sleepy coromandel town

peace and quiet. that's all you'll get in coromandel town in the winter.

i arrived just after 5:30p on thursday via the bus from auckland. the ride up the coast, through the town of thames and winding along the shore north was gorgeous and the sun was out and shining for most of the trip (still a chilly temp, though). the bus driver dropped me off at the corner of driving creek road, just past the "downtown" part of coromandel town (that you will miss if you blink or sneeze or look the wrong way), and i walked the 50 meters up the road to the driving creek cafe.

mehow, the owner and my new boss, was just getting in the car to leave when i rolled up. he managed to give me the penny tour in about 5 minutes and told me to make myself comfortable, another wwoofer would show up some time in the night, and that he would be back in the morning. um, ok. so, i'd be living in a cafe. alrighty.

the cafe is on the outskirts of town, on the way to the driving creek railway - and it seems that during the winter the train tours are the only tourist draw to the town - so customers are often either on their way to, or coming from their train ride. we get a few regular locals but so far it has been pretty quiet. the cafe is cute and cozy, there is a wood burning stove in the main room and some comfy couches off to one side. there are good windows for natural light and a front patio and garden seating (more for the summer).

the menu is strictly vegetarian and 90% organic and it is all really delicious. so far my jobs have been taking orders, doing dishes, cleaning, making smoothies, baking cookies and helping anna sarah with meal prep. on sunday i got to make melting moments, which are delicious little butter cookie sandwiches with butter cream filling... so good!

the crew is mehow on the coffees, craig (wwoofer from england) and i on dishes, orders and smoothies and anna sarah as the cook. we are only open friday, saturday, sunday and monday during the months of june and july but will open back up for 7 days a week mid-august.

raglan: a very new zealand halloween

um, where to begin? first of all, bare with me as i´m using a spanish keyboard at the moment (all those accent keys are in the wrong places)...

the last post left off as i was spending the night in auckland before heading southwest to the surf town of raglan, in search of... something new. what i found in raglan was a mix of new and familiar and really, too much fun!

i booked myself on the 8am bus from auckland to hamilton which necesitated packing up and leaving the hostel early and hauling the worldly possessions (i´m traveling with a backpack and small roller) from the hostel to the bus depot, about 6 blocks up hill. the bus to hamilton was about an hour and a half ride and uneventful other than staring in somewhat shock at the young mother sitting across the isle from me who proceeded to feed her 2 year old daughter several varieties of candy for the duration of the trip... at just past 8 in the morning.

in hamilton i had several hours to kill before the 3'40 bus to raglan so i stuffed my bags in a locker and decided to have a walk around. the bus depot in hamilton is on the west side of the river and that area is mainly populated by a stadium and several shopping centers, cafes, pubs, etc. while the east side of hamilton is quite nice and houses the university, the hamilton gardens and the hospital, in addition to the nicer neighborhoods full of charming little homes with picket fences. i strolled along the river walkway, had lunch at a great little cafe called metropolitan and went to the local art house/gallery before heading back to the station.

the bus to raglan, is actually more like a school bus than a city bus. the bus pulled up to the station and 50 high schoolers got on along with 2 other backpackers and some quite elderly couples. the bus driver was older than dirt (and drove the whole way with only 1 of his hands on the wheel). the ride from hamilton to raglan was another windy 40 minutes west, through countryside and trees and past many, many sheep (of course). once in raglan i asked the driver which stop i should get off at if i was heading to the solscape backpackers - he laughed and said the library but that the stop is no where near the backpackers... i asked if it was a far walk... he laughed again and said yes - there would be no walking. 'you might be able to hitch a ride' said the bus driver. 'alrighty, i´ll give it a go,' said i. so, i popped into the first shop, a sort of surf themed boutique and asked for directions (if i was going to hitch i should sure as hell know where i was trying to hitch to) and lucky me, i asked joshua and his girlfriend whitney. my good luck would have it that they were closing up the shop in about 15 minutes and would be happy to give me a lift (the backpackers is 6km outside of town which would be about an hour, hour and a half walk with bags) as they were headed in that direction anyway. i was beyond grateful and took them up on the offer -they were both super nice and actually were born and raised in the part of wellington that i had stayed previously (mo - they live just down the street from your place in melrose) and he was studying international relations at the university in hamilton and she was working in the shop in raglan for the winter.

off we went to the solscape eco-retreat, which i had booked ahead for friday and saturday nights when i had been in auckland. the description online did not do the place justice (or advise how far out of town the place actually was - making it slightly difficult to manage without a car). solscape sits on a hill, overlooking the ocean, a 15 minute trek down to the beach. the backpackers itself is made up of 15 someodd old train cars that have been converted into bunkhouses, a few teepees and several campsites, with a common building that is on solar power in the center (with showers, toilets, kitchen and woodburning stove for all to enjoy). i checked in and managed to have my own room for the first night (but would be joined for the second). in the kitchen i found the normal buzz of dinner time but for the FIRST time since i arrived i heard that all to familiar american accent!!! i was not the only kid from the us of a... there were 4 of us, plus a bus load of teenage canadian boys, a girl from china, a girl from germany, several aussies, a dude from uruguay, a guy from chile and a gal from the uk. turns out everyone was there to surf and relax and most of the folks had been there for quite a while (several weeks or more). although i was the newbie and was only there for the weekend, i was welcomed right in and felt right at home.

saturday morning i chatted with reception, in addition to being an unconventional backpackers/hostel, they also take wwoofers to work in the hostel, tend the gardens, do building, etc. so i got the application to come back in august after the other wwoofing i have already lined up. at breakfast i met summer (china) and anna (germany) who were heading out of town via the market and had a car, and offered me a ride. so i went into raglan with them and we hit it off well and we got coffees on the sidewalk and talked about travel and work (they both work at the yha in auckland) and making friends, etc. once they were on their way i decided to have a look about town - went over to the information center and asked about some of the treks in town, poked into some shops and found the best little organic market where i stocked up for the weekend. it had been quite nice out when i left but of course, in true new zealand fashion, it began pouring for a good chunk of an hour - and i had left my jacket up at the backpackers... so i found the library and read out the rain. once it let up, if figured it was time to try and make it back up the hill to solscape, and parked myself on the corner and stuck out my thumb... the third car picked me and my groceries up, driven by a very nice older man (not scary) who worked for the fishery department and needed to check the water out beyond solscape. not 2 minutes down the road and the sky opened up and started pouring again, so there i was testing that good luck, and it not letting me down.

back at solscape, i unpacked the groceries, met the new roommate, brawny from adelaide, and set on making dinner. dani, from vermont/new hampshire who sorta lives at solscape with her fiance nelson, was busy making herself a wonder woman costume for the evening... apparently it was halloween (i had no idea). dani and katie (a 9 week solscape wwoofer from wisconsin) had decided that to celebrate the coming of winter in the southern hemisphere that a halloween party should be thrown. originally the locale was going to be down on the beach below solscape but with rain in the forecast the party was moved into town at their friend john´s house... and everyone was invited - costumes were mandatory. with only a few hours to figure something out my roommate and i looked into our bags, and eachother´s bags, and managed to pull off a gypsy (me) and a german farm girl (brawny) and we joined in the fun. in attendance from solscape were wonder woman, amazon woman, the mad hatter, roller derby girl, purple people eater, baby, starsky and hutch and an afganistan bomber... knowing the time frame and the available props made all of this quite impressive. the party was fun, the house was awesome, the people were very friendly and quite fun to talk to. by somehow i ended up playing the role of the dd (on the wrong side of the road) and managed to drive a well-loved station wagon full of 8 drunkards in costume from the house party to the yacht club (dance club) where we shut the place down, and then back up to solscape where we fired up the kitchen for the 3am snacks.

on sunday, i put on the wetsuit and got myself in the water to do what they do in raglan, which is surf. i signed up for a lesson (because of those confidence issues i have) and managed to catch a few waves (and yes, stand up) in the swirly-whirly-stormy tazman sea. the water was much warmer than i had imagined and once the rain stopped and the wind died down it wasn´t half bad. back at solscape i asked reception what the chances were of me getting to cambridge from raglan before noon on monday - reply: excellent, no problem. so i booked another night in the caboose. sunday afternoon continued with rain-sun-rain-sun and resulted in about 100 games of ultimate canadian jenga (played where you can only remove outside blocks) and ultimate scrabble (played without a board and sort of played by yourself to see how many words you can make on your own, starting with 7 tiles and grabbing another 2 when any player has used all of their tiles).

monday morning: the bus from raglan to hamilton left from the library at 7, which meant i could be on the bus from hamilton to cambridge at 10:30. i got up at 5:30am and sorted my stuf out to be on the road, with my thumb out at 6:15am. being monday morning and on the road that connects a lot of the farms to the town of raglan, i was told i should have no problem making it on that 7am bus (6km away). cars passed by, i waved my thumb at them, i flashed my headlamp at them, i smiled... no one wanted to pick me up. i started walking, i got laughed at by several cows... i got some waves. no ride. finally, at 7:10am, the luck gods shined down on me again in the form of larissa, a midwifery student at the university in hamilton, and she PICKED ME UP and offered me a ride alllllll the way to hamilton! i couldn´t believe it. she was happy to have company, she was also 28, and had traveled a lot in her life (originally from brazil). i couldn´t not have been any happier and we chatted the whole way and beat the bus to hamilton that i was suppose to be on!

and thus ended my first stay in raglan - but i guarantee it won´t be the last as it was so quiet and calming and the ocean was so incredibly beautiful and the people were so friendly... and i´m feeling the urge to hitch-hike again (you never know who you will meet!)!!!

next post: the osmond farm and my first wwoofing experience!

the arrival

greetings from the future!
(i promise that will be the last time zone humor)

i have arrived in the southern hemisphere in good order, with all my stuff, and with very little jet lag. first stop was the city of sails, auckland, which sits three quarters of the way up on the north island. there are about 1.6 million people in greater auckland; there are more people in auckland than allllll of the southern island.

auckland:
auckland is a city with tall buildings a beautiful harbor and lots of cars. the proper downtown portion of it is similar to any other city you may have been to: shops and hotels and souvenir shops and restaurants and buses and cars, etc. i checked into the auckland city yha (hostel) early on wednesday morning and walked around with a girl, kim from canada (canadian kim; not to be confused with new kim, old kim, kimberley or paige's kim), who followed me to the hostel from the airport. we walked down queen street (main street of downtown) to the harbor and around high street and lorne street (poshy downtown shops and restaurants and such). around 2 we parted ways with plans to meet on thursday morning for the harbor cruise/ferry to rangitoto and i set off for the market for the backpacker's staples: bread, pasta, eggs, milk, tea, jam, honey, peanut butter, tomatoes, mushrooms, cheese and tofu - all in single person quantities, of course. the hostel suggested the asian market up on k street (also known as pub row), which was a block up and over from the hostel. i found it easy enough - right where the desk attendant said it would be - through the asian food court off the street and through the back door of the fruit stand at the back of the foodcourt - like walking through the food court of a mall to get to the trader joe's... i stocked up on the list and i was set for the week in breakfast/lunch/snacks/etc.

on thursday morning the harbor cruise left at 10:15am so i picked canadian kim up at her hostel, we grabbed coffees, and made our way to the harbor. the harbor cruise was well worth the price of the ticket (NZ$35) as it took us from the downtown city harbor, out to the island of rangitoto, around devonport, under the auckland bridge, through the ship building docks and back to the harbor plus a second round trip to devonport at any other time. the captain called out points of interest and harbor facts and america's cup facts and other oddities to note. the weather held out well, and despite always looking like it is going to rain (so far) it actually didn't rain my whole stint in auckland.

on thursday night i headed over to the auckland museum for "late at the museum" - a monthly event that combines live music, a symposium on a various topic, a bar, and entry into the museum. the museum is a combo of a natural history museum and a maritime war museum, and during "late" only the natural history exhibits are open - but they were lovely and i was not disappointed at all. the live music was a guy by the name of steve able, who played with niko case on her austrailian/new zealand tour last, and he put on a great, acoustic show in the lobby. the symposium was sort of a debate over standardized testing and national standards in education in new zealand - which was interesting but not very different from any of the issues surrounding the u.s. education system. the museum has a volcano simulator that gave me nightmares (you enter a mock-up of a standard living room in auckland, overlooking the harbor, and the currently dormant volcano on rangitoto blows it's lid shaking the house, spewing lava into the harbor and covering the city in several feet of ash - the humorous bit of the simulation is at the end they run through "things you can do to be prepared before and after a volcano eruption: 1. account for all family members, 2. account for all pets, 3. wrap all electronics in plastic...).

friday and saturday involved a lot of walking around the neighboring auckland districts of parnell (artsy-creative district on a hill to the east of downtown auckland), ponsonby (high end shops, boutiques, cafes and art galleries) and mt. eden (one of the many, many volcanos in the greater auckland area. saturday night my new roommate/friend ann (from southampton, u.k.) and i went out to drink a great bottle of wine at a b.y.o. japanese food place a few blocks from the hostel. we opened the place up and shut it down, it was great.



sunday was a misty boat ride across the harbor to devonport, a sleepy-ish seaside town with an old military base (built on top of a volcano, of course) that you can hike up and around for 360 degrees views of the bays.

all-in-all, i probably didn't need 5 full days in auckland right out the shoot but i did get a good lay of the land and until i fly out i really shouldn't need to go back for a while. i still cannot wait to start in on the farmstay - 6 days of holiday to go.

things learned so far:

• kiwi's are very proud of the lord of the rings
  
• possums are running rampant, and causing a lot of distruction in new zealand to the native plant life: possum pie or "headlight delight" is a very popular menu item


• 4.3 million people in new zealand, 40 million sheep


• there were no 4-legged mammals in new zealand until the european plunderers arrived
  
• there are wild turkeys everywhere
  
• pipis are little sand crabs
  

to view all the photos so far: click the image of the bridge...