4/22-4/27

I'm at the Animal Sanctuary. The animals and my hosts Shaun and Michael are great. It is fun to watch the fauna and project human thoughts, feelings and dramas onto them and their interactions with one another. For instance...Max and Rouge are a parrot couple. Max is a bit more sociable, so it is common for him to hang out on someone shoulder for a stint. When he is returned to his home, Rouge gives him the, "Where the hell were you? Dinner is on the counter.....cold!" He knows he should have called to tell her he was gonna be late, so he does the, "Awe babe, don't be like that. Give me some sugar."

Here are some other things I did the last couple days....

• I got lost in the bush. Bronny and I were trying to find an alleged waterfall using a crude map that was artfully drawn with some Crayola product by Sarah. We never found it.
• I ran away from a hornets nest, screaming like a man and disrobing after disturbing it by accident. All I have to show for my discovery are 3 stings and a swollen arm.
• I've watched two full games of rugby on tv. Im slowly, but surely learning how it's played. It's amazing more of the players dont get hurt worse more often.
• I bonded with my roommate Timmy the turtle. He would climb onto my chest and stare at my face and analyze my movements and expressions as a human infant might do.
• I sat and listened to a Tui named Cassidy talk to himself in voices vey similar to C3PO and James Earl Jones.
• I've scooped chicken poop, pig poop, donkey poop, goat poop and duck poop.
• I've had a Lorikeet display to my foot and attack the same foot in a 10 minute period.
• I've witnessed Michael jam out to Eminem while working at his computer. He and Eminem are an unlikely combonation.
• I've witnessed an animal whisperer psycho analyze an array of beasts. She was suprisingly accurate.

Neadless to say, there is never a dull moment here at the Sanctuary. Good times! :)

Goals include.....Find the waterfall, use the pool table, learn all of the animals names.

Next host will be in the Coromandel. The Driving Creek Cafe. Stay tuned......

4/21

I said my goodbyes to Jan and Lucka. Angela and I drove them into Kohukohu and continued on to Whangerei. We stopped in Kawakawa for coffee/hot cocoa and to check out its claim to fame....a restroom. An Austrian artist with a really great style, created a great piece. It is his only work in the Southern Hemisphere. Hundertwasser is his name. I just googled it.

I caught the bus to Whangerei and got dropped in Warkworth by 4:15pm. Shawn and Michael were waiting for me. We stopped by the vet to pick an injured Cook's Petrel that someone had dropped off. We then drove through Matakana and into the hills to the Sanctuary. The house is huge and very modern. Quite the opposite end of the spectrum from Waiora. Equally beautiful...just different. It appears that it is going to be one of those things where, once I am comfortable with my surroundings and able to be myself, it's off to the next adventure.

Four Twenty

So apparently when it rains really hard at Waiora, the pond overflows on one side and pours down the hill. That's were today's WWOOF task for Jan and I comes in. The goal is to build the earth up on that side to block the unwanted watershed. We had to dig up some existing fence poles that had cement foundations that were deeply rooted in some crazy wet clay. The project took a couple of hours. Jan and I gave ourselves clay face painted warrior motifs and called it a victory. After that I straight chilled all day. The sun was out after 24 hours of on and off rain. Jan made Slovenian pancakes for dinner and we're about to play a competitive game of UNO(they have whack rules in Slovenia)

I leave Waiora tomorrow. :( I am hitching a ride with Angela down to Whangerei and then I'm going to hitch up to Warkworth, where Shawn from the Animal Sanctuary is going to pick me up. I'll be at the Sanctuary for the next week and a half or so. Wish me luck! :)

4/19

Sunday is a day off for this WWOOFer. The plan was to go pick feijoas with Jan and Lucka about 80 km away and hit the hot pools on the way back. "Smells like hell, and feels like heaven" our would be ride proclaimed. This plan took up the entire day and left a wide open hole when it fell through. So my plan is now to sit in the sun and read and watch the Blazers get their asses handed to them on espn.com. Booooo! :(

4/18

I woke up and made my self fruit and muesle. Angela gave me unique tasks while Jan and Lucka dug up potatoes. I had to get on the iron roof and seal some holes with silicon before the rains came. After doing that I joined the Slovenians in the garden. Collecting taters was fun. It was like lying on your back in a field identifying cloud formations as commen objects. We found butts, I found a Valentines heart, balloon animals, people, etc. After the potatoes were gathered, we laid them all out on a tarp and divided them by color(brown, yellow, red)and threw the green ones in a bucket to later be replanted, All the gnarly, worm eaten ones were set aside, to be cooked and fed to the chooks.

After all the the three of us sat around an outside table and cut out macadamia nuts from their green encasing. While al this was going down we witnessed two butterflies emerge from their cocoons. I feal really lucky to witness stuff like that. The cocoons have these really detailed metallic gold markings that accents the seams. I'm not sure what the significance they would have in nature.

Lucka is a message therapist, and she asked if she could use me to show Jan how to do it properly. After being super soar from yesterday, I wasn't going to turn down a much needed massage from a pro. I walked out of the Whale Room drunk on relaxation.

4/17

I woke up sorta late today. Must have been all that hard work from yesterday. Angela gave me the option of helping Depak move a shed and I obliged. We drove the 4X4 van up the drive with a trailer in tow to the work site. It was a huge metal shed with a wood frame, broken down into four walls and a roof. It was heavier than anything and had jagged sharp iron shards poking out each and every way and the frame was littered with protruding nails. A serious danger zone! The rode to the drop off site was sketch fest. Ruggedest of the rugged. Depak and his brother argued moving strategies the entire time. During one of the unloads the largest spider I have ever seen in nature fell out of the stack. We're talking huge! I saw another from the same species 10 minutes later, and another from a different species. We finished work at about 3 and headed home. My lower back was jacked, Depak's finger was nearly severed, and dude who's name i always forget had hurt feelings.

I went into the Whale Room and watched Chuck and Larry. I neede some crappy Hollywood to comfort me. When I walked into the kitchen, Angela was sitting at the table with my bunkmate Paul and the new WWOOFers Jan(Yan) and Lucka(Lootchka). They are a young couple from Slovenia. Lucka has been here a few months and Jan just met up with her a week ago from WWOOFing in Hawaii. We sat around the dinner table and chatted. Its nice to have some peers to yack with while working in the garden.

4/16

Today was my first day as a WWOOFer.
I made breakfast which consisted homemade yogurt, some oatmix with raisins, fig, apple, and about 4 fruits I've never heard of. Very good!

After breakfast, we went down to the garden and chopped the shit out of the weeds. Apparently NZ has the most species of weeds or invasive plants as anywhere else. I spent a couple of my hours today destroying them. Before that though, I dumped the food scraps from the kitchen into worm farm/compost bin, fed the chickens, collected eggs, moved the rabbits pen, and got Ned the goat's head uncaught from the barrier around the orange tree. I think he likes to eat the bark. I also photographed a praying mantis that landed on my shoe and I watched a butterfly hatch from its cocoon and tried my hardest not to interfere with that process. I learned that on Planet Earth. Goodnight!

Wiaora

We pulled up and the place looked like a tropical oasis in mostly evergreen hillside. No one was here and Tios disappeared somewhere, so I gave myself a tour of teh grounds. There is too much to explain here, but it looks way flash. Ill draw you a diagram when i get home. It then started to get dark and a little lonely so I tethered myself to the computer because the hum makes me feel at home.

Angela eventually got home. She is super sweet. A cute German woman who moved here about 30 years ago to buy some land and start a sustainable garden. SHe had been building it ever since. She made a delicious pumpkin soup and a bomb salad with red cabbage, avacado, sprouts, etc. Home made bread and butter. All grown on site. I feel healthier already!

Random Realization #1

The loud voice in the corner of the cafe is always an American. :(

4/15

I woke up early and checked out of Mainstreet Backpackers. Darren had cleaned his car out because it smelled like a foot, then we took off. The drive was gorgeous but crazy wavy. Silly straw status. We stopped a couple times to tour-ize the scenery. The drive took about and hour to get to Kohukohu.

Kohukohu sits right on the Hokianga Harbour and is the northern ferry town opposite Rawene(don't even try to pronounce these Maori town names.) I called Waiora, but apparently everyone was out except for some dude named Tios who was there for some Free Energy conference. He agreed to take the half an hour journey to pick me up. He eventually showed up, so I said peace to Darren and hopped into some strangers car. He was playing St. Germaines album Tourist, so i felt more at ease. While we were driving switchback roads deeper and deeper into the hills, it really sunk in how vulnerable/trusting I am over here. I guess I have to listen to that Maori janitor in Auckland's advice when she told me to listen to my gut.

Bus Tour

The bus arrived and it was full as advertised. A huge group of Japanese tourists boarded after Darren and I. Throughout the trip, the children of the group insisted on closing the curtains on their windows, which led to everyone on the left side if the bus to miss a few noteworthy landmarks. They eventually opened them.

The bus took us up north, first stop was the Ancient Kauri Kingdom, where we viewed massive kauri logs and stumps that had been extracted from from a local swampland. On th way we passed by a pine tree plantation. The second largest man made forest in the southern hemisphere. The bus stopped and we had lunch and a quick dip on Rarawa Beach. A beach with amazing white silica sands on a beautiful bay. We continued on to Cape Reinga, where there is a fancy lighthouse and amazing oceanic views. It overlooks the meeting place of the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean. You can actually see where the two meet. it's eerie. Huge whirlpools and angry waves crashing against each other creating a violent seam.

After leaving Cape Reinga the bus drove us through the Te Paki stream, which is essentially quick sand. Before pulling onto the 90 mile beach, we stopped at a steep dune and did some sand tobogganing. After that brief stop we continued on to the 90 mile beach. Not sure why its called that. I think it is actually only about 60 miles long. It must look better on a brochure that way. This beach is pretty surreal. Totally flat, no driftwood, practically straight further that the eye can see, and you're driving parallel to the ocean at 100kmh. The Canadian women sitting behind me couldn't get over it. She kept laugh/yelling, "Look at that! We are driving on the beach, eh!" As cool as it was, after 20 miles it looks like the DJ put the scenery on repeat and you fall asleep due to the hum of the engine and the crashing of the waves.

Throughout the tour, Darren had been talking to these two girls who were sitting behind us on the bus. By the end, Darnie and the American girl she was hosting, McKenzie, had invited us to go fishing for pipi(clam family) in Taipa. We got there just as the sun was setting. You get as deep as your knees in the river and dig your hand into the sand and feel around for these guys. Or 150 of them. That is the limit per person, per day. After that I went back to the hostel and crashed.

4/14

My options for today were..A. Spend the day walking along a road trying to find a hitch south, or B. Stay another day at the backpackers and spend my day exploring the north. After realizing that I may not be up this far north for the remainder of my trip, I book the Cape Reinga, 90 mile beach tour. There was only ONE seat left on the bus and it was set to leave in a half an hour from outside the hostel. While I was waiting outside, another dude(Darren, UK) who was staying at the hostel came up and initiated conversation. We talked about what brought as to NZ and the tour we were about to embark on, etc. I asked him where he was going next after Kaitaia and he said he was heading south, I asked east or west coast and he said west! I asked if I could hitch to Kohukohu tomorrow and he said no problem.

Kaitaia

I arrived in Kaitaia and walked across town to find a pay phone to call Angela. The town was pretty much dead due to the overly observed Easter Holiday. I called a few times but got no answer. The booth i was using stopped taking my credit card so I had to walk across town to use another. A guy staying at Waiora eventually answered the phone and informed me that Kaitaia was two hours north of of where I needed to be. After re-inflating I walked down to the Mainstreet Backpackers and got a room for the night. I woke up the next morning to a sunny sky and warm air, which created a fork in the road.

Heading North

I rode the bus from Whangarea to Paihia. Once again a beautiful ride. Not to sound over dramatic, but the scenery here makes your heart rush with warmth. A feeling that I guess you could compare with falling in love. Unfortunately landscape photos don't convey this.

The goal was to get to Paihia, hang for a bit, grab lunch, and hitch west to Rawene, then take the ferry across the Hokianga Harbour to Kohukohu where Angela from Waiora was supposed to pick me up. Finding someone to hitch with was proving unsuccesful. I asked the info desk and they said I could take a bus to Kaitaia. I recalled from the Waiora website that it was only 10 minutes away from Kaitaia(i was wrong), so I booked it.

4/13 Getting outta town

Took the bus out of Auckland towards Whangarei. The goal is to get up north to Kohukohu, so Angela from Waiora can pick me up. The bus arrived late to pick us up from Auckland so we didn't pull into Whangarei until about 9om. Too late to hitch anywere, and everything is still closed due to Easter. I was starving so I found the one place open...Subway. I asked the girl behind the counter where I could find a hostel for the night. The suggested a backpackers on the main strip so I followed her directions, but didnt find shit. I ventured back to subway to use the restroom and ask for better directions. It turns out the one they had in mind had been long closed down.

I was way tired by this point, so I went back to the park I had passed several times earlier to try to find a tree to sleep under. I laid in some bushes and had flashes of the NZ spiders i saw on google before I left the states. Not to mention the crown of mesquitos I was now wearing. I aborted operation die in a park and walked down the hill where I could see a few people standing around after they had taken down some sort of concert stage from a festival that appeared to have ended hours earlier. I asked directions to a backpackers and one of the fellas started giving me directions and the other guy said, "I'll take you." I followed him to his SUV and as he was loading my pack into the back I went to get into the passengers side. NO WAIT! that is the drivers side.

We drove to where he thought the backpackers was. I asked about the festival, he replied it was a festival for Jesus where a bunch of churches from different denominations get together and rejoice. By this time we had reached the hostel and knocked on the door. Some dude answered and told us it was no longer a hostel (maybe you should take down all the signs buddy!) He mentioned there was one up the hill about 8km, so Craig agreed to take me. He asked my name and claimed it was his middle name. He asked if I had gone to church and i told him about my mission trips so he wuldnt get too preachy. He dropped me off at the campsite and asked if he could pray for me. I told him he could and he put his hand on my shoulder and asked God to be with me on my journey and to keep me safe and help me to learn as much about life as possible, etc. Hey, I'll take all the positive energy I can get while im here. :)

I tried to find the campground hosts but the office was closed. I was dead tired so I just pitch my sleeping back in an empty space. I tried falling asleep, but the constant buzz of mosquitos and the over heating from an over efficient sleeping bag would let me. I went inside to the little community space (tv, games, brochures) and waited for the people who were in there to leave so i could crash on the couch. I felt strange staying there under the raydar, so i woke up at 630am and packed my stuff so I could hitch back downtown to try to find a bus up north. On my way out, I woman named Jill asked about my journey and insisted I take some fruit and coffee for the road from her family's stash. This isnt an exageration when I say that everyone I have encountered here has been genuinly nice. It leaves you feeling so positive. I guess when you live in a place like this there isnt much to be bitter about.

I headed down the road and checked out Whangerei Falls on the way. It was pretty sweet. It's about the size of Silver Creek Falls. I kept walking and everyone I passed on the way greeted me with a "good mornin'." Just as I was reading the mile marker that told me downtown was 5km, a van pulled up driven by a large dude in his 30s with a beard and a ponytail and asked If i needed a hitch downtown. I followed my intincts and he drove me downtown to the bus station where I booked my trip to Paihi.

Easter Sunday

Last night was fun. I went downstairs to the Fat Camel bar for the complimentary free nachos. They were ridiculous. Five nacho flavored Doritos with Salsa on top. No cheese! After I ate my "nachos" I sat in the corner of the bar and drank a couple pints and read the live music guide. over and over and over. There were only about 9 people in the bar at a given time. I went down to a club called Fusion where the dudes(Saq, Dan, and Kelvin) from my flat said theyde be. I walked in and Saq(aka Jihadi) yelled "IAN JOHNSON!" Tapping random people on the shoulder and yelling "IAN JOHNSON IS IN THE HOUSE! PORTLAND, ORYGON!"
Eventually he told the MC something and the MC yelled on the mic, "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN...IAN JOHNSON IS IN THE HOUSE TONIGHT!"

I checked out at 10am and began planning my trip up north. The chic at reception recommended taking Naked Bus to Whangerei, then hitching to Kaitaia, so that is what I shall do. Naked Bus leaves at 4:15pm so I'm just chilling until then. I went to Star Mart during my time to kill for a bottle of water and there were three peeps in front of me at the register getting a shit load of power bars and water. I noticed American accents and the dude wearing the hat turned around and it was Ethan Hawke! I was thinking about all the stupid shit I could say to him, "You in town doing a movie?" "You should probably buy a few more energy bars." I opted on saying nothing.

I semi stalked them down to the docks. I had this vision of asking if they could use some work on set. By the time I got down there him and his friends were already on the whale watching boat, so I just took a papporazzi photo so you skeptics would believe me. His friend waved at me while I was taking it whicj made me feel awkward, so I took photos in the opposing two directions so it looked like I was doing a panoramic.

April 11th

I woke up today at about 9am. I had a good nights sleep! The first thing I did was call Qantas to see "what up" but ended up sitting on hold waaay too long (roaming, yikes!) I went down stairs to the lobby to check emails and guess what was there....my bag!

Walked around Queen St. for a while trying to find The Ruby Suns EP and no one had it. :(

Sat at TRAFFIC and beers and read Sedaris in the sun. It was great people watching. Auckland has great diversity.

April 8th-10th

It's 8am and I'm sitting outside by the Hilton on the water.

I flew United from Pdx to Lax. I had a few hour layover, so Maderis was kind enough to power through LA traffic to come hang with me in the international terminal over Mexican beer and eats. It was great to see Rick in person. The phone isnt my strongest medium.

The flight from La to Akl was loooooong! Qantas is a super airline with FREE on demand new realease movies in every headrest(I promise this isnt a commercial!) I watched 4 movies to pass the time. The Wrestler, Quantum of Solace, Ghost Town, and Yes Man and a couple episodes of Little Britian in America(funny shit!)

9:22am

We landed during the wee hours of the morning on Good Friday. I eventually made my way through the gauntlet they call Customs, only to hear my name being called over the loud speaker asking me to go to Luggage Services, where I found out that my backpack was missing(since then it has been found and is supposedly enroute to the hostile.) I took the Airbus to the #5 stop downtown, the sun still hadn't broke the horizon so I had time to run down to the water and take some magic hour shots.

My hostel is called the Fat Camel. It is sandwitched between two humps aka stripclubs. One of them claims to specialize in massages. I'll take their word for it....

6:50pm
I took a power nap in my room....or tried to. I awoke an hour later to a Brazilian couple standing over me trying to explain in broken English that I was in their bed. The room consists of two adjacent bunk beds. When I checked in I naturally took the one that wasnt littered with someones dirty socks. Hating confrontation as I do, I apologized and climbed on a top bunk of the other set and tried to catch a wink. 15 minutes later im nudged by Tom, an Irish lad, who claims im in his bed. Long story short, they over booked the room and gave me my own room that has its own double bed! See...it always works out. Now Im off to go shoot some night shots with a tripod and theres no doubt that I will be downing some beer in Jesus' name. Peace!

Watched Requim for a Dream with the flat mates. They spent the entire time talking about who had the strongest accent(the Californian) and argued about who was the better checker player(unanimously NOT Kelvin!)

more later.......

New Zealand

Tomorrow I venture to the country of New Zealand. 

I plan to periodically update the world with my travels.  

Stay tuned!