Thanksgiving in the Rainforest

We arrived in the little settlement of Punakaiki and were immediately amazed by the change in scenery. I've mentioned this before, but the diversity of the New Zealand landscape never ceases to surprise me. Coming from the dry, rolling hills of Murchison, the vivid green slopes of the West were about as shocking as it gets. We had officially entered the rainforest.

Our wwoofing placement was at a place called Te Nikau Retreat. It's a series of secluded lodges, all separated enough from each other that they felt truly isolated within the rainforest. Being a guest there would be fabulous.

This retreat somehow functions while completely depending upon unpaid work. The team of housekeepers is made up of only wwoofers, with only four paid staff members keeping things running. In other words, us wwoofers had loads of work to do every day -- always 4-5 hours of housekeeping work, not to mention the two extra hours of baking some mornings as well as cooking for up to ten people in the evenings. Te Nikau Retreat comes unpleasantly close to surpassing the 6-hour daily work limit wwoofers (or technically HelpX-ers, in this case) are supposed to have.

Luckily, our wwoofing team was awesome, and our disgruntled attitude at having been misled helped us all become fast friends. We managed to have a fun time joking about forming a "wwoofer's union" and sneaking tea breaks when the managers weren't looking. In other words, we turned a weird situation into something fun.

Another perk at Te Nikau Retreat was learning how to bake muffins and "German" bread (which, according to German wwoofer Shirley, is nothing like typical German bread). Cooking in the evenings was less fun and more burdensome, but once again we wwoofers came together to cook as a team every night, which defied the management's expectations of having one of us cook alone at a time. We were apparently "breaking all the rules," according to one manager.

I have to say, I did love the little community we'd formed in our cozy staff house, and the staff meals were a big part of that. Since two of us were American (the other one being Kate from Colorado, whom I bonded with early on when we assigned Harry Potter characters and places to the various people and locations of Te Nikau), our group decided to celebrate Thanksgiving altogether as a "family," something that I was indeed very grateful for. We even had pumpkin pie!

Kate and our glorious Thanksgiving meal.

By the end of our two weeks we had managed to do all sorts of cool things despite the frequent pouring rain. We left on a good note, vowing to see our friends Kate and Shirley again soon.

Horses outside the local tavern.

The only photo taken during the world's rainiest hike.

Dejan is so kneady.

Toby, the lazy rainforest cat.

Hunnah, the well-fed rainforest cat.

The musicians of the weekly jam session at the local tavern.

The pancake rocks.

Pancake rocks

The most famous of the pancake rocks

Pancake rocks

Pancake rocks

Near the pancake rocks

Flashback: An Unexpected Arrival

I woke up on the morning of April 19th, trying to blink away the remnants of the previous night, which had perhaps included too much beer and too little water. I had an appointment scheduled for that morning with someone who was going to show me her apartment up for rent. Since Dejan was going to come in a few weeks, I was going to try and secure a place for us to stay.

I checked my phone and saw it: a message from Dejan. He had been in Amsterdam for the weekend, so I hadn't heard much from him lately. But then he sent me a couple pictures that most certainly were not taken in Amsterdam.

Flashback: The Breakfast Club

We arrived safely in Wellington after a pleasant ferry ride. We were greeted by rain, wind, darkness, and the sounds of a lively city. After a month living on farms, we were absolutely overwhelmed. We tried to keep ourselves together as we found our way to our new hostel...

After a struggle with the buses and incompetent bus drivers that I'd rather not talk about, we finally found our way to the hostel, WorldWide Backpackers. This is by far the best hostel we stayed in during our travels in New Zealand. At first glance it looked small and maybe a bit old, and our first room was unfortunately extremely small. But the hostel had an inexpensive weekly rate, and it boasted free wi-fi and breakfast, which is just about impossible to find in New Zealand backpackers.

The next morning we woke up exhausted and still overwhelmed. After having weeks of quiet time on the farm, suddenly being surrounded by people EVERYWHERE made us feel crowded and uncomfortable. I never thought I would dislike meeting people, but I swear that morning I was determined not to speak with anyone new.

There was only one problem with this plan: WorldWide Backpackers has only one big dining table that everyone has to crowd around. Like it or not, Mariah and I would either have to sit next to strangers, or we would have to not eat. And, given our current financial state, not eating a free breakfast wasn't gonna cut it. So we sat down in whatever seats we could find. I began to eat silently, avoiding eye contact with everyone but Mariah.

But then, to my horror, the guy sitting in between us began to speak.

Flashback: WWOOFing in Blenheim

Sooo.... I've neglected my blog lately. What else is new? Now that I've had time to catch my breath (more on that later), I've decided to dedicate some time to catching up. There's a lot to catch up on, I know...

Let's flash back to Blenheim. Besides the Daily Pupdate and our stint with NASA (you're welcome for that), how much have I really told you about our WWOOFing experience? Surprisingly little, given the fact that it was about so much more than puppies... Good thing Mariah kept up-to-date.

Working on this farm let us see so many things in action. We helped on their vineyard, helped with the sheep herding, helped feed the animals (including puppies, cattle, and pigs), and we nervously removed eggs from some hens that looked ready to peck our hands at any moment.

On the Road to Queenstown

Saturday (Jan. 31)
We struggled to get going and find someone to pick us up, since there was almost no traffic going through tiny Franz Josef at 12:30 in the afternoon. After maybe 25 minutes someone finally picked us up--a nice Canadian dude by the name of Mike.

Mike was also backpacking around, but just for 3 weeks, so he enjoyed spontaneously stopping at nice viewpoints which, of course, we appreciated. Here are some of the sights we saw during our drive south: