Marahau

A quick note before I tell you about my time in Marahau: the internet cafe where I am sitting has all of the computers named after Simpsons characters, with a little framed bio and picture of each character above the computer. How funny is that? Can you guess which one I chose? Krusty the Clown!!! So, back to Marahau. I just arrived in town this afternoon after spending a wonderful week with Stephen, one of Savage's friends, at his organic farm in Marahau, the little town at the entrance to Abel Tasman National Park on the North Coast of the South Island (I was thinking about telling you that it was at the far south down on Stewart Island, just to see who's on their toes about my geographical whereabouts, but figured that would probably just confuse you for no reason!). Okay, so really back to Marahau now... I showed up there in the rain and dark on Sunday night, which left me for a fantabulous surprise for Monday morning. Wow! He has a great house that he built out of all sorts of reclaimed timber. There is a veranda surrounding the entire upper floor, which looks out over the valley and up into the mountains. This morning, I woke up once again thinking how lucky I was to be in this perfect place, physically, mentally and spiritually. I was sleeping in a little bed out on the veranda behind the house. My bed was surrounded by a princess cascade of mosquito netting and lying cuddled up in my sleeping bag, I could hear the dawn chorus of birds singing in the native bush that came right up to brush the deck's wooden railings. A stream burbled through the trees below me and the chill of the morning air nipped at my face just enough to make me grateful for the contrast with my 0-degree down sleeping bag. Well, Meredith's 0-degree down sleeping bag, which she so graciously loaned to me for this trip and I have been very grateful to have! I have spent the past week working in the garden (weeding, mulching, fertilizing, harvesting) and the kitchen (canning 12 litres of our home made tomato sauce and whipping up LOTS of pesto to toss in the freezer for the rest of the year). It has been so good to relearn this stuff. These are skills that I have been wanting to build over the past few years, but I have such trouble finding the time to do it at home. Kind of like my vows to learn car maintenance... I still have the vision of running a Bed and Breakfast someday, where I can cook using my own food from the garden. And man, if I can churn out food like we ate this past week, I have no doubt of getting return customers. They are almost entirely self sufficient there on the farm, and we ate fresh fruits and veggies, organic breads, fresh milk and yogurt from the goats, and eggs from the hens (they are called chooks here - although I don't know how to spell that). Very much a wonderful experience. There were great people stopping by the house all the time to visit and help out in the garden. What a wonderful community! (Stephen's farm is part of a cooperative community farming deal). But I meant community in the wider sense, since not all the people stopping by live in the actual community. Did I mention that they also have a lovely little swimming hole in the creek there? Cool, clear water. It felt so nice after a long morning in the garden and an afternoon making litres of pesto. Was it 6 litres??? I have photos from our pesto-making party, which I will post when I find a computer with XP again. This place may have Krusty, Apu and the crew, but it doesn't have XP. On Thursday night, we went to an Open Mike Night down at the Park Cafe, where I got a wonderful slice of orange almond cake and listened to Matt and Malindi (two of our pesto crew - very cool people) play some Eastern European dance songs on their clarinet and flute. They were absolutely fabulous to listen to. It made me want to head off to Eastern Europe for some dancing! I think I'll stay here a bit longer first though. Right now, I am in Motueka, a bigger town nearby where I am staying and I think I may look for an apple picking/packing job to help my cashflow a bit. I'll let y'all know what happens. I'm trying to think if there's anything else I wanted to mention... I'm sure I'll think of a hundred things once I say my farewells to Krusty here, but those will just have to wait for another day, cuz I'm outta here for now!