pictures

and just incase you didn't know...if you click on a picture in my blog, you can see a bigger version of it! :)

St Mary's Cathedral

I went to St. Mary's Catherdal yesterday...it's one of the oldest around here...i think it's the oldest in New Plymouth. It was pretty cool...i keep forgetting that Europeans have only been in NZ for about 200 years. But here are some pics of it...there was a cool graveyard with some old graves in front too!



sorry i didn't have time to comment on each pic, but i am running out of time bfore i have to feed cows! ah! that's always the problem hehe. Well, here are some MORE random notes i keep forgetting to add:

-one of our cows has star gazer disease...symptoms are they keep there head low, and their eyes look up (at the stars)...and their eyes are all bulging out of their head...this poor cow looks like an alien...but he's doing a little better...maybe i'll take a pic of him for you hehe

-i made oatmeal raisin cookies the night before last and chicken piccata last night! and they both came out really good and jon and jenny liked them - YAY! :)

-the common brand of cereal is "sanitarium"....it freaks me out, but i still eat it...i wish it was called something else though...

-everyone calls trucks around here "utes" and it took me FOREVER to figure out why...it's because they're shortening the word "utility:" as in their Utility truck is called a ute...hehe.

-New Zealand is not part of any of the 7 continents! (espeically austrailia-from jenny hehe)...it's it's own thing...just New Zealand...it is part of the Oceania Region though

--liz - i'm sure we could work something out :) what did you have in mind? hehe...maybe we should email the business transaction details!

--matt-thanks for the toilet comment...they do really flush opposite!

--devon-thank you for checking on the toilets too :)

--Auntie Ellen/Jesse - i want more details about this girlfriend too! and pictures!! :)

ok...i think that's everything! I MISS EVERYONE!!!!

Important things I keep forgetting to add...

-even though we only get 3 channels on tv here, i'd say that you get more bang for the buck - so far i have witnessed swearing (including the f-word!) and nudity...like real naked people on tv! it was a bit of a shock the first time i saw it.

-to answer the question: does the toilet flush backwards? well, it spirals from left to right...clockwise if you will....what does it do back home? i've never really noticed before haha.

-i have become very good at getting a fire started (i.e. it's super cold here at night and they have a wood stove which i light..and it was 9 Celsius degrees IN the house this morning when i woke up! ahh! )

-there is now a cow named Pam :) It's a heifer and the biggest one of the calves haha...it's named Pam because it likes to eat a lot! She currently weighs 105 kilos...most of the other calves weight between 60-90 kilos.

-this one is actually kinda important...my U.S. cell phone # has been suspended while I'm in NZ, so if you send me messages on it or try to call i won't get them!

-ok...i don't know if this is really feasible or not..but i was thinking that it would be cool (at least for me) to have someone print out all of my blog entries...if you can...that way i would have like a book of my trip when i get home hehe. i don't know...it would prob. be a lot of ink/paper/time...but if anyone is up for giving it a try that would be sweet as!

Posts

To answer your question Bri - the posts put the time in your time zone...so if it says like I posted something at 9pm on saturday...it's really like 2pm on sunday for me :)

Devon-i would love thanksgiving in New Zealand :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAKE!! :)

Daylight Savings

Oh yea---Daylight savings happened so I'm now 17 hours ahead of Massachusetts!!!

More Pictures

Hello all...here are some random picture updates.

This is Rotomanu Lake (i think i spelled it right)...it's a park type thing and the lake leads right out into the ocean...and the coastal walk which Chihiro and I walked that day (i don't know if i mentioned Chihiro left last week, but another WWOOFer from Japan is coming this week). It took about an hour to get from here into the town center of New Plymouth. There were tons of ducks and geese here!

Here is a view of Mt Taranaki from the walk...right behind me is the ocean :)

Hey Dad - here is a view of the New Plymouth Golf Course! You can see the mountain in the background and there are great views of the ocean behind me too!

Here is me on a warm day! It was so windy by the ocean, but nice and sunny...New Plymouth Harbour is in the background!

Please excuse the towel...but i had to show off my calf feeding arms :)

Here my first watercolor I've done in New Zealand...it's of one of the flowers in the driveway!

B$ (love the name btw)-we feed the cows from these big vats of milk that jenny gets from a dairy farm...and then we either pump it out into these smaller barrels/feeders with "teets" on them...but the other night she was at the dairy distribution center and got some jugs of milk which we poured into the vats!

Matt- yes, that is what i am saying :) as many zip lock bags full as you want!! I'll have to take a picture next time i'm there!

Devon-how did the tye dying go? and yay you can comment again :) and GO TECH! hehe.

I miss everyone!

Grocery Shopping & Daylight Savings

So i went grocery shopping today at Pak'n'Save...one of the local grocery stores (whenever i see it i always think of someone saying "pahk" as in go pahhhk your car haha, but it's supposed to be pack). BUT, it was a pretty cool experience. they have these huge bulk things where you can get bags of almost anything you want in the nut/dried fruit/legume/cereal/candy category in whatever amount you want. Basically you get a zip lock bag, write the item # on it and then go fill it as much as you want! it was fun :) and there is a brand "pam's" which some of you may have noticed in the picture of the salt that i posted a little while ago...it's funny seeing my name everywhere! and, did you know that there are YELLOW kiwi fruits? like the inside is "golden??" we bought some, jenny said they are better than the green ones, but haven't tried one yet...i probably will tonight.

ohh yes...so the big ice cream over here is "hokey pokey" flavored. i have no idea how they got that name, all i know is that they sing the song the hokey pokey like "hokey cokey" or something like that...anyways, it's vanilla ice cream with Hokey pokey chunks in it...they're kinda like heath bar chunks, only a little different...i think they are supposed to be like honeycomb or something. The same mysterious "hokey pokey" makes up one of their most famous candy bars - a "crunchie" (i think...it could be crispie, but crunchie looks more right)...it's hokey pokey in the middle, with a chocolate coating on the outside...it's pretty good. i'll see if i can send some home.

A night last week or the week before Jenny made nachos...which made me miss them and the people i usually eat them with a lot! but, she made them differently than we usually do (as in there was no chili type stuff in them and no salsa and there were vegetables like peas/corn/carrots in them as well...they were good), so i said i would make them the way he usually do at home...but...as i have been finding out, they don't have the same foods that we do at home...so as with the s'mores, i found stuff that i thought would tast the same and we'll see how it goes! and if i am going to bake them in the oven...what temp/how long should i do it for? :)

Another thing to note...Tomorrow night (saturday for me, friday for the rest of you) is daylight savings time in NZ! BUT, since we're going into spring we move the clocks ahead an hour (and i lose and hour of sleep -boo!)...so as of tomorrow, i will now be 17 hours ahead of you! and then, in November (does anyone know the date?) when you guys have daylight savings, it will be going into the fall and you move your clocks back an hour, i will 18 hours ahead of you guys! AH! how weird is that?

So thanks for all the current events/political updates, i really enjoy reading them! there has been no mention of the red sox or patriots here whatsoever...i am soo disappointed about that hahahahaha... :)
there is more info about the election (which btw, canceled a stevie wonder concert here! He was supposed to play at the pukekura park (which i went to) in Nov. but it got 'canceled due to the elections')...last night they showed an interview of that Palin lady on the news...i really don't like her and she annoys me a lot. when are the actual elections? i'm so not politically informed!

it's almost cow time for me. oh yea...they escaped again last night, but from a different paddock. jenny got a BUNCH of milk that was on or past it's due date, which we had to open and pour into the milk vats that she used for the little ones...and some of it was coffee flavoured...which i thought was weird giving it to them, but i guess it wouldn't make that big a difference seeing the ratio of it...there were a couple jugs of coffee milk to a couple hundred/thousand liters of reg. milk that we have here...but i swear it is making them hyper! it's really cute to watch when they charge around the paddocks and jump and buck...but two nights in a row they've escaped since we gave it to them! anyways, the majority of my morning was spent shifting cows and chasing this one cheeky little brat who got into the neighbour's yard back to where it was supposed to be...it was acting just like raja...it would pretend to be interested in something, then as soon as you got near it it would bolt in the opposite direction? i think raja and the cows would be good friends :) anywho...COW TIME!

i miss everyone!!!!!! come visit :)

The Last Samurai

i keep forgetting to mention...you know the film the last samurai? well it was filmed in new plymouth! jenny and jon actually helped out a lot with it...for example, jenny was a driver for one of the actors (the one who played kotsumoto), and a bunch of their plum trees were used...as in, they dug them up, replanted them on the set, put fake flowers/leaves on them depending on the season in the film...then put them back in jon and jenny's yard when production was over! just thought that was cool...i looked through their photo album of when they were helping out and then actually watched the movie (which i haven't seen before!)...and yes they met tom cruise!

dad-i guess they must have some dippers in NZ because they knew what i was talking about when i said "the big dipper"...maybe you can see the big dipper?...we also saw venus!

kelly-thank you for the update :) i love your comments! hehe - very informative!

crap - i really had something else to write, but i can't remember! it will come to me in the middle of the night and i will forget again....

matt-no brian did not bring a stick with him specifically to kill the possum...he found it in the woods. haha.

and some of the baby cows got out last night! they literally took their gate off the wall of the shed they were in...i have no idea how they did it! trying to find missing cows in the pitch dark is interesting...BUT the night sky is awesome here! :) i saw the little dipper the other night...it was nice to see a familiar constellation! they call it something different but i forget what it is!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PATRICK!!!!!

:)

Random Notes/Corrections to Previous Blogs

-there are no bears in New Zealand...and for that matter, there are no real big dangerous animals at all...like mountain lions or tigers either.
-The loop i hiked on Mt. Taranaki/Egmont was the Veronica Track loop not Victoria
-their ice cream trucks here are called "Mr. Hippidy" or something like that and play greensleeves continuously instead of creepy ice cream truck music
-the baby chicks are gone - one of jenny's friends took them
-if someone would like to email me w/ current affairs/political events in the US that would be cool-i only get tiny tiny snippets of it every now and again on the news
-i had a lot of stuff to write, but i keep forgetting it
-dad-there is a golf course right next to where i am staying w/ excellent views of Mt. taranaki and the ocean! (i'll put up a pic of it at some point)
-i went running once last week...my goal this week is twice haha
-no ticks in NZ, but there are mosquitos! ah!
-i almost went into KFC/Burger King today but stopped myself (there was a commercial for popcorn chicken on tv last night that made me want some)
-we made smores using 'biscuits'..they were similar to a graham cracker, but not quite the same, and we had to use cadbury milk chocolate but it wasn't quite thin enough to really melt...and the marshmallows tasted the same (and yes i actually ate a s'more)
-i've been eating a lot of food that i say i don't like....like s'mores for example...and i had salmon the other night with dinner...and honey....my new favorite sandwich is peanut butter and honey! but it's not the type of honey we have from home, it's fresh honey off of some guy's beehive-it's not clear liquidy stuff...it's opaque and thicker.
-i am still eating too much :)
-and now i really can't think of what else i was going to write about....

Pig Hunting

So....funny how many comments i got from people that they were so glad i didn't go pig hunting....and then i went! ah! hehe. it's ok though...we didn't get any! we went with dogs and it was AWESOME! the hiking was so intense...really out in the bush...no trails, just wild jungle! if i was by myself i probably would have gotten lost and would have needed to be rescued! I went with a neighbor, Brian, and his friend Denis. They were very good guides! we had three dogs with us...Tip, Doyle, and "the old one" which i forget his name. I went on Friday. I seriously thought i was going to be so sore the next day, but i was fine! But back to the hike...it's hard to tell from these pics..i didn't take too many of them, but we were climbing up and down super steep ridges and in and out of gullies all day! Some of them were in the open and some were in dense bush....i had so much fun, it felt like a real adventure! We were hiking from about 7am until around 1230! with not any real breaks! i kinda want to go again hehe.

We also saw 2 newborn lambs on our hike- so cute!!
This is the swing bridge we walked over to begin our hike...it was so wobbly - if you don't like bridges, you would have hated to cross it!

This was taken from the car window...just some of the hobbit like scenery on our way!
Here's another one taken while driving...this is mostly farm land...and we saw tons of sheep, cows, and goats littering the country side! And i think a lot of the goats were wild? or people used them for pig hunting because there were many dead goats/bones out in the woods which are put out there to attract the pigs - ew.

Here is a view from a top one of the ridges we climbed...see the dense jungle bit...we climbed out of that!! in case you can't tell...those are the tops of the trees near the ground i am standing on...it was deep!
I don't know why this pic came up sideways...just another view of the land i was hiking around in!
Here is me :) near the beginning of the hike...you can tell because i am only a little muddy...i had to scrub all the mud of my new hiking boots when i got back which are awesome btw. i'm really glad i bought them!
Another view from a top a ridge.
This is Brian....he is skinning a possum which he killed by hitting it over the head with a stick....possums are a real nuisance here...they're an invasive species and everyone has traps set up for them. also, you can sell their skins...usually get like $5-7 a skin...that's why brian killed it...part of his job is setting up traps around the national parks to catch possums! and after all that...he ended up not keeping the skin because the possum was sick and had some sort of rot on the skin! good thing i've watched patrick and matt cut up stuff before :)

These cute little dears are the 1 day old chicks we just acquired. One of Jenny's neighbors had a chicken of her or something and she had some chicks. they are SO cute, i wish they stayed like this forever....the momma hen is sitting on all 15 of them!

Mommy and 1 baby chicky.
Baby chick in my hand :) the little girl in the background is one of Jon's nieces. they were up to visit last night.

We had a bonfire last night...and SMORES are not a common thing in NZ...the kids had heard of them, but not Jenny and Jon!! So i went to go look for stuff to make them with...and they don't have graham crackers, and i couldn't find Hershey's chocolate...and the marshmallows all come in a mixture of pink and white ones! ah!! i found some substitutes though, and things seemed to work out alright :)

oh yea...we went hiking somewhere near Toko. i don't really know where that is haha.

I think that's it for now...i'm going to go find some lunch!

miss everyone!!

Hiking Mt Taranaki

Ok, so putting up pictures is a pain because i can't get them up in the order it want...or i could, but it would take too much planning haha...so my hiking pictures below are kinda out of order, but i'll do my best to walk you through them!


This cute little cow, picking his nose, is Adrian. He is by far the friendliest cow ever...he's more like a dog. He will usually follow you around while pouring pellets into the troughs and he LOVES cuddles :)


This is Adrian giving me a kiss :)

Adn this is me trying to get Adrian to pose for the camera and show the clean side of his face hehe...the other side was covered in mud!

And i just thought some people would get a kick out of this :) i need a container like this at home!

Ok...this is on the way up Mt Taranaki (or mt egmont) obviously. You can see 3 other mountains on the horizon, Mt. Ruapehu, Ngaurahoe, and ?? they are all also volcanic. There was a lot of volcanic rocks on the way up this one.

These are some cool cliff like things along the Holly Hut Track, as you can see, we are almost to the snow line!!

I took this picture on our way down haha...but if you look to the right, you can see the cliffs from the picture before this one. the trail we were on went all along the ridges.

This is a cool tree covered in moss that is SO Lord of the Rings :) It doesn't looke like a real picture does it? It is seriously like a whole other world over here - still no sign of Aaragorn tho ;)

Here is another LOTR like scene. With some nice stairs for us to climb up.

Here are the ridges that you can see to the right of the mountain in the pictures that i've taken of it...i think they used to be other volcanoes but must have exploded themselves up :) This pic was taken on the way up.

Here is me ! this is at a lookout spot..and i think this pic makes me look fat haha. it's just the shadows ;)

This is me and Chihiro, the other WWOOFer. We conveniently found a nice stair to use our self timers to take this picture hehe. we didn't meet up with any other hikers while we were out.

This is a cool ridge we climbed over covered in volcanic rock. doesn't it look dangerous?? :)

Here is a pic looking back at that little volcanic rock covered ridge in the above picture. and see that other white stuff towards the right of the pic? that's a couple of boards holding the rocks in!! i was only slightly nervous about crossing it.

This is the Mountain on the car ride up.

Here is me before hiking...it was warmer on the top of the mountain than at the bottom!!

Here is Chihiro hiking ahead of me...there were a lot of stairs on this hike.

This is a view up one of the valleys on our way up the mountain . Can you see the orks? haha.

And last, but not least, here is a view from somewhere on the way up. We hiked the Victoria Track Loop and part of the Holly Hut Track. I would like to come back and do some more hiking around here! There are so many trails!

And for all those wondering, i know i said i was going pig hunting...but Tuesday was just SO nice out, we couldn't pass the opportunity to go hiking. The mountain is usually surrounded in clouds, so we had to take advantage of it not being cloudy. I'm sure i'll get a chance to go pig hunting another day.

Today, I was supposed to help weigh some of the neighbor's cows. There were about 20 of them, bulls, and they were all around 900lbs i think (500kg?). But we only got through 3 of them before they broke the fence in their holding pens!! we then had to try and separate them and get them into separate pens. it made me a little nervous because they liked to run...it's scary having a 900lb animal run at you...luckily they are pretty scared of humans so no one got trampled. :)

Now i must go inside and see if the fire is started...my hands are cold and it's hard to type (i'm inthe computer shop, which is more like a shed...i'm doubting there is heat in here and it got cold and rainy this afternoon).

Keep up the comments :) and enjoy the pics!!

earthquake.

we had an earthquake last night...it was a 5.2. just the walls shook really. it was kinda fun haha. nothing was damaged and no one was hurt that i've heard of.

got kicked int he shin twice today trying to move calves up a ramp onto a truck. i have some nice bruises...

i think i'm going pig hunting tomorrow. i guess it's pretty big out here, with dogs and everything. we'll see how that goes1

hopefully next time i report back, i will have some more exciting info to tell you!

xo

Pukekura Park/New Plymouth/Sweet Baby James

ok, here are more pictures :) some of them might be a little out of order! This is part of the Coastal Walk in New Plymouth...you can see where the port is. And that weird pole like thing sticking up and bending to the left is the wind wand...it's just a big pole w/ a ball on the top that shows you which way the wind is blowing....i guess it's some sore of tourist attraction...


This picture is for Nichole and Beth! I found a starbucks!! woohoo!! it's in downtown New Plymouth and I marked it on my map :) hehe. I felt like such a tourist....BUT there were a bunch of Kiwis in there too, so maybe i felt like a yuppie? hehe :)

This is in the "Fernery" within Pukekura Park. It was really pretty in there with tons of different flowers/plants. It reminded of Lancaster Gardens a bit!

This picture is for all of the Whinnie the Pooh fans out there...he was hanging in the cage of a red panda at the little zoo which was also in Pukekura Park. I felt kinda bad for Pooh...and we didn't see the red panda!

Here is a view from one of the trails within the park. I seriously felt like I was in Jurassic Park which was awesome!! i thought a T-Rex was going to come crashing through a wall of trees at any moment! I keep trying to explain to people that those trees that look like palm trees look like they should be on a tropical island, but no one understands me because they are native here and are not on a tropical island...do you get what i'm talking about? :)

Here is the ampetheater thing in the park. It's hard to tell in the pic, but it's surrounded by water! they have a lot of concerts here (like elton john) and have like christmas in the park where they have picnics and carroling. the park sounds really nice around christmas because it would be summer and jenny said they put up lights all around.

Devon, this picture is for you! This is the main street in NP where all the shops and stuff are! They even spell it right! It's also like the longest straight road in NZ or something...or maybe it's the region...i forget!

Here are my babies (some of them) during sunset. I just thought it was a nice picture! This is in one of the paddocks by the house.

Here is me so you can see that I am alive and well. I don't know if you can see in the pic or not, but I am COVERED in freckles. Like seriously...covered.

Here is me and Sweet Baby James :) He's so cute!! he usually comes over to say hello when you walk by the fence. but yesterday he tried to mount jenny...teehee. naughty calf! he's only like 6 weeks old (i think - there are so many calves that were bought on different dates, i can't remember which are how old)! He tried to eat my hair a moment after this pic was taken.

Here is Sweet Baby James again. Sorry for the bars in the way. He wouldn't back up and i didn't want to go in and get my shoes covered in mud/calf poo.

And last but not least...here is me at the park again. :)

Mom-thanks for the recipe! and i wasn't aware of tornadoes when i left...

Dad-i don't know if the new wwoofer is going or not...and i think there are bears in NZ because one of jenny's sons was talking about being able to shoot them...well, he asked if you could go bear hunting in the US, because if there are any in NZ you can't hunt them.

Matt - i haven't seen any branded cows, or branded any myself...i just happened to be walking behind a baby while it was eating and it decided to kick - cheeky little bugger!

Jake - Sweet Baby James is the coolest cow in the lot :)

Well, i think that will about do it for today. i am going to eat a grapefruit and relax before the next feeding. We're just staring to ween a bunch of them, so it won't be as much work soon!

Love,

Me :)