The start of WWOOFing

 As I keep telling everyone I'm having a fantastic time here WWOOFing on the Coromandel; wwoofing is where you work for food and accommodation. I'm currently staying with a lovely Dutch couple, Saskia and Jelte, who moved to New Zealand 25 years ago and have since built themselves the most amazing house in the perfect setting. From the lounge window is a view right across the tree covered hills down to the sea; makes for some spectacular sunsets.

 This is the bach which two Germans (both called Max, also both wwoofing) and I are staying in, about 1 minutes walk down the drive from the main house. I get to stay in the double bed with netting as I'm the only girl :)
Below is the kitchen which is a round room full of mod cons such as a boiling water tap; no need to put the kettle on! They also have a great surround sound system controlled from either of their ipads, a robot vacuum cleaner that hoovers by itself and countless other clever little ideas.

 We eat 3 meals together each day whilst hearing some interesting stories from Jelte and Saskia; every morning is porridge and fruit except Sunday when they put on a spread of croissants and fresh little bread rolls accompanied by a cappuccino from their rather professional coffee machine. 
I've mostly been working in the native bush land around their house, weeding and pulling out the bracken which is taking over. Today I got to ride around on the back of the quad bike or sit on top of the pile of bracken on the trailer whilst we moved it around the bush; this was great fun, I felt quite royal being towed along :)

 The two Maxs spent the first week working at the Farm in Thames where Saskia and Jelte's son now lives. They've just finished building a bathroom in the outhouse there. On Friday I went along to have a look then went out for a sushi lunch with Saskia and her daughter, who lives in Hamilton, before picking up a car and returning home for a spot of weeding and fresh fish and chips for dinner. 
Evenings are always very relaxing here with candles around the lounge and music playing on the surround sound. One evening Saskia showed me her wonderful rock collection, a geologists heaven. She's collected some amazing rocks from right across New Zealand, some which I was able to identify for her after my recent petrology course.

 We were allowed the weekend off work as the Germans had been working more than 4 hours a day throughout the week. Saskia and Jelte lent us a car, so on Saturday we head to the classic tourist spots, hot water beach and Cathedral cove. We managed to arrive at hot water beach just in time so we could dig our hole in a spot with some good hotsprings so it was the perfect temperature. A couple from London kept trying to dig themselves a pool but finding it too hot so we let them join us in ours. Was a nice relaxing yet very surreal experience until the tide came in and our hole got swallowed up. 
We then moved on to Cathedral Cove, made famous in the second Narnia movie, where we lay out in the sun for a while before cooling off in the sea, exploring the caves and jumping off the rocks. Took in a few good views on the way home where we were greeted by a lovely meal from Saskia. 

 After our big breakfast on Sunday the two Max's and I went for a walk (or should I say scramble) up castle rock. Once we got to the top of the extremely steep path, which I practically had to run up as my legs are much shorter than the Germans', we were greeted by the most fantastic 360 degree view, some of which is shown to the left. After heading down we cooled of in Waiau waterfall where we saw a cool halo like rainbow around the intense sun. Went for a walk around yet another Kauri grove then stopped off at a honey shop for Max to buy some of New Zealand's famous Manuka honey. Here the woman told us about a 'nice little track' to a waterfall. We set of along this 'track' and soon found ourselves wading through the river and beating our way through the bush attaining countless cuts on my legs from the grass. It was all worth it though when we reaches the waterfall. It had two falls with a jacuzzi like pool (but colder) at the top of the second one. Jumping off the top of the waterfall (after much depth checking) was excellent. 
Finally we head home where we cooked ourselves a meal as Saskia and Jelte were at their grandchildren's violin recital. Made a flowery salad and bolognese which we ate with the spectacular back drop of the sunset pictured to the left.

As you can probably see I'm loving it here on the Coromandel with lovely people and awesome surroundings, looking forward to what the next couple of weeks here have in store!