14.04.10 Samoa Habitat for Humanity

We arrived on the Monday after travelling back in time and settled into our beds on the floor in the community hall along side the other team - there are about 50 people here at a time. Tuesday we started work in Poutasi and it rained heavily all day but was obviously still warm. Our first job was working on a Fale roof nailing on cyclone ties to the rafters and purlins so we hammered all day. I think one of my arms will look like popeyes when im done with four weeks, I will need to swap to left handed this week to even it out! We worked in a team alongside 4 others. On wednesday we worked on a concrete floor pour with about 15 - 20 others on another fale in poutasi. This was mucky hard work and with only a sprinkling of rain it was hot work as well. You have to get into the samoan pace of life to be able to work in the heat (which doesnt seem to vary that much between day and night) The wednesday evening is when the locals who look after us put on local food and a dance show for us. Unfortunately I dont think the egg sandwich lunch had agreed with many people that day so charlie was one of the first to get sick and the rest of us ( 20 odd) quickly followed suit :( Thankfully the bug didnt last long and apart from feeling a little weak the next few days we improved quickly.


Saturday was supposed to be a half day, we worked on the ablution blocks in Lepa which are a timber frame covered with weatherboarding and a metal roof. At three we finished and went for a swim in the sea and a bottle of villima (the local beer) So although we have been working hard - breakfast at 6.30 leaving the resource centre by 7.30 and home by about 4 - we have also been enjoying a dip in the ocean or the local waterfalls every evening. Sunday was church day and our group had to sing a song!! I hid at the back and tried not to make a sound.... Then charlie went to the sua trench, a swimming hole where you swim underwater to another hole etc and I went to Fushia waterfalls, and drove east of lepa to see some more of the coast, it is this area which has been quite damaged by the tsunami, some resorts are starting to rebuild but its amazing chatting to people, the levels of the beaches have changed because the wave swept away alot of the sand. A lot of the fale we are rebuilding are now higher up the hill because people dont want to be so close to the sea. One morning there was a small earthquake which shook the floor we were siting on, interesting for us but very scary for some locals I am sure.
 On monday I think we were assigned to more ablution blocks working alongside paul from christchurch. We have continued to do a lot of these this week and so probably next week we will be leading a team doing this with new people. I managed to hammer my finger on tuesday, it hurt quite a lot but now disappointingly the bruise isn't that big!
 We are having a great time and hopefully really helping people as well. The local people who we are building for are lovely and really want to cater for you, cooking lunch for us quite often, even though we get stuff brought to us. The have an excess of taro! An overrated potato thing slightly improved by coconut cream. It is funny spending so much time with a big group of people, I think we will be looking forward to spending some time on our own at the end of two more weeks!

10.04.10 Routeburn Tramp

The Routeburn track is one of New Zealands great walks, and we were lucky enough to do it without any rain. What we didn’t realise was quite how popular it is, and so when we couldn’t book the huts we wanted, to undertake this three day walk we just figured we’d do it in two, in true kiwi fashion ‘she’ll be aright’. With the first days walking estimated by DOC as between 8.5 and 11.5 hours and the bus dropping us off at 11am we really were going to have to do the first day at speed with sunset at 6pm and darkness soon after.


We passed the first hut ahead of schedule and so stopped for a quick lunchbreak (40 minutes as it turned out) at the 174m Earland falls near the beginning of the walk. The bottom section had this beautiful rainbow. After we passed the Mackenzie hut we started to worry as everyone going the other way asked where we were going... and looked slightly concerned as we said the Falls hut as we skipped gaily past. We picked up the pace but remembered to enjoy the stunning setting as we tramped along the side of the Hollyford valley, and reached the saddle (1255m) at 5.30pm, 30 minutes ahead of schedule. A perfect spot for a cup of tea I thought but Gioia’s sense denied this break request.


We carried on down the other side past the beautiful Harris lake and snow patches, down the rocky path towards our hut for the night. After a while it started to get dark and cold so I suggested we stop to get our torches out... around the next corner and much to our delight around the next corner we could just make our hut for the night.. it was dark 5 minutes after we arrived.. And we were the last of 48 to check in!!!! Perfect timing. Following dinner and a suitably named bottle of wine from Mission Estate I passed out at about 9pm and Gioia struggled to sleep in the shared dorm – too many people breathing! Not a great sign for our coming month in Samoa....


The next day we cruised down the hill at a very leisurely pace to reach the final destination and meet our bus at 2pm, rain was predicted for 4pm so we were rather happy with ourselves and our good timing!

08.04.10 Canyoning.. NZ style

There's something’s in New Zealand you just know wouldn't be allowed in the UK for safety reasons (unreasonably in my opinion).. jumping off waterfalls in the Routeburn canyon and river surfing are just two of those activities. Canyoning essentially involves following a stream downhill.. or following a canyon and getting from the top to the bottom by whatever means you can; sliding, jumping, abseiling and zip lining included. We loved it, especially as we were really warm wearing two wetsuits each!

22.03.10 Surf weekend NZ

7 people, 4 vehicles.

A nice couple of relaxing days at the beach was the plan.. but following poor weather forecasts things seemed to get worse in Gore (middle of nowhere) when one of our vehicles died... like died. So we finally arrived at the beach that evening having hired a car and ditched one at the local mechanics... to have a few drinks. The surf was cranking and everyone caught a wave, the weather even turned out good. We then randomly bought a car off the surf instructor for 500 dollars - this then made it all the way back to Queenstown with 5 people in it travelling at 100km the whole way.

16.03.10 Macetown MISSION

Adventure tuesday...Macetown....We took a trail on our bike map described as rolling hills and then solid hill climb. We got to the beginning of it, the sign said no bikes so we thought we would go up the 4wd track next to it presuming it would go same way. After about 3/4 of an hour as we hit a dead end, we realised we were up the wrong hill so we went back down and up the path which said no bikes.

A false start but no worries, onwards and upwards.....Turns out the sign was possibly advisory rather than spoil sport because we soon hit steep hills and trails not suitable for bikes. In the middle there was a section which felt like the described rolling and then steep path. We reached a saddle and looking over the other side we were not impressed, the path disappered into a tussock valley which we proceeded to drag the bikes through. Eventually we reached a 4wd track and cruised along to macetown which we promtly left again when we discovered the sand flies beat us to it!

We went back to arrowtown along the 4wd track which was great fun, downhill all the way with about 20 river cossings. it more than made up for the challenging beginning. An interesting trip with bike pushing, dragging and eventually some cycling involved!!

14.03.10 Around Queenstown

Dad in the woods near lake Slyvan, Glenorchy. We were beginning to think they were sending us around in a tiny circle but it was a lovely walk through the woods! We also played frisbee golf in the park - I obviously inherited my frisbee skills from mum and not dad...., went mountain biking in skippers canyon and mum got a pedicure on mothers day. It was great having them around and I was sad to see them go home. But next time we will meet up somewhere different and there will be more new sights to show!

02.03.10 Fox Glacier

A day hike on Fox Glacier, Charlie and I had wanted to do it since we arrived in NZ, even better was to share the experience with Mum and dad. We started hiking at about 10am and didn't finish until about 4pm so it was a full day walking. On the way you get views up the valley towards the top of the glacier and it looks amazing. You start walking on it with crampons and it looks quite cool if not a little muddy because you are near the end where all of the moraine is dumped, the further you walk the bluer the ice gets and the more spectacular the crevasses get. Right at the end we came on this ice cave which was amazing, big enough you could stand all four of us in it. A brilliant experience and I think mum would say well worth the knee ache the following days!

It was here that we left mum and dad to do their own thing for a week or so while we headed back to Queenstown to work.