thoughtsandcrosses: Bach to the future...

I know, it's been a while. Pen hasn't made it to paper, or in this case, finger tip to keyboard, for a while. Since I last wrote, way back in Flagstaff, Arizona, my journey has taken me through Vegas, through Death Valley, through Bakersfield, through Paso Robles, through Monterey, back to San Francisco, through the Muir Woods, through Santa Cruz, on a 13 hours flight, into Auckland, and now into rural Ruawai on the North Island. Much has happened, little has been typed. I have got a load of ramblings on my computer regarding my final 10 days in the USA, so I will post that up once I've had a chance to go through it. But for now, here I am in New Zealand.

I landed in Auckland and was picked up at the airport by Anna, who I would be staying with on the farm she lived on with her parents. But I wasn't staying on a couch, oh no. I was staying in the bach. This refers to what was originally a 'bachelor pad' but is now a common term for second home, or in this instance, another lodging separate to the main house on a farm. Quite brilliantly there was British flag flying high when I got there. My first few days were laced with jet lag, and Anna showing me a few spots around Auckland, and Silverdale, where we were staying (about 30km north of Auckland). On Wednesday we went to a great weekly couchsurf event in downtown Auckland by the bay, where upwards of 80 people attended, a mixture of foreign and local travellers and hosts. Thursday night I had my first ever taste of shooting. Dave, Anna's step dad, let me shoot some of his rifles, and it was quite an experience. In total I had a go at four of his weapons; SKS 7.62 Assault rifle, Semi Automatic .22, 16 gauge shotgun and an FM Browning Semi 38" Barrel. I still have the empty shells. I'll still have them when I get home if they're not found in my checked luggage.

The British Bach...

Security...

Annoyingly, by Friday I was starting to get ill, and soon developed into a rather nasty chest cold, the full works of coughing, sneezing, running eyes, aching body, blah blah blah man cold you know the story. So I won't bore you, but I spent pretty much 4 days in bed, sleeping, and sneezing and coughing, and, oh, I said I won't bore you.

So, somewhat delayed, and possibly with a touch of cabin fever, I decided to rent a campervan on Tuesday and head out into the wild. I had planned to attend an awesome sounding couchsurf event, the 18km Tongaririo Crossing, where about 100 couchsurfers were expected, but with the remnants of the cold still with me, I doubted I would make it. So I decided to head north, probably towards the Bay of Islands, and then up to Cape Reinga, the northern most part of New Zealand and where the Pacific Ocean meets the Tasman Sea.

I made my way up the Highway One, but very soon was feeling rather bored on my own, and started to wonder whether I had made the right decision. The scenery was beautiful, especially the coast line area around Tutukaka, and then out of the blue, I just decided that I should go to the Tongariro crossing. Worst case scenario I'd camp with all the couchsurfers and just not do the crossing. So, I decided I should start driving south again. So I cut across from the east coast to drive down the west coast (just for a change of scenery) and then stop towards sunset and find a camp site. Miles went by without a campsite, and eventually I came across the very small and sleepy town of Ruawai (population 426 in the 2006 census) where a small hotel appeared to offer its carpark free to campervans. I also asked if there was somewhere nice I could go watch the sun set, and literally 200 yards away there was a little boat wharf. I drove up and saw the glowing orange sun in the distance not far from disappearing below the horizon. There were also a couple just loading their little boat back onto their trailer. They said hello and we started chatting. Before 2 minutes had passed by, Brenda turned to Evan and said "why don't we take this young man back to our place, he can camp at ours?". And thus, for the first time on my journey so far, I found a couch to surf, without the use of the website. They are in their sixties, and it turned out they aren't actually married, but both out of previous marriages and engaged themselves to marry in November. This morning I got up at 6:30am so Evan could drive me down to the next door farm to watch the cows getting milked. There are 700 cows in total, and it's quite a sight. I got involved and help load the machinery onto the cows (pretty much 4 little hoovers that are attached to the udders). They start collecting the cows at 4:30am, start milking at 5am, and are normally done by about 8am. They then repeat that again at the end of the day. At their height they had about 1200 cows producing 25000 litres a day, but no they produce about half that. The rest of today has entailed fixing some fences somewhere else on the farm (they have over 100 acres) and building a shelving unit for Evan to put up in the kitchen. Later on when Brenda comes back were going fishing, and tonight we're having a barbeque. Then tomorrow morning I head off for the 6 hour drive down to Tongariro. But I may head north again, and have been invited to stay on the dairy farm next door for a few days. I'm seriously contemplating it.