I got up at 5.15, and then Dougal drove me to the airport, which was very nice of him as I wouldn't have minded walking! On the news it said that Polyfest was still supposed to be happening, despite the weather (cyclone Lusi had hit Alice and Flo already up in Bay of Islands). I had been interested in Polyfest after I had heard about it in the Te Papa museum in Wellington- it's a Polynesian festival which was happening today in Auckland!

The flights weren't too turbulent, despite the cyclone, and so once I had landed in Auckland, I planned my slightly crazy plan of leaving my luggage at the airport, and then making a few trips back and forth from Manukau to go to Polyfest, at a bit of an expense, and which I was slightly nervous about as I got the impression I'd be seen as a bit weird going to a Polynesian festival on my own, being white. So I got a bus, and then walked half an hour in the drizzle, to walk up to a pretty un-lively Sports Bowl, to be told that it had been postponed until Tuesday because of the weather. As I was retracing my steps, a car pulled up and the guy asked "Has Polyfest been cancelled?' in what I felt was in as a forlorn way as what I felt (it certainly added to it).

I made my way back to the airport, then back to Manukau shopping centre (where a weird man offered to drive me into the city), to catch the cheaper bus back to the city (which felt like it took ages as I felt so sleepy throughout the day), to then carry on my long journey to the hostel I had booked myself into which was 40 minutes out of the city. As I was getting off the train, a guy, who was also ladened down with luggage, also started to get off so we figured we were going to the same place. It was quite nice to have Francois from France as company on the 600m walk to the hostel.

We were supposed to ask for the 'house angel' who today was Sarah, who showed us our room but didn't know which beds we were in because she had lost the bit of paper she had written it down on (she seemed very airy fairy), and also didn't know how much to charge us. She gave us a tour and it's a really cool place, although kind of similar to where we've just come from, given that it feeds it's WOOFers with food it's produced itself. It reminds me of a more ecological version of Reef (a hostel with a bit more character and better social areas, and a lot of fun to stay at for a long time). She showed us the fire bath, the solar powered shower, the tree house, veggie patch, bicycle powered washing machine, and chickens.

The kitchen is so small (and there's only 4 hobs/ 1 over) so that I was waiting for the people cooking the WWOOFers meals before cooking mine, but they were cooking pizzas, which took ages to make, and then once they had finished, all the rest of the people wanting to cook their own food swooped in and so I was so hungry that I just paid the $6 to get in on the meal. In a way it was quite nice, as it felt more like I was getting into what the hostel was all about. We sat around on cushions to eat at the low table, and then once we were finished, we had to draw out a card from a bag which had a chore on it like 'wash dishes', 'massage the chef', 'hug 3 people' and then say your name, where you were from and what you were going to do. I got that I had to empty the compost bins, which I was nervous about as I didn't know where to empty them, and the longer I sat down, the more I felt like the task was hovering ahead of me, but then it turned out to be really easy and quick. Once we had done our chore, we could claim pudding which was a kind of pancakey apple crumble type thing. Because the WWOOFers were long term then it was a bit daunting sitting around when they all knew each other, but I got chatting to some new arrivals, and spent the rest of the evening talking to them (at 10pm we got moved onto the 'deck' area, which had loads of sofas and random objects littered around).