Our time here at Riverside has flown by, and tomorrow we will already be heading off to do the Abel Tasman Great Walk.
These last few days in particular have been incredible. The homeowners where we are staying are away on vacation, so we get a bit of a break with our WWOOFing duties, having only to feed the horses and check on the newborn piglets!
Some things I’ve learned this week:
- If you snort at a Kunekune piglet, he will come towards you;
- How to plant a Peace Tree;
- Your earwax grows outwards at the same rate as your fingernails;
- The importance of knowing when to frog your knitting;
- The town of Kaiteriteri has a nice beach but no free wifi hotspots;
- Horses have a hierarchy and need to be fed in the proper order, or else chaos will ensue;
And last but not least,
- How to pack lightly.
This last point merits a post in itself, and I’m ashamed to say that packing lightly is something I’ve only learned very recently. I over packed to the extreme for this trip to New Zealand, and likely over half of the things I brought, didn’t really need. Hopefully other future travelers can learn from my mistakes.
Here is a list of things I brought but didn’t even use once.
- A sketchbook and pencil set (the idea with this was that the landscape would be so inspiring I would feel compelled to pick up my pencil and start drawing)
- Too much yarn (should’ve seen that one coming)
- Goretex rain pants. (for the few occasions it did rain here, my rain jacket was more than enough)
The list could go on and on, but I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty details. On our recent bike trip to Kaiteriteri yesterday, we met an English road biker on the beach by the name of Mike who was on a multi-day ultra light tour ride. He had managed to fit in several days worth of gear into one itty bitty backpack. He even had a beach towel with him! This encounter inspired me to get my act together and cut down on the extras.
Tomorrow we set out for the Abel Tasman multi day hike and all I will be bringing with me is my small (I’m guessing it’s a 10-15L) backpack. That’s right. 60 km of trails, 4 days of hiking and Pascal with me to carry everything else.
Of course, this means that I cannot bring my laptop along with me (luckily they have lockers in a nearby town we can use to store additional gear) so this blog will go without any updates over the next week. Fortunately, I still had room for one knitting project. Until next week!