gave me a ride to Nelson. He was really nice but loved to talk. A lot. Don’t get me wrong I do too but by the end of the car ride I was tired. He had pulled over at some tourist spots for me and showed me around. I had the sneaky suspicious he was a little lonely. He dropped me off at the Accents on the Park hostel.

I booked my room for one night. I remembered about a bone carving class that I saw that looked kinda cool. I called the guy up and booked a spot in two days because that was all he had. That led me to book the hostel room for another night.  I didn’t do much for the rest of that day, just Skype my brother, call my dad and spend hours on the phone with my credit card company only to get little accomplished.  I also watched the latest pirates of the Caribbean moving which was playing in the bar downstairs.

The next day I rented a bike and explored Nelson:

Self-portrait obession

At one point I sat by a tree and widdled it

I made this myself for dinner. Breaded chicken with onions. I felt like a boss.

Doin' some rock climbing.

The place in is a back alley in a warehouse. It was cool space

The next morning I did a bone carving class, with the two girls I met the night before.

My next target to get to was Greymouth, which in retrospect was optimistic. A more realistic goal was Westport. Getting out of the Nelson area can be a real pain the ass. I hitched for a while. Then hiked for a while to get to a bus station, then took to bus to Richmond (about 15 minute ride) then hiked to a good hitching spot. Luckily I only had to wait there for about three minutes before a local drove by and stopped to give me a ride. Unfortunately he only gave me a ride for about 20 minutes before having to turn off. He dropped me in the middle of nowhere. Literally. I remember scoping out trees to sleep under in case a car never drove by.

Me, Abby and Gillian

I somehow got a ride. It was with the guy my age who was driving down to visit his girlfriend in Greymouth. I swear to you, Levi, could have been my older brother, Chris’s twin. He wore worn out clothing, was rocking a neck beard and had some crazy blonde hair. And he was really cool. We were both the same age, got along really well and had some things in common. So much so that, at the end of the three hour car ride he invited me to his house for dinner and a few beers. I slept at the Duke Hostel that night.

The next morning I got up bright and early to get a head start on any other hitch hikers. It was a little of a hike to get to a good spot to hitch hike but after 30 minutes of walking I had a good spot. I waited for about 15 minutes before getting a ride about 10 km, which if I had known I probably would not have gotten with him. After hitching for a 45 at my next spot a taxi offered me a REALLY discounted price to the next time. I said what the heck and went for it. After that is when my real adventure started.

After that ride I ended up in a town called Hokitika. It’s famous for the Jade you can find laying on the shore. I waited for about 45 minutes before a German girl, Anna, walked up to me and offered me a ride. She was traveling in a van and gets lonely on the road. In addition to her she was traveling with three other people in a truck turned campervan.  I stayed with them for the next three days.

That is the caravan we drove. I slept in the big white one.

This group of people was very eclectic. We had an American(me :), two german (Anna and Selena), a Japanese (Aya) and a Kiwi (Richi). Despite the obvious language barriers as well as social ones we all got along really well. Actually, I had a lot of fun, the most I have had all trip!

After I got over the initial awkwardness of meeting new people I was part of the group. Ricki actually told me that I was officially a hippie.

The day they picked me up we stopped in Franz Jose and went to the glacier hot pools. It was $20, which was kinda expensive but when I think about the fact that we spend THREE hours chilling and relaxing I figure it was worth it.

After we got out Ricki and I went to buy some beer (which I can legally buy) found a side road to spend the night, parked and made some dinner. I felt uncomfortable about eating their food so I bought a sandwich. We played cards for a while then went to bed. The sleeping situation was funny. They had four or five mattresses in the back that we would lay over the bed of the truck. We put some sheets on top grabbed a pillow, comforter and passed out around 12. All 5 of us next to each other.

The next morning we got up around 10, had some cereal and then drove to the Franz Jose glacier. We spent about 3 hours hiking and exploring. Came back made some sausage for lunch with white bait fritters. (Google white bait, I’m not a fan) Then we drove at little and went on another hike around a lake which I thought was a little boring. Then we drove for about an hour and found a spot to park on the ocean shore.  Ricki then made us some DELICIOUS curry over rice. Even though we are travelling around in this ghetto camper we ate like kings. We played a round of cut throat gin rummy, which I substantially lost, and decided to watch a movie. We hooked up Aya’s computer and all layed in bed and started to watch a horror movie. After about 20 minutes I was the only one awake which was GREAT. Not. I was in the middle of new Zealand in the back of sketchy camper, with no cell service, watching a horror movie alone.  Needless to say, I wasn’t too fond of the movie. What was nice was that when I eventually turned the movie off, I feel asleep listening to the waves crash on the shore.

Glacier (Why doesn't that word follow the i before e except after c rule?) 

The next day was basically a driving day. We drove through the Southern Alps of New Zealand. I have never seen such a beautiful place in my life. Any explaining will not do the beauty or the area justice. I promise you if you drive down the west coast of the south island down through Wanaka, you will be rewarded. We spotted at a lake and had some lunch, and split with Anna. That meant I got to ride in the back of the truck. It was a roller coaster to say the least .

Selina and Anna

The gang

Having lunch on Wanaka Lake before going separate ways

Unfortunately this is where my story with them comes to an end. After spending two nights and three days they dropped me off if Roxburgh to be picked up by my next farmer. I wanted nothing more than to continue on with Selena, Aya and Ricki, but knew I couldn’t. I do plan on travelling back north and visiting Ricki where he lives.

On a different note, I realize I tend to paraphrase most of my adventures or write in choppy sentences. I hope it doesn’t convey any sense of unhappiness because I am thoroughly enjoying my time in New Zealand. I’ve met SO many new people, tried so many new things and learned a lot about myself in the process, and I’m only a month in! That’s the longest  I’ve been away from home.  When I think about this I get homesick sometimes. I can miss having my own bed, great parents who always support me, or my cellphone, but then I remember that it will all be there when I get back.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Sorry for the huge post. I’m actually gonna try to proof read this time. Cheers