I'm in New Zealand!!!

Welcome to my new blog, where I will share my adventures in New Zealand and beyond...

I've been planning this trip for a while now, wanting to do some WWOOFing and defy nature by skipping winter. I was pretty nervous before I left, travelling to a strange land for five months and all. Stopping in the L.A. airport, whose terminals looked like the setting of an alien zombie shooter game I used to play, didn't help. As soon as the plane reached site of our destination though, I could see I was entering a beautiful green inviting place. Upon arriving at the Auckland airport, I encountered BioSecurity. After answering a survey asking if I had recently visited a farm or forest or was carrying certain items, they confiscated my cheese and washed the farm shit off my shoes.

As I was contemplating my trip months ago, I was pleased to see that the NZ dollar had dropped to half the value of the US$. It's up to about 75 NZ cents to the US dollar now. Oh well, stuff isn't cheap. I went shopping for some shoes but they're twice as much as back home, because they have to buy them from the U.S.

I considered bus travel and hitchhiking as a means of getting around, but that was before I saw her. A vintage 1988 Honda Civic hatchback! For only NZ$1000! Sure it doesn't have A/C or power steering, and I have to put on the choke and warm it up for a few minutes before I drive, but I enjoy roughing it! For some reason everyone in this country drives on the wrong side of the road, so I've been forced to do the same. It's a bit weird, but I'm geting used to it.

Auckland is a nice clean modern city. It's very multicultural - lots of Turkish kebab restaurants, British backpackers, Chinese students studying English, and a guy from Zimbabwe who sold me my car. They've got a great museum, a nice zoo, and lots of lovely parks. I took a ferry across the bay to Rangitoto Island, a 600 year old volcanic landmass for some scenic views from the top. Mt. Eden and One Tree Hill also provided nice panoramas of the area, the latter also sporting a healthy sheep population.

 I arrived here at my first WWOOF host today, a short drive north of Auckland. I was supposed to come three days ago, but the French girl who was here before me had nowhere to go next and remained in my room until yesterday. My first task was sharpening the slasher and felling some tree sized thistles. My host, Betsy, is originally from Iowa and teaches horticulture/permaculture classes here. There's a meditation center here as well.


edit:
As you can see, I figured out how to get photos to appear on the blog. They are all posted here: http://picasaweb.google.com/alxble