Quiet farm house near Waitetuna

Walk time?

Beautiful Driveway

For the month of January Andrew and I have the unique experience of house sitting for a family on the west coast of New Zealand, near Raglan. Our responsibilities include walking the dog to the mailbox twice a day, feeding the chickens and pigs, and watering the garden. In exchange, we get to live in an amazing location for a month!

Walking the dog

We are using the opportunity to learn how to surf, which is an awesome sport as I mentioned before in this post. Andrew has managed to find a job in Raglan as well, meaning that we have a chance to stay in this incredible area for longer.

Playing on the trapeze

The family we are house sitting for is also a circus family with some really fun equipment in their house. I am seriously jealous of their living room, which has silks, a trapeze, a Spanish web/corde lisse, and a pole, not to mention an assortment of juggling equipment. Oh, and a hammock. Their only warning was to try not to hurt ourselves.

Beautiful sunset

Their house is entirely self-sufficient. They get all of their water from a nearby spring, as well as collecting all of the rainwater in a huge tank when it rains. Their power comes solely from the sun, with a couple of massive solar panels on the roof. They also have large fruit and vegetable gardens. I have been really enjoying the access to all the fresh produce, not to mention the fresh eggs every morning from their chickens!

Fresh fruit from the garden

Cooking has been a bit of a challenge. While I have used a gas stove before, I have never had to use matches to light one! I think it took me four or five matches to get the thing lit the first couple of times. I've figured out the trick now though. The oven, on the other hand...not so much. A gas heated oven is somewhat new to me, although I have managed to cook most of our meals without burning them too badly.

I am really enjoying the very relaxed way of life. There is no television as that would take too much power from their limited supply, which means my days have been spent crocheting, painting, and writing. When we aren't surfing at least! It is very quiet here and I really enjoy waking up every morning to the sound of birds chirping, with no other sounds except the wind in the trees. It is very peaceful, although I can understand that this type of life wouldn't be for everyone. I would recommend everyone with the ability to take their time with travel to try the WWOOFing experience as it has allowed me to truly immerse myself in the location and to experience what living here is really like for the locals.

Sheep Shearing

Sheep Shearing was a very interesting experience! There are about 30 sheep for every person in New Zealand. The family that we are staying with at the moment do sheep shearing as one of their businesses so they gave us the opportunity to go along, see how it is all done, and help for the day.

Wool compacting machine

When we got there, the first thing I noticed was the smell. It certainly wasn't very pleasant. After a few minutes I couldn't smell it so much, but every time I stepped outside and then back into the shearing shed it was overpowering. The other thing was the noise! 4 shearers going at once, music, and of course the unhappy bleating of a few hundred sheep.

I started out helping the ladies with the rousing, or wool sorting. It basically involved gathering the piles of wool from around the sheep as the shearers were working and then piling it all in the centre near the wool compacting machine.

Andrew herding sheep

 The other ladies there were mainly doing the sorting of the wool and grading it into the different qualities, so when they shoved a pile in my direction I would add it to the large pile. Andrew helped gather the wool and stomp it down into the compacting machine, which compresses the wool down into huge heavy bags.

After awhile, they finished the one batch of sheep and brought a new set in. They also had 300 lambs brought in that day, which was neat to see. The new set only needed their rears shaved, or crutching, so there wasn't  as much to help with. I decided to go help herd the sheep into the pens since the shearers were moving through them pretty quickly.

A rousing experience

The sheep are extremely docile and are much lighter than I expected them to be. To herd them, I basically had to walk behind them and wave my arms at them. Most of sheep herding seemed to be getting them pointed in the right direction and then walking around them so that they ran away from me and into the next pen. Occasionally there would be an extremely stubborn sheep that required grabbing the scruff of her neck and the wool at the butt and giving her a bit of a shove in the right direction. Andrew had a couple of the sheep try to back up under his legs a few times too, which was quite comical.

Andrew's Birthday!

Nguguru Shore

Andrew and his All Blacks Bear

Andrew is so happy he gets fireworks for his birthday! His birthday happens to coincide with a holiday here, Guy Fawkes Day, which is celebrated with a bonfire and fireworks. It is a celebration of a failed attempt at assassinating King James I of England in 1605.

A couple days before his birthday we went with our WWOOF family to the Nguguru school gala, which was a fundraiser, pony rides, go carts, performances, and general fun at the school, followed by fireworks and a bonfire on the beach. It was a lot of fun!

Guy Fawkes Fireworks and bonfire

 For those who don't know. We have been doing something called WWOOF (Willing Workers On Organic Farms). Basically we trade 4-6 hours of work each day for our meals and accommodation that day.  It's allowed us to get to know our host family, get a feel for life as a local in New Zealand, and have a lot of fun with less cost than we would normally have. It's been great!

For Andrew's birthday, our host mom was at work and the kids were at school, so we took a relaxing day at 'home'. We walked to the spring where the water for the house comes from, which is in an absolutely beautiful area. Once Sarah and the kids were home, we hung out. Andrew had an excellent birthday dinner cooked by Sarah, and then myself and the older girl presented him with the Goomba cake we had cooked the night before. The family got Andrew a really cute All Blacks rugby bear that, when squeezed, surprised us with a really good (and LOUD) recording of the All Blacks doing a haka! It's really cool and reminds us of watching the All Blacks win the 2015 world cup against Australia with the family.

After dinner and cake it was time to set off the fireworks that Sarah had picked up to celebrate Guy Fawkes day and Andrew's birthday! It was really neat launching them from her driveway and isn't something I have ever experienced. They were loud standing so close to them! We also had some fun playing with the sparklers and doing long exposures on my camera. We even managed to draw a glowing heart!

Andrew really enjoyed his birthday and was glad for the calls from family as well. Thanks everyone!

Nguguru Fireworks

Fireworks at home

Andrew at the spring

Goomba cake