Swanson, Auckland, New Zealand September 19 - October 3

My very first WWOOF hosts were located just west of central Auckland, but it was very much the bush. I loved it. There was a new little sleepout building for up to 4 of us to sleep and cook in. There was even a flatscreen tv and cable. I was blown away by the amenities, actually.




John and Sue are phenomenal people, and lovely hosts. John is originally from Holland, so his accent has an accent. Sue's all kiwi and loves hard rock (she knows who Josh Homme is. Most north americans I know don't know who he is. I introduced her to Dethklok.)For 25 hours work per week, they let me stay on their beautiful property and learn about their way of living. They grow a number of things on their property, but their company is "Macadamia Holdings", where they process nuts for others in addition to their own organic fare. Tuesdays and Thursdays were "processing" days, where most of us stood on either side of a conveyer belt and sorted the nuts by size and quality. Their own products are sold under the name "Why Nut", and consist of chocolate covered, dry roasted, salt roasted and even a spread (which is quite lovely on toast with raisins and a dash of cinnamon).

They have a small flock of sheep and brood of chickens. As many eggs as you could eat (we had omelettes for dinner on a couple of occasions). One of the sheep, Jambo, seemed like more of a dog with hooves than a sheep. I accompanied Sue down to the paddock at feeding time one evening and got to see Jambo damn near skipping about in excitement for food. He's a very free-spirited sheep.

While I was there, there were 2 other WWOOFers staying as well. Well, when I arrived it was myself and Sébastien from France, we were later joined by Catherine from Quebec. Both are here to improve their English, so I got to reprise my role as an ESL teacher, and also get some practice as a translator. Haha.

John and Sue both insisted on several occasions that we have the day off and even took us to different trail heads in the area (John stressed he was *not* a taxi driver each time. Hee hee) and picked us up again after we were done. Despite being only an hour's bus ride from central Auckland, Swanson is very much in the bush. I loved it.

The first Tramping track I did was a fairly short one to Fairy Falls. Séb and I set out despite the overcast skies and checked it out. It was a lovely walk, though all the stairs back up from the bottom of the falls were a bit ridiculous. Haha. I've since seen many, many more and managed to conquer them all.

The next one we did, once Catherine (aka Quebec) joined us, was in the Waitakere Ranges national park. We followed a few different trails and made it all the way to the dam at Lake Wainamu. Séb and I explored a few of the trails that went down closer to the water at the bottom of the dam while Catherine kept an eye on us from above.

Being the chivalrous gentleman that he is, when we encountered a spot where the path has been washed over by the stream, Sèb made us a rock bridge and helped us cross. It was another great hike. 

Yep... that's the path. O.o

The next trail I did solo, and what a trek that was. John dropped me off around 10:00 at the entrance to the Mokoroa falls trail, and told me to head north along the trail to the falls (about 30 minutes), then come back along the same path (because the trail cuts through the river and previous WWOOFers caught a cold after doing that and not being dressed properly for it, it is spring after all). Then take the fork leading to Constable rd, follow it south for a bit and then I'll find the trailhead for the Te Henga Walkway, which follows the coast, and make my way to O'Neill Bay, then head towards the sand dune/lake and meet John at 17:00 in the parking lot over the bridge. What a beautiful walk that was. I got some pretty decent pictures, and I tried to capture some of the challenges I came across from where the path had washed away, how close to the edge it was in some spots, but also the diverse plant life that would completely change as I rounded a corner. Admittedly, going alone was not the ideal way to do this trail, as I would be screwed if I was injured, but I brought along supplies (including emergency blanket, whistle, compass and even some athletic tape in case I had to do some first aid on myself. Thankfully I didn't need to use any of it. I also made sure that my NZ mobile was all charged up in the off chance that I had signal and could just call Sue and John to save me.) I made it the whole way, and only fell once (landed on the prickliest bush, but if that's the worst, then I'll take it).

Séb bought himself a car and offered to take us gals out to a couple of different beaches while he got used to driving it. We were treated to a beautiful sunset over Karekare Beach one evening, and did some rock climbing one evening at a beach near Huia (Whatipu? Google maps doesn't really know). Sadly the sunset wasn't much to speak of, but I did get some nice pictures of other stuff as I wandered around the beach.  Still, it was lovely to get out and walk on the beach. We were actually trying to find a waterfall that Sèb had been told about and had tried to reach on bicycle. He's cycled a fair bit, but the bike he had was not made for the big hills in the area and eventually he had to "fake a collision" to get someone to pull over and give him a ride. Sue gave us some instructions the second time we went out, but, alas, it continued to evade detection. I'm starting to wonder if it really exists. Or maybe it moves around to keep away from foreigners. :P

John took Catherine and I to Bathell's beach a few days after that, and explained how we could get to a cave (only accessible at low tide, so, sadly we didn't get there) and how to reach the dune and lake. So off we went to check out some different sights. The dune was visible from the cliffs I'd been walking along, and we cut overtop of it on the way to the lake, as opposed to walking along the stream. It was pretty windy up there, so, we took precautions to keep from ingesting too much sand. We came to a fork in the path, at the bottom of a cascade. There were a couple of other hikers who were venturing across the water to follow the path. I opted to follow them a little ways, as they said that it got even more beautiful the farther along you went. The path was pretty icky in some spots from the copious amounts of rain we've had (it's spring here, after all), but we managed to make it all the way around the lake without losing a boot. Huzzah!

The cascades were sacred to the Maori people,
so there was this little fellow keeping an
eye on things at the bottom.

Gandalf likes to hike!

Even when the weather is grey, this place is quite photogenic. :D

Helping John dice up the macadamia shells
to lay them down for the unsealed driveway.

I know it doesn't look like it, but I really did work my agreed upon 25 hours/wk. I promise. I even worked a little extra as thanks for the superb experience I was having there.