Got a couple weeks to catch up on, sorry. We finished up our first HelpX last Wednesday, it was a lot of fun. Very easy. just 2 hours of work a day for the kitchenette cabin. Most of the time our 2 hours consisted of watching their kids, which was an adventure for me, if anyone knows me. I even changed a diaper for the first time. Gross. We met some cool people at the campground, and it was a great place to start our HelpX'ing'. Lots of hikes in the area, including a 3 hour one up a mountain then down the other side to an amazing beach, all to ourselves.
Right now we are in a town called Waipu, just 30 minutes south of our last place. The town was settled by Scottish pioneers and they celebrate their Scottish heritage throughout the area. There's an interesting museum and a couple of antique shops, other than that, not much to see. We are doing 2 weeks at a 12 room hotel called the Clansman, it has a small bar and restaurant, all run by a woman named Claire and her family. The weather the last week has been super rainy so we have just been relaxing and taking our time exploring the region. Our jobs include servicing and cleaning the rooms, and doing dishes after meals. 4-5 hours per day, and we get a room with shared bathrooms, and all of our meals. Plus we're always offered beers from the bar. Not too bad. The food is very typical english/nz hearty food. Dinners include meat, potatoes, peas, carrots, gravy, so if you are familiar with our low-carb diet that we were on recently... yeah... not good for that. But tasty, and free. :)
Below are photos of some of the things we've seen and places we've been in the last couple weeks-- click on the links for info of where we went.
Free Beer. :)
Farmland
New Zealand is expensive. If it's not made here it has to be imported of course. And tourist-y things aren't cheap either, for us to stay in just your average roadside motel would cost us around $120/night. Hostel beds are around $25 each for a dorm room. A beer at a pub can easily be $8, movie rentals are around $5/night, gas is $7/gallon, a 12 oz latte is $4, and we saw a can of refried beans at the grocery store, $6. That's why we are going the HelpX route. It's also called wwoofing, which mostly includes farms/homestays. It's awesome being able to get off the tourist track a bit, while not having to worry about budgeting for a place to stay. We'll definitely need to get jobs at some point though. A beer at a restaurant is $8.00 usually and the average dinner if you eat at a restaurant is at least $60 for two. Which is why Chris hasn't let us eat dinner at a restaurant since we've been here. Lol... I haven't even had fish yet except for the 3 lbs of fresh mussels I got at the grocery store for $2, and the yummy fish and chips that Claire made for us the other night. I may try to find a cafe job at one of the next places we stay at. Minimum wage here is $13.50. Chris is probably going to be looking for an engineering job so we can stay here a little more long-term, but we're going to travel a bit first.
After we leave Waipu, we'll be camping for a night or two, then staying at the holiday home of a man we met at the hotel bar last week. Seems legit. He's a regular here, stays at the hotel a couple days a week as he travels for work. He offered his home up north for us to stay for a few days, says his family hardly gets up there anymore. Kiwis are so amazingly welcoming, they're interested to know where you're from, why you're here, and are very friendly. So we'll stay there, it's overlooking the ocean towards the top of the North Island. Next post should be after that, when we go to a holiday park in Apihara for a week.
Sounds like it's going great guys!!!! Let me know when you are coming back through Auckland.
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