Category: New Zealand

Current Location: Blenheim, Aotearoa

I couldn’t have asked for a nicer ride between the two islands today. It was as calm as riding through Mille Lacs Lake except for a few big bumps in between. Other than that it was a perfectly normal ride, i’m guessing when I do the return trip in 5 months it will be a very different story as it should be winter by then. Should be fun! The ride through the fjords? into Picton was spectacular, a great way to herald the beginning of the south island.

A big thanks goes out to Alex for giving me a ride into Plimmerton where I spent the night before catching the train into town this morning and getting ready for the ferry. I decided I didn’t need to spend any time down there right now as i’ll be going through Wellington on my return and I can do all the hobbit tours then =D. I’ll also cycle my way out of Wellington instead of taking the train up to Paraparaumu as I found a few cycling maps of the greater Wellington area that will make my life way easier on the return.

The ride from Picton to Blenheim was great. With the tailwind I think I was averaging 27-30km an hour, fortunately or not Blenheim was only 26k out of Picton so it was only an hours ride. I met a couple of Dutch tourers yesterday who just finished up the south island and gave me a few pointers. One of which was to carry a lot more water at all times. They said that their map would often tell them a town was coming up and when they got there it ended up being only a crossroads with nothing to demark it as a town. And with distances between towns getting up into the hundreds of kilometers it can be a while before finding water. Which would then put me back to getting water from streams (I’ve only done it once so far. =D)

Getting into Blenheim camping ends up being more expensive than a hostel… I can’t believe it really but I guess it happens. But at the same time all, literally all, of the hostel beds are taken for the night so it ends up I’m camping the night away anyway. Tomorrow I’m just shooting for the Peddlers Rest, it’s a bicyclers only hostel… I’m quite excited.

Current Location: Martinborough, Aotearoa

Great day for a ride yesterday. The ride was basically downhill the whole way. I think I started at an elevation of 1000 ft and ended the day at about 400 ft so it was a breezy day for the most part. Wings over Wairapa was going on in Masterton which is a big air show held here. I caught a couple of old planes whizzing over me as I was riding but other than that I didn’t catch any other planes. Fortunately for me once I passed Masterton all the traffic was going the other way so it was overall a pleasant ride. I cut over after Carterton to the back roads to avoid any unnecessary traffic and found that an astronomical society here has built Stonehenge Aotearoa which I thought I could just walk around and take a few pics but they ended up bilking me outta $15. I’ve found that if I go outta my way to see something I am somewhat of a captive audience as if I’ve already gone that distance I might as well see what I went there for, anyway I got a few pictures but it did cost me some time so I got in a bit later than expected.

Met up with Alex today and helped out on the vineyard today for a while. As we both have talked about the first days are always pretty interesting since were learning new things. Our job today was to tuck in the vines into the wires surrounding them. I think at some point well go through and thin the leaves out so that the grapes can get some sunlight. I tried some of the not-yet- full-grown grapes… not so tasty yet. I managed to score a homemade pizza lunch out of Simon and his wife for helping out today (stellar pizza.) We did some wine tasting around town and had a time talking to the proprietors of some of the places. Everything in this town revolves around wine, I think every cafe, store, theater, etc… can serve wine and it seems every sign has something to do with wine, quite the wine culture here.

It was nice to be back in the hammock after a full month and a half lazing about in beds but my argument still stands that it doesn’t make all that much sense for me to camp when it is just as expensive to camp as it is to get a hostel (usually $2 or $3 difference,) though I must say that most cycling tourers camp so the possibilities of meeting other tourers is greater when I camp, so I guess for that reason i’ll keep camping.

A slight change to my itinerary as monday is Wellington day (each province? has their own holiday) and it happens to be Wellingtons on monday so I figure that might be the worst time to try get into town as the train only runs twice that day, once early in the morning and then again late in the afternoon which means I would be navigating in the dark to a hostel, so I’ll put it off an extra day and just head in Tuesday. That means South Island on Wednesday!

I see on newspapers that there is an outbreak of salmonella in peanut butter, oh cruel fate what am I to do now for sustenance? Maybe I’ll switch to Nuetella and bananas, that sounds delicious.

I’ll post more pics when I get to a real computer.

The (not so) secrets of cheese and butter making have been given to me today. It’s actually quite simple really, butter more-so than cheese. I’m sure Alastair will be glad to hear that butter making technology no longer requires 4 hours to make a pat of butter. Instead all that is basically necessary is a stand mixer and some 3 day old cream and beat it like crazy for about 30 minutes. After that, ta-da butter is ready. The cheese process is a little more involved but not terribly so. As Biddy said not much has changed in cheese making in the last several centuries so it isn’t that difficult. None the less it was fun to watch the whole process happen. I also meant to link Cheese & Trains in the last post but it completely slipped my mind so i’ve corrected that error.

Alex stopped by on his way through to Martinborough so he could get a look at the trains and taste some of the cheese. We went over to the Mt. Bruce wildlife reserve which is 3k from where I am currently staying. We got to see some kiwis, saw them feed some extremely large eels, and saw them feed some kaka birds. We also got in a hike up to the the top of Mt. Bruce but it wasn’t so nice as it rained. Hopefully tomorrow is better weather as I got a chance to stat at The Hut which is right next to Mt. Bruce so if I’m lucky I’ll get to hear the sounds of the kiwi at night (do they make sounds?) Should be a neat place to spend the night, sorta like camping without the difficult bits.

I am planning on leaving this Saturday for Martinborough where Alex has found his next wwoofing job on a winery there (a good excuse for me to visit another winery in New Zealand if I ever heard one.) After that I’m gonna shoot over to Wellington and finally make it across the strait to the south island, yippie. I broke out the maps to the south island last night and could hardly go to sleep, fairly strange but I can hardly wait to get to the south island and start cycling in earnest once again. Although I must say that the distance from Picton to Christchurch (where I am planning on staying for at least a few weeks is only about 400km so that basically means i’ll just be on the bike for a little less than a week. It’ll suffice, for now.

Current Location: Eketahuna, Aotearoa

I made the ride here last friday without incident and it turned out to be an easier trip than I had imagined it could have been. I added pictures of my time with Max, Jane, and Alex at the Dovetail Equine Trust. Thanks really does go out to Max and Jane for putting me up for a month and showing some really great Kiwi hospitality. I do have a correction to make regarding days off, our trip to Castle Point was the second free day I had while working on the farm there. The first one just happend to rain all day so it was spent indoors. We had a great time at Castle Point and i’m really glad Max and Jane took us out there as there is little chance I would have made it out there on my own (it would be a full day ride to get out there and a full day to get back.)

Now I find myself in the hospitality of Biddy and Collin (Cheese & Trains, respectively.) Biddy makes her own cheese from the 4 cows that she owns and pampers while Collin has a model train set that is open for the public to come in and see. I keep thinking that Alastair would enjoy it here as the cheese is free and really tasty (I belive it’s a traditional English cheese, don’t ask me which region.) The train set is really something fascinating as well and watching Collin control them is something to behold as he can conrol 4 trains simeltaneously. He also holds once a month an event where he has 6 train guys come in and control 4 different stations on his model railway and they have to follow a schedule, I can only imagine that it is quie amazing. I hope at some time to get to watch the cheese making process as well as the butter making as well. So far i’ve gotten to try curds (they really do squeak!) as well as milk fresh from the cow (unpasturized milk, what a concept. It was really quite sweet for milk.)

Anyway the work I find myself doing is scrub clearing once again (I do wonder if that will be my job throughout New Zealand, I guess time will tell) Today I started removing a blackberry encroachment and I have all the little cuts to show for it, i’ll be glad when this area is done.

As for riding I am now a day outside of Wellington, i’ll cycle to Featherston where I’ll catch the train into Wellington. I’m doing this on the advice of Max and Jane who tell me that the mountain between Featherston and Wellington is not something to be trifled with (lots of traffic, narrow roads, and a steep ascent/decent.) Once I get to Wellington i’ll probably sail over to the south island and make a break for Christchurch. That should put me in Christchurch by the early part of February, hard to belive that would make it 3 months i’ve been in New Zealand already.

That’s one of the more obscure phrases I’ve picked up from Max since being here. I think it basically means goodbye or see ya later. I figured it was a fitting title seeing as the year is coming to an end and I’m on my way to the next wwoofing opportunity (cheese and trains.) I got new tires from mom and dad for christmas so I’ll strap those on and get riding once again. Fortunately or unfortunately the ride is only about 80km from where I am now so it won’t be all that challenging, though I do have to cross the puketoi mountain ranges so that ought to make it an interesting ride.

Tomorrow will be the first day we’ve taken off since I arrived here shortly less than a month ago. We’re going to head out to a place called castle rock (it’s a beach about 2.5 hours down the way that’s a ways outta the way) We’ll picnic and hang out and I’d imagine Alex will try to get some rock climbing in and I’ll go on some hiking. It’ll be a terrific change of pace from hurling trees around. On the topic of tree hurling we didn’t get to finish the whole paddock clean of scrub (probably about 4 days shy of finishing the project) But we gave it a good go of cleaning. I’ve definitely left my mark on Wildside farms and some of Pongaroa. I definitely like the idea of wwoofing after being here and Branden hit the nail on the head with his comment about how the work balances out with life, it makes for leisurely days just about every day and I always feel like i’ve accomplished something. Definitely a positive experience.

Happy new years to all you out there, take care.

I’ll try to post some pictures tomorrow.

I was thinking recently about that statement and had to count on my fingers how many times I might have heard that in the last 8 months. I think the count comes to about 13 houses that I could consider being home (that’s just places where people opened their homes to me, not including hostels or motels, etc.) I find it to be a somewhat happy thought as I have been able to share in a lot of moments with people I normally wouldn’t have had the opportunity to had I not chosen the path that I have. It’s also a tremendous amount of trust given which is sobering and something I take quite seriously. While it seems somewhat normal for me to make myself at home while being in a wwoofers shoes i’ve come to understand what type of trust is given to me from what is more or less a complete stranger. That there is why I think I like the wwoofing idea so much, if I had just a regular job there would be less interaction between me and the employer where instead i’m treated like a member of a family. In any case, thanks goes out to everyone who sheltered this lost dog and for all the great times.

On a separate note I’ve wanted to write for a while at the complete lack of American travelers here in New Zealand. By far the majority of travelers that i’ve met have been German, Dutch, and Swiss (in that order.) But as things happen I was joined about a week ago by another wwoofer from California by the name of Alex. He’s become our resident artist and at some point he is going to teach me to play backgammon (he created the board already.) He’s also a rock climber who’s on the lookout for boulders. As I was talking to him about rock climbing I told him I met a guy Eddie that worked for Disney that climbs all over the rides and makes sure that they are safe (I met him on my Pacific Coast ride.) As it turns out Alex used to work with Eddie which just goes to show you how small a world we live in.

The plan at the moment is to hang out at this place until the beginning of the year then I’ll be moving on to another wwoofing opportunity where I’ll be learning to make cheese and butter by hand (sounds interesting to me.) The reason I’ll be staying put a while longer is that everyone in New Zealand is on summer break so campgrounds, hostels are all booked up so I’m just going to avoid that rush until the middle of January when they go back to school and I’ll get on the bike in earnest once again.

Also just wanted to say Merry Christmas to all, have a cup of hot cocoa for me and be happy.

I got loaned out to the sheep farmer next door as help was needed there and I wasn’t doing anything particularly exciting. Our job for the day was to separate the lambs from their mums and then to weight the lambs to see which were big enough to go to the freezing-works (sounds a lot better than the slaughter- house.) My job was to basically get them into the race and keep the line moving while the other guy drafted them into different pens (I think his job was easier than mine as lambs aren’t very keen on going where you want them to go since they don’t have their mum any more.) But after we had that all finished we had to put them back out to pasture to fatten up a bit more before the stock truck came to pick up the ready lambs. So that’s where I got to play as shepherd to a flock of sheep. All that was missing was my crooked staff.

More interesting to me while working there was seeing his herding dogs at work. After seeing them in action I can’t imagine another way of rouding up a bunch of sheep. To me it seemed as if he had invisible hands rounding up the sheep as his dogs are lightning quick. He has 5 dogs that mill around the back of his 4-wheeler just waiting for their turn to go to work. Each dog has their set of whistles (12 individual whistles per dog, each with a different timbre and pattern) Once the dog hears his whistle he blasts off and starts rounding them up. All the while Dave is whistling a complicated pattern of whistles (left, right, far right, far left, steady, come, run, bark, etc…) and they love their work it looks like. The dogs look like some mix of collie and greyhound and they sure make his life easier. So I had a lot of fun just listening to him whistle and the dogs instantly do what he wants, far better than making a dog roll over.

The temperature today is a balmy 22 degrees (celcius) so even thinking about christmas is a foreign thing right now. Life at the moment is quite uncomplicated as I don’t even know whats going on in the news apart from Max telling me tidbits of whats going on that he catches in the morning. My typical day has been for the last two weeks to get up around 6 and read for an hour, eat breakfast, work from 8 to half past noon then back up to shower and watch a movie then read a book until about 8 then dinner and then sleep at about 10, rinse a repeat. No worries.