We were Up North. We were at Rock Camp. Now we're Down South.

Ben writes:

Hi Everyone,
This is a long one. But it's in Sections.

SECTION I

As you may have inferred from recent posts, Joanna and I have been back in the same place for almost two weeks now. I flew up from Wellington to Hamilton on Dec 11, where she met me with the car, and we took off on a week-long camping trip. Here's how it went(approximately):

-Rotorua. This town is known for its amazingly geothermal activity. We actually stayed two nights here in a very pleasant hostel. I kind of crashed, and spent part of one day sleeping, so we got out less than we might have. We are pretty sure that this town got really big by building up a spa industry around the naturally occuring mineral-rich hot springs. However, spa day was neither in our budget nor our itinerary. We went to a Maori cultural village / hot spring area. The hot springs themselves were not very impressive if you have been to Yellowstone -- a few bubbling mud pits, and a nice enough geyser. The Maori village is a curious place: it was built around the hot springs in 1884, and has been a tourist destination since 1885 (those years are probably right). The guide showed us how they cook and clean with the hot springs, and we were treated to a cultural show, including an explanation of the lengthy process of making a type of grass skirt that is only used for tourist shows. Think on that for a while.

-Tongariro National Park. In an incredible turn of events, we spent three nights camping, and had really nice weather for all of them. This has never happened before. However, let it be noted that it got so cold overnight that when we woke early one morning for our full day hike, there was frost on the car. Cred!
Yes, a full-day hike, known as the Tongariro crossing. This hike is a section of one of NZ's "Great Walks" which are basically what they sound like.
The hike was somewhat strenuous, and certain of our leg muscles were sore for days after, but it included incredible views of an active (not erupting) volcano, around whose midsection we walked, the Emerald Lakes, which are three small incredibly light blue lakes in the middle of the mountains, and hills and chasms and peaks of all colors. The pictures will be up today, if the computer here can deal with it.

-Ohakune. A charming little town, with some very pleasant hikes around it. We took it pretty easy here for the first day, doing a couple little hikes, and enjoying a nice camping area (incredibly cheap DOC campsites in NZ, by the way). On the second day, we drove to Pipiriki (ha ha!) and had a wonderful canoe trip. We were going to do the shorter trip, and get dropped half way up the Whanganui river ("wh" = "f" in Maori), but the man in charge was in a good mood, and took us farther up the river, all the way to the Bridge to Nowhere, which is actually a bridge to a very long (40k) trail to another town. The river cut through some wonderfully green steep cliffs on either side of us, 15-20 meters tall (we guess), and we had to get over some rapids, which was a terrifying concept in a canoe, but not actually too bad to do.

SECTION II

From there, we drove and slept and drove, and got to Rock Camp . At Rock Camp, kids from the School of Rock, and new students, come together for a week of music instruction in the art of Rock and Roll (actually, mostly alternative rock and metal). Unlike a guitar camp, rock camp is primarily focused on group performance, and the kids are put into campus bands, and matched with a mentor who helps them learn new material for a concert at the end of the week. The band are hilariously big -- 5 guitarists, two bassists, three drummers, two singers, a keyboard player, that sort of thing -- but kids also come with their bands from home, and they get to perform as well.

I was not a mentor, but a guitar instructor, giving theory lessons and doing some warm-ups for the kids who were not with their campus bands in the mornings, and giving one-off private lessons in the afternoons. Joanna joined forces with the parent volunteers to keep things running smoothly. Jo was a little frustrated at times due to a lack of clear duties, but managed to have a decent week. I had a fantastic time teaching, despite the usual classroom management related frustrations, and I wish I could come back next year. We made friends with a couple of the young players, and got along well with the other staff. We even snuck in a trip to a local bird sanctuary when we both had a free morning. All our pictures are terrible, but there will eventually be some on the School of Rock website.

SECTION III
Then we drove to Wellington, and I gave Jo the 4 hours whirlwind tour, including a cup of tea with Jim, whose house I sat, before we got on the ferry for the South Island last night. Now we are in the town of Picton, about to take a 4 hour drive to Takaka (ha ha!), where a WWOOFing family will be taking us in on Christmas Eve! They have two boys, aged 2.5 and 5, for whom we are going to buy a few small presents before we leave.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Happy New Year.
Enjoyable Holidays all around.

Joanna was all over the place

I've had an exciting few weeks doing a lot of different things in the Northland and Coromandel regions. This photo is of Cape Reinga.

After leaving Ngunguru, I headed up the coast to Oakura Bay, a lovely tiny village where my next WWOOFing hosts own the general store. I joined a couple of other WWOOFers, Mark from England and Sebastian from Germany, helping to get the store ready for the influx of merchandise at the holiday season, and then we all drove farther up the coast to a property they're developing into an ecolodge accommodation thing. The place is totally beautiful, but very very isolated; there aren't even any trails through the bush for tramping. There was a beautiful beach just a few minutes away, but it was still too cold for pleasant swimming, and the work schedule was such that there wasn't much time off for exploring. Anyway, I realized that I didn't really want to stay there, so I spent most of my non-working and eating time trying to find somewhere else to go, which was rather difficult--it seems that the island is overrun with WWOOFers!

I did finally find a host in the town of Coromandel, on the Coromandel Peninsula, but first I took a couple of days to be a tourist up in the Bay of Islands near the top of the Northland. It was really fun to stay at a hostel and see lovely things and just be totally independent for a few days. I took an excellent tour up to the very northernmost point on the island, Cape Reinga, via a beautiful grove of kauri trees (basically NZ's sequoias), Ninety Mile Beach (it's actually only about 60 miles long, and we drove on the beach itself--it is an official road) and dune boarding (fun but frightening) and a few other things. The next day, "on the way" to Coromandel (turns out I vastly underestimated the distances and was quite late getting in), I stopped to see a neat little glowworm cave and the west coast kauri forests.

My WWOOFing experience in Coromandel was a little strange. I stayed in a caravan at one woman's place, an herbal dispensery with gardens and a beautiful but nosey horse, and worked for her in the mornings. She was a bit stressful to work for. Then, for food, I worked for another guy, Dave, in the afternoon. This arrangement meant that I had very little time to do things, but luckily Dave was quite accommodating and let me work double a few times and take a couple afternoons off to do some exploring and hiking. The region is justifiably known for its beautiful hikes. I was also lucky that I came just as Dave was helping his mother, Mary, get her house ready to be let out for tourist accommodations (she was getting too old to stay there, but wanted to keep the property), so I spent most of my afternoons gardening in her absolutely gorgeous place. The house was built in the 1860's by the man who discovered gold in the region, and is one of the nicest buildings I've ever been in. I also got to hang out with Mary, which was great--she has lived in the house for 42 years, and knows everything about everyone in the town, and is also a musician and artist, and served tea in little china cups. Lovely.

I took the last day in Coromandel to do the famous Coastal Walk up at the top of the peninsula, a beautiful 5-hour hike, and stayed at a very cozy and fun hostel in town. Then it was off to Hamilton to pick Ben up from the airport. It's been great to see each other again, but it was really wonderful to travel on my own, too. I got to see lots of really cool stuff, and met scads of folks from all over the English- and German-speaking world.

We're now in Rotorua, the geothermal center of the North Island. It's a little disappointing, but the lack of things to see has given us a chance to get some things planned and taken care of. Now we're off to Tongariro National Park to camp and hike for a couple days. Hooray!

Ben is in Wellington Right Now

Hi Everyone. I have actually been in Wellington for almost three weeks. I am house-sitting for Jim, a friend who I have never met personally: we know each other through a mix tape club that we participated in via mail and internet about a year ago. It also included my friend Leah, Jim's friend Victor. It was great, and now I am living in his house, and listening to the cd's where all the music came from.
What you see is thew view out of his back window in the southern suburb of Island Bay. This is what I look at when I eat breakfast. It's pretty great.
In addition to his house, Jim is lending me a bicycle, which I use to get around town a lot. I have a pretty laid-back life right now, though I have found some employment, which I will describe presently. Wellington is a very windy place, which makes seemingly simple bike rides surprisingly difficult, but as a city, it's quite small, so during the day I use my bicycle. Sometimes I'll just go around with my trusty city center bus map in my pocket, and find places to explore. I am learning that any place with the word "park" in its name is on a gigantic hill. One day, early on, I was sitting around the city center, and decided to go over to a park -- I ended up climbing up Mt. Victoria. Don't be too impressed, it's not huge, but the view was beautiful. From there one can see most of the city, the main part of which is in a valley between two sets of hills (there are suburbs on the other sides of the hills), which runs north-south. The bay comes up and wraps around the whole thing, and you can see all the waters from Mt. Vic.
Speaking of geography, I don't think I have ever seen a city that is such a textbook representation of the city/suburb model. Almost all of the "urban" activity -- night life, museums, government, etc -- takes place in the relatively small city center, and there are a series of smallish neighborhoods growing out from that in every direction. The southern ones seems to be more part ofthe city, but maybe I just think that because I live in one.
I have made a few friends here -- it's not too hard to meet people. I'm at my friend Steph's house right now. I met her and her friends last weekend when they were out celebrating the completion of teacher's college. They were busking on Cuba St, one of the main drags downtown, and after I stopped to sing with them, they took me dancing.

Ok, two more things, and I'll wrap it up:
1. Work. I have two jobs. One is for a guy named Michael, who makes fridge magnets out of his garage. Some days I take laminated sheet of magnet pattern and attach magnetic sheets with sticky stuff on them. Other days, when those same sheets have returned from the cutter, I separate them adn put them in packages. It's not bad, everyone is friendly, and I get paid in cash. Someone has to make the fridge magnets, right?
I also work for a catering company. I've only done two jobs, and will only do two or three more. Basically I put on the black pants, white shits, black shoes, black clip-on tie, and black apron with company logo and either carry around food at cocktail parties, or wait tables at fancy dinners. I was offered a wedding, but I'll be leaving town right around then. This is a fun job to have for two weeks, and the pay is pretty good. As with the magnet job, I can take it or leave it as I like.
2. I played a show! Yes, I took my trusty accordion, and went to Happy, a bar that I've actually managed to be in every Friday since I've been here (this next weekend might break the streak), and I played to a small but growing crowd who were coming in for some actual band. The booker's girlfriend also plays accordion, so she played first, and we even did a sloppy duet of Istanbul (Not Constantinople). There was a piano and a pump organ at Happy, and I got to play those, too. A guy who saw me says he's going to book me for another bar next week, but we'll see if he calls.

So there it is. Life in Wellington. Pictures will follow, though you should note that all our photos are now in categories, though not all labeled, making them a good deal more comprehensible.
Goodbye!