A Mixed Bag

If I were a blueberry, I would be the one with the frilly bits, and fall off the bush into the pickers bucket with the glance of an eye. If I were a plum, I would probably be a fortune plum, caught between fuchsia and pink and too ripe to be eaten in the car. If I were a wwoofer, who sought the warmth of a home while I was so far away from mine, you could send me to Windsong Orchard, an organic fruit orchard stocked with tree-ripened characters, full of everything good in life.

This has been our home for the better part of January,
parked somewhere between the blueberry patch and the kiwi fruit trees.

As I pick my way through the blueberry orchard, my bare feet pushing into the cool grass, I have had time to contemplate my experiences as a wwoofer ("willing workers on organic farms") in New Zealand. I've come to know my wwoof hosts as agri-warriors, leading a quiet revolution to put the culture back into agri-culture, fostering new attitudes towards food and in turn, life. Unlike the majority of fruit produced in New Zealand, fruit picked here is not bound for international travel. It's grown and sold right here, usually by the hands that picked it for you.

Windsong Orchard stands out in NZ's Marlborough region, not only because people can consume the fruit they produce (unlike the dozens of neighbouring vineyards), but because they personify what it means to create good food. Tree-ripened, hand-picked, never-been-sprayed, Bio-Gro certified, locally grown, "other catchy market terms," fruit. Whatever you may choose to call the quiet food revolution taking place here, it all ends up in the compost bin. Windsong Orchard reminds you there a multitude of simple pleasures in life; like the beauty of living life on the open sea, or sharing meals with a never-ending supply of new friends, or tasting the flavours of all those plums, from tart to sweet.

Above all, Windsong Orchard has taught me that we not only consume food, we create it.

If I were a blueberry I would ask to be baked into a beautiful muffin, served with Earl Grey tea. If I were a plum you could take me to the farmers market and sell me along with all the other plums (like elephant heart, santa rosa, black amber, and billington) in a mixed bag. A mixed bag of delectable plums, grown for you by those lovely Crum's.

Mariana (the sweet soul),
Bob (ripe with critical knowledge & wit),
Jennie (an inspiration on so many levels),
Me (quick-picking fingers) and
Bry (full of blueberries).

Bread to the Birds

Our week between Able Tasman and our next workity wwoof wwoof was mainly spent either camped out near the beach cooking from one pot, or hiking in the mountains, and cooking from one pot. Beautiful meals seem to be much easier to make when we are staying with a friend or when we are staying at a "campsite" that has a kitchen. Bread is part of a beautiful meal.

One thing I've learned from a kiwi cookbook, is that NZ flour is much lower in gluten than Canadian flour and therefore does not rise well, especially whole wheat bread (so it turns out that the past bricks that have come out of the oven were not totally my fault!). An easy way around this is to add ascorbic acid (a.k.a. Vitamin C) to strengthen the gluten bonds...and voila! beautiful bread.

Another revelation in bread making was the bread itself. I make bread because it's a nice pass time, it's relaxing to knead, and there is generally less "fake" stuff in it that ends in orbitol, anthem, and other words that should be reserved for NASA astronaughts and Dendrochronologists. This past week, we've also discovered yet another reason to make your own bread, because the stuff from the store tastes horrible (in comparison). After four months of home made bread, we had forgotten how much superior the home stuff was.

On another topic, since being in NZ, we've seen a lot of birds but had not yet actually gone looking for them. What better spot than the Farewell spit, a place where heaps of shorebirds come to rest on there way back from North America (also a place where hundreds of whales come to beach themselves...). After spending a few hours walking along the spit, the two big players of the day (which weren't even shorebirds) was the Caspian Tern, and the hundreds of Black Swans.

After all that birding, we decided to take in the Golden Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Show, held in Takaka. What a riot! The whole town was there, it was unbelievable. The rural sense of community in the South Island is very strong, especially in comparison to Canada. We saw everything from show jumping, to cow competitions, to wood chopping.

We have now just arrived at our new work station, but more details will have to wait until later...
see ya soon!

The breadbasket...

One of those "one pot" meals along the beach

Sharin' the love at Golden Bay


After getting to the hut in the mountains, we wait out the rainy afternoon sharing a listen to CBC's "the Debaters" on an Ipod


Ok, enough waiting in rain...we go for a wee walk to see the Karst topography.

HOLY COW! We are above the clouds! I love this hike "this much".

Here we are looking so tiny at 1500 m. Part of Mt Arthur to the right.

Part of Farewell Spit

Weka coming in for a closer inspection.

Oystercatcher catching some...er...mussels...

Sheep shearing competition using old school shearers.

One Great Walk.

Here's a tip for your next backpacking trip (kiwi translation "tramp"): soak your oats the night before, add dates. The soaking will reduce cooking time (and fuel consumption) while making them a spectacular mushy texture. The cooked dates will ooze natural sugars that will taste as good as bacon after a night of sleeping on the ground listening to the eager mosquitos buzz by your tent. In addition to your morning glory, other food items that fit nicely into your backpack could include: pepperoni (which oddly will last days despite the heat), cheese (this however, will get soggier with humidity), and more Whitakers chocolate than you think you'll need.

Apart from enjoying your well-earned food, a hiking trip can make you fall in love with the outdoors all over again. While there are always the bits that test your ability to either endure or enjoy (say, for instance - rain that causes the skin to raisin or perhaps sandflies that cause body to swel, etc.) they are far many more bits that make you want to burst. From the moment we left the trail head at Marahau until the water taxi fetched us at Totaranui - Abel Tasman was one great walk.

Please see the photo description below.

Abel Tasman is a gentle walk, so gentle we wore running shoes (only to be passed by day-trippers in flip-flops). This being our third "Great Journey" in NZ (basically by "Great" meaning spectacular and popular), we knew the trip wouldn't disappoint. Here you can see I am obviously thrilled to be beginning our first South Island tramp.

Walking along on our first day we were getting the feeling that Abel Tasman National Park was the place to be. Until we realized that it essentially was. The park is actually incredibly accessible by boat (both personal operators and water taxis). So our first lunch break was spent sharing the beach with a few dozen kiwi families and their motorboats.

Our first campsite: A beach (almost) to ourselves, (somewhat) warm Tasman Bay water, our groundsheet as a beach blanket, and some reading material. When you are unemployed by choice you do your best to stimulate your intellectual by reading copious amounts of books (both fiction and non). I've decided it helps keep you sharp.

When the NZ weather catches you off guard, you wait it out in a hut, for four to five hours. We hang the tent under the veranda hoping that it will dry out somewhat despite the 100% humidity. The pounding rain was the soundtrack to our afternoon in the hut, as we (along with some fellow trampers and a few stranded kayakers) waited for the precipitation to subside and the tide to roll out.

The next day, the sun poured out with a vengenance, as if begging forgiveness for the day before. We were dry, warm, happy, and met with too many glorious beaches to know what to do with.

A tidal crossing leaves Bry ferrying our packs above his head while nervous trampers watch on. He offers to carry me across the stream above his head, however unlike my sleeping bag, I do not mind getting wet.

Being the brilliant folks we are, we actually find a cafe en route that agrees to serve us a beer, chocolate milk, and piece of cake (for a small fee of $23 NZD - money well spent). As we reflect over our journey we agree that something about this Great Walk felt odd. Perhaps it was the lack of commradery of our fellow coastal walkers, or maybe it was the fact that walkers could taxi their gear ahead and carry only their camera, or even drop in via motorboat to a spectacular beach it took you 4 days to walk to. In any case, Abel Tasman is breathtaking, and was worth every step.