I have decided to do another woof before heading up to hike the cape. I will still be in the kaitaia area but this time with a family. The review in the woof book mentions knife making, wood carving, establishing a food forest, as well access and advise on many far north walking tracks. Good enough for me. Ill give it a try and report back.
So i stay the night in a kaitaia backpackers and will be picked up by pete tomorrow around 10:00am (note that i am 17 hours ahead of US central time)
Above are pictures from a bike ride i took two days ago. Certainly a trip highlight so far (other highlights include the motor cycle adventure to pearl bay and the coatal track on Great barrier island. I have to extremely selective about my trip favorites due to the fact that it is all so pleasant). Anyways, back to the bike ride. Not easy, covering a fare amount of milage, yet the views were simply stunning. The ups and downs of gravel roads had a roller coaster type feel. The tasman sea a few miles off to the west could be seen only from the apex of certain climbs.
My competitive nature came out in which I pretended to be among the leading pack of a tour de france mountain stage. This did not stop me from enjoying the magnificance of my suroundings.
The past week woofing with John (67,divorced, retired surveyer) has been quite interesting. Jobs here have included, splitting wood, wind generator maintenance, wood treatment(for his future house) and last but not least the transport of the beams(7 meters in length) to the mill in which i helped feed them through a thicknesser. The beams were heavy to say the least and to my supprise there was no machinery in the mill to help with the process of feeding the wood through.
More to come, just off to kaitaia now...
