WWOOFing pictures

drenching

more drenching

Snow with his dogs early in the morning.

Elizabeth, Marissa and Walter (an austrian working on the farm) fenching.

Dawn, Tyler, Elizabeth and Chelsea before work.

Reid (in the back) getting ready to draft some sheep.

WWOOFing it up!

Hey all! Tonight is our last night at the WWOOFing farm and, I must say, we are all a little sad to be leaving. We've had such a fun time getting back to our cowboy/farming roots. :D Our stay at Graham's farm has been very interesting and eventful. There are a variety of jobs here that we all participated in. Some days a group of us would ride around the farm, fixing fences as we went, while the other group got down and dirty with the sheep. I think most of the group would agree when I say that working with the sheep was a blast. My personal favorite sheep activity was drenching. Let me paint a picture for you. First everyone chases the sheep into a long, narrow pen. When they're all packed in like sardines two people hop into the pen with them. One person [the drencher] is wearing a ghost buster-like backpack complete with a squirt nozzle gun. The backpack is filled with a rich yellow liquid that supposedly contains key nutrients for the sheep. So, the drencher has to get a sheep in between his or her legs, grab the sheep's mouth, shove the squirt gun into it's mouth, and spray the nutrients into the back of it's throat. The other person [we'll call them the yanker] stands behind the drencher and pulls the sheep that have been done back behind them. Now, mind you, sheep are quite stupid and stubborn animals. On top of that, when they get into panic mode anything could happen. Elizabeth got taken down by one within the first 20 minutes of working with them [dangerous stuff! ;)]. Back to the drenching, you basically have to struggle to get them in a headlock position while they are fighting for their lives, trying to wriggle away. One tactic some of the sheep used, that got annoying quickly, was hiding their heads or their entire bodies underneath other sheep! The best part, however, was getting to climb on/crowd surf the sheep just to get the job done. Oh! And the entire time this was going on you could also be getting peed on [or in Chelsea's case pooed on] or somehow manage to get poo in your mouth [Kay-Lin] haha. In simpler terms you and the poo became attached at the hip, literally. We were all definitely dirty boys and girls. It was intense!

On an even more disgusting note, a few of us had the pleasure of witnessing a a sheep slaughter. Now, they didn't get to see the sheep get killed, but they did have the pleasure of witnessing a horrific and stomach churning skinning, hanging, and gutting of a sheep. I also heard that Snow, the man performing these deeds, was throwing various parts of the dead sheep at people as a joke. Drew was the receiver of that one haha oh man.

Another really cool thing about staying at this farm was that there was another family staying here as well. The family is made up of a couple, PJ and Tom, and their three kids: George, 8; Ben, 6; and Rosie, 4. They are the sweetest and cutest family ever with matching red hair. I feel like they definitely welcomed us into their family. PJ gave a lot of us good pointers on cooking, while Tom turned us into handymen. It was awesome :).

We are off to Queenstown in the morning to start prepping for our big hike coming up. I'll keep you guys posted on our groups crazy adventures, but it's getting late and I still need to pack! So goodnight and I'll ttyl!

- Shelby

Picture update

All of us at our work site plus Peter.


An example of our professional level cooking at our last youth hostile.


Forest walk with Stephen King (not the one you're thinking of).





We still are going to post a few pictures from OPC and our extreme 2 day hike. We'll probably do that later today.
-Tyler

Greetings from Christchurch! It's Shelby and Blake writing to you now. We got off to a rough start this week when Mac and Sean made the decision to go home from Picton. The mood was gloomy, to say the least, but our time in Lyttelton has been worthwhile. We spent the week clearing a historical site of invasive plants, while working with the Department of Conservation and a local Maori group. Conservation in the form of cutting down trees seemed like a paradox, but we had fun and the DOC was grateful. The best part was the fact that we made a difference :D. Another adventure we had was preparing all of our own meals. We have all transformed into iron chefs and are eternally thankful for the help and guidance of Dawn and Drew. Basically, we are relaxed, recharged, and in high spirits! We are ready to take on whatever greets us at the WOOFing farm tomorrow.

And now we're off to enjoy our free day in Christchurch!

Cheers!

New Zealand - North to South

Kia'ora everyone! It's been a couple weeks since we've updated the blog, so I'm going to do my best to catch everyone up. During our last blog, we were deep in the urban jungle known as Auckland. We have experienced a TON since then so let me get started. On the morning of our last day in Auckland, our tour guide Des for the Indigenous Trails program picked us up in a big van and we tucked in for a 3-hour drive up into the Northern regions of New Zealand. The drive was smooth and a lot of us got to catch up on some much needed rest and relaxation time. As we got farther North, the scenery started to change. We were soon driving through rolling green hills that were dotted white with thousands of sheep (there are more sheep than people in NZ, fun fact). The views were gorgeous, and our excitement started to grow as we got closer and closer to our destination. We finally arrived at a Marae, which is a type of "community hall" for the local Maori tribe. We were greeted by the elders with songs and the famed Hongi, which is the traditional greeting through the Maori culture (touching foreheads and noses, which you might have seen in pictures before). After our Fiji experience, most of us were expecting a more rugged lifestyle, but the Maori's have kept up with modernization as much as any of us. They have their own TV channel and possess about 150 spots in the New Zealand Parliament, among other things. From there, one of the Maori elders, Koro, took it upon himself to show us around and set up activities for us to do. One our first day, we viewed a plot of land that the Maori tribe was planning to make into a park. We took a walk around, and then returned to the Marae to brainstorm some park designs and ideas. We came up with some good ideas (in our opinions, at least) and Koro seemed pretty enthusiastic about implementing some of them. After our daily activies, we occupied ourselves with trying to down all the food the threw at us and playing with the kids who lived in the nearby area. On our 2nd day, Koro took us into the Kauri (pronounced Kodi) forests that were nearby. These forests are really cool, and are home to the largest trees in New Zealand, which also happen to be some of the largest in the world. Our group had the distinct privilege to witness the actual tallest tree in New Zealand, named "Tane Mahuta," or "God of the Forest." Let's just say, seeing this tree left all of us speechless. Words cannot even describe the size and majesty of this tree. The Maori's worship this tree and our experienced was heightened (no pun intended) by the singing and storytelling of Koru. It was truly a humbling experience. Our next activity was probably the most enjoyable one of our time there. We spent all day with Jim who was a local bonecarver who had been carving for almost 14 years. We spend all day designing, cutting, sanding, and polishing our own bone-necklaces. It was really fun and totally cool to see some of the finished products that we came up with. Jim and his wife Char were so nice too. They let us into their homes and fed us lunch and talked with us all day. That night, we took a night-walk into the forest again. We walked about 15 minutes in until we came upon another Kauri tree that, again, took all of our breaths away. We were standing in the presence of Te Matua Ngahere, also known as "the father of the forest." Tane Mahuta was taller, but this tree was freakin' HUGE. The trunk was so large and the tree seemed to disappear into the sky. Koru informed us that the tree was over 4,000 years old. For perspective, it was germinating 2,000 years before the birth of Christ. We all sat in silence for 30 minutes under the tree, completely entranced by it's beauty. I can understand why the Maoris worship these trees. As we walked out of the forest, all of us felt at peace, almost like the tree had weaved some kind of spell into us. I can speak for us all when I say that I will remember this tree for as long as I live. On our last night, the Maori people prepared a large feast for us and we sang songs and had a great last night. All in all, the experience was a great one, although we had hoped to get a better glimpse of the culture (hopefully we will in the coming weeks). After we left the Marae, Des and the Indigenous Trails crew drove us 9 hours south to the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoors Pursuit Center. After meeting our instructor Chris and going over our plans for the next couple days, we realized that this was going to be a definite change of pace. We did catch a spot of luck from the beginning. A local school was also there, and the 60 students had filled the normal accommodations, so we were moved into the corporate lodge. The lodge was beautiful and spacious, with tons of our own bathrooms with hot water. It was nice to be able to come back to a quiet lodge after some hard days in the wilderness, where we could sit in front of the wood fire and play cards and relax. Our OPC experience kicked off with a day of team-building exercises. Our fantastic group dynamic made itself evident in these exercises. We all get along really well, so we were able to work together and complete the challenges. We also got to hit up the "flying fox," which is the NZ equivalent of a zip-line. We had fun and also got a great view of the valley below us. Our 2nd day put us in canoes out in one of the local lakes. It was fun for us to learn how to canoe and work together to explore the lake. There is something really relaxing about being on the water, especially in canoes that we got to slowly paddle around. Our 3rd day would turn out to be the most challenging for our group. We embarked on a 2 day 1 night hike that would take us to the summit of one of the nearby mountains. Many of us had never camped or hiked before, so we were being thrown completely out of our comfort zones. Chris helped us to use the maps and compasses accurately to find our way to the top and then back down to our campsite. Our group pushed through dense brush, not even following a trail or anything. It was an experience unlike anything we had done before, and it even though it was challenging we all felt accomplished after we had made it to the top. Our group helped eachother to push on through and make it to our campsite. We pitched camp, and basically collapsed in exhaustion. We had been hiking for around 10 hours. We woke up early and headed back down the mountain to OPC. When the day was through, we all felt good but many of us agreed that we could continue to live well without doing something like that again. On our last day, we were given the opportunity to go caving, but most of us were tired still from the hike so we didn't take it. Personally, I didn't want to pass up the opportunity so I begged Chris to take me in. He agreed, and I had one heck of time squeezing through tiny passages and wading through water. The caves were really cool, and I wish the whole group had been able to experience it. We finally left OPC tired but content, and headed to Wellington for a couple days to recharge. Wellington was a pretty cool city, and we got the chance to check out the famed Te Papa museum and also a live music festival that was happening. We left Wellington today, and took a 3 hour ferry to the South island of NZ. We arrived here in Picton, and decided to shack up for the night. Tomorrow we will make the 6-hour journey to Christchurch, and than continue on to do some conservation work with another local Maori tribe. We are all looking forward to the experience, and all of us are so happy with what we have done in the past couple weeks. Thanks everyone for reading, and we will be posting again shortly! Also, the pictures will be uploaded ASAP. Peace

Mac and the Carpe Diem crew

Free Time in Auckland

Hey everyone,
We're about to leave Auckland today for a Marae visit, none of us (including our trip leaders) really know what we'll be doing, but it will be a good surprise! We've had the last few days to relax and explore the city. We've all got to catch up on sleep (most of us) and emails and little errands. The first night we were able to catch a movie, we saw Gran Torino (don't see it in Kay-Lin and Tyler's opinion). Yesterday we went to Rangitoto Island and hiked to the top of an extinct volcano and took in the amazing views of Auckland and its beautiful surroundings.We've stayed in a very nice youth hostel although the state we left it in this morning was not very clean...
That's all for now, we'll update you again next week hopefully.
-Tyler and Kay-Lin

Here are a few pictures from our stay in Auckland:




Sean, Chelsea, Shelby, Blake, Reid
Elizabeth, Dawn, Marissa, Tyler


Long story...


Drew doing an interpretive dance for the tour bus before our hike.

Last Week in Nananu

We finally arrived in Auckland last night but we'll never forget our amazing last week in Nananu. We started off the week by finishing our part of the road. Hopefully, another group will be able to come next semester and complete it. Ideally, the road should go through the entire village. We celebrated that night with one of MANY dance parties with the villagers. The next day we rode horseback to an awesome natural waterslide/waterfall outside of the village. We can all agree that it was one of the best days we had in Fiji. We spent about five hours trying crazy jumps and combinations off the slide and rocks. We were all amazed by how daring the Fijians were! It was great to see them let loose and just enjoy themselves. They have a FANZtastic work ethic and they certainly deserved a day of sun and play. We may have a had a little too much fun though. When we returned to the village we were exhausted and in pain from riding horseback. On Wednesday morning, we visited the Fiji Water Plant. The tour was pretty short but it definitely showed the positive impact it has on Vatukaloko, an area made up of the five surrounding villages, including Nananu. Fiji Water pays for these villages' electricity and water bills as well as employing 480 Fijians at a time. Many of our maqus and uncles even worked at the plant making $5 per hour, one the highest paying jobs in the country. We also managed to go to Tavua, the nearest town, to buy supplies for the suprise we had been planning for the villagers. With some cloth and paint, we were able to make two banners for them to hang up in their soon-to-be built community hall. We didn't have any paintburshes so it was definitely interesting fingerpainting the entire thing. Our final day in the village was Family Day. Some of us went back to the first waterfall we visited and some of us just spent the day lounging by the river with our families. That night we had one last dance party. We were all pretty tired but when the Fjiians want to dance, they will make you dance. Some of us retired early while others stayed up until 4:30 AM dancing and drinking kava. It was a great way to spend our last night in such a beautiful country. Our final morning was a bittersweet one. While we couldn't wait to move on to the next part of our trip, we didn't want to say goodbye to our new families either. There was a little more kava, a little more dancing and lots of tears. While we thought we would never see them again, four of our closest Fijian friends had a little trick up their sleeve by surprising us at the Nadi Airport. We were all really excited and touched by their affection for us. We'll never forget the love the whole village had for us!

P.S. - This is Tyler and Kay-Lin. The last three posts were made by Elizabeth and Reid. We'll be rotating various duties throughout the trip. Keep checkung back for more on our adventures!!

Update on pictures

We thought we'd post a few pictures that we have so far. We have a ton of photos already and these are just a few, we'll probably post more later!


Group photo from when they surprised us at the airport. For those of you who don't know who everyone in the group is (probably most of you) starting in the top left row its: Kali, Blake, Shelby, Elizabeth, Chelsea, Kay-Lin, Bill, Mac, Max, Sean. The bottom row starting from the left: Tyler, Dawn, Marissa, Drew, Isei, Reid.


A semi group photo on the CB (the cement block in Nananu, it became very significant to us over the two weeks). Its Reid, Chelsea, Shelby, Sean, Kay-Lin, Mac, Elizabeth, Marissa, Tyler.


Our last dinner in the village.


In Tavua, going from the left again; Blake, Shelby, Tyler, Chelsea, Elizabeth, Marissa, Reid, Drew is in the back and Kay-Lin and Sean are in the front.


All of us after planting cassava.




Mac smoothing the cement.


Shelby working on the road.