Milo!

Exciting development! Ian and I bought our car/camper. He's a '95 Mitsubishi Chariot, maroon and very pretty. We've named him Milo. The two back rows of seats were taken out and it was converted into a campervan by the people who owned it before us, so it has a great bed. We've slept in it a few times and it's already saving us money on accomodation, for sure. He gets about 30 to 35 miles to the gallon (on windy NZ roads, too!) and only cost $2000 us. He's all-around fantastic, basically.

I feel like a lot has happened since I last posted. Last Friday, Ian and I booked it out of Auckland and traveled a few hours up north to the Bay of Islands. As you can imagine, this was a bay...with a lot of islands in it. Over 100, I do believe. We spent a lovely 4 or 5 days there, camping out on the waterfront. We spent a couple days lounging around around the beaches, flying our kite, hula-hooping in the surf, going for swims, etc. We also went on an amazing day trip on a sail boat and went dolphin-watching, which was incredible. There are tons of dolphins in the bay and they come RIGHT up to the boat--I could have almost touched them. We were supposed to swim with them but the conditions weren't right, but oh well. We also did a bit of (COLD) snorkeling, which was a bit boring since there wasn't much to see, but I still enjoyed it. We went on our first New Zealand hike (or tramps, as they're called here) to a waterfall, which was nice. Only about 3 hours or so round-trip, but it still kicked my ass. On our last day in Paihia, we went for a bit of kayak around the bay, which ended up being a poor idea. The weather wasn't looking too good but we figured we would be fine for an hour. Nope! As soon as we got out there it started to rain. Plus, we had managed to fall in right in the very beginning as we were trying to get into the boat, so we were already soaking wet. It was a somewhat miserable hour, but I actually kind of liked it. I haven't done much open-sea kayaking before, and it always feels like an adventure to me.

After our stay in the Bay of Islands, we needed to return to Auckland so that Ian could do something with his phone. We spent a night there and then headed up to our first WWOOFing house! It's about 45 minutes or so north of Auckland, outside the town of Warkworth. The house and the view are absolutely phenomenal--I couldn't ask for anything better. Our room looks out into rolling green hills, lakes, and a distant mountain with a sunrise view. The couple is turning the house into a B&B and there's lots of work to be done all over the property. They also have 20 cows, 2 goats (Basil and Rosemary), and 2 pigs (Lucy and Penny). My absolute favorite part of the day so far has been feeding the goats and pigs. I think I'm in love with them. We've definitely been put to work--4 hours a day doesn't sound like much, but 4 hours of weeding starts to drag on! The weather has been hot, which is both good and bad--we've got nice farmer's tans going, but also some sunburns. And farmwork in the sun is especially exhausting for me, I'm not made for that shit. I've been sore all week but I'm slowly sucking it up and getting better.

Okay! That's it for now. I know I keep saying I'll post pictures and I haven't yet, but we don't have Internet often and when we do it's really slow, so I haven't gotten around to it. I swear I will one of these days!

Love you all--xoxoxooxoxxo

Amy