Patrick and Kari's Travels

Kari and I have arrived at our first Wwoof farm and gotten settled. It is a small resort in the Bay of Islands area, in the town of Kerikeri. The resort, Avalon, is a small family operation (they are immigrants from Holland) that includes 4 cottages for guests and an apartment that is rented out in the summer and used for Wwoofers during the fall, spring and winter months. There are two ponds and a stream that run in front of the cottages into a small river that is in front of the main house. Other attractions include the animals and Kayaking on the river.

Since we are here in the summer the apartment is usually busy on the weekends with guests so we are living in the house with the owners, Willem and Betty and their children. We have a nice tower to ourselves but share a bathroom with the 4 children. Scott is the oldest, 20, Anna, 17, Sara 14, and Julia 11 are all home right now because it is their summer break but they will be going back to school in the next couple of weeks. It makes for a crowded but very fun house.

We arrived last Wednesday evening and got settled and started work the next morning. They have us doing Gorse removal right now on a hillside they plan to fence off for the two goats they have now and for the two sheep they plan to get soon (more on the animals later courtesy of Kari). Willem, Betty and the three girls went on a boat trip this weekend and left us in charge of their house and business (I guess they got to trust us very quickly). So we have been taking care of guests, paying the cleaning lady, answering phones (although it has not rung once) and feeding the animals for the last three days. Scott has been working so he comes back in the evenings for dinner and movie watching. Other than that we have had all the time we want to play in the river, kayak and jump off the rope swing.

Patrick

We started our car search yesterday morning first thing after we got up. We didn't really know exactly where we were going to find it so we just took off exploring. We started by looking at the for sale flyer's in our hostel then headed out for downtown Auckland to see the sights. It was not a far walk into down town (about 30 mins) and we were able to stop in at other hostels along the way and search for car flyer's that looked promising. We didn't see many good deals at first but did find a couple of possible leads. Kari had looked on the internet before we left and had found a backpackers car lot not far from the city center so we headed there after 3 hours of seeing some of the sights on Queens St.

When we got there they had some very helpful staff who explained how the car lot worked and what we should do before and after we decided to buy a car. We were lucky and had arrived early in the day (around 1pm) and were able to find a great deal on a car. The first thing we did was have its history checked and then we went for a little test drive. This was my first time driving on the WRONG side of the road so it was a little bit hairy at first. I still don't think I am used to it. When we got back we set it up to have a mechanical check the next morning and decided that if it checked out we would buy it.

This morning we headed back across town to the mechanic to see if the car checked out. When we got there they were a little behind schedule (no surprise there, mechanics in New Zealand are just as slow as those in the States) so we had to wait. When they finally finished we got the good and bad news. First the good: most of the car was in good condition even though it is 18 years old. The tires will have to be replaced but not right away. The same is true for the two drive belts, but these I can replace easily myself. The bad news came about 45 minutes later after we had them check the Cam Belt, it is almost dead and will have to be replaced in the next month. However the girl we were buying the car from was very open to bartering and Kari was able to talk her down $400 from the original price to cover most of the cost of the Cam Belt ($450 parts and labor).

The car is a Nissan Bluebird, 1990 SSX, 208,000 Km. It is some odd green color (Kari loves it). It is a 5 speed manual, with a 2.0 L engine and gets about 32 MPG. However it cost 90$NZ (70$US) to fill its 13 Gallon Tank. So I don't want to hear any complaining about gas prices in the US of A. It is clean and even has a spare and jack in the large trunk. The large trunk is a good thing since we have so much crap with us.

Kari is the owner of our new car and therefore it is her baby and she would like some help in naming it. So if you have any good ideas please email them to me or post them to the blog. Kari's ideas so far are Tom Cruise Control and Mister Shifty so you can see she needs some help.

Hope everyone is well

Patrick