Since the last post I have moved on a bit... spent some time working with Hamish on a few building jobs, learning plenty of different skills.
But now I have set off on some travels, and am currently WWOOFing on a pig farm - more later.
I was due to set off on the 11th May, so booked my ferry and bus up to Central Hawkes Bay. But the day before I got a stomach bug, and spent the evening and night trying desperately to avoid throwing up. I knew I had to delay my travels, and was gutted to lose the tickets - neither were refundable nor could be changed. However, as I was drifting off (and on, and off all evening) I got a text to say my ferry had been cancelled, and I could rebook for free! Turns out that day another ferry had 'bumped' into the wharf (apparently they do this quite often!), necessitating repairs... And when I called the bus company, they kindly offered to give me 20% off my new booking. So I rebooked for the 13th, and set off... This ferry was delayed an hour, which left me a very slim amount of time to make the bus connection at the other end... I arrived in Wellington with 20 minutes to spare; was the first off the ferry, grabbed my bag - which was off the boat incredibly fast - and grabbed a taxi, making the bus with 5 mins to spare... Had I missed it, I would have had to stay overnight in Wellington... Phew...
And now I am with Mark and Monique - and their two kids - on their rare-breed pig farm.
They have 100 pigs, 100 chickens, about 30 miniature horses, Nubian goats, a few Arapawa sheep and five dogs... I have so far spent my time repairing a garage and turning it into stable blocks, and helping out other bits - moving fences, feeding animals, and tonight, removing part of their kitchen wall as they decided to open out the interior of the house! As you do on a Saturday evening after a couple of beers...
The other day they had a litter born - these piglets are less than 12 hours old:
I have a cosy little caravan to stay in:
With a bed and couch:
The garage conversion has been the main work, and a bit of a challenge, as most of it is either rotten, filled with borer beetle, or both...
This is how it looked after ripping off the ironwork and the front doors... not the straightest structure around, which makes setting other stud work a bit tricky - we are never sure whether to take a line from the building, or by using a level...
Tomorrow I am heading into Hastings with Mark, to sell some of their meat at a food market, so an early start...
I will post pictures from it, and some more from the farm soon...
I am getting a bit more used to the differences here - the sun travelling from right to left; The wonky weather - 2 degrees at night, and 20 in the day; the different sounds, especially the birds; different smells; and trees that look familiar but have totally different names... I don't think I had ever heard of Macrocarpa, nor knew what it looked like, but on splitting some firewood and recognising the smell, I reckon it must be a Cedar relative - smells identical to Western Red Cedar, and on discovering what it looks like, it certainly appears to be, not dissimilar to Cedar of Lebanon... Beech trees here look totally different - I will get pictures to show. And I have never before heard of Remu, but it is used all over for building... So many differences, but some are just in name...
Anyway, I'll certainly write again before long now that I have access to wireless, and downloaded the blogger app!
Until next time, and I'll keep on WWOOFing up the wrong trees here...
