Beardless

Cat and Mel, I am mainly writing this for you.  After bugging me all program about shaving my beard, I have finally done it now that you guys are gone.  See, pestering does not make me want to do it :).  And I told you that when this happened I'd show you a picture:

By the way, I kept in the braids for about 5 days and then the hair bands started falling out on their own. (You should pester Nico to redo them, I hear pestering works better on her).  For everyone else... I'm going to a hot climate, no need to wear my fuzzy chinstrap anymore!

In other news... I'm leaving here tomorrow, and we never did quite finish a cabin.  Got pretty close on both though, as they are all closed in, roofed, have windows and doors and even have the floors varnished.  They still need wiring, flashing, insulation and the interior lining.  Anyway, here are a few more pictures of the cabins.

              

        

In only 2 more days I will be in Sydney and I'm getting really excited about being on the move and seeing loads of new things again.  I am really gonna miss the dogs though.

Last week in NZ

Today might very well be the last day that I just get to chill and relax for quite a while.  On Friday, Jon, Bexie, Cat and Mel left for their road trip to Northland.  Due to "logistical complications" this left Nico and me back at the house for a few days on our own.  This is actually working out quite well for us to get all our shit together, learn some Indonesian language and forge any necessary return documents for our future travels.

There's all of us together on the last night that the girls were here.  Also it seemed it was time for a new hairdo, and Mel braided my hair.  I kinda like it.

I keep talking about making some cabins, but I dont think i've put in any pictures yet.  Here on the right is the first cabin with all the walls up and rafters on.  Below is another picture from when I was putting on the roof.  Here, the construction is so simple.  This is a testament to that, since I've never built anything like it, yet with a bit of Jon's help I wrote up the plans and did all the framing on my own.  For a foundation all we've got are 3 4"x4" bearers that I levelled with bricks.  Then the floor joysts sit right on those bearers.  The walls as you can see are all 2x4.  The roof that goes on top is just some chicken wire to hold up the roofing paper (acts as a vapor barrier) and then there is roofing iron that gets nailed in on top of that.  Right now the walls are nogged and some plywood has gone on a couple of the walls.  The second cabin has all the walls up and rafters on as well, but no roof yet.  It was crazy to see all that happen in just one day.  With 6 people working on it and the walls already built, it really goes up fast.  In this last week, I think that we'll continue to work on getting these cabins finished up.  I doubt they'll be totally done by the time I go, but it would be nice to have at least one totally closed in.

Big Plans

Big news!  Some onward plans have been made from New Zealand and on the morning of July 5th I will be heading to Sydney.  One night in Sydney and the following afternoon onto Darwin (on the north shore in the middle of Oz).  Then on July 11th I fly to Singapore, and on the 14th of July it is on to Jakarta, Indonesia.  Indonesia will be the next place that I plan on staying a month or so.  This should be a cool adventure as I know very little about Indonesia, but have heard some good stuff.  You can get a good Pacific Island experience and see the culture without heaps of tourists.

So the reason all this is happening now, is that on Sunday, the winter program here at earthwise ends.  From there Nico and I had 3 choices.  If we come back to help out Jon for the spring program, we could use the van and work on organic farms or get a job for the next 10 weeks until the beginning of the program.  Option 2 is to not come back to Earthwise and wander about NZ trying to find work, but with no vehicle or home base.  We finally decided on option 3: leave the country all together.  It would have been pretty expensive to stay in NZ and wander and we decided that it was just time to move on.  This is closer to the original plan of spending 4-6 months in NZ.  In the past week we've decided on all three options and then changed our minds.  But now we have flights purchased and it gonna happen!  I am getting really excited to experience another culture and see some totally new stuff.

On a different note, we finally got the needed supplies to move on with the cabins.  In about a day and a half of everyone going hard, we've got all the walls up and a roof on one of the cabins already.  Most of the work figuring everything out and making the walls and bases I had already done myself.  Now it is cool to work with other people and see it really come up.  I'll post again on this soon and add some picts and stuff.

Peace.

Road trip

Last wednesday to saturday we headed out from the valley for a bit of recreation.  First thing was a day of rock climbing at Whakapapa South.  It felt so good to get back on rock and climb!  There were loads of small climbing areas and since it is winter here, we had the entire place to ourselves.  And winter here is like a cool spring day back in NY, so really not cold at all.  All the routes there are bolted which is awesome for me as I was the only one comfortable enough to lead and I got to set up all the ropes.  Nico, Jon and I all have some experience, but Cat, Mel and Bexie are all new to climbing.  We started out on a couple easy climbs and taught belaying and got everyone on the rock.

Me leading and setting up Ninja, while Cat climbs Teenage Mutant

Then I set up a slightly harder one for Nico and Jon and myself.  After lunch we headed over to a different part of rock and I got to lead a beautiful route called "terror incognita".  It was actually quite difficult as it was about 80 feet and sustained difficult the whole way through.  It was good that I got to do something that really got the adrenaline pumping.  That's me going through the crux of it on the left.

Then another thing that this trip was about was going to Field Days.  This is a huge agricultural expo sort of thing.  It is a huge fairgrounds and there are all sorts of stands set up trying to sell you agricultural stuff, everything from wood mills to tractors to hats and food.  I spent a lot of time finding the free samples of food and whiskey, and just wandering around.  They also have this "Good Keen Bachelor" contest where a bunch of dudes compete in things like making breakfast, chainsawing, and the part that I saw - herding mama and baby llamas into pens. The best part though by far was a show by this dog trainer and seeing all the cool stuff she made the dogs do, like hopping on their hind legs in circles around her and then jumping up and off her back.

Then the last day we spent a bit of time in Rotorua and went to a Kiwi house.  There are so many conservation efforts for the kiwi, cause they are cute and dying off and important to the ecosystem and of course, they are Kiwis!  So this place will get kiwi eggs from all over the place and raise the chicks until they are big enough to fend for themselves.  In the wild only about 1% of kiwi eggs make it to older than 1 year.  There are so many mammalian predators that are not supposed to be here that they all go after baby kiwis.  It is now almost impossible to see a kiwi in the wild unless you are on a special island reserve.  So anyway, this place is trying to help prevent the kiwi disappear to extinction.  Unfortunately I have no live pictures of them cause they dont let cameras in, but here's a stuffed one from the lobby:

Trees and Cabins

Yup that's pretty much what's been going on here.  Over 2/3 of the 1200 trees have been planted and the cabins are going a little slower but the bases and walls have been built for both cabins - all by my lonesome too.

Oh, I have been learning more about household appliances though as yesterday the washing machine stopped working.  I managed to take it apart to find the exact little fuse on the motherboard that blew.  Now we'll see how good my soldering is if we can find a replacement part.  Its kinda fun getting to take this stuff apart knowing that it is junk unless i can fix it, so I cant make it any worse!

Now we are off on a 4 day trip to go rock climbing! and to Field Days and Rotorua.  Field Days is this huge yearly agricultural festival that goes on here. It should be interesting, especially the good keen bachelor contest :P and especially especially all the free samples of food.

Tis all for now.  Bye!

Back at Earthwise Valley

About 10 days ago now, Nico and I ended our road trip and made our way back to Earthwise Valley to help out with the winter program here.  The first day back we made a little glasshouse for the lettuce garden to help them grow during the winter.  See!?:

And then... we flooded the house!  See:

And in the process I learned a valuable lesson... about how to properly drain a water tank.  No, not call the plumber, I can do it.  Maybe... cause then I burned out the heating element in the hot water tank cause I left the power on when there was no water in it.  So due to that I completely took apart the hot water system here, got a replacement element and put it all back together and 4 days later.... we have hot water again!  Yay.  I guess I forgot to mention... the whole reason for this was that we were changing the wood burning stove here to a better one, but this new one is not connected to the hot water system like the previous one so I needed to take out those pipes and in the process.... flooded the house.

Now we are 6 total here.  There is Nico and me, Jon and Bexie, and then two 18 year old french Canadian girls named Mel and Kat.  They are young and full of energy and happy to plant loads of trees, so this is working out well, especially since there are 1200 trees to plant this month!  This is Nico's baby.  My big project for this month is to build two small cabins that will be used as an additional bedroom and an office.  I just got started today and got the bearers and floor joists all put together for one and its laid out for the second one and just needs to be nailed together.  Not bad for a days work all by my lonesome.

Oh, and what else I did today was move our tent back to the old location.  To explain... in the past couple weeks we have gotten multiple times more rain than we got for the entire summer here.  It's wet.  And we found out that our tent is not totally waterproof.  We got a lot of rain one night and in the morning there was a wet spot on the bed (nope, not pee) and then we went to elevate the mattress to let it dry out, but found the whole underside soaking wet.  It took 2 days to dry and then we put it in Jon's tent.  He doesn't actually need it since he's got a bedroom in the house and I do not.  But his tent is in the front yard right near the house and cars.  That location kinda works... but just isnt so nice to live there.... so today I moved the mattress and tent back down to our old tent site.  Yay.  I'm excited for a good nights sleep there tonight.

The Real Deal with Living in the Van

Little known fact:  Living in a van is not as easy and cheap as one would think.  Especially when you are cheap, want to do nothing but hike, and its almost winter.  We've gotten back to Earthwise Valley in Tuateawa almost a week ago now, and I feel like I can reflect and share about how life really is living in a van.

1. not so cheap - we paid for accommodation once ($14 each) and cooked almost every meal, did no paying tourist activities, bought no alcohol, and somehow we averaged about $200NZ a week each.  How? Gas. Ferry.  Those were our main expenses.  Paying for a van to go 5500 km in diesel turns out to be quite a bit.  We did do almost all our own cooking, but of course food adds up, especially with my appetite.  Then there was the transportation for the Routeburn and Caples tracks and our backcoutry hut passes coming in at $50 and $90 each.

2. cooking - best way to eat cheap, and well.  And we did manage to have a propane cooker and full kitchen stuff, so that worked out well.  It does get tiring though to cook every single night.  After a long day of hiking and it is 6pm, dark and about 45 degrees outside, we still have to find a discrete place to set up and cook and try to stay warm.  Good thing we had each other for this, cause all except for 3 nights at least one of us was motivated enough to whip something up.

3. the whole winter thing... - so 45 degrees might not sound too cold, but being in it all day and all night is a bit different than having a warm house and shower to retreat to at the end of the day.  I was basically bundled up as if I were going outside in 10 degree weather just to cook dinner, but thats whats needed to keep warm. It also would get dark at about 6 (or 5 if the weather was crappy).  Then with no electricity there is not a whole lot to do other than go to bed.  Finally towards the end I was getting a bit better at managing to stay up until about 10 or even 11; but overall, I have never gotten so much sleep in my life.  Consistently 9-10 hours a night.  I was unaware of how your legs could just hurt from spending too much time in bed!  I also got good at the whole wash cloth bath thing.  It is a bit of a shock to get discretely naked in a parking lot somewhere and then also be wet in that 45 degree weather.

Overall though, even with all that and the fact that we never slept in the same location for two nights in a row, it was great.  Nothing like being in sight of someone for 5 weeks in a row to create some new tensions, but Nico and I were able to work everything out and I even still like her, woohoo.

whats that? there's a pack rack for the card shark in the aardvark carpark.

Plus, we had the ability to go all over and see some really great stuff and do some amazing backpacking in the mountains.  Now, it is nice to have a home base again and a place to relax and get dressed without being bent over cause only a 5 year old could stand up straight in that van.  And I dont know if I'll ever have the ability to travel so freely with a home and kitchen on wheels ever again and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to do so.  I guess there are always RV's, but lets be real, I'm not going to be getting one of those while I can still go backpacking.

Okay enough for now and more later on how the beginnings of the winter program are going here at Earthwise.  But we did plant some trees today!

Nelson Lakes

More Pictures!
We have just gotten back out of the woods from one last big hike in Nelson Lakes National park.  This one is in the Northern part of the south Island, and probably one of the coolest hikes we've done.  Even though the mountains are quite a bit smaller than they are further south, we were in a really sweet area.  I think part of it is that we hiked up on top of a ridge for the entire first day.  It is interesting how all the main walks in most places kinda follow the same pattern: Hike through beech forest, go up and over some saddle and be in an alpine tussock area for a while, then drop back down low and hike along a river in a different valley.  It is a pretty great equation for an exciting walk, but after doing a whole bunch of those, it was really nice to do something a bit different.  The first day of the hike was up to the top of Mt. Robert and then along this Robert ridge all day.  We were quite exposed up there, so it was sweet that we had such a beautiful day.  As you can see, the scenery there was amazing.

We got a late start that first day, but it actually worked out beautifully well that the sun was setting as we were coming up to the last part of the hike before we got to Angelus hut.  The location of the hut was beautiful, surrounded by big mountains and right next to a big lake as calm as glass.

The next day we dropped into a valley and hiked around into another valley to get to the Hopeless Hut.  This was a tiny 6 bunk hut that we shared with some very strange hunter guy.  Arguably the weirdest guy we met so far who grunted a lot and did not seem to be all quite there.  It was a bit of a relief once we got going the next morning and I no longer had to worry about our safety.  That day was a chill one where we ended up at a hut right on a lake with a couple other hunters.  These guys were quite a bit more friendly and also they had a saw and axe so we got a raging fire going.  It is quite surprising what a fire does to lift your spirits, as we were all warm and sociable.  It was in fact probably the warmest night I've had since leaving the Coromandel, also with going to bed at about 11 one of the latest.  I think that it is amazingly possible to get far too much sleep as your legs actually hurt after lying down for about 10+ hours each night.  So going to bed at 11 and getting up at 7 actually felt really good.

Now as we realized that we are going to go over the amount of k's that we agreed to put on this vehicle, we've decided to start heading back to the Coromandel a couple days early.  This way we'll get a little bit of time to really relax and decompress before gearing up to prepare for the upcoming winter program at Earthwise Valley.

9 Days of Hiking

Not much time for internet on the road here, but we are finally back into civilization for a bit after 9 consecutive days of hiking.  It all started off in Mt. Aspiring national park outside Wanaka with a day trip to the Rob Roy glacier and then up the valley to get a glimpse of some huge mountains.  That was a full on 17 mile day, expecting to do a little hike out of Queenstown the following day.

a Kea!  "hmmm... can i eat your camera?"

So we get to DOC (department of conservation) in Queenstown at 9am the following day, to find out that there is some good weather for the next couple days before getting some more rain.  Well, gotta take advantage!  Plan a trip, get food, organize transportatin, get to the trail, pack up our stuff, and by 2pm we were on the trail on the Routeburn Track.  This is a 2-3 day Great Walk.  Since the end of the walk is about 300km (by car - crazy mountains) away from where you park your car, we decided to do the Caples track to get back closer to the van.  The Caples is another 2-3 day track but is not a great walk.  It comes out only about 40km from the start of the Routeburn.  Good thing we had previously organized that on the start day we had someone follow us to the end of the Caples track, dropped off our van, and then got a ride to the start of the Routeburn.

On the Caples everything was so green!

Then the day we finished the Caples we go back to DOC in Queenstown to find out that there is a couple more days of good weather before more rain is on its way.  Kepler track!  We go crazy again resupplying and making our way to Te Anau which is where the Kepler track is.  This is another Great walk that is generally 4 days.  Totally amazing scenery on all of these.  On the first night of this one we stayed in the Luxmore hut, which happens to be right near some caves.  It is sweet that anyone can go in and explore them.  It was defnintely quite the changeup of scenery.  Then on the third day, we knew it was supposed to rain later and the following day, and after 9 days without a shower, we decided that the 10 miles to the next hut was not enough and so we kept on another 5 miles or so to get to a road and then hitchhike the last few miles back to the van.  I also had a cold throughout the entire Kepler track, so i was okay not hiking through 5 more miles of beech forest next to a huge river (which is something that we have done quite a bit of in these 9 days)

Sweet mountains on the Kepler track

So yea, great walks are really cool in the scenery that you s ee, but they are really like great (side)walks.  The trails are all graded and dont go too steep and are really easy.  This was quite unexpected compared to many of the other trails we'd hiked so far.  The Caples was interesting in that we went  through boggy areas and up steeper stuff and had unbridges stream crossings and interesting things like that.  All 3 tracks were really amazing, and it was also awesome to have a hut with a wood burning stove at the end of each day.  Surprisingly there was about 10-40 people in each hut we stayed in, so it was cool to have some company.

Livin' large in the huts.

There has been so much amazing stuff we've seen, but i dont get too much internet time and I dont feel like writing about all of it... But, you can check out the pictures!
Mt. Aspiring day walk
Routeburn and Caples
Kepler
Okay, and off to Milford Sound for a few days of actual relaxation!

Heading South

Since last wednesday on the ferry, we have done a lot of driving and have ended up in Wanaka for now.  Wanaka is a small tourist town of 6000 permanent residents but swells immensly in the summer for hiking and the winter for skiing.  So nice to be around here now without the crowds. 

When getting off the ferry, we decided to make the most of the warmish weather that is left and head far south and work our way back north.  This meant passing beautiful weather in the Nelson and Marlborough regions.  We went straight to the glaciers on the west coast at just the wrong time.  Turns out that in the past week they had gotten about a meter of rain (yes, almost 40 inches in a week) and so none of the trails were hikeable because of crazy river crossings.  We did get to at least walk over to the base of the Franz Joseph glacier to take a look... although at the expense of getting drenched.  After seeing more rain in the forecast we decided to move on.  Pictures from We(s)tland.

On friday morning we got to Wanaka to only find out that you cannot even get to Mt. Aspiring National Park (where most of the hiking is around here) because there are river fords on the way there that are uncrossable.  At least the rain is finally stopping here and we got to do a little hike up rocky mountain which also happens to be the location of the “rugged country south of Rivendale” from Lord of the Rings. (that's the picture on the right!). More pictures from Diamond Lake and Rocky Mountain.

The Fern Burn hut on the Motatapu track

We have also done an overnight hike on the Motatapu track, which is not part of the national park.  We stayed in the Fern Burn hut, all by ourselves.  In the morning I went on a little adventure trying to get to the top of a ridge nearby.  I've really been wanting to get to the top of some mountains, so this was really nice.  I came upon some random wild billy goats on my way and had fun blazing my own trail through the tussock (quite easy as it was all above the treeline).  More pictures from the Motatapu track.

And so Monday it is supposed to rain a bit more, but hopefully by tuesday we can do some hiking up in the national park here before heading off to Queenstown and the Milford Track.

View from the top of my little adventure

Taranaki to Wellington

A few days back, Nico and I made our way to Mt. Taranaki.  Excited about our newly purchased backcountry hut pass, on saturday afternoon we hiked into the Maketawa Hut which is at the base of Mt. Taranaki.  It was a sweet shelter with great views of both the mountain and the farms below.  We also met 3 other Americans there who just came up from the South Island doing similar hiking and camping to what we are planning.  It was nice to know that there were going to be some other people on the mountain the next day.  Apparently getting to the top of this one is very weather dependent and there was no guarantee that we'd be able to get to the top.

Turns out the world was shining upon us, with a beautiful day.  The hike was about 3.2 miles with a mile of elevation gain.  This is like the steepest trail in the Adirondacks... with 3 times the length.  It turned out not to be that bad of a hike though.  We were kinda exposed the whole time, up until we got to the top where there was some shelter among the rocks, and we could just relax and have some lunch.

We also met this crazy guy who is planning on summiting the mountain 100 times this year.  He was on his way down as we were going up, and then we saw him heading up as we were going down!  Not sure what his motivation would be to climb the same mountain 100 times... but good luck to you.

View from the scoria fields.  It was amazing being above the clouds!

Then from there we headed down towards Wellington.  Both Nico and I decided that big cities really are not our thing, as we both were pretty uncomfortable for our day there.  We did get to meet up with Hannah from Earthwise and catch up.  We spent last night at the top of a hill that overlooks the city, which was actually a really nice spot close to the city to spend a night.  Now we are on the Ferry to Picton and the south island and really excited about getting back out to the wilderness!

I've got some more awesome picts from this hike posted at my picasa site

Onward HO!

Tonight is my last night here in Tuateawa where I've spent this whole year so far.  Nico and I leave tomorrow in the van to road trip all across New Zealand with the intent to get out into the wild and do as much hiking as possible.  We kinda started that yesterday with a trip to the Pinnacles.  I hiked there with everyone a little while ago, and since it was so amazing I was happy to do it again.  (see pictures here)  The weather wasn't quite as good, but it was still a great day.  It is also me finally being sure that my knee is no longer an issue.  It's still been hurting a bit, but if I feel good the day after that hike.. (which I do) then i am set.

Below is our ride for the next 6 weeks (and the dogs!):

We built the bedframe in a way that it is easy to take out and put back in so that it will always be an option for this van.  It actually took only 10 minutes to put it in or take it out.

Here to the left is the frame.  The four horizontal pieces are each individual units.  Then the three long bits are just cut to size and screwed in.  Then there are two plywood pieces that go on top and get screwed in.  The furthest horizontal bit is on an angle because the right side is the length of a sheet of plywood and the left is the length of the bed.  This gives us a nice shelf, and we have easy access to everything that is stored in the front.

Right now we have a double mattress in there fully sheeted with 4 wool blankets (we'll be comfy on those cold nights in the south island).  In the front we each have our own cloths bin and a box of stuff.  This is all easily accessed.  Then behind that is the toolbox with stuff for basic van maintenance.  There is also a bin full of camping stuff like cookware, tent, ice axes, poles, etc...  Next to that one is the bin with all the kitchen stuff; pots, plates, cookware, cutting board...  Stuffed on one side are our frame packs, and on the other side are a couple car jacks.  Then in the back from left to right is an extra 20L of fuel, the food bin, the chilly bin (cooler), dual burner gas cooker, and a can of propane.  So basically we'll have everything we need except a toilet and a shower.

I'm psyched to wander about wherever I choose to go for a while and see where we end up and who we meet.  There is also going to be no one saying what to do and when.

Although one consequence of this wandering will be a lack of internet... I'll try to write when I can, but I would guess that there wont be a lot in the next few weeks.

The End of the Beginning

The summer program here at Earthwise Valley has come to a close a few days ago.  In the last few days here we had some time to wrap things up and share all our photos and music and all that good stuff.  We also had an afternoon of the Gnome Olympics.  Laura and Hannah went down to the land to set up some random games and stuff like a scavenger hunt, obstacle course, egg toss, blind/dizzy race, and a frisbee game (similar to cups).  We split up into two teams and competed for nothing in particular, but it was a good ol time.

On saturday, Nico and I took Jon, Laura, Hannah, and Dani over to Coromandel town, as their ferry to Auckland was that arvo.  It is defo a bit weird, and much quieter here now without all them.  I think we may meet up again, since we all are going to be travelling around this country for at least the next month or so.

I have also gone through all my pictures that I've taken since being here and chose a whole bunch as a greatest picts sort of thing.  It is on my picassa site here.  There are some good ones in there, so enjoy.

Nico and I are now getting ready for the next part of our adventure.  Main thing right now is pimpin out the van.  We are building a bed in the back and getting all sorts of gear together that we are borrowing from here.  Then on Monday we are going to start driving south and do tons of hiking all over the place.  Since we'll sleep in the van and cook most of our food, diesel should be our only big cost.  We also have only a few ideas of places we definitely want to hit, and I am optimistic that we will have time to randomly go and stay wherever seems nice.  Our main limitation at the moment is that we are going to be helping out Jon to run the winter program at Earthwise which begins in June.  So we'll have to be back by then.  I am really excited though to get down to the south island and get deep into some awesome mountains and glaciers.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the pictures, and here's one last one of the group.

Flax, Passover, and a Piano

Hello, I figure its about time for an update.  This past week was Passover, and thanks to Mom, a box of Matzoh and some lollycones (passover candy) showed up here on the first night of passover.  Since no one here knew anything about passover (other than Nico) I led a short and simple seder, telling the story and talking about some of the food symbology and sharing the matzah.  It was cool that everyone was interested and that Nico was there to back me up on some of the "facts" as she has actually read the bible before and i have not.  Matzah has been a small part of every meal since until we finish it up.

We have also done a third round now of harvesting and planting flax, bringing the number up to about 600 flax plants that we've harvested and planted in the valley.  After the first time we did this, I wrote about it and why flax is so important.  So if you missed that one, check it out here:  http://nomaddave.blogspot.com/2010/01/flax.html. This time we also planted some by the ocean, right across the stret from the valley.  I think a flax god dressed as an old man stopped by... Laura, Hannah, little John, and myself were planting off the side of the road and suddenly a couple old guys walked by wondering if we lost something.  They came from the sea and it is a dead end road, so basically they appeared out of nowhere.  When I told them that we were planting some flax, expecting to explain why, the one old guy who asked replied something along the lines of "Good on ya.  I planted over 30 flax plants just yesterday."  Then just as they appeared, they went on their way, with no vehicle, and no where to go within walking distance.... random.

And.... a piano!  On our way back from getting flax we stopped by the storage in Thames to bring back a big piece of furniture.  There was also a piano in there that is quite out of tune, but works just fine.  Jon was going to donate it... but then I played "the luckiest" by Ben Folds...  messing up quite a bit and didnt even finish cause its been so long since i've played, but it was good enough!  We all convinced Jon to bring it back to the house instead and now we've got a piano.

Oh, and while we were in Thames we stopped off at the community pool where they had this huge blowup obstacle course floating in the pool.  There was a line of kids, probably none older than 13, waiting to get on, and we just hopped in with them.  I was the only one out of our group to actually make it all the way to the end, mostly cause I used the leap-frog method learned from some scrawny 10 year old kid.  It was good fun.

People again!

Finally on Tuesday night everyone came back from the epic trip.  It is so nice to have people around again here at the house.  It defo was a relaxing week, but now I am glad to have company again.  That night we had another spa bath.  It is an awesome thing to be able to have it basically whenever as long as we plan ahead a bit and start the fire early.  Before everyone left we filled up the vat with water from the river and filled the fireplace with wood.

Then the first day everyone was back we finished up Jorge (the composting toilet).  Put up the door, added stairs, and varnished the inside.
Now we have our new
place to poo
with a view.
Shitty poetry, huh?  Below here is a picture of the finished product:

Then two days ago we tried out the earth oven for the first time.  I dug out the sand in the middle of it which was holding the shape while it was built.  Then I got a fire going in there for a couple hours.  Laura and Dani had spent most of the afternoon making pizza dough and bread to bake in our new earth oven.  And then when we go to bake... its barely hot at all.  I think that first fire was needed to dry everything out, and right now we've got another fire going that will hopefully heat up the oven this time.

Other than these couple projects its been a quiet few days here.  Today was a free day, and we went to the beach even though its been slowly getting cooler here.  I was the only one to get in the water.  I also went for a very light jog to test out my leg which has been feeling better.  I doubt it is back to 100% yet, but I might be able to stop worrying that I will strain it at any moment now.  Tonight is the end of daylight savings here and so tomorrow there will be 8 hrs difference to the east coast.

 Fijoas are my new favorite fruit.  And here's some to the left.  Yesterday Jon went over to the neighbor's house and got 2 huge bags of them.  I have eaten about 40 of these in the past 24 hours.  Yum.

Composting Toilet

Another major project we've been working on recently, with the brains of it coming from Nico and I, is a composting toilet for the house.  I have so far really enjoyed working on it, and there are only a couple more things to until it is totally complete.  I just felt like writing about it now, since I'd like to be working on it in my solitude here, but cant really do much with a bummed leg.  I put a couple photos in here, but you can see more on my picasa site: http://picasaweb.google.com/dave.dayan/CompostingToilet#

So why make a composting toilet when we have a perfectly good one inside?  Good question.  One huge reason is to save on water.  With 8 people in the house, flushing the toilet takes up a large amount of water and since water is still scarce around here it will be good to use less.  Also we will be making less waste in general by using an outdoor toilet.  Sounds counterintuitive to leave your shit where it lies, but I'll explain in a moment.  Another good reason for this toilet is; with 8 people living here it'll be good to have another place to take a crap when someone jumps in ahead of you.  And yes, it will actually smell better than a conventional toilet!

This is it here to the left.  It could still use some stairs and a door, but we're almost there!

So how is this all possible? Less waste, and smell better?  Simple - let worms eat it up!  The way that a composting toilet works is by pooping into a bucket with some worms and mulch in it.  We use the half barrels which are about 3 feet in diameter and about 2-3 feet high.  After each poop, the "flush" is a handful of mulch to cover it all up.  This prevents the flies from coming and prevents it from smelling.  As the bucket fills up, the worms go to work breaking down all the worm goodness in the barrel.  There are actually 2 barrels in the system, and once one fills up, it gets put aside while the other is put into use.  During this time the worms break it all down more until it just looks like some nutrient rich dirt.  At this point you can feed the trees with it as it is great plant food.

So there you go, you can even turn your poop into something useful instead of using loads of energy by sending it to a waste water treatment plant.  Ewww...  city water that most of us drink, could have been flushed down the toilet with your poop...

Not only was this a fun project in getting to do carpentry and having the satisfaction of seeing the progress on a daily basis (instead of monthly or yearly as it often goes with conservation), but now I have written down plans and can reproduce this fairly easily some other time in my life.

I do know that this all works, because we have a composting toilet on the land that we've been using the entire time we've been here.  That is also where I got the plans from.  Jon has had very little to do with this project, so I've gone to the other one a few times to study it and take a whole bunch of pictures on how it was put together.  So who else wants to poop with a view?

Coming up with some Plans

A few weeks ago I realized that my flight onward was for the end of May, and in thinking what I was going to do  until then, I realized that June was too soon to move on!  It is really amazing to have the ability to make that decision and just stay here longer.  Well, almost.  I applied for a working holiday visa that will let me stay for another year here.  But if you are here for over a year, you need to get all this medical stuff done that is expensive and blah blah blah.  So in order for the visa to be good for less than a year I need a flight confirmation out of here.  So I call Air New Zealand to change my flight (on the hopes that I get a visa and wont have to pay again to change it back) and of course they want proof of a visa to let my delay my flight.  Bureaucracy sucks.

Anyway I got to change my flight by sending the airline some info, and now I am waiting to hear back from immigration.  But my new flight date......bum bah dum...  Is December 31 going to Sydney, Australia for new years! I might actually spend less than 24 hours there before going north in OZ or even to Singapore cause it is cheap to fly there.  None of that is set in stone yet though.

Now what to do for the rest of 2010 in NZ?  thats easy.  Right now Nico and I are planning on borrowing the van from here and road tripping down to the bottom of NZ and back from mid april until June.  Then in June we agreed to come back here and help Jon run a month long winter program at Earthwise valley.  After that we can either get a job somewhere or travel around south some more, or WWOOF, or even come back here again for the spring program.

Yea, I know, we were planning on being back in the states by June 2011, and that would give us only 6 months for the rest of the world.  Or, more likely, we just dont come back then.  Amy, no worries, I will at least be coming back for your wedding and then continuing on my journey.  And a congrats to Tim and Kate who recently got engaged, and so nicely planned their wedding to be the weekend before Amy's, so i could be back for that too.

Anywho three months in and already totally changing around plans.  Who knows what we will actually be doing before I end up back in the states again for a while.  OK, Bye.

PS. by the time anyone reads this we should be off for an epic week long hiking trip up some volcanoes in the middle of the north island.

The Creation of a Spa Bath

Hello everyone.  I am alive, no worries.  Just been busy recently doing many things here like constructing a composting toilet, making cornhole (yay games), clearing out storage in Thames to save some cash for the trust, weeding, mulching, planting, hiking, fishing, and bonfires.  But a lot of energy has been spent making a spa bath here which works in a totally unique way that I thought I'd like to highlight here.

First thing, we need a big ol' bath tub to have our spa bath in.  We chose a spot right by the gazeebo that is near my tent, and started digging a hole.  Next was to make a frame to hold the tub and also create a deck around it that joined up to the gazeebo.  I may have mentioned before, but it was interesting building a structure on non-level ground. Something I had never thought of before was to drive big posts into the ground (or even auger out holes to put in even bigger posts) and then attach the main supports to these posts so that it is all level.  Then we added joysts between the inner and outer frame which gave us a complete frame to put the decking wood onto.  Below is a picture of the tub and deck all completed (minus the bench seats that Nico and I added on later).

The next part of this spa bath is to have some way to hold and heat up a whole lot of hot water.  Here, there is an unexhaustable source of firewood, so we made a fire pit!  We also got a 1600 Liter vat to hold the water.  I learned a whole lot about concreting and brick laying in this part.  A hole was dug into the side of a little hill to make a flat area to have the firepit.  We mixed and poured concrete into the bottom to make a level ground to build the walls up from.  We then built walls on three sides to support the huge vat, and added a concrete pipe as a chimney in the back.  And vuallah! a cheap way to heat tons of water.  

The fireplace and vat are uphill of the tub so that when the water is hot and ready, we can open the valve to let water flow down.  We used 50mm alkathene piping (I dunno if it is called something else in the US, but it is a black barely flexible plastic tube).  There are valves both at the vat and at the tub so that we can have control at either end of the water flow.  Once you are in the bath sometimes it is good to top up with some more hot water without having to get out.  It was a bit of a puzzle to get all the fittings together and get it all connected, but once we did, we were ready to have a bath!

Since we've been a bit short on rain (and hence water at the house) we filled up a tank of water from the river on the land and pumped it into the vat.  It took about an hour and a half of having a fire in the new pit to get the water up to about 140 degrees F.  Then with the gravity feed and the 50mm (2") piping, it took only about 3 minutes to fill almost the whole tub!  We even had to mix in some cold water cause it was too hot!

Then finally, enjoy :)

There are some tarata leaves in there which is the New Zealand lemonwood.  It makes the bath smell all nice. Also in the background there are the benches in their finished state.  As far as I know we are the only people who have a spa bath (or hot tub) set up in this fashion, but it works great here and costs very little.

I've got some more pictures of the whole building process up on my picasa site: http://picasaweb.google.com/dave.dayan/SpaBath#