Hollin: 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.