The Kiwi Bullitt

Steph and I thought we were just getting a ride out of town early this morning. Rob had c\kindly offered to take us to the Magic Bus pickup. But he had a stern, Steve McQueen look on his face as we approached Dunedin where the bus was to pick us up and onward to Oamaru.


We haddn't yet been to the world's steepest street that he had promised us he would take us to. Now there is nothing really remarkable about this street besides the incline. It could be any old suburban street. As we turned onto it, he asked "Should we go up it?" and put the petal to the metal almost before we said "Go for it!". We bolted up the hill that has incline that makes you feel like the car will fall back on itself. The fanny-packed american tourists were already there at 7am for some reason, snapping photos of our old ford chugging up to the top.



I must admit the drive up was the most fun (and this ford engine didn't sound anything like the film) but it sure did wake us up.

Beach BBQ with Friends and Family

This weekend Rob and Prudence decided to take the whole family (and us four wwoofers) for a Saturday afternoon drive to their favorite beach bbq spot. After winding up the hills over Port Chalmers and the bay, we stopped at a plum tree to pick as much delicious fruit as possible. Once that mission was complete, and Solomon had a good nap, we drove on to a picturesque beach.

Yoga In Public Places (Yipping)

While Prudence played seaweed games in the water with Pepa, we went on a walk through some caves coming back (conveniently in time for dinner) to the site of a Maori meeting place that Rob had reccomended. Meanwhile he was busy grilling up the cockles they gathered from the sea, sausages and Prudence's steaming hot pepper and cheese polenta. Their neighbor, Jackie, joined us with her dogs and we all sat in the dunes feasting while the dogs sung for us (!). This outing was our favorite experience in New Zealand yet. Rob stopped the car on the way back to point out some glowworms to Steph on a dark cliff under the trees. We came back exhausted from such a family day and overwhelmed by the kindness of such lovely hosts.

The Cloughleys and their lovely home

Soloman 'the man'

Regularly heard quote from Pepa after telling you

something highly unbelievable: "I know... Strange, eh?"

Staying with Rob and Prudence for the week has been great. In the mornings we’d eat breakfast with five year old Pepa and three year old Solomon, make sure Pepa didn’t miss her walking school bus and then get a lift into the sailing club with Rob on his way to work. In the afternoons we’d stroll around Dunedin, visiting the museums and shops before walking to the university where Rob works as an art technician. In the evenings, and this was my favourite thing about staying with the Clogheys, we’d eat dinner all together, with Jack and Alix too. It was a great treat for us, having been away from family life for so long, to eat all together as a family. And boy, did we eat well! Chris and I even cooked a few times to lighten the load on Rob and Prudence, having to cook for eight people!

Their house, as described by Rob, is ‘full of weird stuff’. Rob and Prudence met at art school and there’s evidence of their creativity and love of strange items all over the house - homemade pottery, beautiful paintings, mannequins, heaps of fossils, skulls - all sorts! Every day we’d see something new! One of Rob’s hobbies was to go to the auction during his lunch break to find cool stuff for Prudence to sell in her curiosity shop in Port Chalmers or else sell on Trade Me (the Kiwi Ebay). Rob has always got a project of some sort going on and is forever in the garden cutting, sawing, sanding away at something - I was amazed.

At the back of the house is a huge vegetable garden where they’re growing everything under the sun - how wonderful for Pepa and Solomon to be able to help with growing fruit and veg while they’re so young. A small creek runs through the garden with a bridge leading to Pepa’s much used trampoline; she was forever showing us new tricks she’d taught herself.

We’ve had a great week here in Dunedin and it was made all the more special to be able to spend it with a family: we’ve loved getting to know Soloman and Pepa, chatting around the dinner table and learning from you about New Zealand - thanks so much for having us, Rob and Prudence. Our future Wwoofing hosts have a lot to live up to.

Nap time after a long morning of sanding.

Train time...

The family's 'chooks' (chickens!)

Dunedin, "Edinburgh of the South" (Chris)

Our Maori bus driver was very animated and told us many amusing stories on the first leg of our magic bus journey. We were later told that not all of them were true, but more part of the unique Maori sense of humour.

Dunedin railway station - the most photographed building in all of New Zealand.

We arrived in Dunedin to find elaborate architecture in a Grand Victorian city due to its affluent gold rush era. Founded by Scottish settlers, Dunedin means Edinburgh in Celtic. The driver pointed out the statue of Robert Burns, still has haggis ceremonies and also produces whisky locally.

The 'animal attic', a classification of nearly the entire animal kingdom.

Later that week we often made our way to explore town after our mornings woofing. First, we visited the gorgeous train station, then the settlers museum which had photo galleries full of old black and white mugs (all looked thrilled to be in NZ). We looked up the Bourkes in the electronic catologue since we had seen many a bourke street, bourke pass and even a bourke village. We found there were many irsih immigrants on ship dockets who left from the port of Glasgow for Dunedin. Because Dunedin is home to the country's first university - 30% of the population is now home to immigrating students. A walk down the high street was filled with student cafes and bars. We were a little puzzled by the tendency for younger kids to stroll barefoot down the main throughfares.

A mountain of crunchies bars at Cadbury world.

Steph was excited to call in at cadbury world and stock up on exotic varities of chocolate bars, not available in the UK. I was eager to visit the local transport museum that boasted Dunedin's trams - In 1879 this was the only city outside the USA to have a tram system.

'Wwoofing' in Dunedin

While we hadn't a working visa for New Zealand, we still wanted to try our hand at a little work while we were in this country. Firstly, we are getting a little tired of, well, doing nothing! I know, you are laughing at us at home and feeling oh so sorry for us but we are laughing with you, believe me - we feel very lazy having not done an ounce of work for six months. Very little separates the days when you're travelling and it's true, every day really is a holiday. The only thing to tell me a week has gone by is when Chris whips up a Bloody Mary cocktail (the full works: he has taken to carrying tabasco sauce, salt and pepper everywhere we go) every Sunday and somehow manages to get his hands on a newspaper from somewhere. He never fails to surprise or amaze me - usually because personally, I haven't noticed the passing of another entire week and realised it is indeed another Sunday, but also because this is a tradition he has managed to keep up ever since we began our adventure in August.

Anyway, back to the theme of work (see how easy it is for us travellers to drift from this subject?!). Another reason we needed to do work of some kind is that we simply can't afford to spend two months in New Zealand. At just under 30 pounds a night for the two of us to stay in dorm beds, we're talking a LOT of money over two months. Money which we no longer have.

It is with these things in mind that we have turned to a global organisation called 'Wwoof', or Willing Workers on Organic Farms. I have done this once before, working on a farm in Corsica for a week and know that it's a good system. It's basically a work exchange - we will work for 4 - 6 hours a day in return for a place to sleep and three meals a day. Thus, we spend nothing even though we aren't earning.

Anyone with NZ$40 can sign up to be a 'wwoofer' and pretty much anyone can sign up to be a host as long as you've got projects going on that you need help with. The one rule is that, as a host, you're supposed to follow organic principles whether you be a large farm or a small household. Some people are 'more organic' than others but it's up to you as a wwoofer whether you are bothered about the amount of organic-ness going on at a place before you get in touch with the people.

Chris and I had organised to stay with Rob, Prudence and their two small children for a week and help them out with a few projects that they had going on. They live in a town called Port Chalmers just five minutes down the road from Dunedin. Dunedin was our first stop on the Magic Bus; what better than to have organised something so early on in the trip.

We weren't the only couple wwoofing at Rob's. Floridians Jack and Alix

had arrived a few days before us and were working on building a stone

wall by the creek in the garden as well as painting the kitchen cupboard

doors. It was fun for us that there were more wwoofers there.

The main project we were involved in here was to help restore a boat. Rob's dad built SeaForth with his bare hands; it was great to be working on something that had actually been hand made by a member of the family even if it did make us nervous in case we messed it up. Luckily, we were mainly sanding down, so we couldn't do too much damage. Man, is sanding long, laborious and monotonous work. I could just hear my dad in my ear the whole day long, "Put some bloody elbow grease into it, you big girl's blouse!". I became tired with this task very early on - I have little patience with such jobs. It was a good test for me, though Chris bore the brunt of the grumpiness that ensued.

Sanding, sanding and more sanding...

The far more physical and arduous task of sanding the side of the boat was given to Chris, mainly because I wasn't strong enough to hold the industrial sander up in the air for more than two minutes.

After a full day on the task we realised that the sander wasn't going to get through the many layers of paint on the hull. The next day Rob brought some highly toxic paint stripper for us to have another attempt - it was again decided this job would be better done by Chris, leaving me to what I do best, sanding the top. And so it was that Chris suited himself up like a ghost buster tackling something far more demanding than the side of a boat.

After an enjoyable week of mornings spent in the fresh air at Dunedin sailing club where I even got to paint (very much enjoyed this), we turned to household chores which didn't only include gardening.

Rob is working on a new bedroom for five year old Pepa. This involved help with the stripping. No, not wallpaper, but stripping actual walls. Wow. It was a great feeling to be tearing walls down, if a little dusty! I much preferred tasks like this where I could witness the effects of my work after a few hours. The thing that got me about sanding was that I could be sanding all day and it still didn't look much different. I prefer to see the fruits of my labour more prominently.

We've had a great week wwoofing here; this system works well for us as we're learning a lot about handyman style jobs and DIY that we didn't know before. Good stuff, I say!

Queenstown > Dunedin

8:05 am Our very first ever Magic bus picked us up on time (almost) at the curb of Pinewood lodge in Queenstown. The road then took us along the old gold mining trail taking in spectacular scenery through Central Otago. Our first pitstop was for Steph's and my first pie in New Zealand. The second was for a massive tip top ice cream at a local dairy for $2. Before we knew it, we were amoung the Dunedin cafes by noon.

Magic Bus

Chris and I had the dream to buy a van in either Oz or New Zealand and explore in this hippy fashion but alas, it was not to be. Our budget - both monetary and time-wise - will not allow for such adventures. Thus we were stuck with the problem of how to get around New Zealand, a country where trains do not run regularly nor to many places we wanted to visit, or so we'd heard. We couldn't afford a car rental for two whole months so we needed another option.

Luckily, there were a number of bus companies that seemed to offer exactly what we wanted in terms of destinations but would it be in our budget? It was in a Melbourne hostel where we were trying to swap our old, French Lonely Planet for Australia for a new guide book for New Zealand, that we discovered the most amazing deal at the travel agents downstairs. Both “Magic” and “Kiwi Discovery” bus companies were offering their tours of the South Island free when you bought the tour of the North. This sounded great to us as we definitely wanted to explore both islands and hadn’t any better option to do this so far. Hearing that the Magic Bus company was the slightly less 18-30s of the two, we decided to go with them. What a great deal - we ended up paying under 200 British pounds each for a year’s worth of travel around both islands of New Zealand! OK, so personally we can only use it for two months but the destinations it will take us to are pretty extensive and we can always add additional ones if we have the time.

All the places marked in red (aside from Paihia and Coromandel Town in the North Island which are no longer included) are compulsory stops on our tour. This means we will spend at least one night in these places but can choose to stay longer if we wish. As with the towns in black, we have the option to stop off at most of these if we wish. Chris and I will try to visit as many as we have time for and that we have access to with our particular ticket, but it all just depends on time really. Who knows at this stage….

Let the Magic Kiwi Adventure begin...

Queenstown

Nestled on the banks of Lake Wakatipu and sandwiched between The Remarkables and the Eyre Mountains, Queenstown has to be one of the most picturesque places in the world. It’s also known as ‘the adventure capital of the world’ since it’s home to the first even bungee jump. Ever since, it seems to have adopted every kind of adrenaline activity known to man and people generally come here in Summer to jump off a bridge or from a plane. Not us! AJ Hackett - world famous for jumping off the Eiffel Tower in 1986 - also opened his own bungy station in Queenstown in 1988.

Thus the place is full of hardcore party-type backpackers, generally making us feel really old and like right party-poopers. It seems that if backpackers are doing a whistle stop tour of New Zealand, Queenstown is the fourth place they’ll stop (after Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch) to do the obligatory jump from a plane before flying on to Oz.

Chris enjoying a lunchtime 'FergBerger'

from Queenstown's legendary burger bar

Europeans first came here in the 1850s - sheep farmers. But in 1862 gold was found which, as with our old friend Melbourne, led the town to flourish. Just one year later, Queenstown had streets and permanent buildings and was becoming a prosperous mining town. Gold does run out though and by 1900 the population of several thousand a few years earlier had dropped to 190! Today, due to tourism I guess, there are around 23500 people living in Queenstown - about the size of Stalybridge I think - having tripled from 7500 in 1998. The place is full to bursting with tourists and the population is doubled with the influx in the Summer months. Weirdly, the majority of voices we heard in this town were either American or NORTHERN English! Gosh. I've never been amongst so many northerners (of ranging ages too) in the entire trip. The Americans were of the middle aged variety too, indicating perhaps that people don’t just come here to throw themselves off a bridge and get wasted, but that the beauty is a very real factor too.

Chris and I stayed in a wonderful chalet/lodge style place for our three nights here where a kitchen, bathroom and lounge were shared between two double rooms. There were spectacular views from the dining table and lounge area - it was a real treat. We ate in each evening, enjoying a bottle of wine or two - who wouldn't, with that view!

In all honesty… Despite the undisputable splendour, magnificence and beauty of it’s location, Queenstown is a very ‘squeaky clean’ place - everything looks brand new and it reminds me of some of the towns in the Lake District back home. Great skiing in winter means there are a lot of fancy hotels alongside expensive boutiques and chalet-style accommodation options, mingled in with the cheaper backpacker hostels. It’s nice, I just wouldn’t stay here for longer than a few days unless I were skiing here. It seems to me a town with no soul or culture of its own - any soul it has seems to be brought in by the cycle of boozing backpackers. It doesn’t seem to be ‘lived-in’, just visited.

Finding the gondolla way too expensive for our measly budget, we chose instead to walk up Queenstown Hill for some magnificent views down onto the lake and of the town.

Weirdly - and a HUGE difference from any experience in Australia - there was no birdsong to be heard during our entire hike. This was very noticeable to us having just come from Oz where the wildlife is so very loud and a huge part of the atmosphere. We tried very hard but just couldn't hear any birds. Wonderful views though!

A lot of the more leisurely activities are centred around the lake and nearby rivers - the oldies that we are, Chris and I enjoyed a gentle stroll around the botanical gardens where Frisbee golf was being played by a number of people.

We went to check out an underwater observatory and caught a glance of an eel amongst many other fish. Chris loved it here. It was funny to see the ducks bobbing on the water above and especially cool to see our first ever diving duck in action! The Scaup Duck can dive up to 8 metres deep and stay underwater for a whopping 45 seconds. Weirdly, they look silver under water even though they're completely black above it - it's due to the air trapped in their feathers while they're diving apparently. Very cool.

We also found the best mini-golf I have ever been to and I insisted we go to play. While we reverted back to childhood and I looked into every nook and cranny, Chris gave me a right thrashing. We even won a chuppa chupps lollypop at the end! What a great evening! Dad, you would have absolutely LOVED it and all the opportunities for competition at each hole!