After our first night of sleeping in the van by the cows in Kaikohe, we went to Mike and Vanessa's farm to begin our next wwoofing experience. We got to their place at about 3 pm, got to know each other, made delicious meals, and called it a night. When we woke up the next morning we took in the beautiful scenery around us and got to work.
On the farm there's always an animal in sight. They have cows, chickens, ducks, four cats and a dog.
Mike and Vanessa were selling three of their cattle, so they took us to the cattle auction in town. That was definitely a first time experience for both of us. There were pens with cattle everywhere and a ledge all around for interested buyers to be able to walk above the cattle and get a better look. The auction was inside a small auditorium with the two sides open so they could keep the cattle moving along. It's just like you would stereotypically expect an auction to be like; the announcer yelled off prices enthusiastically until someone bid the highest. It was all a very weird experience, but luckily Mike and Vanessa made good money.
Sometimes we worked in the garden doing lots of weeding, other times we did various other jobs. We mowed the lawn, painted the chicken coop, took down a huge ivy plant, and we even helped with an indoor paint job by sanding down the plaster from the ceiling. One day we had to uproot chicken wire that had been buried under tough weeds. By the end of it we had to use the quad to get some of it out of the ground because it was getting way too difficult to uproot. Although we don't have photos of some of those jobs because we were working too hard, we did get some photos of us on the quad.
Learning how to drive the quad (or even just riding on it) was sooo much fun! lots of things we did while wwoofing in Kaikohe were incredibly fun. The only problem was that because it was an isolated farm, there were sandflies everywhere. We got bit bad and it was hard to cope, especially with the continuous warning we kept getting about how the sandflies in the south island would be so much bigger and there would be more of them. Luckily Vanessa took us to her friend's house to make a natural bug repellent with essential oils and other natural products. We also felted some soap bars with dyed wool, which was cool because we needed some soap soon too. It was a great last day in Kaikohe.
Today we're going to drive to the far northern tip of NZ and spend the night there before heading down to the Coromandel peninsula. :)
-L & H
-L & H
