Water

Since I've come to Hawai'i I've come to appreciate drinking water.

You'd think after all the earthquakes and

free flowing sewerage/water that I'd have this sussed but I don't.

My life is too soft and my memory too short.

At home I fill water bottles everyday, one for the car and one for work.

About three litres everyday.  

Our tap water is unfloridated and not too chlorinated and

fresh from the huge, pure aquifers under the Canterbury Plains.

Sweet, fresh from the ground.

Here in Hawaii people get their water from where they can.  

There are deserts there you know!

 

Its all the usual places you get water from 

rain water,  run off, ground water, springs and of course town water.  

To be honest, it all, with the exception of the spring water tastes pretty foul. 

So you drink bottled water and of course there are million brands.  

My choice in NZ is Pump.  

In Hawaii there are plenty of good brands

and very pretty looking brands too.

Me and Louly sampled a bunch of them and

ended up drinking the prettiest bottle.

One of which made it home with me

and now resides on my bathroom floor.

I really have lost my housekeeping mojo.

On July 5th Louly and I took ten young New Zealand farm kids to Hawaii for an agricultural exchange for two weeks. They are members of the NYZF TeenAg programme. We were hosted by East Hawaii 4H specifically the Beatons and Stouts. We visited many kinds of agricultural and horticultural operations, varied and diverse, learned that American ag folks like to philosophise about their place in the world and had a great time snorkeling and shopping in the sun. These posts are in no particular order cause I was too busy to post while in Hawaii and can be rather abstract and should only be taken as an inaccurate at best record.

Kilauea Iki

There is actually a place called Volcano in Hawai'i.

Strangely enough it is on a volcano

as is the island of Hawai'i 

Actually it might be on a number of volcanoes

I wasn't paying that much attention to the informational movie we watched.

But I do remember that the reason Hawai'i looks like

God spilled his dinner across the Pacific is because

as the islands grew from spewing upwards from under ocean volcanoes

earthquakes moved the existing islands eastwards

and the island of Hawai'i just has not moved for an age

so is the Big Island by default,

(no earthquake pun intended).

Volcano day started out with what we would call a walk but

the Americans seem to think it was a hike. 

This was really only from the Americans I overheard when we stopped 

at the steam vents on our way to the Visitors Centre
discussing hiking to the half mile to the Visitors Centre.

We were staying with Hawaiians,

completely different from Americans.

They don't sound like Americans,

though they listen like Americans.

They don't dress like Americans,

mostly cause they live in a shoe optional world.

They don't look like Americans

because as a rule Pacific Islanders are a blip on the radar of

American racial diversity.

They should be happy that's the case I think.

Maybe the definition of hike is in a wood like area rather

than our kiwi version which would be a serious effort for a number of hours and

largely up hill, both ways, in heavy, dark, damp, cold bush.

Really.

This walk was alongside a road through a pretty National Park.

Thirteen kids, Louly and I walked not even a mile to

the Volcano National Park Visitors Centre

to listen to Ranger Julia talk about the inception of Hawaii.  

Did you know there is a new island growing under the sea to the west of the island of Hawaii?

Lo'ihi is its name,

it should be ready in a few hundred thousand years.

That's something to look forward to.

We watched two movies about volcanoes.

The second one was supa old and like it was made by Disney circa 1955.

It showed the 1959-60 eruption of Kilauea iki that flowed through Kopoho

where we were the day before visiting with Jeff and Lynn,

the Northern Californian Hippies Inc.

 There was actually an eruption as a result of the Kilauea Iki eruption

 in the middle of Kopoho township

burning the buildings they couldn't move.  

It's crazy to think that only 52 years ago lava flowed freely devouring everything in its wake.

We walked back to hot dogs for lunch at KMC

then onto the Jagger Museum,

named for Mr/Dr Jagger volcanist extraordinaire.  

The Museum was stuffed full of people avoiding the 90 degree heat,

which was only really hot if you were out in the sun.

 We drove to Thurston Lava Tunnels and

took a cool walk through shady bush

 and a massive tunnel provided by an air bubble.

Above are the kids racing to get to the tunnel.

Even the Hawaiian kids moved fast for this one,

Zac and Keoni are there in the middle behind Laura.

I know, doesn't this look like New Zealand???

Except that there are paths and people are wearing summer clothes.

We then drove to the Devastation Walk and

we walked across a moon like scape

surrounded by Ohia (Pohutukawa/Rata) trees.

Jacob here has found one of Pele's tears.

She cried them all over place

I would hope because she felt remorse for erupting all over the place

and burning up all the flora and evicting the fauna.

Claudia and Kate leading the way,

hoping no doubt that the carpark and utes are not far away.

(they weren't too far, just through the trees,

Americans make everything convenient, except shopping centres).

We walked until we arrived back at the Kilauea Iki crater.

Thats the 1959-60 eruption one.

Iki means small but it's pretty damn big if you ask me.

I need one of those proportion things in these photos.

The photo below was taken with my camera on it's supa extra zoom.

These people are mental cause that surface has not exactly cooled from 50 years ago

and it's a flipping hike (and actual hike) back up to the top of the crater.

I hope they had water with them.

I recommend the Hawai'i Springs brand,

they have the prettiest bottles.

All roads led to a crater. 

Below is Kilauea crater which as been gurgling away since 1983.

Kilauea means spewing.

I'm going to use kilauea to describe how angry I am in the future.

It's said killer-way-a, if you are saying it with a NZ accent

(words ending in -er are said -ah)

We just called it killer whale,

I don't think anyone noticed.

We headed down to the coast to follow the pathways of the lava from Kilauea Iki.

There are two types of solid lava.

A'a which is the sucky stuff that cuts if you are fool enough to fall on it or

walk on it in bare feet

(which of course is exactly what we did most of the time)

and pahoehoe which is the smooth lava

that reminds me of the top of a chocolate brownie

(what? I was hungry!).

Am I right???

A burnt brownie but I'd still eat it with ice cream.

And because I was responsible for ten young lives we let them on the lava clifts
with the sea dashing itself agianst them,
splashing so high up atop the cliffs.

When we returned to KMC from our volcano day

the kids ate and bowled

then we broke into to groups and visited the Kilaeau crater at night.

This about how far away we were.

We could just see the glow of the lava

but being not a huge fan of natural and violent kine

this was plenty close.

It was awesome though.

I tried to take photos without a flash

but I could only hold still for so long

(which turns out to be seconds).

And that was our Volcano National Park day.

On July 5th Louly and I took ten young New Zealand farm kids to Hawaii for an agricultural exchange for two weeks. They are members of the NYZF TeenAg programme. We were hosted by East Hawaii 4H specifically the Beatons and Stouts. We visited many kinds of agricultural and horticultural operations, varied and diverse, learned that American ag folks like to philosophise about their place in the world and had a great time snorkeling and shopping in the sun. These posts are in no particular order cause I was too busy to post while in Hawaii and can be rather abstract and should only be taken as an inaccurate at best record.



Im going to Hawaii

nahnahnah

except to Vanee, Becky and my peeps on the Big Island

cause I'm looking forward to giving you a

big, bare foot, warm as can be hug!

Oh I'm going next week...

it's only just sunk in.

I'm going to Hawaii

NEXT WEEK!

I have no summer clothes,

my feet are freezing cold,

I have the jug on boiling,

ready to fill a hot water bottle

so my freezing feet will warm up

when I hop into my cold bed

in my unheated bedroom.

Woe is me.

But not for long cause

I'M GOING TO HAWAII
NEXT WEEK

FOR TWO WEEKS

with ten teenagers

and Louly Worm.

Thank goodness for Louly Worm!

Will keep you posted....

Oh gosh I haven't made a waxing appointment!
Damn it.

A 4WD Christmas Party part 2

So what did we actually get up to?

First we had to find our vehicles 

which were hidden around Methven.

This was quite annoying and not supa easy.

So we were last out of town.

Well almost last cause

Emily was the chase 4WD trucky thing person

She is a very responsible person so was always the last vehicle.

She knows about 4WDriving

which explains her responsible-ness.

In fact at one point we found her driving

in small circles over, down and around

a particularly lumpy, large bank of a stream and through the bed.

For safety we had RTs and Emily had the daddy RT.

Lucky is explaining why ours didn't work.

Seriously ours didn't work.

Everyone could hear us but we couldn't hear them.

So the Boss went to town blathering on the RT

about all kinds of things.

It was part of our cunning plan to drive everyone nuts.

It worked.

We planked, ok Jase planked...

not so annoying.

We raced through streams,

Im holding the handcuffs out the window here.

(see yesterday's post for an explanation about that)

We weren't allowed to deviate from the farm track

to head off into the river bed so we had to make do

with large puddles and streams.

We,  and by that I mean the Boss

 climbed the tree with the handcuffs

It wasn't a high tree

but it was a dead tree

and a prickly tree so it was his job to get up there.

Then we found ourselves far ahead of the others

which may have had something to do with

this little act of sabotage.

This passes as a bridge on farms.

Least it did until we took one side way

then it was a brid.

Once we got into a larger paddock with some cattle

we stopped cause there was no-one following us.

Yes of course we had a conversation about who we would

eat first if we were stranded.

Louly went to charm the cattle

that were hanging out in the same paddock as we.

Actually this was one of our water photos.

I'm sure she has handcuffs somewhere.

Then we made a NZYF logo with stream algae.

We were there for a long time.

We got a little bored.

Once Jase had planked on the cliff,

Louly had run through the stream with the cattle,

Greasy had climbed high up on the gorse covered hill

(only to figure out later that 20 metres further on

there was no gorse, only grass).

Anyway we were bored so we did this...

we drove the ute up the hill

or tried to anyway.

One of the handy things of being with the Boss

is that you can thrash your ute,

or in this case Louly's ute.

Then cause we were still bored

we used our handcuffs to lock the gate.

But Nessie was in the first ute up

and she knows that gates have hinges that are seldomly secured.

So they lifted the gate off it's hinges and got through.

Then let everyone else through.

And then left our handcuffs there so we went back to get them.

For a minute we thought they had hot wired

the cuffs on the fence.

But they are nicer than us and they hadn't.

Our purpose turned out to be to really annoy the other teams,

 but we had the best time laughing all the way.

Next year I reckon we should horse trek the same path.

May have to take a tent.

Oh! My work is sooo hard

seriously hard, hard work for Young Farmers staff.

I work my fingers to the bone,

my butt stuck to the chair,

RSI is on the way from typing endless emails,

walk the sole off my shoes from endless airport corridors

while I travel to the big smokes of New Zealand

to raise money so I can get
more staff,

more opportunities,

more funding,

more links,

more everything

for my organisation. 

Mine is a hard, hard life.

Then some days I get to drive to Dunedin via Oamaru,

with Louly Worm

and because Rozza and Rosie are late

we get to sit in the sunshine having yummy

fresh spring asparagus, bacon and feta salads

before taking a wander to visit the Oamaru Gallery

then realise we are a bit late

and race to the ute

and off to Totara Park to check it out for the

Ovinpideas!

Or as we lazy Kiwis are calling them

the World Shepherds Challenge!

11 teams from around the world

coming two by two.

Aged between 16 and 25.

We have Irish, Americans, Canadins, Aussies, Safas,

Argentines, French, Poms, Scots,

and a bunch of other people from rugby playing countries.

Totara Park just south of Oamaru is so worth stopping at.

(it's on the left about 5 minutes south)

Seriously it is bucolic and like a film set

This is Rosie and Rozzy working.

Louly and I were wandering

around enjoying the sun

and the view,

until Rosie asked me to take photos of the sheep....

This is Merv the Merino

Just joking, his name may not be Merv.

He is for wool and meat.

Merino mutton is yum!

This is a Border Leicester,

maybe named Lester.

This breed is described as,

and I'm laughing as I copy this,

"large and long-legged, with classic Roman nose"

IT"S A SHEEP

not a supermodel.

I mean super as in a large, leggy Italian bambina*

rather than a lanky pommie chick from the East Midlands.

Just had to have this little Romney lamb in here.

I love Romneys.

I miss having lambies

but this year they are worth too much

to flick the orphans off to townies like me. 

And then we found the old slaughterhouse.

This is not a real carcass

but it is real wool.

Louly and I walked in to the dark from the squintingly bright sunlight.

I had finally broken my sunglasses in Queenstown the previous weekend.

And as we stepped in voices started,

sheep bleated, dogs barked and hogs oinked.

Yes the hogs oinked.

Outside used to be a huge pig sty with 240 pigs

who ate all the sheeps guts fresh from the sheep

The offal would fall out of the sheep,

gently no doubt

and sluice down the channels

and out the hole in the wall

and into the pigs troughs.

Yum, yum pigs bum I bet.

This of course is not allowed these days

but back in 1860 something it was the done thing.

They also only killed 240 sheep a day.....

cause they were slackers!

Maybe they were Luddites who were technology adverse.

Now I feel mean for disrespecting the pioneers.

They weren't technology adverse because the sheep

from Totara Estate were among the first to be exported

frozen in refrigerated shipping.

Another world first - ok I can't remember if it actually

was a world first

but either they would have been frozen the longest cause

we are so far away from the mother country.

To finish an arty photo cause it was a rather long visit

and I get arty when I'm bored.

* Bambina is actually Tuscan not Roman Italian but who cares.

a week in Wanaka

Five days and four nights

of peaceful, picturesque, restful holiday

in Wanaka

at Louly's parents bach

though I'm sure they call it a crib.

Who says the South Island isn't culturally diverse??

Do you think pronouncing Bach as in the composer

rather than bach as in batch would make holiday homes sound posher?

It's like calling Mangere Bridge, Pont du Mongere.

Some people do that, eh Ni?

So Louly's little bach was the perfect place.

Comfortable, easy, relaxing.

Each morning the sun shone.

Each afternoon the sun shone.

Each evening the sun shone.

Y'know until it went down.

Each day I'd go walking,

find a posse on the edge of Lake Wanaka.

I'd wiggle down on the pebbly shore

between fallen trees

until I was out of any wind,

lie back and

watch the clouds scud across the sky

watch the shadows roam across the mountains

then watch leaves spiral down from the trees.

More than once I got a leaf in the face

and those suckers are falling with some velocity.

One afternoon I decided it was time to go see the next bay over.

I eased myself into the ute,

because moving with any great speed was out of the question,

and drove out towards Mt Aspiring.

I got to Glendu Bay

and was glad that I didn't over excited

as I had on my first day in Wanaka

looking at all the walks around the Lake,

and walked around to the bay.

I would still be there happily exhausted.

I do not do exercise at altitude.

I just love the ranges and mountains of Central Otago.

 I love the lakes and austere nature,

the plainness of it's beauty.

It's breathe deep confrontational style.

I wouldn't want to live in Wanaka,

for a bunch of reasons

but mostly that I would be afraid

I would become immune to it's beauty.

While I sat admiring the scenery,

locals would walk past

chatting on their cellphones as they walked their dogs.

Ordinary life was out of place.

I eavesdropped without any choice

on people who I assumed were tourists

based on their accents and foreign clothes

energetically marching along the paths,

talking in their loud voices about

women they knew,

these were older couples talking,

ok the men were talking

the women were silent,

which supports my argument that men are the more gossippier sex.

They nattered on about how the women were strange,

which I took to mean they were different to them

which I took to mean they didn't know these women well

cause otherwise they wouldn't be strange.

I ended my week feeling relaxed and good.

My weekend was less so

but that's tomorrows story.

Christmas tools

Last night in my infinite wisdom, I decided to make Cathedral Cookies.

What labour intensive, pain in the neck things they are to make!

Chilling in the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes,

rolling greasy as dough out between slippery baking paper,

double baking the biscuits,

breaking extremely hard boiled lollies for the centre,

avoiding any and all contact with mind blowingly hot liquid boiled lollies,

it was like the most extreme baking I've done in a while

I had to get the hammer out and use the claw to break the lollies!

Then as soon as the lollies were shattered

they got all stuck back together as the air got to them

plus when they finally shattered they flew all over the kitchen

so I had almost invisible shards of lollies stuck to the bottom of my feet,

they may now be in my bed

It was 11pm before I gave up and just ate the rest of the cookie dough,

not ideal.

but they are beautiful

I had to freehand cut the stars cause I only had a little star cutter
but I like the rustic look about them.
And I had to get them made right then cause
Louly is on holiday from today and I wanted her to have some before she went away.

I'll bring the rest for everyone else tomorrow
cause I am a little over these babies.


I now vow to never make these again
I think I've said that before.

If you are set on ignoring my recommendation to not make these cookies the recipe is here

doing

all this travel is getting me thinking about my favourite places and people.

For me places and people are well linked.

For instance, there are lots of overseas places I'd like to visit but no-one I love is there so I trade off time with my loved people with adventure.

But lately I just keep finding places I just want to be in.

Tekapo on a kind of hot day

Excuse the nasty mini-golf course with it's fake rocks.

Don't you love the lumpins? they are just for Daya.

As Louly and I needed to go home via Waimate (where the wallabys live) we drove north from Roxburgh to Omarama and then east towards the sea along Lake Benmore.

I'd never been down highway 83 before so I was very pleased to breathe in the beauty of the hills and the blue of Lake Benmore.

Louly is quite handy for work road trips.

She is good at surprising me with amazing landscapes. She'll get even better when she starts as the Lower South Island Young Farmers field officer and needs to travel far and wide to visit clubs and members.

I'll miss her though.