Arrow Lodge Motel Ngaruawahia

Hello!

We just spent the last 10 days in New Zealand's first Earthship, and it was quite the experience. An Earthship, for those of you who don't keep up with alternative, eco-friendly architecture, is a house made entirely of recycled materials (the walls are tires that are packed with clay and then stacked together). It also produces it's own drinking water, electricity and food. The water comes from rain water that is ...

We decided to re visit the farm for a few days with Lauren as we had enjoyed our stay there last time. Lee dropped Celia, Lauren and the bags off then headed up to Auckland to take Daisy back. He then got a train back down to Ngaruawahia later that afternoon.

It was a luxury to sleep in a proper bed and Lauren was happy to be able to finally sit up in bed after 25 nights in her cabin!

On our first day there it was really sunny so we cracked on in the garden ...

... if you connected from the outside. Alright, this is just surfing ramble and to sum it all up it was a great afternoon, which was the perfect cherry on top of the whole trip for me. Laura was really ...

Well we've been home now for a week and I must say.....that I now have....the BUG....itchy feet. Whatever you'd like to call it, I have it.

Our flight home was probably the worst one we had our whole trip. Funny eh? LOL There were a dozen kids on the flight, most of them in our section, and ALL of them under 5. All I can say is thank HEAVENS for inflight ...

We spent our first week in New Zealand Wwoofing on a farm 2 hours south of Auckland. For those of you who don’t know, Wwoof stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms. This entails working on a farm for 4 hours a day in return for free food and accommodation.


We took the bus from Auckland to Ngaruawahia and had arranged to meet our host family at the bus stop. We were slightly concerned because our bus was an hour late ...

... same night for Friday, one being my old favourite band Head like a Hole, who have just reformed to have a show this Friday, and then there's a late night Auckland festival gypsy band afterwards we're keen to check out. The beach beckons on Sunday, and many other meetings and parties are getting sheduled in for the rest of the week. Better get off the machine and get out there!

... good. They have also got a zip-slide here which we had some fun with in the afternoon. We also came back after dark looking for glow worms and did the zip-sliding again in the pitch black! Not the cleverest thing to do, but dead funny as you couldn't see the end of the slide until you hit it!! For dinner this evening we went down to a local chippie for fish & chips - spot on. They were grand. In the evening a few of us had a couple of beers, played pool and watched a movie - very chilled.

... The only depressing bit is everyone else seems to be away for between 1 & 2 years which is making out 3 months look slightly lame. Tonight we have all been out for good old fish and trips and Andy is currently playing poker and drinking beer so you can see the way this trip will be going . We are then off outside to have a go on the flying fox or Zip line as we would ...

... places on the way to try to recoup some of the cost of the car repairs! Waitomo glowworm caves really were amazing, i never thought there would be quite so many glow worms in one place. It seemed like a very touristy thing to do, but it was definately worth it. Thought we should probably try to get some more free camping in so went to another reserve near New Plymouth called Lake Rotokare. Really nice site, vrey remote, we were the only ...

... and rode the University bus all the way into the city center to the transport center, because the Information Center I there as well and they'd be able to tell me better than anyone where to find a cheap and easy internet café. Sure enough they knew exactly where the nearest ones were and on the way I walked right by a shoe store and a book store, one of which I really need and the other of course that I just love being in and spending money at. I was online for 2 hours and only paid ...