New Zealand

Passion Fruit Flower

Sand Dunes Rolling down to Crashing Waves.

Looking Out to Auckland from Whaiheke Island at sunset.

New Zealand

THE YEAR OF SUMMER-

5 months, 10,000 kilometer, 40 liters of Charles orange juice and countless smiles... priceless :)

The year of summer has been an endless time of learning. New Zealand has brought forth a vast amount of information on gardening, organics, permaculture, alternative energy and kiwi culture. We have established the fact that one must be completely aware of the consequences when bringing new plant and wildlife into a new country or environment... Many an hour was spent cutting out gorse, grubbing out thistles, shooting rabbits. However there is nothing oh nothing that can describe the irratation of sleepless nights in a tent due to possums. If you have never heard a possum it will be hard for you to comprehend the nerve racking sound at 12am. The sound that can only really be described of a sputtering chainsaw and a cackling witch. It stops for a spell so that your muscles will relax and you begin to drift back off to sleep, before it jerks you back up to a sitting position.

A normally calm non aggressive person suddenly has thoughts and images shooting through there mind uncontrollably of going out and beating the animal to death with a cricket bat. I have been able to grasp that God made all things great and small, that each thing he created was for a reason...But I am having a difficult time understanding the use of a possum.

New Zealand

IT's been just over two weeks now that we've been in New Zealand. And we have been tossed about quite a bit!! Stepping into a airport and having no idea where to begin was quite a start to a good adventure! We stayed in a youth hostel for the first night (which by the way are not cheep down here!) Then started camping to save some $$.

Contacted a farm who were delight to have us, we set up a time to get picked up the next week. It was down from Auckland (where we flew into) about an hour and a half so we decided to head down there and camp and see the sights down that way........ hmmm. We took a buss down and found out the hard way Hamilton is a rather grungy city with not much of anything going on unless you want to spend lot's of money on food or go out drinking. So it put us in quite a pickle when the farmers e-mailed two days before we were to meet up and say that they didn't want us to come now till the end of the next month!! Back to square one....we contacted a few more farms and found a great sounding place on Whakie Island off the coast of Auckland (you know that place we had just spent all that money to come down from) only they couldn't have us for another week either......

We have found that the public transport isn't all that good and it is quite pricey. Been planing on buying a car but it turns out that all the cheep cars were taken to the junk yards about a year or two ago when scrap metal was so high so were still hunting.. ANY way we hired (rented) a car for four days and traveled all around, national parks, black sand beaches some hikes, water falls, and BIG mountains, we also did a great hike around a old volcano. It is SO beautiful it's really incredible! Aja has been in heaven with all the lamborghini, Bentleys, austin martins ect! I personally am a big fan of the clasic minis (There so cute!!!!)

It's been fantastic and were very much looking forward to the next 5 months!

That is all the past few weeks I will catch you up on the Island work soon!

LoVe-PeaCe

~the ticking~

All over the world the human race has come up with ways to tell the time.

Time is some thing that no one can buy, it is silent, and it is deadly.  it is something that you can never recover once you have lost it.  The greatest gift you can give to show that you care is what can not be bought with all the jewels and power in this world.  Now the clock is ticking where are you spending yours?

  

hannah platte

~The Petals of our lives~

The soft spring dew glistens on a fresh rose bud who will soon spread it's velvet petals and slowly continue to bless all those who are around, with it's wonderful beauty.   I think of that and how we just like a rose bud, over the years of our lives, slowly unfolding what our lives are to be.  We start small and still can be a blessing from the time we are just a bud, till when we slowly shed our petals.  But it is our decision wether we will be for those around us to blessed by , or will strive only to have that beauty for our own gain.

 

                                                                                              hannah platte