I thought I should do a quick post since I haven't posted for a while. Lloyd and I have just finished our last mornings work at our WOOFing hosts place. Between us we have planted around 700 trees, made about 800 bamboo stakes, drunk 30 cups of tea, drunk 3 litres of lemon and barley juice, eaten 70 biscuits and I have approximately 1000 sand fly bites.

Lots of bamboo stakes and trees

I have really enjoyed my time here, we have worked hard, eaten a lot of good food and the weather has been great. Next we head over to Raglan to have a few days off and to  learn how to surf and then we have another WOOfing host lined up. John and Karyen have been great hosts. John is a really nice funny guy and has lots of stories to tell and Karyen is a great cook. They are both semi retired but John still seems to put a lot of hours work in.

Night Fall

John on his tractor

Lloyd the farmer

Our main plan is to get down to Queens Town and try to find work during the Ski Season, I really want to have a go at snow boarding, not sure if I'll be any good but I reckon it's worth giving it a go. If we don't get jobs there I guess we will have to re-evaluate our plans but I'm sure it will all work out, any way next stop Raglan!!!

Putaruru

We've been at our new WOOFing placement for two days now; our hosts are a nice couple called John and Karyen. Their property is a massive piece of land, part nature reserve and part dairy farm, the work that Lloyd and I have/will mainly doing is planting trees along a hill that runs alongside a river and also digging out a pathway so people can easily gain access to the riverside.  The farm is in the middle of nowhere and it’s really peaceful out here though in time I am sure that I will miss the city, to be honest I’m already looking forward to getting to Wellington so I can enjoy a bit of night life!

Middle of nowhere

At the moment we are working in the morning and having the afternoons off, we have breakfast at 8 then John takes us to the river on his quad, have a break at around 10:30 (lots of tea and biscuits), work until around 12:30/1:00 and then John takes us back for a big lunch that kareyn has prepared. The rest of the day is ours to enjoy so there’s no complaints from me! On their land is a massive hill with rocky outcrops, apparently it was once part of a Maori burial site. Lloyd and I walked up the hill, it was quite a hard walk after a mornings work, I took plenty of photos New Zealand is a great place to photograph totally different from South East Asia. 

It’s quite hard work but John is really easy going and doesn’t want us to overwork ourselves.  It’s nice to do manual labour rather than been sat behind a desk worrying about deadlines or having to chase a million and one things. It’s also really good to work with Lloyd again, we used to work at Habitat along with our other buddy James so it’s a bit like old times, there’s plenty of taking the piss out of each other and general messing about as we go about our work.

Travel Music

Its been raining all day today and our car is been serviced so because I haven't been able to go out and explore I thought I would do another quick blog.


While travelling through Asia we spent countless hours on long train and bus journeys and the only way to combat some of the boredom was to listen to music, saying that not all journeys were boring and listening to music sometimes added something to the journey. When listening to music I tend to jump from album to album and track to track, I very rarely sit there and listen to an album in one go unless it's a new band that I have discovered or an album that really grips me. Here's a list of my essential travel playlist:-




Austra- Feel It Break   www.myspace.com/austra 
Beat and the Pulse 
Darken her Horse
Lose It
Spell Work


Bloc Party- Slient Alarm   www.myspace.com/blocparty
Banquet
Helicopter 
This Modern Love


Blood Red Shoes- Fire Like This   www.myspace.com/bloodredshoes
Light It Up
When We Wake


Crystal Castles (both albums)   www.myspace.com/crystalcastles
Crimewave
Airwar
Courtship Dating
1991
Vanished
Through the Hosiery
Reckless
Black Panther
Celestica
Doe Deer
Babtism
Year of Silence
Empathy
Vietnam


Deftones        www.myspace.com/deftones
Diamond Eyes
Digital Bath
Change (in the house of flies)


Fever Ray   www.myspace.com/feverray
Seven
Triangle Walks
Keep the Streets Empty for Me


The Knife-Silent Shout    theknife.net/
Silent Shout
Neverland
The Captain
Forest Families


Ladyhawke  http://www.myspace.com/ladyhawkerock
Magic
My Delerium
Oh My
Crazy World


PG.Lost-In Never Out  www.pglost.com/
Prahanien
Jura
Heart of Hearts
Crystalline
Gomez


Subways-Young For Eternity  www.myspace.com/thesubways
Rock n Roll Queen
Oh Yeah
She Sun
Somewhere


Yeah Yeah Yeahs  www.myspace.com/yeahyeahyeahs
All 3 albums pretty much start to finish


I have loads more albums but at the moment these seem to be the ones that I have been really listening to as well as a load of Russell Brand podcasts that my friend Lloyd passed onto me. I really hope that I can find some bars in new Zealand that have live music or a half decent play list or duke box.

Work and Play

We've now finished our last day of work at Morepork Lodge, It has been hard work but I feel like I have really achieved something during my time working here. I’ve never worked in this kind of environment before and its all been new to me but WOOFing is so much fun and if you come to New Zealand you should really give it a go. Here is what our host had to say about us on our profile feedback:-

We were lucky enough to have Ian and Lloyd stay, work and play with us in March 2012..we were their first WWOOFing hosts...so I was out to draw blood. I succeeded! Ian and Lloyd are two hell of a nice guys and REALLY hard and honest workers and willing to give anything a go...show them once and then leave them to it knowing a thorough job will be done...and we had a laugh along the way!!..I thought I might get away with throwing them a piece of bread and some chicken bones but alas, they have a good appetite cos they work so hard! Typically the work included clearing scrub, gorse and weeds, lawn mowing, spreading post peelings, paddock tidying,  helping me fell trees, wood chopping, window and deck cleaning, meeting and greeting our BNB hosts when were not here ( so testament to their personalities!) We had the guys here for a week and they worked 3 full days at our request so as to beat the weather, then had 3 days off. Guys, it is great to meet you both, and we would recommend with out hesitation these two great guys to help out on your property They have their own transport which is also a bonus! Good luck and safe travels to you both....cheers... Paul and Barbara 

Our great hosts Barbara and Paul

Paul and Barbara have been amazing hosts and we have both been really well looked after. Paul is really funny and is good to share a joke with and Barbara is an absolute sweetheart.  The food has been great and It seems we both really worked up and appetite. All in all Paul and Barbara have been like parents to us during our week here and as our first woofing hosts I will miss them when we leave. If you do stay in this part of New Zealand on a holiday I would definitely say come and stay at Morepork lodge, it’s a really nice place and the view and grounds are beautiful.

Morning mist 

If you are wondering what a Morepork is it’s an owl, I originally thought Paul might really pork and imagined him saying to Barbara ‘’More Pork for the Barbie Barbara’’ hence the name Morepork but alas we were lucky to see a pair of Moreporks, Paul pointed them out in a tree.

During our time here we pretty much did the following jobs,  clearing scrub, gorse and weeds, lawn mowing, spreading post peelings, paddock tidying, helping Paul fell trees, wood chopping, window and deck cleaning, meeting and greeting  BNB guests when our hosts were not around. Like I said its been hard work and Lloyd and I have both had blistered hands, cuts and aching bones from the work we have done but I have enjoyed the whole experience so much. We now have another host lined up for the 21^st March and we can stay there for anything from 1 week to a month, I guess it depends on how  much we enjoy ourselves and how we get on with the host.

Blistered ''artists'' hands from log splitting

We've worked 3 days and now have 3 days off with full board and food, not a bad deal at all! Today being our first day off we drove out to Kerikeri and visited an old stone house and walked around a bit of beautiful woodland. On our way back we stopped for a coffee and some cake, there does seem to be a lot of coffee stops around this area not that I’m complaining. It’s nice to see independent coffee shops, something different to Starbucks and Costa.

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I had a bit of culture shock when we arrived in NZ but I do think that getting out on the road and meeting real Kiwis is the best way to overcome this and now I really feel like I’m starting to get into the travelling lifestyle, I really want to enjoy each day to the max and get the most out of my time here, in fact I’m already thinking about what I’m going to do and where I’m going to go next when I’ve finished with NZ, maybe  Iceland or Canada!

WOOFing

Lloyd and I have arrived at MorePork Riverside Lodge where we are to have our first go at WOOFing, it’s a great scheme where you stay on mainly organic farms and land and help with harvesting or keeping the land tidy, in return you get a bed and food for your efforts.

Today we arrived at Morepork Lodge and met our host Barbara; she’s a lovely lady who runs the B&B with her husband Paul.  The house itself is set on a big patch of land and I think that during our time here we will be doing a lot of gardening.  They have a few animals here too, a cat, chickens, sheep, alpacas and a goat. The goat is the friendliest of the bunch and as far as goats go he seems to have a great personality.

Our Home for the next few days

View from the garden

My new friend, Paul says he is quite close to putting him onto the BBQ

moreporklodge.co.nz

As I have said WOOFing is a great scheme, you pay a fee to sign up to the website and it allows you to contact hosts and hosts to contact you it’s really easy and we have a few places lined up already. Apart from helping us save a bit of money it’s a great way to get involved and meet real Kiwis and not just other travellers and since we haven’t worked for about 3 months it’s a good way to get used to working again. So the plan is to WOOF our way south and apply for jobs in Queenstown other places that have ski seasons, we will have to see what happens though as I have learnt that anything can happen when travelling around.

Auckland

Travelling from Singapore to Auckland is really easy and the time difference is not massive but for some reason my body clock has gone mental and has decided that I don't need to sleep any more ever. Every night I'm still wide awake at 2am and at around 4am I'm still lying there talking to my internal clock saying things like ''why you do this to meeee'' and trying to get it to shut down like some kind of computer thinking things like ''abort command...sleep....SLEEP!!!'' wish I could do the cmd,alt delete thing to shut myself down.

I had a day or two to have a look around Auckland, its not a bad place but there's not much in the town centre to keep me occupied, there is an art gallery and museum to have a look around so I will definitely do that at some point. Admittedly we did spend our first night here exploring the bars and since Lloyd has been here before he knew some nice places to drink. There does seem to be a lot of Irish bars and since I do like my Guiness I will definately be getting involved with a pint or two. Thats another thing I'm enjoying after drinking in SE Asia where you only seem to get bottles or mid sized glasses it's really nice to be able to get my paws around a full sized pint glass again and be able to sit in a pub or prop the bar up.

Today (8th March) Lloyd and I found our way to a sports centre so we we could play a game of badmington, I tell you this game was a clash of titans, each of us were evenly matched and found it hard to get a point against each other...to be honest I'm lying, Lloyd pretty much wiped the floor with me, in my defence I've not played since I was sixteen but I put up the best fight I could.

Lloyd and I have decided to buy a car so on Sunday we are heading to a car fair where we are going to find us some wheels. We've decided to do this so we can travel at our own speed and hopefully get off of the beaten track a bit, plus it means we no longer have to get buses. The initial outlay will hurt our wallets a bit but we can sell the car before we leave. We've also been told that now is probably the best time to buy as loads of back packers who have been here over the summer will be getting ready to leave and want to sell their cars so we can hopefully we can haggle someone down to a decent price.


No pictures to upload right now but I'm sure that I'll have loads to show soon!!!

Hello from Singapore Airport

Right now I'm sat in Singapore Airport waiting for my flight to New Zealand so I thought to pass a few a few minutes by writing a quick blog. 

Singapore Airport is amazing as far as airports go, Lloyd and I arrived here at about 1pm and we've been pretty much entertained the whole time. There are a load of gadget shops, places to eat/drink and they even have a place where you can play games consoles for free. We've spent a few hours playing on X-Box connect which was great fun but you do feel a bit of an idiot with people walking by while your jumping around in a glass booth trying to make your computerised character move about! At the airport they even have cinemas that you can go into for free and lots of places where you can watch TV and get on the internet. If I ever come here again I might book myself into the airport and stay here for a week.

Singapore is also a nice city, it's easy to get around, they have a really good tube and transport service which puts parts of England to shame, the city itself reminds me of the financial parts of London with lots of big sky scrapers everywhere. It's definitely worth visiting and spending a few days here even if only for a view of the city at night time.

There seems to be a range of people from different cultures living in Singapore which I really like, it was good to feel like an outsider again especially after visiting Phucket and Phi Phi where it felt westerners outnumbered the locals. Lloyd had an exchange with one gentlemen in the street as we walked past which went a bit like this.

Chap: Hey! Where you from!

Lloyd/Me: England!

Chap: Which football team

Lloyd: Liverpool

Chap: Me too...and Arsenal

Lloyd: No just Liverpool

Chap: YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE!!!!!!!!

Personally I don't like football but I love it how this guy shouted you'll never walk alone as we strolled away down the street. It's little memories like that that make me smile!