A shocking realisation

When we were hiking in Abel Tasman we met two blond Swedes who did the 3 month Thailand-Australia-NZ tour. In Australia they were going from Sydney to Cairns, and I heard myself saying "I did that too, in 2005." The girls did the 5 hour hike a Gucci handbag, one bottle of water and a bag of crisps. They were clearly heading for beaches and party rather than hiking and a bed at 19.30.

Then we reached Queenstown, known as the adventure capital of the world, I saw this guy trying to sell all kinds of thrills, from jet boating to bungee jumping, to everyone passing by. Apart from us, who he just ignored.

In Lonely planet I don't even read the drinking chapters anymore, but underline "family-friendly establishment", "home-baked cakes" and "beautiful gardens".

We tried to stay in a hostel only once but we were being refused entrance - not because we were smelly or drunk but because we had a child with us. Justus had to be talked out of leaving Junia's fully loaded business card as a souvenir at the front desk. We slept in a beautiful B&B run by a friendly retired couple instead.

When sitting in cafes and restaurants, we realize that we talk more with 65+ couples (have never heard so much about grandchildren before), than with travellers 20+.

During this trip, I have read two books about raising children but not one sleezy paperback.

Instead of being hungover once, I have only felt sick from eating the biggest carrot cake I've ever been confronted with in my life (the picture does not make it justice, but it was delicious.)

The price was not the only criteria when we booked the camper van. Safety and comfort were equally important. We especially liked the fire extinguisher and airbags.

In short, I am trully getting older. The positive thing however, is that Junia works as the biggest ice breaker ever, so at least we get to talk to loads of people. But the days of hard core partying, no worries and no responsabilities are definately over. At least I'm still closer to 30 than 35...

And last photo load

someone just threw up on me, and here are the final pics, from abel tasman.

Photos 3

and these are not all...

photos 2

some more...

Happy camper

Dear blog readers, sorry about the slow updates. We have now changed vehicles from a grey passenger car to a white camper van (as some of you might know, I tend to describe vehicles by color as that's the only thing that says anything to me).

Anyhow, this camper van is slightly more luxerious than our wicked van a few years ago. We here have a fridge instead of an eski (cool box/ kylväska)! First stop was Kaikoura where we met up with Tomas and Christie from Melbourne. It is always so nice to see old friends! Kaikoura offered beautiful walks with sea lions and fantastic fresh sea food (Ocean link Hanna...)

Then we moved up north to the wine district where there were more wineries per square km than hair dressers at Kungsholmen. After the first stop (where I quickly lost count of how many different bottles you could try, I soon realised that after 13 dry months, not much is needed to make my head spin. The products from a small chocolate factory went down smoother...

Further north for some beautiful days of hiking in Marlborough sounds and Abel Tasman, and we also met up with the specially ordered first class baby sitters from Örebro (who had brought a very longed for pipinette, which makes the camp nights quite a bit easier...)

In Nelson we tried 16 (!) different kind of ice creams (bought a taste platter with 9, but the Dutch ice cream magic man came out with another 7 that he had invented and wanted us to try. Everything from bay leaf, to knäckebröd and olive oil.) A very cold heaven, and worth the trip to Nelson alone. We also took advantage of mamma and Håkan's baby sitting and spent and afternoon white water rafting - just as fun as usual, but unfortunately I have discovered that becoming a mother also turned me into a chicken. No 8 m cliff jumps or swimming down rapids thank you very much.

Now we are exploring the west coast glaciers, another week and a half to go with the van!

PS, Anna wrote the text and Justus chose the photos. Less is more only applies to one of us... For those of you who actually look on all of them, guess where pancake rocks and the babysitters are. There are actually babysitters on two photos, as we have understood that the best way to have a meal in peace and quiet is to sit close to some asian ladies who soon will pick up Junia...

Junia's new tricks

She can...
- wave her left arm quite hysterically (like a chinese cat)
- take off her mössa and sun hat
- take off her socks
She cannot...
- wave her right arm with the same frequence
- fall asleep with the SJ method. We are back at the feed-to-sleep-method.

Wwoofing

Wwoofing stands for worldwide working on organic farms, and basically means working 5 hours/day for food and accomodation.

Although I had serious doubts about this 'wwoofing stuff', Anna nevertheless suggested and decided to go wwoofing for a total of 10 days the first month of our NZ travels. She found 2 (child friendly) farms that allowed us to only work 2 hours a day which sounded reasonably OK to me. One farm had about 780 cows and the other farm had about 10.000 sheep.

The cow farm was run by the energetic and relaxed 31 year old farmer Jon and his Austrian wife Birgit. I had expected all kinds of farm work but this was not the case at all. Brick laying, weeding and wood chopping were my prime activitities at the cow farm. No tractor pulling or other fun activities for me. Given my 'farming experiences', it felt that Jon made a good choice though. One day however, I requested to help with milking as to make sure I at least touched a cow. When I set the alarm for 04:30, I started to doubt already. When I arrived at the cow shed, it was cold, wet, dark and smelly but the cows were noisily awaiting the start of my shift. Putting the 'milking devices' on the 'titties' (thats what the farmer called them and I do not know the proper English word for it, sorry!) of the cows was not an easy job. Given the speed of the rotation station (basicly a round conveyer belt with cows) I needed to be helped out by Jon quite often. Apart from trying to keep up with the rotation speed my main concern was the 'aim capability' of the cow concerned. I always kept a watchful eye for the sky or on this case, the milky way. I managed to avoid most of the bombardements but I nevertheless felt and smelled like shit when I got home (09:30) again. I took one of the best and longest showers in my life and enjoyed every second. We had to buy some new shower gel though. Respect for all the farmers who deliver us fresh milk and other dairy products every day!

The sheep farm was located in the beautiful Catlins and was run by Rata and Sheila. Apart from cleaning the sheep shed, feeding the pigs and searching for eggs (in about 3 acres of forrest) not many farm/ sheep activities for me up here either. Again wood shopping (I feel like a true lumber jack but according to Anna I do not have the body as such yet) up here as well. It allowed me to drive the quad which was quite nice though. One day, Rata asked me whether I could help with dagging next day. Dagging sounded OK to me but when I found out that dagging meant sheering lamb's bums, I was not so certain any longer. When the sheering crew showed up next morning, I realised I was safe! Rata judged my skills quite well and I was assigned with supplying lambs to the sheering stations. Donkeys are stubborn they say but leading sheep to a sheering station is a hard job as well. They are fast and they are always run in the other direction. With help of Storm (not the Jiskefet commando but a great dog) I did quite well, I would say. The stations never ran out of sheep so no availability losses up here. Rate of the sheerers was bloody impressive! It required some tough sheep handling (read 'throwing sheep over the fence') every now and then but I managed. Again lot's of poo and pee but it was an unforgetable experience. Too bad my shoes smelled like a sheep shed/ shit but again a nice shower after my farm working day. Respect for the sheep farmers who are amazing planners and are able to manage big herds of chaotic sheep.

On both farms, Anna was assigned various back offices activities that are not so visible but that do keep the farm/ front offices going. It goes without saying that the freerzers were full with nice bread and cakes when we left both farms. It was a little bit of a struggle though to put things in the fridge as it was very tempting to most family members to harvest the goodies the same day already.

Anna impressed with a yummy daily cake surprise! 'Wat een boer niet kent dat vreet ie niet' also applies to NZ farm kids. When they found out that there was coco nut in the cakes, it became a no no. The more for the appreciative parents though!

In the end we worked much more than the agreed 2 hours a day but that was perfectly fine with us. The wwoofing families were flexible towards Junia, they showed inormous hospitality and we had a great time at both places. We did our best to help out as much as possible. The least one can do when being confronted with such enormous generousity and kindness.

This wwoofing is, I found out, much more than just 'working on an organic farm'. Although both farms had organic elements (eg, organic yoghurt for breakfast), we managed to avoid the uber green, veganistic tree hugging stuff. Both families provided us a unique opportunity to get insight in true kiwi style of living. It also provided us a glimse of rural farm life in New Zealand. Anna has been living with various foreign families before but it was my first time. Not so bad to have that experience when you are an AFS board member.

We have about 3 wwoofing days to go somewhere in March. I am sure I will survive those days as well. Do not know whether they have cattle. Maybe deer or Alpacas?

Some painting needs to be done in Orsa this summer. We offer organic berries to be picked in return. You can count the food to be great! Any volunteers?