Hawkes Bay -->Taupo --> Hawkes Bay

This week we finished up our exchange work at Otane (30 minutes south of Napier), where we've been staying with Gwen and Neil on their farm. We spent the last two weeks repainting their farmstay accommodation, which included some paid hours, and Wes has still been working at the cafe over the weekends and is learning lots of yummy recipes both there and with the family.

Lavosh, hummus, and mussel dip on crostini

Gwen and Neil serving up roast dinner

Sticky Date Puding

Pavlova!

The boss hard at work (Anna)

shop at the cafe

 On Monday we finished up the painting job, and decided to take a mini vacation (from our vacation!).  We went to Taupo (2 hours northwest) for three days.  Taupo is on the north end of the lake (Lake Taupo is the biggest freshwater lake in Australasia).  It's a beautiful town, with tons of restaurants, shops, and lots of nature-y things to do.  We did a hike to Huka Falls, went to some mineral hot pools, and I (Wes) went skydiving (spur of the moment)!
We drove through some mountains on the way, lots of pine forests, which is of course not something unusual for us to see, but then you can see all the trees are in perfect lines covering the mountains.  All the pines are planted by logging/foresting companies. They grow them up to 25 years and then clear the forests and plant more.

the hostel- Base (a NZ/Aus. chain)

We also went to the local museum where they had quilts on display from a recent fabric arts show.

There was about a 30 minute gap from when Chris said I was allowed to go skydiving and when the company picked me up (in a limo!?) from the hostel.

View of Mt. Tongariro (Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings)

not horns, just the eye mask

got my game face on.

Chris tried his luck at the "Hole in One Challenge", where you try to make your shot into one of the three holes, top prize $10,000. Needless to say we did not win anything, but he came pretty close a few times.

 We also enjoyed some of the many local watering holes in town, including one that had quiz night when we went.  Didn't win anything, but we did take part in a 'couples' contest where I had to stick as many clothes pins as I could on Chris' face in a minute. Wasn't allowed to clip them to the beard and we only got 15 on, for second place.

quiz night visual round

Huka Falls is the most visited attraction in New Zealand,  220,000 liters of water every second goes over the falls. Apparently it can fill 5 olympic pools in a minute.  On the hike there we also passed by a natural hot spring that flows into the river, which is free to soak/swim in.

crystal clear Waikato river

 Now we are back near Otane, and are staying with some friends of Gwen and Neil's.  They also have a sheep farm, and we are going to be house sitting for them for four weeks while they go to a wedding in England.  So, there may not be much to post for the next month or so but we'll see.  Meanwhile, we will be taking care of the house and dogs here, and Wes will be working at the cafe still.

Hawke's Bay

We have spent the past two weeks in the Hawke's Bay area, on the east coast.  We are staying with the White family who own a 1400 acre farm 20 minutes south of Hastings (which is just south of Napier).  They raise and sell calves and lambs as well as grow things like squash, corn, peas, barley. They also have vacation accommodation in a 'farmstay' near the house. This is our first farm stay. They have a 4 bedroom home with a tennis court, pool and nice gardens.  We're staying in the upstairs bedroom with the most comfortable bed we've had so far on our travels... sure beats sleeping in the van!

View from the back deck across the farm

Evie!

Farm stay

Sheep Sheep Sheep

Sheep shearing

We have been doing a lot of different jobs here. We do 4-5 hours per day.  We have been doing lots of gardening, cleaning the house (laundry, vacuuming, cleaning cabinets/ceilings), baking, firewood, and Chris even helped with the sheep. The White's daughter, who also lives here, owns a cafe a couple miles down the road.  We have been helping out over there too, painting and gardening and I (Weslie) have been working a little bit in the cafe and is learning to make kiwi coffee. Helping out with the food is fun too, prepping steak/kidney pies, toasted sandwiches, making tortillas, pastries, and icing cakes.

The Paper Mulberry Cafe

Mowing

Inside the Cafe

Kiwi Coffee

Lemon Squares

It's a lot of fun, it's kind of hard to explain the differences between coffee here and at home-- no drip/filter coffee, just espresso, much smaller sizes, and pretty standard sizes for the drinks too- short/long blacks are in demitasse cups, flat white/cappuccino in cups maybe 8 oz, lattes/hot chocolate/chai/americanos in cups up to 12 oz or so. All seem to come with a double shot, and IF they have flavors available, it's maybe just vanilla or maybe caramel. That's pretty much the coffee menu you'll find in any cafe. Prices are pretty standard too, $3.50 for tea or long black, $4- flat white, 4.50-latte.  So if you like frappuccinos (ew), you're out of luck! :)  I'm going to get to work at the cafe more while we're here, too- for real money, too! Not a lot of hours, but one or two days a week and also while she's out of town in August.

We have done a couple things around the area including a day in Napier where we went to the National Aquarium and saw the penguins and sharks being fed.  We also went on a 14km hike to the gannet colony on Cape Kidnappers only to discover that they spend the winter in Australia; it was still a nice hike as we got a day devoid of wind.  We also got to see that the motor camp near the cape is slowly being washed away; the road is already unusable except for 4-wheelers and bikes.  We also took a quick trip to Te Mata, a peak in Havelock North, just southwest of Hastings.

Walk to see Gannets 

Beginning of our hike to Cape Kidnappers

Whoops...

Motorcamp's road got washed out

Aquarium

Shark feeder

Views from Te Mata

We are also going to repaint the farmstay accommodation, and we'll be getting some paid hours for that also.  We should be here for another couple of weeks, and then through August we will be house sitting for some friends of theirs, just over the hill from here.