Hur man slipper nettast: Hawke's Bay - An amazing journey comes to its end...

"Shall we go to Hastings and do some food and wine tastings? We can also go to Napier if that makes you hap(p)ier..." This was our slogan while visiting Hawke's Bay. This is unfortunately the last part of our journey in New Zealand.

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We spent our last week in New Zealand helping a family in Fernhill. This Kiwi (New Zealanders) family is doing restoration work on a old Art Deco house on the country side, the plan is to turn it in to a B&B.

The B&B house

Wild plums were growing in the garden, Thomas renamed them to "Egg fruits"

We helped out with general property maintenance e.g. weed-whacking, clearing bushes and trees and reversing the trailer. This family will definately have the largest bonfire for easter and do not have to worry about uninvited flying witches anymore.

Thomas was so exited to get back to work. He was working hard cutting some wood when he felt a sting, or actually five, on his leg. He found a wasp nest! Frida got to use her first aid skills for the first time (woohoo) and drove Thomas back to the house and gave him some heavy pills for the toxic and pain (that's what doctors do, right?). After doing some research we found out that they were German wasps... These Germans seem to be everywhere! hehe... Well, he survived this time and after a few days he was like a (new) man again! (When Thomas first read this chapter he thought Frida had written that she needed for the use her Voodoo skills for the first time. Well, it's still unclear what she exactly did...)

Frida preparing the bonfire

It was a beautiful property with lovely large trees and a small wineyard.

Double rainbow after some rain...

We stayed one week at the old house with this scary stranger...

It looked like a mixture between a rat, frog and a fish. Thomas tried to sing for it to get it in some action and Frida tried not to look at it...

One afternoon, our host Shelly took us up to Te Mata Peak.

After that we visited the food market in Hastings where we got the opportunity to taste some local dishes.

Chips-spiral and a smoothie

We also got time to visit the famous Farmers market a few days later.

There are more than 300 km of cycle trails in Hawke's Bay, so we decided to discover a small part of it. It was a pefect day for some biking, not too cold nor too hot!

We had time to visit a few wineries, our favorites were Crossroads and Abbey. There was a fantastic craft beer brewery closeby called Roosters. The bartender was a really funny guy. After some chatting + beer and wine tasting he asked us if we already have had lunch. We happily answered: "Yep, peasoup" (It was a Thursday). We guess he felt sorry for us, because he gave us a couple of free sandwiches and he only charged us for a glass of beer.

Crossroads winery

Abbey winery. They also brewed nice beer called "Fat Monk"

One a nice evening we went to explore Napier and the harbourside.

Our hosts Mark and Shelly told us about their interesting business- and life experiences and their stories really encourage us to live well and do what we want to do. We enjoyed their hospitality and open-mindness!


One evening we had some real NZ lamb and another evening we prepared some typical finnish dishes, "cabbage box", karjala tarts, semolina (klappa) porrage and owenbaked panncake

Mark had an impressive barbeque collection, and this was only half of them...

One sunny Friday afternoon I (Frida) got the chance to visit a school for children with special needs, Hohepa, which had been a wish ever since we came to New Zealand. I was told that most of the children had autism and lived in a nurcing home nearby. I was able to attend a lesson in music and a "practical lesson" which included cleening and baking. The emphasis is on giving a sense of worth through contributing and being a part of "real work". I noticed that there were much more boys than girls in the school...

Hohepa maintains a curative education programme, inspired by the ideas of Rudolf Steiner. There was around 5 pupils in each classroom together with the teacher and a few helpers. Students remain in the school up to the age of 21, when they may move to the adult programmes. I was very impressed by their way of teaching and how well everything went. In a couple of hours I got a few new boyfriends and some enriching experiences. Visit their homepage for more information: www.hohepa.com

Our time here in New Zealand is coming to an end. Before heading of to Auckland we did our last exploring in Napier city. The town was destroyed after a devastating earthquake in 1931. The town was rebuilt in Art Deco style.