Joanna is in Ngunguru

Well, my solitary adventure has been pretty great so far. After dropping Ben at the airport, I drove up north to the little village of Ngunguru to WWOOF with an absolutely wonderful family. Ben and Zoe have a landscaping business and a beautiful property with a lake and a small orchard, about 25 km from Whangarei (pronounced "Fangaray"), which is the largest town in the Northland. They also have three children: Winnie, 13; Dylan, 10; and Gracie, 3. Gracie just had her last round of chemotherapy, and is recovering very well--most of the time she's just as cute, fun and energetic as a 3-yr-old could possibly be. Winnie and Dylan are amazingly good siblings to her, in addition to being great in their own right. (I've now had the good fortune to stay with two awesome 8th-grade girls, something I didn't know existed. I am filled with hope for humanity.) There is also Poppy, the exuberant puppy, and Basil, one of the best cats I've ever met. I've been helping around the house, mostly, doing weeding and window-washing and painting.

The countryside here is so gorgeous. I've been snapping pictures left and right, but they do not do it justice. Ngunguru is right on the coastline, so I can walk to the beach, and there are even more beautiful beaches a short drive to the north. It seems like every time you go around another bend in the road, there's another perfect white crescent of beach. Yesterday I took a boat trip out to the Poor Knights Islands, a marine reserve with some of the best diving in the world. I was just snorkelling, but it was still really cool, and very different from tropical reef snorkelling (especially because the water was freezing and we all had to wear full wet suits). I saw gigantic snappers (fish that have irridescent blue markings) and a scorpion fish, and tons of urchins and comb jellies. I think the most beautiful thing was watching the kelp and other seaweed swaying in the water. I also lucked out with the weather--it had been pretty cold and cloudy, but yesterday was absolutely perfect.

Tonight we're having a Thanksgiving supper (Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!), and tomorrow I'm off to a new WWOOFing host. Sad to go, but hoping the next will also be exciting. I am trying to upload a bunch of photos now, and I think they'll tell the story better, so check out the "Our Photos" link. There are also a whole ton from Hawaii, still unlabelled--we'll try to get to that soon.

We Are Leaving Auckland - We Bought a Car - Please Send Mix Tapes

Two days ago, we landed in Auckland, New Zealand. We have spent just over 48 hours enjoying the city.

We bought a car.

Ben is about to get on a plane to house-sit in Wellington (bottom of the North Island), while Joanna drives off to adventure in the upper parts of the North Island. They will meet up in about one month. We would be delighted if any of our creative and tasteful friends wanted to send us a mix tape that we could listen to while driving around NZ in our new used car (which used to live in Japan!) We mean real magnetic tape inside a plastic cassette, OK? Ben will have a stable address for a month, and if you e-mail him, he'll give it to you. Thank you, kind people, in advance.

We'll tell you all about Auckland later, but just now, Ben's got a plane to catch!

Aloha Also Means "Goodbye"

Ben writes:
For two people living on a farm 6 miles from the nearest actual town, we've been updating the web log a lot lately, but we thought it fitting to put up one more post anyway, because tomorrow evening, we leave Hawaii. The day that we call Saturday will not exist for us, and we'll arrive in New Zealand on Sunday morning. Thank you, the International Date Line, for making Saturday disappear.
The boy in the photograph is named Nathan. He is 4, and is one of two children of a woman named Sylvie. His brother, Daniel, is 8, and the three of them were often on the Pohoiki farm during out nine days there. The kids were quite smart and fun -- Nathan often walked around singing songs about racecars smashing into things, and Daniel knows how to do a lot of practical things, like purify salt water, and make jewelry. They were a handful at times, but on balance we were glad to have them there. We got to like the other people our age there pretty well, but we are all kinds of ready to head off to New Zealand.
The goat in the picture is the coolest looking goat we have ever seen. If you have seen a cooler goat, please mail it to us c/o The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave Washington DC. Thank you.

Oh, presently we are in Hilo, a small city on the east coast of the big island, home to a very pleasant hostel, and a $1 movie theatre, where we will head tonight.
We sent some extra things home to lighten our loads, and Ben has written about 2/3 of a song on the accordion -- his first! You will not hear it for half a year, though.
As usual, the pictures tell it better. We bought a big old flickr account, and now it's just a matter of finding a place with good bandwidth (not the library, it turns out).
We'll let you know about life in New Zealand soon, ok? OK!
Aloha, Hawaii!

Hippies are OK sometimes. Volcanoes rule!

Joanna writes:

Well, we had a couple of fairly unhappy days here in Pahoa when everything on the "farm" (we've found that there are, in fact, a few crops, but I wouldn't really call it a farm) seemed to be decaying (vehicles, structures, plants, fruit, children), and a rain storm kept us from even going down to the beach, and stoned hippies were lecturing us about life and being generally unpleasant, but we stuck it out, and things are much better now. Yesterday we somewhat apprehensively followed the advice of the others on the farm and went to a weekly drum circle on a black sands beach about 6 miles away. It was gorgeous. Even just the road to the beach was spectacular, and the beach itself was lovely, too, very crowded with people in various stages of undress (this is a clothing optional beach) and children and dogs running around. The drumming was pleasant, and mostly people were just hanging out and swimming. The water was a bit hard to get into and out of, due to a large number of rocks, but it was totally worth it, as I got to swim with dolphins! Awesome.

Before coming to Pahoa, we rented a car and went to Volcano National Park, where we stayed at a beautiful free campground. The current lava flow is a 3.5 mile hike over the 2003 flow that took out a road and a town. It was actually really beautiful and fun to hike over the interesting lava formations, and we got to see the lava flowing into the sea a couple hundred yards away. Not as close as you can get sometimes, but quite spectacular nonetheless.

We are in Pahoa Right Now

Ben writes:
Pahoa is also in Hawaii, but on the east coast of the Big Island. We got to this strange hippie farm yesterday, and we'll be here until we leave for NZ on the 10th. There is not much to report yet. The pictures will tell it better, and those (along with many) will most likely get posted when Ben gets to the house he is house-sitting in Wellington, NZ (yes, a new twist! all in good time...).
Our accomondation is our tent set up on a platform under a tin roof. It's a bit cramped. We have not yet identified any real crops, but there are animals around, mostly the goats, who are incredible-looking. Again, be patient. Pictures are coming.
The deal here is that for the first 3 days, we pay a few bucks, but do no work, so we are wandering around. Last night, we arrived to a pirate party for Halloween, and Ben got to take out his accordion for a bit, and we drank grog with the other pirates. Today, we walked to the ocean, and a guy from the party showed us a natural hot pool (warm, actually) just a few feet from the beach.
There is a lovely old dog who sleeps near our place. She is literally mangey, but we've been told not to worry about it. The other folks at the farm seem friendly, but we don't have a good sense of them yet. We'll tell you more soon.