The Retreat to Pleasantly Peaceful Punakaiki (WWOOF-ing ain’t just for canines)

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(warning: take this in parts...it's a longy)

One of the best feelings when I arrived in Punakaiki, besides the calming surroundings that instantly engulfed me and made me want to hang up the pack for a while and chill out for weeks on end, was the flexibility to do so! Immediately after I checked in with a woman who runs the hostel who is actually from Wales(!) and vegetarian (!) I saw a sign about “work-exchange”…hmm…I liked this idea from the last place…save a bit of money…so I inquired with a smiling, outgoing man who was hip-hopping around the hostel greeting guests. instantly, upon the question exiting my mouth, I was swept away in a wave of enthusiastic thankfulness and excitement towards my inquiry. literally …all I spoke was “so…I saw the work-exchange sign?” and immediately his eyes lit up like I had just presented him with a winning lotto ticket: “oh that would just be great!! Look oh…that would be just fantastic!” a welcome hand outstretched “hi! I’m Hamish!...well…ryan…this is just so perfect…it’s so nice to meet you! you could spend new years with us! Be great! Can you stay that long?!” and the best part of this question was that I had the ultimate freedom to stay or go… “sure!” and I think if it was possible his happy gate became even bouncier and so ecstatic that I was now being escorted through the staff quarters (I mean…I literally still had my pack on my back at this point)…shown where I would sleep, eat, and cook…yes cook…all part of the duties. I don’t think I’ve ever had a friendlier, welcoming hello in my life. and definitely not over work-exchange. who was this man? That evening I was eating around a dinner table with all the other WWOOFers, as I found was my new title, and becoming part of a nice little new family that served pasta and veggie meat for dinner…I like this place already! So wwoof…I must explain of course. First off, it is incredible, amazing, and undoubtedly unfortunate that I had never heard of it before. It stands for willing workers on organic farms. More incredibly, it operates world wide and works as such: “willing workers” purchase a book online which is the only fee to join (about $30 I think) for the country they wish to visit, and this contains hundreds of people that operate farms, gardens, hostels and just about anything else providing organic services and are in need of help in exchange for food, accommodation and a lovely cultural experience. These helpers are thus deemed “woofers” and can basically travel the world on a small budget with only their eager desires to learn about organics and experience a place differently than any tourist ever could, to guide them. The Te Nikau Retreat used to manage an organic garden on the premises but now only use woofers to help with the cleaning duties. So…really…it’s not like most wwoof places…but it still operates according to the lovely concept and gave me the opportunity to learn what wwoof was all about and meet other kids involved, including Melanie my hitch-hikin’ travel buddy for the next month, and Maurus, my swiss trekking guide! Two amazing people whose friendships I cherish… though each of them have travelled on for now. Ah the transient life of a traveller. Luckily facebook keeps us all connected! But you really could wwoof all over the entire world. as one astute traveller explained: “uh-oh…now you’ll never go home!” Well that’s certainly not true, but it does provide previously unheard of access about this earth with only a tiny budget to spare. So…the prospect of endless travel proves not only tempting, but possible!

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But back to Te Nikau. After that lovely dinner I was up the next morning to take part in my first duties: baking fresh bread and muffins for sale at the hostel. Well…it’s more like baking for the salivating masses that hovered as we mixed, floured, kneaded, and sent wonderful smells soaring through the hostel to lure anyone that wasn’t already eagerly questioning “are the muffins ready??!” making fresh bread is awesome! I must do it more often…oh the things I learning…se ma? Life skills! We also ate quite well in te nikau…we all took turns cooking for everyone and stuff ourselves silly. I have now also seen someone pour cream on cheesecake and butter a cookie. Wow.

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I must also mention that Te Nikau retreat is a very unique hostel…in that it really is a retreat and not a hostel. Situated within the rainforest…I mean in…you have to walk on a little stony path with the rainforest and nikau palms surrounding…people actually get lost trying to find their rooms…which are in fact about 5 different houses scattered amongst the dense greenery. So we baked in the main house and live in what is essentially a converted garage across the way. Love it. “bloody luxury” as Hamish would often calmly proclaim when he wasn’t bursting with positive vibrations on how we were “just great! You guys! What a wonderful job you do…oh that is just great!” And after a few hours of cleaning duties the day was ours to recover, relax and reinvigorate our souls among this unique rainforest retreat. This often involved reading, writing, or walking down to the beach (about 5 minutes through the rainforest that opens up to flax plants and a glimpse of the sea from high above the shore) and watch the ocean surge against the sheer, jagged cliff sides that make up the coastline. The beach was not swimmable…but instead a place to sit up and watch the power of the waves crashing on the sand and spewing up throw the blow holes that blow just on the edge of this cliff side…pretty cool. and the sunsets here (the kiwi term: “greatest show on earth” heh)…well…you can imagine…and if not…I’ve got plenty of pictures to help kickstart the imagination. One of the most entertaining things we found at the retreat was hamish’s old HiFi…I immediately dug it out from its dusty isolation and hooked it up to the large speakers already set-up and pleading for use, and a massive stack of old, random records….we put on some quite amusing tunes. One of the other houses also had a record player and I spent one of my days (or many??) blasting the only singable record I could find…it had to be Sound of Music. Haha…you can imagine me in this massive, wooden, lodge of a house, belting it out with Julie Andrews as I made up the beds and scrubbed the toilets. Good stuff. We had a lot of fun with that hi-fi…some very strange kiwi stuff in there...every day it was a new song to wake up to…and I had to cringe when one of the girls, Beatrice, picked Saturday Night Fever for the night after new years…not quite the right rhythms for such a morning. Haha. Especially when the night before she had decided the forest gump suite (it’s about a 20 minute long orchestral sweep) would be a perfect pick on the pub jute box. the bar woman actually came and rescued us all and reset the jute box…”who put this on!!” The patrons were growing evermore confused and restless with each crescendo…We all tried to not look guilty of that crime. Ohhhh Bea. And as for new years…just like you would expect in new zealand, it was incredibly laid back. Spent at the only pub probably within a 50 mile radius, we chilled out with some locals, drank beer, and experimented with the array of musical instruments they randomly had there. I think I actually convinced a few people that I play accordion (the sitar was a little much for me). The countdown was half-hearted at best…no one seemed that interested…and on television? a kiwi sports recap of the year…nothing more. huh. cool.

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One day we all set out for a kayak trip for our time off…discount for wwoofers! it was an incredible day…the sun scorched down and glistened off the water as we “cruised” along, upstream, away from the ocean…but now facing some of the most picture-worthy, rock-exposed cliff sides, with rainforest clinging on to the edges. It was the decision to take a billion pictures and drift back down stream or keep pushing along, head craned back, awestricken…and then still get pushed back down stream because you forgot for a moment just what you were doing. i ended up pretzeling your body to try and capture the right angle before being steered away by the river. The best for a laugh was coming to a little rapid, where instead of confidently striding along with the paddle, you instead came to a watery tread-mill. I couldn’t stop laughing and hence didn’t make much progress. Another one was flipping. I was confident I would stay safely in my kayak for the whole duration of the trip but after getting out to help a fellow flipper, I got a bit cocky trying to push off like I was on a skateboard and just “hop” in. it was more like, push, hop and flop….”yep, that’s cold! Yes, yes it is!” Melanie…meanwhile is in front of me going “what’d you do! How’d you just flip it!” haha. Now I know…put the butt down before the other leg. At one point we were clinging to the moss on a massive boulder on the bank trying to make it up this massive rapid. “ I think I got it…yep…It’ s working…yep, yep” and then I just see melanie go flying back past me…horizontal with the rapid about 20 feet back in seconds…”maaaybe not”. Laughter did not help my cause…and as we all know…once I start. Ya…it took a while to get up that one. Of course on the way back …it was a breeze…an absolute joy. Like a roller-coaster…small enough rapids that there is no worry…just fun.

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Another day was spent at the beach, about a 20 minute walk away, further down the coast where the sand opens to a huge, expansive and relatively unoccupied beach. Unlike home and various other coastal communities in the world, new Zealand does not build up the sea-side. Instead it sits perfectly peaceful, in a natural state. When we lay out on the sand and looked out, all there was to see was vast ocean and miles of sand to one side and the other, rainforest. definitely a place to “retreat” to. I had hoped to go for a little body-surf but the water was very rough and shorebreaking…not to mention the insane undertow I could observe from the shore. So instead we pranced in the water like little kids…chasing the water as it slid up and out, down and back into the swirling currents and rather large waves that crashed right before us. Still another day, Pascal, Melanie and I went boulder hopping and scampering beneath rock coves that led from one tiny isolated beach to another, each of which felt like a secret spot we had discovered. Hamish also took us all on a few walks as well to some beautiful spots along the beach where the rock formations continued to impress. And Punakaiki is actually famous for the “pancake rocks” which are in fact a scientific mystery (MB…tell me what it is!!). so fascinating to look at! Looks like a phenomenon of the ocean world that has been raised above the water at some point and luckily now available to touristy eyes. (unfortunately I didn’t have my camera that day!). but they are massive stacks and stacks of thin layers of rock all “pancaked” together. Rippling towers all rising out of the sea in a caonyon-like fashion.

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After Pascal and Beatric left, two new American wwoofers, just out of high school, arrived in Te Nikau. And then another came, Maurus, followed by two German girls. We all had a great time and one of the better experiences was a hike that Maurus took a few of us on. And man was this a hike…whew. Mt Ryall? That doesn’t sound so bad…two hours up? No problem. Well…2 hours later Lizzy (vermontier) and I were breathlessly staggering up and up, gasping “it never ends! Just keeps going…and going” it’s a trick mountain! each time we thought…oh, here it is! The bush is changing…I see the light! We would turn a corner…be directed down instead of up and be on the path to an even steeper angle to climb the mountain than one would think possible. It was a pretty good workout to say the least. When Lizzy went ahead for a bit as I waited for the others…she soon called back in a voice that beckoned “ryyyyan??” but with undertones that stated “you haven’t collapsed dead have you??”. “ya, ya….i’m coming…jeeeesus, this thing doesn’t end” when we finally did reach the summit (yes…we made it) I wish I could gush about views that rewarded our climb but alas…it must have taken us so long that the sun got tired and let the clouds take over for a while. Even still…the hike was great…it always seems to feel this way once you make it to the top and we did catch glimpses of a spectacular view in between the cloudly, white mass surrounding us. See…maurus is a serious tramper, and as melonie termed, “aerodynamic” man. In short…he’s fit and hardcore. What he did in 2 hours…took us 3…and we weren’t going that slow! Well…besides the last half-hour we spent in desperate, plodding steps. On the way down we could see the sun setting over the sea beyond which was such a sight. I may have to come back to this hike just to see what I was missing. Luckily when we arrived back to te nikau after dark, some delicious warm soup that maurus had made for dinner earlier in the day awaited us. Mmmm.

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I spent two weeks in Punakaiki and learned so much: about travel, wwoof, baking, cooking and life in general from our good friend Hamish. This is how I wanted to live…simply and flexibly enough to take these unique opportunities that present themselves. I made such a great friend in Melanie and she must have felt a bit the same and we decided to head south back down the coast together. I was on my way to Te Anau and she, to find another wwoof spot. But we figured we could journey together and bravely try hitch-hiking…sounded like another new experience I was eager and ready to try. Beware drivers: “we have chocolate”.