Hello once again! Well, we start this blog with some excellent news. IEP, who arranged for our working visas and provide ongoing support, recently asked for photos of people WWOOFing. I sent a reply with the web address of this blog, simply saying if you want any of these let us know. And we received a reply from Abby, saying she'd gone to have a quick glance at our site and ended up looking over it for 30 mins or more, and that our photos were totally awesome! She went on to say that she wanted to use them for marketing purposes and would repay us with 2 nights accommodation in a Base Backpackers in Queenstown or Wanaka, $100 of petrol vouchers, or a trip to Milford Sounds from Queenstown, as a thank you! Those of you who know us will know that we both love our photography and I've also done a creative photography course and have certain aspirations, but suffer from never thinking I'm good enough. Well, talk about a huge boost to my confidence! So I'm currently sorting photos for IEP and we're off to Milford Sounds when we get further down south! And I haven't stopped smiling yet! Plus, I've just received a beautiful little picture book on Wellington and a screen saver from Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, which I won after a draw following a survey I completed in Wellington. My luck's in - now where's that lotto ticket…

So anyway, back to planet earth, and Mapua! Our days at Dean's Nursery are zooming past and we've now had our first experiences of planting out. The first day was a long one; we spent all morning planting small grafted vines in twos into a mound of earth covered with a thin black plastic covering, and it was also a rather grey, drizzly day and everything was quite damp! Su managed to get herself completely and utterly covered in mud by kneeling, while I kept myself relatively mud-free, but paid the next few days with slightly sore hamstrings! But we had a lovely surprise the next evening when I stopped in the office of Mapua Leisure Park to ask June something, and she gave me a sly smile when I mentioned what we'd been doing. I had reminded her that she'd forgotten to lock the sauna, so she said, ok, I'll forget for the evening and you could try it out and see if it helps. Then she gave another sly smile and wrote down the combination for the spa, saying, well it might help too, which was extremely nice of her seeing as both are paid extras. So we spent that evening going from spa to sauna, from spa to sauna, and so on and so forth. Thank you June, you're a star!

We did a little more planting out last week, and it was a lot easier - the ground was completely dry so I did the whole thing sitting cross-legged, shuffling along on my behind, while the irrigation was on so the vines went into the earth like a knife through butter. And I finished last Friday by doing an hour or so of p****ng out (hmm, website doesn't like this word! separating baby plants and putting them into bigger pots) teeny flax seedlings, which I could have done all day - Mum, you'd have been proud! And we are enjoying our lunchtimes at work so much as we spend them sitting in the wildflower meadow, surrounded by stunning flowers in a myriad of oranges, reds, blues, purples, pinks and yellows - it is absolutely wonderful. But you know the downside of all this? We look like farm labourers, i.e. we have very brown hands and faces, but when I look down in the shower I scare myself, I look like a ghost! But as the weather improves we are racing home and trying to even out our skin tone by sitting in the little suntrap outside our cabin, we'll get our tans back soon…. And you know, just to cheer you folks in the UK up as you head back towards winter, we've just worked out that from now until we get back to the UK, next July/August, we'll be in constant warmth and sunshine! Isn't that a lovely thought? We'll have spring, summer and the start of autumn here, then be in Southeast Asia for 3 months, though we'll hit the start of the rainy season in some areas.

The reality of our plans however means that we need to save a lot of cash before we head home, so we are putting a chunk of cash away each week and living off a tank of petrol (not us, but Shadowfax of course!) so we can continue to explore the area, and very cheap food. Which isn't always as easy here as we thought. Some things are quite reasonable - fruit and veg for example is coming down as summer approaches, and the markets, farm shops and simple roadside stalls (complete with honesty box!) are fantastic value, but considering we are in a country full of sheep and cows, dairy products and meat are really expensive. We've cut cheese to small tasters on meals and almost cut out meat altogether. But with Su's budgeting we're actually managing to eat really well for the equivalent of about 16 GBP (sorry, no pound signs here…) per week, which isn't bad. And we're eating well, lots of pastas, risottos and potato dishes, flavoured with various herbs and spices. It's all tasty food, simple but cheap, with a bottle of Ross & Helen's wine most weekends, while we have some left! And speaking of Ross and Helen, they are coming to visit us next weekend with little Stevie, who has just starting walking. So we're looking forward to that immensely, and moving lots of things to a higher level in the cabin…

Anyway, sorry to keep returning to the subject, especially as I've just heard that there has already been snow in the UK, but as I may have mentioned, spring is upon us here. And that means there are baby birds everywhere! We've seen a pair of black swans with three tiny grey fluffy signets swimming along with them; some of the cutest little South Island Robins, completely innocent and unafraid of people, hopping right up to our feet in the forest and then looking up, almost flying onto my outstretched hand; an adorable baby thrush just outside our cabin, again totally unafraid of us, thought his parents were a little less trusting; but I think the winners so far has to be Paradise Shelduck chicks. They are little tiny bundles of stripy black and white fluff on legs. We've seen several broods so far, but I think the cutest was on our drive to Harwoods Hole (more about this below…) when we came across the parents, making all manner of fuss and bluster in the middle of the track, only for these babies to pop out and the parents to run them along frantically in front of the cars. The poor little things were wearing themselves out, falling over and rolling along the floor until we found a stretch of road wide enough for us to give them a wide berth so they could stop and gather their wits again! Oh, they were cute, if a little stupid! We are now waiting patiently to see pukeko and fantail babies…

And so to our continuing explorations. We've had a couple of lovely chilled weekends since I last wrote. We've revisited Motueka a couple of times, which is becoming a favourite haunt, where we've spent a fair few hours lazing on the beach in a little suntrap by the sandspit, and found the Rose Gardens at Tasman Bay Roses. And what a find! They are gardens attached to a rose nursery, and they have been lovingly created and nurtured and are now an abundance of climbing, standard, bush roses, and more, all within gardens of gorgeous weeping trees and foxgloves, where bantams, peacocks, and pheasants wander amongst the flowers. It is simply wonderful and people are encouraged to take a picnic there and eat amongst the flowers. No problem!

We also took the opportunity to have a look around the Founders Heritage Park in Nelson, which was free as the Arts Festival was on. It made for a couple of interesting hours, our favourite moment being scoffing a proper old fashioned cheese scone from a typical old bakery, while taking a little trip on a train around the park, and a little more thought-provoking was the visit to the old plane which had an installation for the Arts Festival about how tourism is altering our world, which was rather sobering.

And we thoroughly enjoyed our Bank Holiday Monday for Labour Day, when we drove 10km along an unsealed road, high on the Takaka Hill, through Canaan Downs (a.k.a. Chetwood Forest, where Aragorn led the hobbits out of Bree, while fleeing from the Black Riders - sadly Aragorn was not there, but it was pure Tolkien country) to Harwoods Hole. This place was absolutely gorgeous and totally worth the drive. We parked Shadowfax and headed off through the silver beech forest, which was full of life and full of birdsong. Here, we met the baby robins, saw a giant land snail, which are protected and we put him back after taking his picture, plus we saw and heard tomtits for the first time, a beautiful tiny black and white bird with a powerful song. And the forest itself was again straight out of Tolkien, we could imagine we were following the little furry feet of the hobbits, dodging the Black Riders. The path led to Harwoods Hole, which was awesome, a deep vertical shaft falling 175 metres down into a huge caving system, which runs under the entire hillside. It was a very powerful place, and felt immense, though our full appreciation of its awesome power was slightly distracted by a young Russian guy who turned up shortly after us and decided to impress the two girls he was with by climbing right onto the rock in the middle, then trying to feel his way down again - there are no safety barriers here and it's a long way to fall! We couldn't look! We then continued to a lookout that branched off the main path and led us to an amazing view, down to the valley to the Takaka River, and to the snow-tipped mountains of the Mount Arthur Range. An amazing view, we sat for some time just taking it all in, and had the added bonus of a sighting of a rare New Zealand Falcon swooping over our heads, which was another first for us. We absolutely loved that little jaunt.

I think that's all our news for now, but before we go we have a couple of birthday messages. Firstly, Katie, happy birthday for today (or at least it is here!) Have a wonderful birthday! And secondly, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUMMY for November 6th! Have an excellent birthday, we'll be thinking of you all day and send you all of our love and kisses. We'll make sure we have a drink for you both!

With all of our love, Jo & Su, xxx