New Year, New Blog!

Hello to the few of you who may still get updates about this old blog of mine! I am starting a new blog:

http://thisisalwaysthecase.wordpress.com/

My life is pretty different now, so I'm not sure what this blog will be like, but there is a chance it might actually be okay.

Happy New Year!

Melbourne, Australia: A very cool place where lots of not-so-cool things happened

Now, I had a rather tragic chain of events occur while I was in Melbourne. I left unscathed, but early- about a week and 2 days early. Its quite the long story which includes running 2 miles carrying luggage in the pouring rain searching for a pay phone, violent fights (I was not involved), frozen bank accounts, salt and pepper sandwiches on white bread from the 'free bread' pile, irritating men and crass commentary, sitting and sulking in various museum lobbies, and multiple broken umbrellas. Luckily, there were also many good things such as Bryn and Agnes, Catholic themed hostel, a stunning city, endless numbers of vintage shops, delicious cheap foods, massive gardens, free coffee and tea, Muireanne, Kangaroo dinner, beautiful statues and graffiti, book shop visits, convents, and further proof of my self reliance, ability to remove myself from awful situations, and potentiality to exist on no money.

I don't remember what this building is.

Its Fall!

I don't know who these people are, but I liked them

Parliament

another great sculpture

Fitzroy gardens

mini Tudor village in the park!

The Fairy tree

example of some of the great graffiti

Bryn and Agnes! I first met these guys in Tongariro and was so happy to get to spend a couple of days in Melbourne with them. This is us at Brunettis. I am going to miss the Australian/New Zealand coffee so very much.

Abbotsford convent

Here we are!

Lentil as Anything- a restaurant on the convent grounds. Its a vegetarian buffet where you decide how much you should pay after you eat to your heart's desire. It was a great option for penniless me, and such a nice alternative to salt and pepper sandwiches.

Brunswick Street

On my last night I met up for drinks with Muireanne who I met in Matakana. She was kind enough to buy me dinner- a kangaroo dinner nonetheless. I felt slightly guilty about eating it, but apparently they are plentiful and I was just too curious to stop myself. It was delicious. It was great to see her again- I continue to be envious of her cool-ness. Speaking of cool-ness, the next day I said goodbye to the also very cool Bryn and Agnes. We gave each other gigantic hugs and promised to visit each other in Canada, The United States and Sweden. 

Exhausted and relieved, I got back on a plane to Wellington. I was still penniless and upset by all the bad stuff that happened in Melbourne, but glad for having 5 days to explore such a cool city, and thankful for all of the good things that happened and all of the good people. I will have to go back some day, hopefully my luck will be a little better the second time around.

A brief Wellington visit

As my ferry was pulling into the Wellington Harbour, I thought to myself 'I am home.' I have never so freely called any of my other transitory destinations by such a name, and it made me feel strange to have such a sentiment about Wellington, a place on the entirely opposite part of the world from my actual "home." Since it was a bit cold, I was the only passenger on the top deck, where I stayed and watched the setting sun and little houses on the hills grow closer and closer. 

I was greeted by my three best Wellington ladies at one of my favorite Wellington restaurants, a Thai BYO. During our consummation of 3 bottles of wine and enough food to require our top buttons to be unbuttoned, we gossiped like it was our last chance on earth to do so, and grew louder and louder in our inappropriate conversations. Then another familiar thing happened: Caitlin got us kicked out. Worth it. 

The rest of the weekend was filled with equally fun things.

The next day on the Harbour

My little house on the hill! Though it is near impossible to see in this picture, there is a giant peace sign painted on our roof.

Alice and I and our favorite hobby

look how happy we are!

Goodbye Wellington, Hello Australia.

Ward

Ward is just 30 minutes away from Parikawa, so the landscapes, views, and vegetation were very familiar. I stayed with a woman named Kate and her family. Alessia, an Italian girl, and I were Kate's first WWOOFers. We were received with open arms at Gulchlands (the name of their farm)- Kate was another incredibly lovely woman, and her family was equally as lovely. 

Kate's family lived almost entirely off of their farm and land. Her boys and husband were expert sheep shearers, musterers, and hunters. Kate had a beautiful vegetable garden which we ate from every morning, noon and night. In addition to our work, Kate made sure to show us exactly how they lived and we participated fully in their daily activities. Though we were both 'hired' to help harvest Saffron, the season was slow and our Saffron work was less than an hour each morning. After the Saffron we would do things like collect and split firewood (my arm soreness went away after about 3 days, but the badass feeling is still with me!), make jams from her fruit trees, herd and divide beef cows, groom horses, garden, and a whole lot of other fun and interesting tasks. Kate also took us on lots of little field trips. We went to watch Mike and Ben shear sheep, to a rugby game, to watch Ben break in a horse, and to view the prizes of her husband and friends' hunts. We also went on little trips to town, for coffee, and we partially hiked this great trail with incredible views through waist deep water. 

Mike and Ben shearing

dairy cows in the yard!

this one was my favorite

Saffron dividing. This was such a cool experience. Every morning at around 7:30 we would walk out to the Saffron fields armed with buckets and collect these beautiful little purple flowers. We would then take them inside or onto the porch where we carefully remove the stamens and placed them on trays to be sent to the dehydrator. 

Kate and Alessia. Many great talks happened right here!

This dog is possibly the coolest dog I have ever met.

I normally dislike dogs, but I fell in love with Max.

part of her beautiful vegetable garden

the skin of a wild pig that Mike removed after a hunt 

Sheep on the road!

Kate is another one of these amazing women that I continue to meet. I was glad to be ending my big South Island trek on such a high.

Easter weekend!

After Parikawa, I travelled south again to Christchurch to stay with Alice and her family for Easter. It was so very nice to see Alice and her wonderful family again. Ever the Boraston way, we had quite the decadent weekend filled with macaroons, fine cheese, vineyard visits, and the most delicious of meals. Here is a picture of our Easter dinner:

Ariela, Ryan, and Pip joined too!

I was sad to go, but I had one last farm to work on before I returned to Wellington.

Parikawa

From the moment Joanie picked me up from the stop, our conversations were interesting, intimate, and endless. Alice had told me that Joanie was the grown up version of me; I can only hope one day I will be as cool as Joanie. I enjoyed every second of the work I completed at Parikawa- even the bits that were rather disgusting (removing sheep feces from wool, and collecting maggot infested seaweed). The surrounding land and her home itself was absolutely stunning, and filled with a familiar but rare magical feeling. Every morning I woke up and traveled under the roadway to her paddocks next to the sea. There I would run next to the black sand beach listening to the crashing waves as the sun was rising. After I returned, Joanie and I would eat breakfast and discuss the plans for the day. After work (which was always too fun to be labeled 'work') I would walk through her backyard of beautiful hills and mountains filled with roaming cows, rabbits, and herds of sheep. I would walk until the sun went down and then return to have dinner and wine with Joanie.  

waterfall in Kaikoura on the way to Parikawa

seals! they are actually vicious creatures and unliked by all the locals

tiny silhouetted cow at dusk

more cows!

another great tree

all of this belongs to Joanie

shadow self portrait

you can see both the sea and the mountains from her property

more beautiful Merino sheep (I spent a lot of my work time at Parikawa herding these guys, and their dairy cow friends)

This is Joanie driving me around the yards on her quad looking for mushrooms so that I could teach her how to make a print. She wouldn't let me take a normal picture of her.

 I loved being there more than I could ever describe in this blog or in spoken words, and I had the most difficult time saying goodbye.

Timaru

My next stop after Dunedin was Timaru where I would be working on a farm (or so I thought). After I arrived, I was notified by my temporary employer that she did not like Americans. I stayed for three days. There is a long story associated with my stay in Timaru that I will explain later. It was mostly a pretty crappy experience, but hey, I guess I needed to have one of those while WWOOFing to make me really appreciate all the others. 

There were a few good things about those three days, like the awesome animals pictured below, and the introduction to two new friends Ariela and Ryan who carried us away from the evil Timaru witch in their beloved little broken Honda.

Ariela, Ryan, and I stayed in Christchurch for a few days with my Wellington friends' old flat mates. Then I was off on another bus to Parikawa, where I would work for a friend's-ex boyfriend's- mother on her beautiful farm.