And the WWOOFing Begins!

A few weeks ago my first WWOOFing family located on tropical Waihecke island blew me off so that they could keep on their current WWOOFers. After crying a little bit, I managed to do some research and ended up making better plans. My better plans start tomorrow in Auckland where I am staying for two weeks. While I'm not WWOOFing, I'll be free to explore and sight-see the city (NZ's largest, 1 mil people) Tomorrow I hop on the train for an 8 hour trip up to Auckland. I am staying in the city with a retired art teacher who owns a large urban garden where she provides flowers to local florists. In addition to my host Gabrielle and her 2 cats, I'll be working with an Italian WWOOFer who visits every year for the 4 months of summer. After the two weeks I'm heading down to Tapapakanga Park to a music festival called SPLORE (http://www.splore.net). I am THOROUGHLY looking forward to this. There, I am meeting a multitude of Ithaca friends who happen to be in New Zealand at the same time. After SPLORE, I'm back in Wanganui for a few days with my Aunt. Then I head down to Wellington to sight see for two days before taking the ferry to the South Island where I will take a train down to Christchurch. Near Christchurch, I will be WWOOFing for a family for 3 weeks. By then, it will be the end of March and I will go wherever the New Zealand southerlies blow me. So that's the plan! On my last few days before my departure, I've spent most of my time gardening and sanding and painting a house of a friends (not WWOOFing, but for PAY!) The weather here is finally transitioning into glorious summer, and I take great pride in my daily sunscreen application in the middle of February. Summer has never felt so good. And the more north you go, the more tropical it gets, so I look forward to eating passion fruit and mangos during my WWOOFing days in Auckland. See you there!