East Lane Farm, Kekerengu - wwoofing at a wedding

Yet another week has gone by. Where does the time go? Ooh I think I know: weeding, raking, entertaining two year olds, vacuuming, sweeping, scrubbing floors, washing dogs, waitressing, bartending, and preparing for a big old farm wedding.

After parting from the safety and comfort that is the Kiwi bus, as well as my friends (HEY jack, josh, George, Lottie) I was faced with the reality that I was alone and about to go work for someone who I've never met at a place I don't really know anything about. I toile the bus from Picton to Blenheim. Instead of the sleepy and/or rowdy backpacker bus I was now seated next to some outdoorsy old Dutch couples as we headed to Blenheim, the main town of wine country in NZ. I had about 5 hours to kill since my host would pick me up. I felt like some teen on the run as I sat on the side of the road sitting on top a mountain of backpacks, waiting for a big white pick up truck. This was when I met the ever so lovely Faye and her 2 year old daughter Elka or Elkie (we were soon to be homies). We picked up two other wwofers, Mathilde from France and Carmen from Austria. We pulled up to the farm in the middle of the night so I wasn't quite able to get a sense of the mass and beauty of it. A Dutch girl named Lise and her boyfriend from Mexico who also was named Alex were the other two wwofers there that showed us around the raggedy hut that was the wwoofers hut. It was like a little commune at the hut. 

Eventually it kinda felt like we were a little family. Lise and Alex would drive all of us, including the two other girls to the main house where we were told what work needed to be done for the day. This was also when the farmers started calling us the UN cause we had quite a broad spectrum of nationalities represented (like how many Mexicans do you run into in NZ??). I also happen to meet James, THE sheep farmer and Faye's soon to be husband. I hadn't quite put it together until that day but they were planning a huge wedding, like 160 guests. They also were running behind, quite a bit.

We did get the Tuesday off before the next several days of stress leading up to the wedding on Saturday. We all drove to the beach (we as in woofer family). This was when things got exciting. So, there was a cop car behind us, didn't really think much of it until he sounded his alarm and then we were like well shoot that's for us. After sometime Mexican Alex pulls over and out comes the cop. "Well took you a while to pullover" "ahh I'm so sorry I didn't realize it was for us. In Mexico they announce it on the speaker" "YOU know I'm American, from Chicago, and I've spent quite a bit of time in Mexico" Like what are the odds. I happen to be in a car with a Mexican, Dutch, Austrian, and French girl listening to Mexican music and we get pulled over by a cop from the US in New Zealand. Surely we were screwed, but the cop goes, "I actually pulled you all over cause you were going too slow and I wanted to make sure everything was ok" game changer! Also, that's probably the most Kiwi thing, a cop checking to see if you're ok. He actually was super friendly and sent us off saying how happy he was to see "such fine nations traveling together"

After our wild Tuesday out we returned to prepare for the next several days of work. I spent a majority of those days doing various tasks like yard work and wood staining. When I wasn't doing work work, I got my dog time with their 1 year old chocolate lab Earl as well as I got to watch all the babies that were around (which pretty much consisted of me chasing a naked Elka around the garden). It was all actually pretty good work except for when we had to make confetti out of leaves. I'm pretty sure I singlehandedly killed one of their Eucalyptus trees. At the end of the day we all hopped in our car to return home to a kitchen full of foods. We had made roasted veggies one of the nights and then I made scrambled eggs one morning. Since the farm  I've declared that I'm taking a break from my jar of peanut butter and have now upgraded to rice and beans. 

Saturday came before anyone was ready, especially after some disapproval winds from hurricane Faye (I know how ironic) came and tore the wedding Marquis. It all ended up okay it just meant more  drinking and more teamwork. The day of the wedding I was waitress, just like back at FF. Pretty much from 3pm onwards we were pouring endless amounts of champagne and all the best wine of Marlborough. I forgot to mention that Fate and James had two other woofers come. They were two chefs who were in charge of all the cooking for the wedding. A Huuuge job but they really crushed it.  The wedding actually turned out so beautiful despite the stresses of weather and the band being delayed on the road. I think that as long as you have a chill (and boozed up) crowd with good food and good music any wedding will be a blast. At around 10 that was when the craziness had ended and us woofers decided to dig into the food and very nice wine selection. I did have a nice boogie on the dance floor to a bluegrass band from Christchurch. It felt like I was back in good ole VA! 

Wow finally made it to Sunday. It was the most BEUATIFUL day. The weather, the lack of work, and  seeing Faye and James so happy. It felt like it was all worth it, like all those little jobs we did we're appreciated. All the Moores (that's James's family who owns the sheep farm) as well as Faye's family thanked all us woofers for putting on a great wedding. We celebrated by taking a ride (actually more like me gripping on to the back of the pick up as I was surrounded by dog butts) up to the top of Napoleon, the huge mountain that was part of the East Lane farm. That was a magical night. We stood up there as the sun set drinking just a few beers and taking probably one of the most Surene places I've ever been too. In just one view you could see the jaggedly mountains (even the Swiss guy was like wow those do look a bit Swiss), the Pacific Ocean, dogs frolicking, and all of the wwofers talking to the family. That wa some of my favorite moments since beating in New Zealand. 

Now comes another day of departure. I'm already hating these. I said goodbye to Mathidle, Carmen, Alex, and Lise, the wwoofer family, before saying goodbye to Faye and some of the other family members. (Shoutout to Judy and Caitlyn!) I set off yet again except this time I actually had no idea what I was doing. Please don't be alarmed  but I did what every backpacker in New Zealand does and hitchiked across to the West coast from Blenheim to Nelson. Thanks to the two German backpackers who picked me up! We were both saying that it's practically like traveling around Germany cause theres so many of them here. 

To quickly summarize and say something about my first time woofing: it is so worth it. Traveling in the backpacker buses are fun and you meet amazing people, but you're traveling with people who aren't from New Zealand. You don't really get an authentic Kiwi perspective in a lot of ways. Working at East Lane I was able to talk to the farmers there about stuff that mattered to kiwis (which unfortunately did include a love sesh for Donald Trump cause they believe he will make America great again and that will affect NZ yada yada). But seriously, working there did open my eyes cause it makes me realize how people really aren't that different from one another. We all want to have fun weddings and want our economies to improve in the US and in NZ.