We've been taking a little break from WWOOFing for the past few weeks and some wonderful adventures have ensued. From Christchurch we treated ourselves to two nights at a little hostel out in Seacliff called The Asylum. It's a former Insane Asylum. The building that housed the patients has since been demolished, but it used to be the largest building in New Zealand. But the former bakery, office, powerplant, and a few doctor's houses remain and these make up the backpacker's. The fellow who runs the place also collects antique cars and revamps them (some more than others) so three buildings are filled with running, close to running, and nowhere near running vehicles. In among these wander four big brown horses, a cat named Diesel, and a few chickens.



From there we ventured into the city of Dunedin. We met up with Aschel and spent a magical evening on the beach following glow worms along the shoreline and singing by the fire in the biggest cave I've ever been in. When we returned to her house, her housemates were uber cutely cuddled up in the fort they'd turned the livingroom into. Awwww.



Then off we were to Te Anau to fulfill Goal: Trek. We hiked the full four day Kepler Track. I am convinced we found Dinotopia. The bush was full of moss and ferns. The second day of hiking was spent mostly above the tree line among the tussock grasses and at the mercy 100k wind gusts. For survival we teamed up with an Israeli fellow, a Brazilian agricultural student, and a woman from the UK. We stumbled along and chatted when the wind forced us to sit. We had a great time sharing stories and views on and off the mountain. We beat my rainbow siting record! Day 2 had two rainbows! Which I guess isn't surprising when you consider the fact that it was windy, sunny, and sprinkling (Oh New Zealand). Day three had another rainbow and was pretty wet, which brought out the waterfalls. And day 4 was wonderfully sunny again. On day four we thought we heard a kiwi, but it turned to be just a bunch of ducks (phooey). Apparently kiwis mate for life and at night you can hear the high-pitched male call out to the female who responds in a husky voice.

After Kepler we headed out to Gore where we stayed with a lovely Catholic family and worked in a community garden that the wife is a part of. The idea is that the garden feeds low-income families in the area, but Gore is still pretty rural, so they've found that there's not much demand for use of the space or the vegetables. But they do donate what they don't eat to organizations like the Salvation Army that distribute food. We were only there 4 days, but in that time we met Father Tom, from their church who wanted to meet us out of excitement and curiosity about Quakers. He has done a lot of work in prisons and had met an interesting group of Quakers in England who he saw doing some great work with prisoners. We were also introduced to the Transitional Initiatives movement. Transitional Initiatives deals with issues related to Peak Oil and generally how to be ready for it. Apparently these groups have meetings all over the world. It was wonderful to see the way this family were really involved in the Catholic tradition of doing good works.

Then we headed back to Dunedin to pick up a rental car relocation and we (dun dun da dun!) drove on the left side of the road!! We had 48 hours to take this car to Greymouth (a 10 hour drive max) and all we had to pay for was fuel. So we first stopped at Shag Cove where we huddled on the edge of a cliff for half an hour to see a penguin. And we did, we saw exactly one penguin stumble out of the water and hop from rock to rock until it reached the beach grasses. It was very cute and well camouflaged. From there we drove up to Wanaka where we spent a night in the worst hostel ever, but it was the only one open past 8pm. So we fell asleep in our ten bed bunk room to the lovely base booming from the bar below. From Wanaka we meandered up to Fox Glacier stopping to master a maze, do some pretty picture taking (the west coast is absolutely amazing, I don't know how to describe it - mountains and rivers and ocean and the bluest water you've ever seen). We found this lovely river flowing under a bridge over massive boulders and hopped down to it. One day we will post photos and you will be able to understand what I'm talking about. We stopped for the night in Fox Glacier where we met some wonderful Frenchman who've been exploring New Zealand from their gang colored van (they discovered red and black are gang colors in these parts after repainting their van) and made Quinoa porridge for the first time. In the morning we checked out....Fox Glacier. It's a massive glacier, but we saw a nice little corner of it peaking around the mountains. We thought we'd be able to walk up to it, but there had recently been floods and slips (avalanches in kiwi), so the path was closed for the time being. We had to have the car to Greymouth by 3:30 so we were a little more determined in our driving, but did manage to take time out to visit a Maori art gallery with beautiful carvings made out of the oldest whale bone around. In Greymouth we stayed at the Shortbread backpackers (we tried to get to the Gingerbread house, but the bus driver didn't seem to understand the difference). We were reunited with 'Mericans who knew at least where Maine was. It was the first time I'd been in a backpackers that felt like a home, it was just a house full of people making food and watching tv and the owner left cookies on our pillows - all very cute.

Now we are in Motueka at an ecovillage in the making. We are staying in a house with a teeny kitchen and 6 other people (two of them 6 year olds). We're eating mostly from the garden and heating with wood. It's an interesting place. We cook our own food here, and I've found it an important reminder of what food one can get locally and how bountiful of a diet can be made. I'm excited to be settled enough to eat locally on a more longterm basis.

That's the news from here so far. On Tuesday we'll head towards Wellington. On May 20th we're going to start WWOOFing at a place in the Northlands that should have some interesting projects going. On May 27th we'll be reunited with the first hosts we stayed with and on May 31st we fly back. It's been a great adventure.