Final Hoorah

The past few days have been such a whirlwind of fun. One of the wwoofers Jenna studied art therapy in school and inspired me to paint. It was actually the first time I had painted without anyone telling me what to do or what goals to have. It was really liberating and made me feel so good. Art therapy indeed. Later in the night we made a bunch of pizza's and had some blue grass dancing in the kitchen. Afterwards we all worked on a group art therapy project where a huge white paper was layed out with all sorts of drawing, coloring, and painting materials surrounding it. The goal was to draw whatever you feel and interrupt other people's work so that the whole thing became a flow of designs and color. Afterwards we were all really relaxed and happy.

The next day my friend Alex and I had decided we were going to hitchhike to this really pretty waterfall right outside of town, but then a few friends from the cafe stopped in and asked if anyone was looking for an afternoon of picking river rocks out of the river for a patio. Of course we agreed and went to this lovely little cottage in the woods. We played in the creek (and worked of course!) and they served us the best lunch. I found some really pretty crystals in the water and this really awesome deep red rock that the woman said was really rare to find. Afterwards they took us to the same waterfall we had been hoping to go to. The Waiua falls were gorgeous! It was so pretty and there was a huge waterhole beneith it. We swam and played for a while and then had to get back to the cafe to get ready for an art opening in town. The show was really nice and there was this really cool gypsie band playing. Some of our wwoofers served the wine, so we were well taken care of. After the show, there was a really fun after party with a dj and lots of dancin music. It was so fun and such a good way to say goodbye (lots of dancing and good music!). We danced pretty much the whole time and then made it back to the cafe late into the night.

I will miss this place and how refreshed and inspired I feel here, but I am so looking forward to seeing my wonderful family and friends in just two days!

I leave on the naked bus ferry (this makes me laugh... naked bus is the name of a company that provides cheap bus and ferry fairs) this evening for Auckland and catch my flight out tomorrow.

I'll be seeing you soon=)

Little day trip

Avocado pizza

Twenty second bluegrass dance off

Group art therapy with jenna

Pigs along the roadside

A necessary swim after playing with pigs

Wwoofers dancing dubstep

Alex and I

Cathedral Cove and Final Days at the Cafe

The past weeks have been so amazing here, and every day I feel more and more at home in Coromandel. I've put some pictures up below from my time the past week. A couple days ago my roommates Lena and Anais came to visit me in their northern travels through the coromandel. They picked me and my new friend Alex up from the cafe and we drove to Cathedral cove and a few other beaches in the area. Cathedral Cove was definitely one of the most beautiful places I've been to in New Zealand. When we first started travelling earlier in the day the weather was a little gray and rainy, but by the time we got to the park the sun had come out and it was gorgeous! There was about a half hour hike down to the beach with smaller beaches and lookouts along the way. It was such pretty views of the turquoise water. I loved it! When we got to the beach we just lazed about and spent a few good hours soaking in the views and the sun! We spent that night right next to Hahei beach and it was one of the best sleeps I think I've had in New Zealand. The waves were so peaceful and the night air was so cool and crisp. It was perfect tenting weather. The next day we explored a few of the beaches and continued to relax on our mini holiday off from the cafe.



This past week and half have been SO social. It's been really great. We are all becoming closer to everyone we work with and all us wwoofers are becoming really good friends (of course we are all about to leave =( ) We had a dinner party with some neighbor friends about a week ago and we all played games and they made us the most delicious dinner (and dessert- Bexie made a wonderful chocolate beet cake with avacado/cocoa icing...it was the most delicious dessert I've ever had!). We played apples to apples and this hilarious game called pits (I think). Then a week later they had another dinner party for our belated Day of Gratitude (thanksgiving in NZ!), they made so much food and I made a really yum (they say things are really 'yum' here all the time) apple crumble. Everyone from the cafe was there with their families and it was such a fun and sweet time. All the wwoofers, which we have now deemed the wwoof pack, stayed later and we played a game called werewoof, which is pretty much Mafia with a few rules changed. It was so fun.



Tomorrow Anusara, a friend from the cafe, is taking us to this really cool artsy clothes shop and then in the evening we are all going to mana, which is a retreat center about twenty minutes from the cafe. We're all going to relax in the sauna there. On Thursday we are all going to do Henna tatoos and have some art therapy time with my friend Jenna. The past week I have felt very inspired and artsy and excited to come home and do arts and crafts with kimmy and Jill. I have taught several people how to knit and my friend Magdalen just bought some new NZ yarn to learn tonight. It makes me so happy to knit and I've realized especially how therapeutic it is for me and how nice it is to pass it on to other people.



Anyway, I feel quite sad that my time is coming closely to an end, but I firmly believe that each place I have been and am going is been exactly where I'm supposed to be.

Bexie's beautiful backyard

Chocolate beet cake! Snagged that recipe as quick as I took a bite.


Leaf invite

Really yummm

Driving Creek Cafe wwoof pack

Slack line

This is one of my favorite pictures

Bexie, my favorite little Cercia, and Anusara <3>

Let the werewoof games begin

Walk to Cathedral Cove

We made it!

Such an amazing place, the cove.

This one looks like one of those mermaids on the front of ships

Wai-te-ata roomies

Where Alex and I pitched out tent

Jewelry ideas stirring...

Final beach stay

Driving Creek Cafe, final stretch!

Starting with pictures:

I know these are all blurry, but i still love them

tree swings on the beach!

Bonfire on the beach with new wwoofer friends

Driving Creek Railroad

View from the eye-full tower

Cafe pics!

Coffee break...uncooperative smilers

Tamara and I after a hard days work

Beach walk

On the walk home from the beach today!

Hola!

So I've been in Coromandel for a little over a week and its been really great. The work is a bit tedious at times, seeing as most of cafe work is doing dishes and cleaning up after people. But I've had some fun moments where I've gotten to bake some of the goodies and plant peas in the garden out back. The people are so fun and we joke around a lot and of course I get teased all the time (in a friendly sarcastic way of course). The other wwoofers are SO fun and we all hang out in the cafe after it closes (it is sort of a home base for us, since our bunk house is right behind the cafe!). The weather here has just been phenomenal and the sunsets are astounding! Seriously, they are just beautiful. On the first night I got here, mehow, the cafe owner took us all to the hot springs in whitianga, which were so relaxing and fun. The next day all us wwoofers went to one of the beachers (there are a bunch!) and had a bonfire. Since then I've been to a few other beaches and they are all so calm and beautiful.

On my first day off I explored a little bit of the town and discovered that just two doors down was the driving creek railroad attraction. It started out with this nz-famous pottery artist who started a artist co-op on his land. In order to extricate clay and bring it back to the co-op, he started to hand build a little railway. Eventually this small diy project became a bit of a hobby and it continued to grow longer and longer, winding endlessly through the bush and up the hills. After finding himself in quite a bit of debt the bank suggested that he start hosting guests on his railway and the idea stuck. It was never his intention to use the railway to get rich and so all the money and proceeds go back into the land in which the railway is a part. He has planted countless native trees and is trying to get the area recognized as a national park area. Anyway, obviously i think that is cool, but the ride was really fun! There was tons of sculptures along the way and beautiful views from the top of the hill. He built a little house called the 'eye-full tower' which looks out over the peninsula. It was just gorgeous, I could not have picked a better day.

So the past three days I have had off and the first two I spent mostly in the cafe because it was rainy and gross outside, it was really fun though because I felt like I got to know everyone in the cafe a little better, and I feel a little bit more connected to this place now. It was kind of interesting at the beginning because the people who work here regularly are so used to having wwoofers filter in and out of here that they hardly notice you are really there unless you make yourself known. I guess I've established myself now though, because I get teased a lot for never sitting still and bouncing around the cafe on my tippy toes with my knitting. lol.

Today was really fun too, there is this tiny little house out behind the cafe that is used to house one of the wwoofers, it is so cute but the outside needed some serious help. Even though it was our day off, my friend tamara and i decided to paint it and make it look nice. We painted the whole thing and it looks wonderful now! That was actually pretty fun and then Mehow was so thankful that he drove us to the beach and we spent the rest of the day loungin in the sun.

Back to work tomorrow, but it's been nice to have these days off to relax and do some nice things in the area.

More to come soon!

The start of goodbye

Today was a pretty sad one for me. All three of my sweet, sweet roommates left for Tonga this morning. We had a wonderful going away party last night, telling each other countless times how much we love each other. Still I can not fathom that I will not see them tomorrow or the next day, or that we will never all be in this home again. I will remember them forever as my family and as wonderful, warm, big hearted, and hilarious-as friends. For Julie or Dewey (Dooze for short) I will miss cooking the exact same dinner together every night and watching millionaire. For Lena Beana, I will miss her big hugs and her delicious treats. And for Anais, I will miss her wicked story telling skills, in particular about gypsies, candy and spiked objects in pockets. I will miss our pot lucks, our morning snuggling sessions, and of course our hallway story telling. Here's to loving all the people in your life and knowing how to hold on to them. We'll see each other again.

Two more full days in Wellington and the weather is supposed to be the best yet. Today it was warm and sunny and Julien took us all the lyal bay by the airport where we ate lots of fush and chups and sat in the sandy sun. Though a sad beginning, the day turned out to be pretty good. Tomorrow we're going roller blading by the water and doing all those little things we always say we have to do before we leave.

Samoa Getaway

It's been ages since I've written, but now that a few weeks have passed I suppose I should put up pictures from beautiful, beautiful samoa. The first two days I was by myself and had such a nice time reading and relaxing. The afternoons were hot, but not balmy, and the evenings had the most spectacular sunsets. Dusk has always been my most favorite time when the sun starts to sink down and the air gets a bit cool. Samoa did not let me down. On these days, just beyond the reef there was a whale that lazily breached and blew mist! It was pretty neat. On the second day I decided to go snorkeling, and I realize now that I'm actually pretty scared of sharks, so only when my friendly german neighbor encouraged me, did I go. For some reason it's just comforting when someone else is out there with you. Anyway, it was an amazing first snorkeling experience. I've never seen so many brilliantly colorful fish and I kept internalizing how cool it was so I would always remember. While at first I didnt realize it because I had never seen a coral reef before, the entire reef was pretty much a graveyard. There were pockets of regrowth, and they said that most of the fish had returned, but for the most part the tsunami destroyed almost everything. I can only imagine how radically different and rediculously bright it must have been before the hit.

The next five days were spent with my lovely wai-te-ata friends Alex and Lindsey. We had the best time and really just got to soak in the sun and the sweet crystal clear water. It was an amazing little paradise get away.

Lindsey, Alex and I

This shell found me. Couldn't keep it cause there was a little dude in there

Please tell me you see the llama

The universe loves too

The heavens

My favorite shot

Candy

Our fale

You'd wanna do yoga here too

We saw rainbows on two of the mornings we were there!