Hello everybody,

As you may have already seen from the latest round of photos, we've been out and about a little more this week, sampling some more of Hawke's Bay's delights. Trevor had the fantastic idea one gorgeous sunny day of packing up a little early and going to the beach - obviously we needed a huge amount of persuasion to stop moving logs and put on our bikinis and suntan lotion! Christine packed us a delicious picnic and we all set off for Ocean Beach, which is one of the main beaches in the area. And oh my God! When we went over the crest of the hill and looked down at that beach our mouths fell open and stayed like that for some time! The beach is absolutely stunning. A wide expanse of white sandy beach, stretching along a wild mountainous coastline with huge Pacific waves crashing over the shore. And the glorious smell of the sea when we stepped out of the car. Beautiful! All that and only a handful of other people to share it with - you really can't ask for much more than that! We had a delightful afternoon, eating (and sharing our lunch with the greedy seagulls) sleeping, reading, sunbathing and wandering along the beach, paddling and taking photos. Trevor put us to shame by taking a dip and having a little surf - Su's excuse was that the waves were too big (the big girl's blouse) and mine was that I didn't think my string bikini would stand up to the strong pull of the waves and I wanted to preserve my dignity (oh, and it was bloody freezing!)

On our day off we went to the Te Mata National Park, which is on the edge of the rich town of Havelock North. Like many places it is steeped in Maori legend: Te Mata was a giant and a troublemaker, so the local chiefs arranged that he fall in love with a beautiful maiden. Before she would marry him, she insisted that he accomplish several tasks, the final one being that he would eat through the mountain range behind Havelock North. Being impatient, Te Mata took a huge bite and promptly choked to death. His body forms the outline of Te Mata peak, and the dip is the huge bite that killed him. So we decked ourselves out in our proper tramping gear: shorts and walking boots (practical yes, but sexy it ain't!), Su made a gorgeous pasta to take with us and we walked to the peak, from where we had a magnificent view over Hastings and Havelock North, up the coast to Napier, and down over the Tukituki River (love that name!) We then took a leisurely stroll along the Peak Trail into the Redwood Pine Forest, where we stopped to eat lunch and listen to the birds. Here we saw the Tui for the first time, and heard its indescribably beautiful song - what an amazing sound. We also stumbled across a Redwood grove that was the same age as me, though it appears to have grown a little more! From there we made our way back accompanied by a pair of Tui birds and some of my favourite little Fantails. It really was a wonderful day and a fantastic walk.

Our other outing was to the Hawke's Bay Farmer's Market in Hastings, which is Su's idea of pure heaven. It was a lovely market, a little larger than those we are used to in Norfolk, with a wonderful atmosphere, the stalls arranged in a circle around the edge of a grassy area, with a female guitarist & singer entertaining the masses, and families sitting around on the grass, listening to her and sampling some of the produce on offer. And the produce was fantastic, some unusual and bizarre-looking veg: globe artichokes with their beautiful purple flowers, purple courgettes, and a variety of assorted tomatoes and squashes, including the aptly named trombone squash. But the highlight was a stunning cake stall with beautiful homemade mini-cakes, a delight to look at and even more delightful to eat! We forced ourselves to try the carrot cake, and it would have been rude to leave the lime meringue tart untried!

While we've enjoyed our mini explorations, this has brought an issue to mind for Su and I that we have yet to resolve: the issue of transport. We really want our freedom here and while New Zealand has excellent transport between the main centres and in the main tourist areas, you really need your own transport in the more rural areas - the bits we really want to explore. We've been very lucky here to have such excellent and generous WWOOF hosts, who have driven us places and come to pick us up, but it won't always be like this, and we also don't want to have to rely on the generosity of others. We're thinking about buying a car, but it seems that this is now quite a risk here - of the WWOOFers who have stayed at Beehive gardens previously, all those who have bought cars have been ripped off and sold a complete dud. For us to buy a car, that would mean risking our savings, and lets face it, neither of us are mechanics, we've never even changed a bloody tyre, you have to do your own services here and it can be miles and miles between garages if you have a problem. Plus a car may prove restrictive in some situations - if we're in cities for a while or want to go off in a campervan, which we do. But on the other hand, we want the freedom, we want to really explore this country while we have the chance and to hire for long periods of time would also prove quite expensive. So we remain undecided. A plea to those of you who have travelled in New Zealand for some time - what do you advise? All advice gratefully received!

As I'm writing this we are into our last day at Beehive Gardens and it really has been a wonderful introduction to WWOOFing. We have had superb hosts in Alasdair, Jane, Trevor and Christine, who have been so generous with their time, knowledge, lifts, internet, washing machine, their own homes and of course the magnificent food that we've consistently been served here. We've also learnt a huge amount about organic farming, not to mention how earwigs like to sit in the tops of apples; how to make wine from a variety of different vegetables and fruit; how to avoid overhanging branches and horse chestnuts while whizzing around on the back of a tractor; and how felling a few trees on the perimeter of your property can generate such a huge mess and mountains of logs! Plus the two and a bit weeks here following the Trevor-regime has done more for the tone and shape of our bodies that a year's worth of going to the gym! And we have loved it all, so thank you for being such wonderful hosts. We will also miss our other friends - the apple-crazy sheep next door who just know when we're picking fruit; the cute Percy piglet who lives in a little thicket of trees behind the property and is a wonderful example of how pigs should live - he plays with everything like a puppy!; the crazy chickens; and cheeky fantails. But we must finish with an apology to a poor deceased mouse. We had to tell Alasdair that there were mice in the walls of our studio, as it can obviously be dangerous in terms of electrics, etc, but didn't realize that he would then set a trap under the kitchen sink. So there we were on Sunday night, enjoying our delicious curry feast and there was a loud snap and squeak that quite put us off our food - sorry mate!

One thing that I forgot to mention last time I wrote was that we have made the occasional visit to local libraries to research some stuff (though sadly they don't offer free internet here) when it suddenly dawned on me that the Dewey System was the same here - I had no idea! So there was sad old me wandering around, muttering to myself about numbers of non-fiction, sending Su to the 641s for cookery, going to 158s for meditation and 993 for New Zealand - the staff there must have thought I was crazy (no change there then!) You know, I thought I hadn't done my old job as a Library Manager for long enough, but it turns out that I may have done it for far too long!

And finally I do just want to say that we really do love people posting messages to the blog and sending us emails, and we're really sorry if we haven't been able to reply to everyone personally. Our internet access is limited and when we do get online we spend most of our time writing the blog (and uploading the photos), emailing Mum & Dad about various items of mail and researching and planning our next adventures here. But please don't think that we don't appreciate you - we do! And Su has now stocked up on writing paper and will be touch with people via the 'snail mail' route shortly!

Lots of love Jo & Su, xxxxxx