Waybyond Farm

Jasmine: an annoyingly invasive plant for farmers that also happens to be incredibly fragrant and parked right outside my bedroom window. Every morning I open the window and alongside the cheerful chirping of little birds, the scent of jasmine wafts into my room, and I inhale its intoxicating perfume. I have officially escaped winter.

Right beside the bed. Heaven and a haven.

The bedroom window and the rest of the house and farm belong to Jeni and Greg, who are my first farm hosts on this big adventure. We're an hour north of Auckland, and the nearest town is Wellsford (not too much happening there). The landscape is gorgeous. Whenever we drive anywhere, we're surrounded by nature, but different from BC. More grass, leafy trees and livestock. Green as far as the eye can see - I now truly get the idea of the phrase 'rolling hills'.
The house is old but wonderfully homey, with all sorts of country style and artsy decor. And spiders. Lots and lots of spiders. However, I already encountered lots of them back in September on my first farming endeavor, so it's just a continuation of my peacemaking time with spiderfolk. We're going to be best pals (or at least tolerant neighbors) by the end of this trip. The rest of the farm has veggies, orchard trees, some cows, chickens, ducks and two nice cats (they're veg so nothing is used for meat).

Why do all the animals look so unimpressed?

Jeni doesn't like to get up early for farming, which suits me fine - but we often don't come inside and eat dinner earlier than 8:30pm. The second night was tasty pizza night, and after prep and eating, it was 11pm. Food hangover!
Oh, and I tried Vegemite for the first time the other night (not in the original country, but close enough). Actually, it wasn't that bad with butter on toast, though extremely salty. Nevertheless, a new culinary experience.

Work-wise, I've been assigned to lots of weeding jobs. Nothing too thrilling but it definitely perks up my obsessive nature. Speaking of obsessive, there's a puzzle in my room that according to Greg is ready and willing for when I am deathly bored. It looks both amazing and excrutiating.

Baked beans. Only 550 pieces.

On Thursday I took a day off to go exploring. On his way to work in Auckland, Greg dropped me off at Wenderholm National Park (on the east coast). As I got out of the car I thought to myself, what the hell am I doing awake at 6:45am? And then I looked at the early morning light on the trees and the quiet beach and I jumped up and down like a schoolgirl. There may have been some squealing.
It was a field day for both tree admiring and shell collecting, if you're into that sort of thing. I checked out the beach and did a short hike around the national park before heading over the bridge into the town of Waiwera. The big thing they have going on for tourists is their hot springs, which turned out to look like a waterpark on the outside but has heated pools inside. I sat in the 37 degree pool for an hour and a half, trying to soak off the 6 hour weeding session from the day before (and nodding off in the process).

 

 

Lastly, I bussed to another town Orewa (my chauffeur pickup spot) and proceeded to access the sweet sweet internets, walk around and buy THESE:

 This is for the AD fans. Clockwise: Grumpy, Hungry, Cheeky (of all things), Silly, Sleepy, and Happy. No Hangry, though.

Saturday was farmer's market day in Makatana. We only had salad, eggs and some plants to sell, so I got a lot of time to check out the market. It had the perfect setup in an enclosed circle that reminded me of the German Christmas market - very cute. It was next to a little river, too, so you were able to buy some hot food and sit down by the water and listen to the cutest old man band ever. Two of them went around playing along the market path and I got winked at both times. Score.
They had some tasty food there too, so I managed to have 5-6 snacks for breakfast. One of them (pic below) was a really yummy and warm sweet potato mixture covered in sesame seeds. Then there was mushroom stroganoff on top of polenta. And a mini mince meat pie. A croissant. Then add a cannoli to the mix.
Yikes...
(Actually, I think I can blame a certain Pratt for this. I'm too used to eating food for two to share.)

 

 Matakana Farmers Market

On another note, been randomly looking through my travel guide for some places to visit. A lot of the place names are in Maori, so the book has some tips on pronunciation. It's pretty similar to English, only with a few differences. For example, 'ua' sounds like 'ewe' as in 'fewer'; 'ao'/'au'/'ou' are like 'ow'; 'wh' is supposed to be a soft 'f' sound, and most syllables are a consonant followed by vowel clusters (ex. 'wai').

So here's your pronunciation challenge. Somewhere in the guide it suggests going to a hill in Hawke's Bay called:

'Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu'

(which is somehow the abbreviated form of 'The Brow of a Hill where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed, and swallowed mountains, known as land eater, played his flute to his brother'). Don't cheat - say it out loud. I can sound out 3 swear words in English (remember, 'wh' is an 'f' sound), Spanish and Cantonese.
How about you?

Lastly, the time has come to head north. I don't have a farm planned out yet but I've done some hard work here and I'm itching to travel, so tomorrow I'll be taking the bus for Whangarei, about 2 hours from here. There are caves and glowworms and such. And more internet.

Stay classy, world.