Goodbye Dunedin

Sitting in front of the Public Library in Dunedin, I'm trying to think of a little something to say in this blogpost. It's been a while since I've really written anything that tells you guys anything of what I've been up two.

I've spent the last two weeks WWOOFing in Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand (that sentence had sooo many capital letters...). It's been positively delightful. My WWOOF host was a energetic woman, somewhere between the age of 75 and 80. She's still running around her 8 acre property like she was thirty years old.

Bunny's been hosting WWOOFers for the last 25 years, for as long as she's had this property, really. Over the years she's created a wonderful garden filled to the brim with vegetables, herbs, roses and all a manner of interesting and exotic plants. The garden only takes up about 1.5 acres though...the rest is paddocks for her sheep (she always has between 2 and 4 of them) and a mix between a lot of pine trees and native bush. It's really incredible.

I've had the pleasure of helping her out the last few weeks--as you can imagine, a place like this really appreciates a lot of love and attention. I've spent my mornings weeding or chopping wood or clearing paths or mulching, digging, composting, planting. I've made preserves and learned a lot about flavoring food with herbs. A lot about living efficiently with little waste. I've learned how to feed sheep and how to quickly and efficiently navigate a trap door entrance to my room.  I've drinken (drank?) tea out of a genuine teapot covered in a tea cozy in the mornings and samples spices and teas from accross the globe.

It has been lovely.


But now I'm off to explore a small portion of the South Island. There's so much I'd like to see, but I've setttled on going through Queenstown, seeing the Milford Sound, and spending a few nights in Wanaka where I'll hopefully go fly fishing (there are a number of you who I'm sure are quite delighted to hear that) and lastly I'll make my way up to Christchurch, maybe via Lake Tekapo if I can manage it, before flying back tok Auckland and beyond....

My time in New Zealand has flown by, already I've been here over a month. And it's been quite a time. Something tells me though that I'll find myself back in this part of the world within the decade. Probably not for tooo long, but maybe long enough to make investing in a car and exploring this place on my own terms worth it, dragging along some travel friends...anyone care to join in next time?