NZ - North Island - Bay of Plenty - Rex and Jo's Place

End of January 2016

With one farm and a whirlwhind tour of the North Island under my belt, I was excited to see what the second farm would hold.  My next place wasn't really a farm at all, but a "lifestyle block" which is a popular term in New Zealand.  Lifestyle blocks are parcels of land that the owner farms, but does not do so for commercial means.  Lifestyle blocks run the gamet, some having nothing more than a small kitchen garden, others with a much larger operation.  

The lifestyle block I was going to was owned by Jo and Rex.  Jo is a delightful kiwi who is a jack of all trades.  Having left the data analysis business (brava Jo!), she has jumped head first into healing practices (including reiki and qi gong) and permaculture among many more things.  Rex, her partner, is a retired airline pilot for British Airways.  He was born and raised in the UK but is currently a NZ citizen and has made his home here.  

What I loved about Jo and Rex's place (one of the many things) is that because there was no rush or need to sell vegetables, there was so much more time to learn and practice and experiment.  They were looking at all sorts of interesting projects like the hu-manure toilet, different planting applications, composting techniques, even pasture management.  Their ever expanding aim was to practice permaculture, move towards regenerating the land, and to grow their own food. 

I took the bus from Auckland to Katikati in the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island (along the northeast coast).  The Bay of Plenty is home to many farms and is a large part of the kiwi fruit market.  Katikati is a lovely little town that is most well known as a fast rising retirement town - perfect place to buy a bit of land and live out your lifestyle block fantasies!

Rex picked me and the other WWOOFer (Maiwenn from France) up from the bus station.  We spent the day settling in and meeting everyone - Rex, Jo, and their two kunekune pigs, Ceres and Juno.

Maiwenn and I spent our mornings working in the gardens with Rex, usually with a tea break around 10am, and then back to the gardens before lunch.  At that point, we might be done for the day or we might work a few more hours if we were flexing in order to do something else during the morning.

Tasks included weeding, preparing beds, watering, scything grass (to make hay), raking, braiding garlic, cleaning onions, harvesting blueberries and strawberries, etc.  There was always something to do and if we expressed an interest in something particular Rex and Jo always managed to find a complimentary task for us to work on.  

Maiwenn and I braiding garlic

In addition to working in the gardens, we also had a whole library (hard and soft copies) of information available to us to help educate us on composting, farming techniques, biodynamic farming and Rudolf Steiner's principles, permaculture, sustainability, the Green Revolution, and so much more.

Jo harvesting some insanely large beetroot

The days passed quickly, so much to learn in such a short amount of time.  We were blessed with good weather for the majority of the two weeks with only a few rain days.  On days when it did rain, we would usually shift our work to the afternoons and spend the mornings chatting with and learning from Jo.  I expressed interest in numerology, evolutionary astrology, and EFT (or tapping as it's more commonly known in the States).  Jo was happy to share her experiences and thoughts with me on the subjects, providing some much appreciated insight.

Much to our surprise, Jo and Rex were kind enough to give us one day off a week (which sometimes happens with WWOOFing but it's not super common).  The first day off, Rex took us into the city with him to see the Tauranga Airshow.  Tauranga is the fifth largest city in New Zealand and by far the biggest city in the Bay of Plenty region.  We decided to grab a drink and go for a walk around the marina before the show.

There are statues of the Hairy Maclary cast on display for the public to interact with.  I had never heard of good ole Hairy but apparently he is a fictional dog that a children's book series is based on written by a New Zealand author.  He has a whole gang of dog friends - a dachshund named Schnitzel von Krumm, a dalmation named Bottomley Potts, an Old English sheepdog named Muffin McClay - and even a nemesis tomcat named Scarface Claw that made an appearance.

The walk seemed to rouse our appetite, so we popped over to the fish and chip shop at the end of the marina for a quick bite.

Maiwenn squeezes lemon juice on our pile of fried goodness

After our short walk, we decided to go for a longer one, around the base of Mount Manganui.  Everyone and their dog seemed to be out, the weather was perfect and everyone wanted to soak in the Vitamin D.

We passed by the 'Tangaroa' statue by Frank Szirmay (Tangaroa is the Maori god of the sea)

The base walk was amazing.  The tide came crashing in over the rocks, seabirds feasted on shellfish, ships glided through the shipping canal on their way into port, and we strolled along absorbing all the sites and sounds Mt. Manganui had to offer.

And finally we made it to the Tauranga Air Show - Classics of the Sky.  I couldn't believe it was my first airshow (after working at Boeing for three years).

Someone forgot their smoke!

Back at the farm... Rex and Jo try to make a compost pile with each set of WWOOFers and we were no exception.  It takes a lot to even assemble all the ingredients for a compost pile.  We had to accumulate a LOT of hay for the carbon component and did this by scything the grass around the gardens, distributing it out to dry on the ground, raking it up, and then loading it into the hay bin.  Sometimes the hay bin needed us to dance on it in order to fit everything, so we obliged.

You need a good mixture of carbon rich and nitrogen rich items, although the carbon to nitrogen ratio is about 4:1.  A good measure of thumb when figuring out if something is more carbon or nitrogen rich is to see how stiff versus flimsy it is - carbon usually is more rigid (like corn or sunflower stalks) and nitrogen is more loose (like freshly mowed grass or pulled weeds).

In order to make a successful "hot compost" pile, it is helpful to aerate the bottom of your pile or it will become to anaerobic (and smell putrid).  The easiest way to do this is to layer sticks in a patchwork pattern on the bottom and build up the compost pile from there.  We also put in four markers for the corners, to help support the pile in the early stages and let us know the boundaries for each side.

After the hay we put on a layer of nitrogen rich product - food scraps and pulled weeds.

Next came a sprinkling of lime and a sprinkling of their customized fertilizer (that had been designed for their specific soil content).  Agricultural lime is a common additive for soil that is too acidic.  Soil in the Bay of Plenty region normally needed this additive to help raise the pH levels.

Then comes a nice sprinkling of pig poo, woodchips, and dirt.  

To complete the layer, we added a nice dose of water to help speed up the compost reactions.

So we did this, layer after layer after layer.

When the weeds and food scraps ran out, Rex went and mowed some grass and we began to add grass clippings for the nitrogen portion.

And voila! We finished our pile after about a day and a half worth of layering.  By the next day the pile had already shrunk down and the temperature had reached over a 100F in the center.  In a few days the pile would be turned and turned again after another week.  In the center you will see everything covered in white (ash) because of the heat.  I saw an avocado pit that was accidentally halved as easy as a hard boiled egg.  It's amazing how quickly the composting works, this will be good to use in a few months.

Maiwenn and I show off our compost pile we nicknamed Bonhomme

Bonhomme the next day with his blanket on

On our second day off, we went kayaking at Rex's friend's place near Tanner's Point and then for a hike around Waihi Beach to Orokawa Bay.  First we stopped at an honesty stand for some fresh fruit.  I love that these are all over New Zealand, just pick what you want and drop the money in the box.

Kayaking was a lot of fun - I had never used a kayak that allowed me to guide the rudder with foot pedals before.  Rex and his friend jumped in the "Canadian canoe" allowing Maiwenn and I to each have our own kayak.  We paddled around the inlet looking at the native bird life including kingfisher and shag colonies.

Waihi Beach wasn't too crowded when we arrived.  We ate a quick lunch that Jo had prepared for us, complete with fresh strawberries from the honesty stand.  Then we walked to the end of the beach where the hidden trail entrance was located for Orokawa Bay.

The walk was quite pleasant, not too bad, but challenging enough to get our blood moving.  As we broke through the forest, we caught site of Orokawa Bay down below...

It was perfectly deserted when we arrived and we spent an hour or so exploring the rocks and fallen trees, walking along the sand, and singing excerpts from the Jungle Book soundtrack.

Before leaving this wonderful memory, I have to mention Jo's amazing cooking.  Throughout the two weeks we spent with Jo and Rex, Jo cooked all of our meals and we all ate together.  Jo practices raw veganism as much as she can (although she does supplement Rex and us with some additional food). I have never eaten so clean before, both Maiwenn and I had ourselves a free detox!

Yum yum, eating some flowers for a snack

Three different types of curry

Best tea snack in the world - fresh bread, butter, and honey

Jo had her own recipe for fresh bread, so delicious!

Makings for vegetarian sushi

My time with Jo, Rex, and Maiwenn was extremely rejuvenating.  This is exactly the sort of experience I had hoped to get when I decided to WWOOF.  Jo spent extra time teaching Maiwenn and I about EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) or "tapping" as well as other healing practices.  It was fascinating to learn about and quite effective once put into use.  EFT utilizes acupuncture points across the body in order to calm certain parts of your brain and allow memories to complete their processing.  Unprocessed memories are a huge catalyst for unresolved trauma which induces stress and anxiety.

Once I left Jo and Rex's place I felt like I had learned so much and wished I had somewhere to hole up for a few weeks to absorb it all.  But instead, I had agreed to hitchhike with Maiwenn to Taupo where we would split ways and I would continue on my journey to Napier.

I have hitchhiked before, a few times, and none of them were positive experiences so I was very hesitant.  Hitching is quite popular in New Zealand.  There have been a few cases of violence over the last few decades, but really few and far between.  Maiwenn had been exclusively hitching since she arrived in NZ whereas I had bought a bus pass to wind my way around the country.  I decided it was good to try at least once, and I would only do it with a friend.

Maiwenn showing me how it's done

Rex dropped us off in Katikati and we hitched a ride out of town rather quickly from an old guy named Blue.  He dropped us in Tauranga where we waited awhile before being picked up by a man and his two kids on their way to Rotorua with some old bicycles they planned to sell to an internet buyer.  We ended up going inside the bicycle buyer's house where he had an art studio and decided to gift a few paintings to the bicycle owner as an additional thank you for the cheap price of the bikes.  After a leisurely lunch we stuck out our thumbs again and this time had to wait quite awhile before a guy in a pick-up pulled over with his daughter.  They gave us the long ride into Taupo.  Overall the experience was fun, but quite tiring.  Etiquette implies you at least give your driver a good conversation during the ride, so it was nonstop chatter the whole way and by the time we arrived in Taupo I was pooped.

Lake Taupo

Once we extricated ourselves from the final driver, we had to figure out where to stay.  It was just our dumb luck that there was a music festival in Taupo that evening and everything (and I mean everything) was booked - no hostels, no campsites, no Airbnbs, no motels, no hotels, nothing was available.  There was a free campground but it was a few miles away and there was no guarantee that there was availability (and no way to reserve a spot).  There were also no cabs picking anyone up, so no chance in getting out to the campsite to check out the situation without committing to the walk.

It started to get dark and we felt our window to hitchhike to Napier had passed.  So we sat in a restaurant and ate food - hamburgers, ice cream, wine - erasing all the good effects from our detox.  We started asking waitresses and bartenders if we could just camp on their lawn and pay them a small fee.  People seemed very sympathetic but we had no takers.  I was starting to get really concerned and was just tired after the craziness of the day.

Thankfully, somehow Maiwenn knew a girl that had WWOOFed as a nanny for a couple that had a house in Taupo.  The father in the family actually worked at a hostel in a different town, but miraculously she got his phone number and he said it was fine for us to stay at his house.  We didn't really know what that meant, but took off in the direction of his house and hiked all our stuff up the hill to a random residential street in hopes that we would find a roof over our head.  Once we finally found the house we realized no one was there.  After finally finding a way into the house (and double checking with the guy that this was okay), we just... stayed there.  It was the weirdest chain of events, but it all worked out for the best, we had a bed, a shower, and a place to cook dinner when an hour before we had thought ourselves homeless.  Thank you trail gods, for working your magic!

I was headed to Napier the following morning, on to Farm #3!