Beaches, bone carving and woodturning....

We left Picton early afternoon and eventually arrived at our next WWOOFing place just after 5. It wasn't that the distance was really that long but it was the road that had so many bends on it we drove an average of 40km/h. Slow going, but hey, the views were incredible! We were driving along the coast in an area that is known as the Marlborough Sounds and it's just a coastline which has hundreds of tree covered islands surrounding it and a lot of lovely turquoisey coloured water!

Our hosts were Bob and Ann Phillips. Ann a Kiwi (born and bred), Bob was British. They'd been living there for almost 20 years and basically turned to becoming professional woodturners becuase they wanted to be self-employed. And hey, with the native wood that you can get is this country, what better place than to do that in NZ? We spent 9 days there and Hannah and I shared a room for the first few days, and then we got the luxury of being in seperate rooms for a week when the other WWOOFer, an Isreali, left. The place was once again in a gorgeous area and the views amazing! I mean: rolling fields, then an estuary, then more rolling hills with vineyards and apple orchards finished off with a neverending mountain range on he horizon! And we had this view from our bedrooms! They also had a dog Pepper who was a lot of fun to play with!

We spent the mornings working and the afternoons we had off. We spent a couple just relaxing and some other afternoons we went to the nearby village of Mapua where they had GREAT icecream! Hannah and I also browsed around their gallery....if I had a 1000 dollars to spend i would buy a Kauri platter that has resin in it that makes it translucent if you hold it up to the light! Hannah and I had to stick to the sales box and the cheaper shelf. I bought a couple of pieces. They were too beautiful to just leave!

Sunday was our day off and we went to the Abel Tasman National Park. This park is reknowned for it's beaches and we saw just a few of them.....and yes....as per usual, Hannah and I couldn't believe how clear the water is as well as how yellow/white the beaches were! Lots of people do kayaking here which is apparently THE way to do it, but we're thinking of maybe kayaking in the fjordland down south....if the weather cooperates because the annual average rainfall is between 3 to 7m per year! We walked for 2 hours, relaxed on a beach for 3 hours and then walked back.

Another thing we did was a bone carving workshop....and i'm wearing mine now! Basically, we worked 8 hours on the Monday so we could have the Tuesday off to do this workshop. Hard work!!!! But just as we were leaving for this workshop, Hannah was trying to close her car window, but it wouldn't. So I was guiding it - as it were - and SMASH! The window broke....onto hannah and in my hands....more then anything we were just shocked....now it's a bit of a joke. We managed to get it fixed after the workshop becuase there was a car somewhere in the scrapyard that had the right sized window....but the workshop was fantastic! It took us just over 4 hours to design, cut out a piece of bone, carve it exactly and then finally polish it but the result was like a professional one that you can buy in all souvenier shops. But then, ours is UNIQUE! Have lots of "in progress" photos, which i'll hopefully be able to upload soon. Then you can guess whose design belongs to which one of us! The guy who gave this workshop was German and had come to NZ for a holiday but became very interested in the Maori culture and the art of bone carving and eventually ended up immigrating! I don't blame him....This country is fantastic!

Yesterday we left our WWOOFing hosts, met up with Auguste and Aniel (friends of mine from Bath that came to NZ to see me) and are now in a little service town called Murchison. Today, Hannah and I rented bicycles and went mountain biking for a good 3 hours. Was hard work but really lovely! We even had to go over a swing bridge! very narrow and bounce a lot and we had to push our bikes over on there back wheels! Not something for people who are scared of heights because this little bridge, "swing bridge", goes over the river that's in a gorge! but hey, the view is really good though!

Well, that's the update. We've now got 14 days till we go WWOOFing again....will be going to see many things.....also sorry for my spelling. don't get to reread my blogs because otherwise I'll be paying an absolute fortune! Hope all's well with everyone!