A Week in the Clouds

Joanna writes:

In case you are still harboring fantasies of colorful bears that shoot rainbows out of their tummies living on bouncy cotton clouds, we are sorry to report that these bears certainly do not reside in New Zealand. The clouds here are decidedly not cottony or bouncy. They are, in fact, rather cold and wet, but also visually appealing in their way.

Our intimate acquaintance with the clouds here began in Nelson Lakes National Park, where we finally did the very NZ backpacker thing of hiking up a mountain to a back-country hut and staying there overnight before hiking back the next day. We set off withh our very heavy packs (we had to bring our car-camping stove and pot) on an overcast morning, with the assurance that the weather was supposed to clear in the afternoon, but it never did. We entered a cloud about an hour before we reached the hut, and emerged from it sometime the next day. The hike was still a wonderful and beautiful experience, and I think our legs are much stronger now, too. This was Ben's first hike with a big pack, and the farthest either of us had ever hiked in two days (20 km in, 12 km out, much of it very steep!).

The hike turned out to be great preparation for our next WWOOFing situation, which was also on top of a mountain. We stayed with a wonderful family just outside the town of Kaikoura--Achim and Nicole and their children Felix (6) and Anna (3). We had our own private hilltop complete with cozy caravan, outdoor kitchen, "long drop" and goat. The goat, Ma, was nice company, and we just had to move her hut around so she could reach the nicest grass, and feed her our food scraps. See picture above.

The views from the hilltop were fantastic, but we spent the first 3 or 4 days completely inside of the clouds. One morning we woke up and discovered, to our surprise, that the clouds had cleared and there were huge, craggy, snow-capped mountains behind us. We could also see out to the ocean and the town and a lovely river wound its way past our mountain into the sea. Wow. I spent most of my working time weeding, though Ben got the chance to work with the young autistic son of a friend of the family.

Kaikoura is a small touristy town on the east coast of the South Island, famous for its whales and fur seals. We spent one afternoon poking around the coastline, found a fur seal sleeping on the rocks about 5 meters away from us, and saw orcas swimming remarckably close to us. They didn't jump or anything, but we saw their dorsal fins and the air from their blowholes. We also had one fantastically beautiful sunny day, and took a hike part way up Mt. Fyffe, one of those snow-capped craggy mountains. We also took a swim in a gorgeous little swimming hole in the river below our mountain--most of the water here is an amazing blue color due to the sediment in it, known as rock flour.

After Kaikoura, we spent a couple of days in Arthur's Pass National Park in the middle of the South Island, where we did a number of lovely hikes with incredible views. This picture shows us on top of Avalanche Peak (oooh). We then travelled quickly south via Queenstown, a backpacker party town where we attended a "beach party" (wooo!) at a local bar that included a very awkward wet t-shirt contest (I did not participate). Now we are all the way south in Riverton, WWOOFing at "Granma's Growers."

We have been in Golden Bay

Ben writes:
When last we updated the web log, we were in Picton, just about to drive to Golden Bay. Well, we did, and we stayed there for two weeks, and now we're even somewhere else. But one thing at a time:

We found ourselves on Christmas Eve in the beautiful home of Ali (Alex, dad), Ludo (son, 5) and Francis (son, 2.5). Annie (mom) lives down the road, and was in for the first day or two, but went to spend the holiday week with a friend, and we saw less of her after that. Their home is in Golden Bay, north of Takaka, the nearest town to speak of. It is, by some accounts, in the middle of nowhere, but it also happens to be a reasonable walk (30 mins) from the Mussel Inn, the bar in the middle of nowhere, which is where we spent several evenings, including New Year's Eve.

Golden Bay, like much of NZ, is really beautiful, and every place you can go there is beautiful in a different way. For the first few days, we did not get too far away -- we walked down the road, and along a few nearby beaches. Later, we explored Farewell Spit, which is pretty much the northernmost point on the South Island. The Spit itself is a huge arm of sand (like 40 km) reaching east into the water at the top of the bay. The beach was so simple -- wide open, with gray-yellow sand, and pretty dunes behind it -- but just perfect. We also hiked through sheep+cow fields which were those gorgeous rolling hills you see everywhere, and at the same time, overlooking massive cliffs down to the beach and ocean below. We saw sea lions on a beachy area down a ravine, and later came even closer to them on the beach -- two of them were bumping chests and playing, and only a reasonable respect for/fear of sea mammals kept us from joining them.

We also had some lovely forest hiking in Abel Tasman Park, which also lead us to a beach. The sands there truly are golden, and earn the place its name. And what else? A cave! Rawhiti Cave (or Manson Cave, depending on how you feel about colonial history and issues of biculturalism in NZ). It is just a huge gaping mouth of a cave, up a large hillside not too far from town. The stalactites are like big teeth, and once inside you notice that they also resemble serpents and monsters. There were no tunnels, just a big great opening that one could climb down a little way. But we could never get around the corner, where more mysterious darkness lay.

Ok, a few words about the farm and the house.
The farm is really just a large garden and a bunch of paddocks for the sheep, goats, and cows. Many WWOOF hosts in NZ have this arrangement, as opposed to being a proper farm.

Our work varied between a few projects:
-Weeding garden beds.
-Filling old tires with dirt and transplanting pumpkins into them.
-Making pickled plums (when it was rainy).
-Building fences for the goats and cows.

The last was our most recent, and fun in a satisfying to be completing something kind of way. We dug these great holes 60 cm into the ground, and then had to tamp down the soil around the wooden pole to which the gates will be attach. We also had practice bending and attaching wire, and pounding metal stakes into the ground. And we used math: in fact, we used the "fence-post problem" principal to solve a problem involving the fence-posts! Yes!

The boys. Ludo and Francis (we called him Franzi) are hilarious little guys. They are super full of energy. Ludo would often ask "who wants to play my game?" and then explain what kind of animal or character you were, and how you were related to Ludo (usually) and what you should be doing. We watched the boys all day on Jan 1 while Ali was out doing ambulance duty, and there was never a shortage of ideas for games. Franzi is really funny. He is sometimes hard to understand, as he is young, and he loves being chased and picked up, and will often say, Get Me to one of us, and then Help Me! to the other the second he is picked up. We like these boys a lot, and we miss them. Ali is a great dad, and a fun person to live with. He is soft-spoken, but has a great sense of humor, and he made us really nice food, including lots of fresh bread and scones.

As usual, I have written too much. Please know that Jo and I did a two day hike in Nelson Lakes National Park, and that we are currently living in a trailer on top of a mountain in Kaikoura. Details to follow.
Bye!