Our third Wwoof host was one Steve Waite, and when he was in his twenties, he held the title of New Zealands welter weight Kick Boxing Champion for a number of years. We stayed in a town called Eltham, which is famous for its Cheese. Steve happened to work at the local Fonterra cheese factory and was kind enough to take us on a tour one day. Steve was our first Kiwi born and raised host, which was a great experience. We learned some Kiwi sayings such as: Sweet as, Getting on the piss (drinking), your misses (girlfriend), Bro (used over man or dude), jandals (flip flops), ute (truck). Those are a few that we can remember. While in Eltham, we hiked a mountain, kayaked, cliff fished, bowled, ate a lot of cheese and took advantage of Steves home made sauna.
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| At the bottom of Dawson's falls on Mt Taranaki. |
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| View of the mountain at 5:30 am, we were on our way to fish |
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| trail glossary at Mt Taranaki, we did the Summit route |
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| Just starting the 4 hour hike up the mountain |
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| Emily and I with our host Steve about 3/4 of the way up the mountain. As you can see, we hit the snow line. We started off hiking in shorts and t shirts, but by this stage we had hats and long sleeves on. |
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| Ever so close to the summit, which is just behind us in the picture. We would have needed some ice pics and crampons to continue up the snowy peak, so we decided to head back down. Come summer, the snow melts away, making the summit reachable. Mt Taranaki is said to be a few hundred years overdue for an eruption. |
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| Making good use of my Canadian flag buff from radical edge, thanks again Reg and Sheila. |
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| Emily holding up some beaver tails. We are kind of making it a tradition to cook them for our host. We always make way to many on purpose, got to feed our sweet tooth's haha. |
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| Steve explaining the basics of how a fishing rod works |
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| Fishing for snapper off a cliff face. Can not get much more New Zealand than this. |
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| Emily perched on her sand bluff, holding the worlds largest fishing rod |
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| While Emily was taking a nap, steve put a dead bait fish on her line. Emily was not impressed haha |
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| Sitting by glacier pools that flow down from the Mountain. Lava formed the stream bed and the rock we are sitting on was once lava. |
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| Native New Zealand reserve which is pest free. Possums wipe out trees and native birds, and therefore are NZ's number one pest. This reserve is completely fenced off and there are numerous bait and trap stations within to kill possums. |
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| The gates surrounding the reserve |
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| Plants we put in Steve's garden that attract the Monarch butterfly. Sure enough after one day of being planted the butterfly's started to arrive to lay their eggs on the leaves, which the larva will eventually eat. |
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| John in front of a Maori wood carving, very similar to our totem pole |
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| Emily at Dawson falls |
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| Dawson falls |
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| View of the mountain from our fishing cliff |
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| Emily playing with Steve's dog Floyd |
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| The other dog, Naked |
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| Emily and I with our host Steve |
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| Getting to know the locals |
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| Emily in front of the native reserve |
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| Visiting a Maori village that was actually used a few hundred years ago |
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| On Mt Taranaki |
We are currently staying in a town just outside of Wellington with a Dutch family. Titus and Nicole moved to NZ 11 years ago and decided to stay and raise their children here. Our Subaru is holding up, making it easy for us to travel around. Emily and I are starting to feel the distance as the holidays approach, but we are with good company and the weather is beautiful. We are heading to the south island here in about a week, which should be good. We will keep you guys posted. Hope everyone is doing good back home, we miss you all. Take care for now.
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