people are cool. i managed to fall into another mini-wwoof, for my days off last week at the cafe, and it was PERFECT. so perfect that i'm doing it again this week.the cafe has been moderately slow this week, but the baking continues (cookies and cakes galore). today i got a crash course in the super fancy coffee machine to pass the time. it has been new zealand's school holidays for the past two weeks, and we had hoped that we would be getting flooded with holiday visitiors, but we think the weather (dark and stormy) is keeping people home by their fires.
back to the mini-wwoof... so, i met bexie, a 27 year-old from the states, in the cafe 2 weeks ago. we got to chatting and she told me about this amazing property that she and her partner (they don't say "boyfriend" or "fiance" here) are developing into an eco volunteer retreat. the property is a 30 minute drive north of coromandel town on the coast just north of kennedy bay (on the peninsula's east coast). she said that if i was interested they would love to have me come help out and plant trees and mulch and garden with them on my days off. so, on monday night her partner jon picked me up on his way home from thames. the getaway vehicle; a jam packed land rover with 2 dogs, bike parts, boots, shovels, metal striping, wood and buckets, towing a trailer loaded up with about a ton of mulch (literally), some timber, sea weed and drift wood. luckily jon knew the road well as my life passed before my eyes riding shotgun at 45 mph on a hilly-windy-single lane-gravel road in the dark. on the ride out to their house in tuateawa i learned that jon had grown up on the coromandel peninsula, spent some time in australia, has traveled extensively, had his own eco volunteer adventure program outside of thames for 10+ years, and has recently moved back to the coromandel to relocate said eco volunteer adventure program back to the coromandel.
the eco volunteer adventure program: jon, and bexie, host volunteers on their property or at their house for a small fee, the guests help with planting/pruning/cooking/gardening/etc. and jon and bexie guide the volunteers on adventure trips like trekking, rafting, kayaking, mountain biking, etc. it gives the volunteers a chance to give back to the program and learn about permaculture practices while seeing rugged new zealand and getting the personal tour.
being winter, right now is the slow season for the volunteer part, and time to get some good work and ground work done on "the land." jon and bexie live in a cabin (old beach side holiday home) 10 minutes drive from their property ("the land" = 12 acres of beautiful grassy hills and a lil' river and a swamp... the future site of the program, their house, etc.). jon purchased "the land" 2 years ago - and it still needs a lot of soil work as it has previously been home to grazing cattle that don't do a whole lot in terms of making soil ready for planting. for now, jon and bexie (and volunteers and wwoofers) have planted over 1,000 various trees, some that will stay and some that will grow for a few years and then be moved or removed, to help get some nutrients back into the soil. a good section of "the land" will become fruit and vege gardens, there will be a fruit (orchard) bowl by the pond, chicken pens, sleep out cabins for volunteers and a barn that will house the community kitchen, lounge, prep areas, storage, etc.
wwoofing: the tasks at hand for this week were planting new sweet baby trees (eucalyptus, feijoas, and variuos acadias), mulching (putting handfuls of mulch around newly planted trees and some of the 18 month old trees that were planted 18 months ago (obviously)), rabbit repelling (painting the sweet baby trees with a plant based "stinky milk" that the rabbits won't come near), collecting fertilizer (crawling under a wool shed to collect sheep shit... yay!!!), visiting the saw mill for sawdust, roofing sleep out cabins, priming the interiors of said cabins and looking for good clumps of seaweed (also for fertilizer).
wwoofing plus: the three of us (and their 2 pups, ninya and evie) worked on "the land" for a few hours each day and afterwards we would take the pups to the beach (cold, yes, but the pups chased seagulls and swam like it was july... in the northern hemisphere), play cards, play settlers of catan, eat awesome meals (bexie is a stellar vegetarian chef) and watch LOST. bexie also gave me a private yoga session on wednesday morning in their office (which has a 180 degree view of the ocean and peninsula). on tuesday we went into colville - the smallest "town" ever - and on wednesday i randomly got us invited to dinner at the home of a girl who plays on mehow's basketball team...
in all, a great week and some awesome new friends that i look forward to helping out again (they pick me up for round 2 tomorrow night).
a link to allllll the tuateawa photos so far (there are lots of sweet baby tree photos for bexie) is above... (i hate links).
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