Sunday’s Kapiti Adventure

Sunday, we went to the Kapiti Coast and we had a local guide, Philippa, take us around and show us the sights. We went to a fish and chips ‘take away’ (not ‘to go’) restaurant either in Paraparaumu and Paikakriki. I don’t remember which one. It’s not too important; I just wanted to show the names of the places I get made fun of when I try to pronounce them. We ate on the beach and enjoyed the view of Kapiti Island. Our guide told us a typical trip to the Kapiti Coast would involve sitting on the beach but the weather had a different idea.

So we took the opportunity to see the Lindale Center. The center had several local shops with Kapiti Cheeses, Kapiti Ice Cream, Kapiti Candy and New Zealand Honey. The real highlight of the trip was the Lindale Farms…



We splurged on the farm show and tour. The show started with the speaker talking about sheep and how dumb they are and difficult to manage…then the lambs were let in. They went running around chasing after the buckets of food and marking their territory on the concrete floor. Cute little fellews though. We were even allowed to pick them up. This was the hilarious part, basically you just grab their wool and pull them up. That’s it! It was hard for us to believe that it didn’t hurt them, but I guess its similar to how you pick up a cat, but just anywhere as opposed to just the neck. Crazy.





The farm had also been given some sheep that needed shearing. The presenter tried to sheer but only did a little since the sheep's wool was so heavy and thick. They were actually to the point where they are considered abused animals because it had been soo long since their last shearing (the individual who dropped them off will be getting a talking to). Guess which one’s they are in the picture:



We then went on the farm walk. We saw all sorts of pigs, goats, sheep, emu and deer. The favorite among the girls was the baby goat…



Here are some of the other animals on the farm...







I made a friend while the girls looked at the bunny rabbits:



I found a black board with a little more education on everyone’s favorite topic:



And to go along with the theme of the old man at the beach (and other trips):



Once we were all tuckered out from our farm experience we went to Mr. and Mrs. Fox’s house for a nice BBQ dinner and I was further educated on Rugby Union versus Rugby League



After dinner we picked up Matt from his family’s house (also in Kapiti) and headed home.

Around the Wellington Region

After returning from the trip, we had an uneventful few days working. The weather was pretty nice with exception to a bit of wind. I managed to get a picture of the Wellington White House Restaurant where I work, not to be confused with the Auckland White House or the official white house.



On Saturday, we went out to Scorching Bay with Claire and Philippa to enjoy the sunshine and to get milkshakes. Marian also found a Princess Sparkle Face wall with lots of sparkly shells. Here are the girls with the wall…



Here is a good pic of the beach…unfortunately there is a creep in the way…



And here is the other lovely view we found on the beach. I can’t wait to be old and senile and willing to walk around like this…

YAH, Long weekend in Napier and Te Urewera National Park

Well, after all this working, we needed a break. We headed on Sunday to Napier to see the art deco city of New Zealand. Guess what they had:



John had to get a photo! Anyways, basically Napier was razed back in the day when there was an earthquake….right before the Depression actually. Art deco was huge and a lot of the city was rebuilt in that fashion. I had to look it up when I got back, but Art Deco is basically a movement during that time where geometrical patterns were popular, and people were interested in all of the archeology taking place in ancient lands – so influences of African, Mexican and Greek cultures snuck in as well. I didn’t read this explicitly, but it appears that many of the colors were pastel as well. Here are some art deco buildings we walked by on our walking tour.









At the end, I was a little disappointed because we were supposed to see a “toothy mermaid” according to my guidebook, but as you can see there is nothing toothy or mermaidy about her!



Instead it was a Maori legend about girl who fell in love, went out to the sea and tried to return to her lover but was turned into the reef. I’m probably missing parts of that story – but no teeth or mermaids involved. I’m sorry, its just disappointing when you are expecting something like this:


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So anyways, the city was pretty cute though (it even had OPOSSUM WORLD!), and we hiked up to a viewpoint where got a few photos of everything as well.







We then headed North to Te Urewera National Park. The name literally means, “burnt penis” in Maori. Evidently, its based off of a famous chief who was sleeping by the fire one night, and rolled over and well….Te Urewera. At any rate, the park did not resemble its name, luckily, and was pretty amazing. We went on four hour loop up to Lake Waikareiti and through some bush and back. By the end, my heels were a little sore and I had started to get a little whiny. Good thing we saw all these cute frogs on the walk to keep me excited!



Here are some of the other sites from the walk:








When we headed back to use the restroom, we were told by some fellow campers to check out Lou’s Lookout, which was only a half an hour hike. Here are some photos we snapped at the top.





That 30 minute hike was actually better than the six hour one! There were crazy rock formations (think Indiana Jones) all the way up, and great views.





We lucked out the days we were camping as well, and had no rain. Yes, weather is turning here and we are sad about it. : (

Living on Our Own and More Work

We moved into our new house with our new flatmates Lucy, Claire, Philippa and Matt.

Here are John, Matt ant Philipa:


Here’s Claire:


Here is Matt again with Lucy hiding from the camera:


We are living in the Mt. Cook area, which is close to Newtown. The day after we moved in the Newtown Street Fair was going on. There we saw a few street performers, visited a few shops and got some food. Here is one of the street performers. This sexy man swallows swords and also walks and lies on broken glass bottles. Here he is:





Like most performers, he is a lot of talk and little show. We also ran into the Adams Family at the fair as well with Becky. Here is Henry trying to be a hamster in a pool.



The rest of the week John worked and I got a few more trial jobs. One at a café across the street from the local hospital and the other is at the beginning of Newtown called Velox. I enjoyed feel of the Velox Café and the owner John who is a musician that came back from New York a few years ago from his band Bailter Space. I also got a few more trial shifts at the second café.



Recovering from the another bad job, and getting the heck outta town

Things have now more or less finally settled in, but I had a bad feeling about the café across from the hospital. There were probably 6 or 7 people, who, when they heard I was trialing there said, “I heard that owner is a (not cool guy.)” Hmmm….that is not a good sign. Plus some people training me had long fingernails.



Which I always associate with drug use = not good. There was no hand soap next to my sink at the espresso bar, and the rag used to wash off tables was just dry and sitting on a shelf – no cleaning solution. After two days of trialing, I realized no one enjoyed working there, and decided that that was enough signs and that I ought to resign before I got in too deep. I went in to speak to the manager, but called on their work phone as he was out. I was told that me resigning was like a “kick in the nuts” and that I should “just go” before a dead line told me I had just been served….i.e. hung up on.

Guess what!? I don’t regret leaving that place either.

On the pleasant side, my job at Velox and Two Souls and John’s job at the White House (which will look quite impressive on his resume when we return “White House: February 2010 – “,) were exponentially increasing in job satisfaction and happiness. We were finding our chis in Windy Welly! John from Velox is a rad guy, who is fun to talk about music with and genuinely just a nice person that wants to employee me, perhaps more than he should, and serve good coffee. We always have a fun time working together and the work environment is negative stress. The White House actually has decent tips considering the country, and John occasionally gets to drink leftover $170 bottles of wine! Nutso.

I also put up some flyers in local schools for Spanish tutoring and help, and have yet to hear back other than one interested party, but we will see.

That Monday, we headed out to Rivendell Kaitoke Regional Park. This is where a lot of scenes from Lord of the Rings were filmed for Rivendell. We saw a lot of Pukekos as we drove in. They are these amazingly colorful and beautiful birds. Here is a pic:



Although we tried, we actually ended up hiking around a different part of the park than where they filmed Rivendell, so we will have to go back another day. Here are some pictures from the hiking and the Great River Anduin (different than filming locations):

Finally a Home! And First Employment in Over 2 Months

The week started with my first day of work in over 2 months. I first had to buy the appropriate cloths because my shorts or jeans would not cut it for a fine dinning establishment. The first night of work went well. While I felt a little overwhelmed I made it through the day and decided to keep working there through the week.

Early in the week we decided that we wanted to live with the 3 girls we met on Sunday. We were going to call them but before we had a chance our new roommate Lucy called Marian and let her know they wanted us to live with them because we were their favorite choice (hurray they liked us!!). We agreed to move in at the end of the week. Here's our new place:



As the week continued I balanced working at The White House and Wwoofing. Marian continued looking for more work and playing a game on my phone called ‘push block’. The weeks wwoofing tasks included finish demolishing the spare room in the garage, working in the greenhouse, more composting, taking rubbish to the dump, and running the cheese shop for a day. Before we knew it, the week was over and it was finally time to move out on our own. We had enjoyed our time at the Adams house but it was time to part ways, as we did not want to over stay our welcome.

At the end of the week we also went to Justus’s going away party.