When last we left our travelers, they had just arrived in Wellington, an adorable little gathering of people and buildings and also the capital of our fair New Zealand. Wellington is on the southern tip of the North island and it requires a ferry to travel across to Picton, on the north end of the south island, so that is what we did. Wellington also has a wonderful museum- one of the best I've been to- about New Zealand in general. It's very multi-sensory and colorful and has a huge variety of exhibits on art, culture, history, science, sociology, technology, sculpture, etc. And it's free!
The ferry was lovely and very windy and also transporting a lot of sheep, as well as travelers, to the south. Recently the price of cows has gone up compared to the price of sheep in New Zealand (something like $5 for a kilogram of (live) cow vs. $3 for (live) sheep--I think), solots people are switching from sheep farming to cows to make more money.
We stayed one night in Nelson in an adorable little hostel where they gave us free ice cream and chocolate brownie pudding! We didn't quite believe the brochures, but it turned out to be true- free every night. The next day Susie, our wwoofing (http://www.wwoof .co.nz/) host came to pick us up and take us to her farm in Moutere, about half an hour north of Nelson. Susie and her non-husband because they are hippies own a 40 acre goat and sheep and vegetable farm that, in my opinion, in highly wonderful. The idea behind wwoofing is that volunteers (us) contact host farms, which are generally organic farms, and offer to work for 4-6 hours a day in exchange for free room and board. There are countries all around the world with wwoofing networks and one of their main goals is for volunteers to learn some of the principles behind organic farming while they are working at various farms.
Each day we began by feeding and milking thirteen goats (they have about 35 or 40 goats total, but only 13 get milked- the others are too young), which took around 1.5-2 hours depending on how well we could remember each step. We were lucky enough to use automatic milking machines, so it goes a lot faster, but it's still a process. After that we sometimes picked veggies or moved fences or cleared non-native weeds or cooked and then had lunch. In the afternoon we did similar chores to the morning and then the goats get fed again in the evening and three get milked again.
The yearling goats, male goats and baby goats also needed to be fed every day. The babies are highly adorable and were having a hard time adjusting to being fed three instead of four times per day. Our hosts, Susie and Kevin, moved from England 12 years ago, bought the farm in 2002 and became a wwoofing farm in 2007 and they are working toward becoming self-sustainable. Lots of the food we ate everyday they produced themselves, including all of the vegetables, fruits and milk. They also make their own bread, cheese and cereal and have an all around healthy attitude towards food and food production. And let me tell you, the food was delicious. mmmm. Eating so locally and freshly made me painfully aware of how little I know about the origins of my food in China and all the preservatives that are undeniably added.
Nelson and the surrounding are where they are located is known in NZ for having the most sunny days in the country, a reputation it lived up to. Their area also has frequent rainbows- we saw two the week we were there. The landscape is mostly rolling hills, and a few trees, but mostly pasture land for cows, sheep and goats. Since it's summer down south, the sun doesn't set until 9:00 or 9:30, so the evenings are long and the light lingers- quite beautiful.
So all around, my first wwoofing experience was a resounding success and I would highly recommend it. When we first arrived, they were surprised we were American and said they had expected Danish (for some reason). They were a bit disenchanted with Americans after having a couple from California that did not adjust well to farm animals and did not like dust. However, by the end of our stay Kevin said we were the best Americans they had hosted, and some of the best overall, so, yay! (Here is Kevin's blog: http://kevthefarmer.blogspot.com/ He and Susie are very into GE free New Zealand and think the best thing one can do to prepare for the future world is become as close to self-sustainable as you can.)
We were sad to leave the goaties and delicious food, but continued to forge south, moving down the west coast of the south island. But first! we went skhydiving! in Abel Tasman national park!
I was originally very opposed to this idea, but Stan put in great effort to convince me during the first two weeks and NZ is all about the extreme sports, so I had to do it. And, I'm glad I did, because it was glorious! the views were amazing and free-falling for over a minute is the closest I'll ever voluntarily get to flying. We jumped from 16500 feet and fell until 3000 feet in free fall and the parachute opened and we floated slowly to the ground.
Delightful.
Lots more pictures here:
http://nanjingchina.shutterfly.com/pictures
No comments:
Post a Comment