Hi! I'm special!

I made it across one country, so obviously, it's time to head to a new country. America just wasn't big enough for me.

Kate and I have arrived in New Zealand. With only a few hiccups!

The fun part was customs. The fruit sniffing dog had a strange fascination with my bags. Which as far as I know, have never contained fruit. But he spent quite sometime with them and they were searched. But they let me into the country anyway... or at least let me go to the questioning booths. Where we had to declare our "tramping" gear. That's right. We are no longer hiking, we are tramping! Love it!

We got to take the fun route through customs. Most people just get their bags x-rayed to prove that they have no fruit or contraband. We got to go to the special line, with the special room, and the special tables for unpacking our bags. Our shoes passed inspection but the tent had to go to the decontamination chamber (they do that with all tents, not just ours). So while we waited for it to be de-Americanized (after digging it from the VERY bottom of my bag) we went to get x-rayed and moneyed.

We picked up the tent and would you believe it, they only did the fun part! They pulled out the poles and pulled out the tent, but didn't put anything back! And even worse, I had bubble wrap around the poles to protect them on the plane. The bubble wrap was left in the bottom of the pole bag for me to wrestle out!

We spent the morning in Aukland before heading to our first farm. After walking around, hanging around in Alberta Park, and getting lunch, we decided to sit at the bus stop to catch our ride to Helensville. A logical thing to do when you plan on taking a bus. But we sat and sat and sat and asked people for help, but our bus never came! Finally, I abandoned our post to go ask information in the travel center... yup, our bus stop had been moved and they hadn't updated any of the time tables! The only indication of the change was a small sign at the bus stop that read "Richies West Aukland buses moved to..." Which was good if you knew you were taking a bus run by Richies. Of course, we only knew the bus number.

So then we hung out by the harbor and waited the two hours for the next bus. It proved to be a pleasant afternoon, with a nice warm sun. We marveled at the skill of the ferry driver as he turned and backed up in a very small area.

Second times a charm and we successfully caught the bus to the train station in Helensville, where we waited for Katrina to pick us up. Of course, a little bit of miscomunication left us standing there entertaining ourselves for quite some time. Then walking up and down a hill in order to use the only payphone in the town. And payphones in NZ are weird. They don't take money or regular old phone cards. You need a special calling card with a chip to put into the phone. (We had a lot of fun figuring that out in Aukland and when we had no more money on our card in Helensville).

But we survived the rain that started while we waited and got into a nice warm car for our first host stay! At the farm, we were immeditaly greated by sheep! Yay sheep farm! They were all over the driveway. Inside the house was even better! Comfortable beds and a delicious dinner. Turns out we're staying with a real chef! We'll have to remember to check cooking qualifications from now on, because we have officially been spoiled.

Aroung 7:15 we excused ourselves because, let's face it, it was bed time! We took sometime to attempt to write in our journals, but we were out by 8!

Thursday began the working. When you're WWOOFing you can work a 4 hour morning and have the afternoon off or work and 8 hour day and have the whole day off. We opted to start off wth the 8 hour day. We figured it was the best way to force our bodies to acclimate to the time.

Our first official job, clearing all the wood and stacking the good stuff in the woodshed and the rest was neatly sorted into a brush pile. Clearing the "brush" proved to be the most fun... because that meant we got to use the clippers! And unleash our destructive powers on the tree! We were joined in our endeavours by a 3 month old puppy by the name of Molly. She is a very happy puppy. Although, we have learned we need to keep her away from the chickens. Apparently, a playful interaction did not end well for one of the chicks. So everytime we saw the chicks we counted to make sure there were still 6!

Best part of working on a farm in New Zealand? Other than the awesome scenery and sheep? TEA BREAKS! And frequent, random downpours that yield great rainbows!

At the end of the day we got to help herd the sheep back into the fenced area. And by herd. I mean we stood by the gate and looked scary. But apparently all people look scary...

Since we worked 8 hours yesterday, today is a day off which we will enjoy by riding bikes to the hot pools! Which apparently have slides!

Sarkisstic - What Kate is when she comments on things I say and do. It's a sarcastic kiss up.