West Coast

Hello Everyone, I am currently back in CHCH waiting to head north to Wellington. So what have I been up to in the past couple weeks. Well I left Gore (the sheep Farm) on a rainy Sunday Morning. I took me 1.5hrs to get the first ride but I was able to make it up to Cromwell. I then waited an hour, still in the rain, for the next ride to Wanaka. At that point I gave up and decided to spend the night in Wanaka.

While wandering around town (after the rain stopped), I ran into some ice friends. They were headed to a great little movie theatre. The movie was okay, but we watched it from big soft couches. There is even a car in there that you can watch the movie from. After a long day with friends I headed back to the backpacker I was staying at.

The next morning I headed north up the West Coast. It took an hour to get the first ride but after that I only waited <30sec>

My new WWOOFing farm was interesting. I got to run a tractor, tow a horse trailer, drive stick again, work with sheep, horses, chickens... The farm was fun but one night it got interesting. I couldn't figure out why the wife couldn't drive and kept going to these meetings. Well one night when the husband was at work she started acting funny. Within an hour she could hardly walk and wasn't talking right. I finally figured out she was an Alcoholic (the meetings and no driving thing). It was a long evening as she passed out 4 times and destroyed their house. I started the first couple hours by picking up behind her, but after a while I gave up (it wasn't my house). I finally left her for the night in the living room (stairs were not an option) and decided that once an hour I would go check on her. With that be hind me Work was great.

On Saturday I went to the Wild Foods Festival. WOW that was fun! I ate things such as crocodile, kangaroo, ostrich, huhu grubs, worms, paunga, venison... I ran into a ton of ice people there and I felt like I was home again. The picture is of Neoma after eating a live Huhu Grub.

After the Festival I left with Ben an Neoma for WestPort. I was going to Couch Surf with them at this really cool place on the beach. The house was built by Dave, the owner, who had no other building experience. The house was so nice. Plus all night you could here the waves crashing.

On the way back to Greymouth (where I was WWOOFing) we stopped off at Pancake Rocks to see the sights. A little disappointing. I then went back to WWOOFing and hitch back to CHCH on Tuesday. Two fun women picked me up and drove me all the way from Greymouth to the YMCA in CHCH (3.5hrs). Aurthur's Pass is unbelievable an any pictures I took didn't come close to capturing the sights. I'm leaving in an hour for Wellington and have already booked my return flight home. I will be home on the 19th of April at 2330. I know late at night, but I hope someone will be able to come pick me up in Burlington :)

Cheers