Off the Beaten Path at Awhi Farm — HaffsWay Around The World

View from the Maori School we worked at, with a clear day's Tongariro backdrop

Five weeks in. Whoa. If one thing is certain at this point, it’s that I have no idea what to make of time anymore, at least as it pertains to this rogue traveler lifestyle. As we’ve previously said, with the sheer volume of our experiences thus far, it seems like we’ve been here so much longer. On the other hand, today I had that little shiver of panic you get when you know something is about to come to an end. Unnecessary at this juncture? Perhaps. But considering we are down to our last fortnight on the North Island, I see how easy it is to long for the adventures that end up on the wrong side of the chopping block. I guess that’s how it goes when over 30% of the country is dedicated to protected wilderness. Now, to borrow a nifty formatting scheme from a smart (and quite adorable) blogger, I’ll first offer up some quick hitters that are best left as their own anecdotes before we dig in:

The drive from Hobbiton to Mt. Doom is like, 3 hours tops. Along a major highway. Peter Jackson fooled us with the epic journey stuff, not all it's cracked up to be folks! I think Frodo was into taking the scenic route, for which I guess I can't really blame him.
For the movie nerds: at Hobbiton's Green Dragon Inn, the beers do not in fact come in pints(!?!). Probably closer to a 300ml (you'll still come visit though, right Dave?!?)
Wouldn't have thought I could feel so luxuriously comfortable living for two weeks residing in a nine-foot cubed hut, using (and emptying) compost toilets, eating many vegan meals, and taking a total of 3 (solar) showers.
In Maori language, New Zealand is Aotearoa (land of the long white cloud)- a name that will henceforth be sprinkled in here. Also, 'wh' makes the 'f' sound. Consider this as you read, especially considering the fact that this leg brought us to the great Whanganui River and through the chuckle-inducing village of Whakapapa
Laura is amazing at compromise and making friends and engaging youth of all ages, and not so amazing at physically withstanding long, winding roads
If for some reason it comes up, anyone who snidely says "none of your beeswax" within earshot may get a snarling "YOU KNOW NOTHING OF SUCH THINGS" out of me (more on this later)
Business idea #28: live and WOOF at Awhi farm, offer cheaper shuttles to the many woofers and air bnb-ers who stay here prior to doing the Tongariro Crossing, undercutting the steep $45/person
Business idea #29: Beer pants. This one is rooted in the woofer discussion surrounding my wardrobe; many beer logoed shirts and hats, but nothing in the pants department. What gives? Lots of opportunity here guys (Coozie holster pockets?!?)
In the uncomfortable corner of quick thoughts on privilege and guilt, it's worth reconsidering how ugly colonization was on behalf of indigenous peoples. After a healthy dose of Maori culture, the common thread we discussed while here regarded the rift between viewing land as a priced commodity as opposed to an equal opportunity resource provider. May need to reread Guns, Germs, and Steel with a fresh dose of perspective
In spite of the above, it has been a blessing to witness and learn from the positive determination and resiliency of Maori people like Grant (from our couchsurf in last post) and Lisa (our WWOOF host of the past two weeks) I believe that such optimism is, in fact, infectious

Entry to the wwoofer hut village at Awhi Farm

So, fresh off the heels of Hobbiton and already closing in on the foothills of Mt. Doom, we were a few busybody travelers craving more social interaction, cultural engagement, and temporary relief for Big Red and our wallets alike. Enter Awhi Farm. I was unsure what to expect as we turned onto the long, tree-lined gravel road just past the city of Turangi. First past an assortment of huts that varied in size, color, and building material. Then an outdoor kitchen, and a scattered array of gardening projects, greenhouses, more small buildings, and paths going all directions. On the one hand, I love me some chaos. On the other, I like to know what I’m getting myself into… And, since Laura maybe might have definitely done all of the research and booking of our WWOOF sites, I’ll admit I had a moment of pause before we stepped out of the van. Now, I find I’m a bit ashamed of that emotion, as Awhi (pronounced like coffee without the c) has genuinely felt like home. Not in the sense that it bears much resemblance to places we’ve lived as a setting, but in its character, spirit of inclusion, and community emphasis.

Celebrating a fun day's work at the school over a round of beers. From left to right: Lucille (France), William (North Carolina), Lisa (our host), Mary Blossom (Lisa's daughter), and Romain (France).

Perhaps the very first thing we noticed at Awhi was the bizarrely large congregation of Americans! We had spoken to a few here and there amidst our travels, but there were instantly more here than all of those interactions combined. North Carolina, L.A., Colorado, and Boston were all represented outside the Midwest, so there was a cool sense of intra-national diversity despite surprisingly outnumbering other countries (six of us to two French and one Nepalese). If the expatriate ratio was the first thing we noticed, then Lisa’s lively personality was a close second. Endlessly optimistic, enthusiastically outgoing, and a bastion of educating others on sustainable practices, Lisa is the Maori woman who runs Awhi Farm. In addition to maintaining the expansive property with its many WWOOF and Air BnB dwellings, gardens, beekeeping operation and summer market, she is extremely eager to help her community maximize its self-sufficiency potential and preserve its cultural identity (no easy or quickly accomplished task, but one we were so pleased to be a small part of!) Between the solar-heated showers, compost-utilizing gardens, and rain barrel water collection, we learned a lot about what it takes to be many steps closer to off the grid.

Overseeing multiple gardening projects with the children outside the school

The physical labor tasks ranged from extensive weeding and gardening tasks to building a makeshift clothes rack in one of the market’s storefronts to cleaning and sprucing up Air BnB huts. Along the way we learned a lot of useful information on how to build a garden from the ground up, which above all else means keeping the worms happy! Other tasks also included cooking, cleaning, and shuttling hikers to the Tongariro Crossing for cash. Oh right, and then there was my Everest: cleaning plastic beeswax trays. Let me elaborate. Disease and wasps ravaged a colony of bees, so I was tasked with ridding them of the diseased beeswax. To do this, you must first heat a cauldron of water to somewhere between 120 degrees and effing hand-scalding in order to melt away the wax (which meant building lots of fires! Sweet!) Then you must scrape vigorously with a wire brush under the running lava-water for approximately eternity, making sure the wax doesn’t re-harden. Rinse, wash (wax off hands and clothes), repeat. Full disclosure though, I chose to do this. I think it had something to do with my stubborn nature and the inherent challenge of devising the most efficient and least burn-inducing method of this tedious bee-hemoth. (Sorry, sometimes I just hive to).

The other major component of our work was working with kids from the local Maori heritage school, where all kids were bilingual in Maori and English. Guess who was supremely in her element for this one?!? Twice we made the trip to the school itself, working on the school’s garden with students of all ages (Lisa’s pet project) as well as playing and facilitating games with them (guess who was into that?). With the elementary aged students, there was a lot of fibbing to us, especially regarding their famous uncles- particularly LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Kevin Durant- one New Zealand school, three famous NBA nephews? What are the odds? When we later stepped onto the basketball court, I found the nine-foot hoop suited my retaliatory boast about my own dunking abilities (and brief NBA career of my own). They came to know me as Big Foot (due to my Sierra Nevada hat, or maybe actual foot size/hairiness/mystique). Meanwhile, Laura was helping the little ones plant their own seeds, in between answering inquiry after inquiry about being engaged and getting married and why I don’t have a ring yet (kids are apparently fascinated by the concept, maybe because of our age).

The overwhelming challenge of picking teams

On a separate day, some of the older teens from the school came to Awhi Farm to learn about full-scale gardening in a more hands-on context. When the rain came, we all packed around the outdoor kitchen’s canopied table and it became a throwback camp games and riddles session. The possibilities in this arena were plentiful, as Laura’s camp director experience was complemented by William’s (the one from North Carolina… oh yeah, did I mention there were two Wills in the house?). Soon the teens warmed up to us wacky Americans, and ended up teaching us a fun Maori circle game called Pukana. So it was that yelling words we didn’t quite understand while awkwardly motioning to teenagers we just met and eventually combusting into universal laughter became a highlight of this leg for me.

Engaged full throttle in the game called Pukana, which is also the name for the wise-eyed venomous facial expression by females in the intense pieces of a Haka

Nothing to see here, officer. Just a bus load of immigrants en route to a Kapa Haka

Despite this interactive exchange, though, our most intensive foray into Maori culture came on the day we went to the Kapa Haka, a group competitive presentation in which Lisa’s daughter Mary Blossom was taking part. For this we loaded up the van- I mean loaded, like two people sitting on the floor loaded- and followed the school bus for the three-hour trip. Within an atmosphere that felt like a dance recital meets a track meet, schools and their performance teams congregated under tents surrounding a large stage. The performances were outstanding, with an ebb and flow of original songs, choreographed movement, dances, and the traditional Haka (aggressive Maori warrior presentation), often shifting from one to another unexpectedly. Despite intermittent showers and biting wind, all the kids wore matching traditional Maori garb- which meant dresses for the girls and no shirts for the guys. Thus when the little kids who we previously helped fold newspaper cups fought through shivers and a fresh batch of rain to shout out the last of their songs, we were overwhelmed by the dedication, passion, and inherent cuteness of the whole situation. After the torrential downpour then forced the competition inside, we had second row floor seats to Mary Blossom’s group’s performance. And of course, bias aside, they brought the house down (ok, bias intact, but we are still convinced their Haka was the best).

Mary Blossom helping lead the group during one segment of the 15(ish) minute long Kapa Haka performance

The little ones' brave and at times shivering Haka, before rain forced the remaining performances inside

We found many perks to this type of camp-esque wwoof style, the most easily documentable being the food. Yet again we ate very well, with a broad range of cuisines weaving around food allergies, vegan preferences, and what vegetables were available in the garden at the time. This meant many deliciously diverse stews and curries, especially courtesy of Kunjan, our Nepalese resident with a real flair for cooking very flavorful dishes. On top of that, there was the once a week puia (POO-yah)- a slow cooking process that involved putting whatever meats and veggies we had into a few racks, setting them in a designated pit atop a volcanic steam vent, covering it up with sheets and aluminum, and coming back in five hours to retrieve some of the best food we’ve had all trip! In addition to the excellent eats, the continuity and camaraderie offered by Awhi was such a refreshing change of pace for us. Our time here felt like somewhere between summer camp and a mission trip for me, with the largest commonality being the naturally present cooperation and group bonding. We all varied quite a bit as far as life experience and perspective, but grew close in the unique shared experience of it all- with Lisa (and at times Laura) greasing the social wheels as needed. It is impossible to transfer the inside jokes, conversations in exaggerated Wiscaaansin accents, and occasional language barrier oddities in this text, but I certainly can say we were lucky to have shared our time here with such a uniquely wonderful group of people- many who we will be seeing later in our journey, too!

Putting the baskets of food down into the hot pit for our puia!

Oh yeah- and then there was fun stuff! Another perk of longer term woofing is the days off. Outside of checking out the town of Turangi, grabbing beers as a group on the shore of Lake Taupo, and visiting the local hot pools twice, we managed to find time for a pair of extravagant day trips. The first damn near brings tears to my eyes, as it is potentially the start of something enduring and magical- Laura’s maiden mountain bike voyage. Since we didn’t have time for the alleged best trails in the country while in Rotorua, we decided to make the drive back to Wharekarewa Redwood Forest, a massive haven for riders of all skill levels- and guess who had an amazing time?! Trick question, both of us. The beauty of the forest and quality of the tracks had me in awe, and the layout was conducive to allowing me a few tough side jaunts off the easy and medium trails we mostly stuck to. I definitely got quite giddy when, about ten minutes in, Laura shouted back to me “I think I’m going to like mountain biking!” Our extreme day then progressed to meeting up with the group for some late afternoon cliff jumping into the bone-chilling water of lake Taupo (a mountain-fed lake, cold? Who’d have thought). Our other full off-day involved five of us making the road trip across to the enormous Whanganui River and surrounding forest reserve, a slithering mountainous drive and hike that served as a bit of a send-off for our new friends William and Lucille, who arrived separately at Awhi but developed an obnoxiously cute connection and now conjoined travel plans.

One of the numerous scenic vantages of the winding Whanganui River

In summation, we had an absolute blast here. While this may read as the most long-winded Yelp review imaginable, I find myself struggling to pinpoint what it is that made it so special. It has seemed, again, like extraordinarily lucky timing (within two days the woofer number will be temporarily down to three), and simple good fortune to have interacted with so many interesting people throughout our stay. As it was when I left Prague, it’s the bittersweet realization that the place and its natural beauty can be revisited, but never with the same cornucopia of humans and activities. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve really got to get going. I wouldn’t want to make us late for our date with the gorgeous three-day Tongariro Northern Circuit backpacking journey. You might know her by another name, though: Mt. Doom (cue music).