'Remember: As far as anyone knows are we a nice normal family'

Dear fans and dear haters, dear patient readers and dear naked photo lookers, dear friends and family overseas or elsewhere in the world, dear interested readers of our little internet travel diary - whatever reason may have led you to read these lines, we are sorry. We are sincerely sorry that we have not written anything from us for so long. Luckily, we also have a suitable excuse for that. In the last few days, we have been too busy with eating, relaxing, and - well - also a little bit of work. It is quite understandable that we did not have the time to write a little blog entry...

Well, now these exhausting times are over and we can fully devote ourselves to our readership again. The days at Ann and Mike's went by in a flash. Getting up at eight, having a proper breakfast, working, 'morning tea' (in the form of tea and biscuits), working, 'lunch', a little more work, relaxing, and then a hearty 'dinner'. A daily routine to my liking. That's the way to live...During the whole time, we stayed in our own little cabin, with our OWN toilet, OWN shower, and OWN refrigerator. Luxury by backpacker standards. The work mainly consisted of tackling the native flax in New Zealand and removing all the dead stuff. I tell you...that was hard work, especially with the mercilessly burning New Zealand sun on our backs (whenever I see flax on the side of the road now, a cold shiver runs down my spine). But in the end, we got paid in food as well as a kayak glowworm tour. That's right. As I mentioned before, our two hosts also offer kayak tours for a mere $100! We got it for free. But what's the deal with the glowworms? The tour took us through a narrow gorge that the river has carved and is populated by numerous glowworms. When it was dark enough - we passed the time of waiting with a hot drink, chocolate, and some cheese jokes that Mike told (he really put in a lot of effort and did a great job) - we let ourselves be carried downstream in our kayaks through the pitch-black gorge, while we admired the natural light chains to our right and left with open mouths. Everything was quiet, only the soft splash of our boats could be heard. We will remember this special moment for a very long time...

One of the many advantages that WWOOFING offers to young backpackers is making new contacts. And if you're a little lucky and don't act too stupid, you will be referred from one WWOOFING family to another. Apparently, we didn't act too stupid and so Ann drove us to her friends Fran and Berry on Thursday afternoon (just like she did with our predecessors). The two are the same age as Ann and Mike (the best age!) and have made it their mission to buy old houses, fix them up, and then sell them - and they're doing pretty well. Fran is the tough granny who is always on the ball, gave us all affectionate nicknames (we were all her 'kids', sometimes also 'love' or 'sweetie'), but can also curse quite a bit (especially during the evening card game) and sometimes wears an apron with the inscription: 'I am a badass grandmother'. Berry is more in the background, calm, but of pronounced warmth and with a lot of mischievous humor. Together, the two of them are simply an unbeatable team AND passionate 'Downton Abbey' watchers, which finally earned them the highest score on our personal sympathy scale. For those who know what that means: we felt like in the Burrow with the Weasleys! Fran and Berry's daughter Gaby lives with her family right next door, so sometimes dinner had to be cooked for 12 people...

Fran's main concern was that we learned something new. And so, besides some new culinary experiences (macaroni pudding!), we mainly improved our English. Together with Emelie and Simon, two Swedes of our age and our predecessor WWOOFers at Ann and Mike's, we set out to help our new hosts with their daily work. That means: laying beds, pulling weeds, working wood, and sprucing up the terrace. So you really can't say that we worked ourselves to death. In the afternoon, we had time to explore the area and expand my personal experience by visiting a New Zealand Christmas market (after 10 minutes, we had walked around the stands three times and decided to leave) and a three-hour bike race in an 'Avanti Dome' (I ALMOST fell asleep).

Now, after a one-week detour to backpacker paradise, we have returned to reality. Emelie and Simon took us north and dropped us off in Hamilton (we wanted it that way! we have already been here for the third time...), because the two have their own car, so we saved ourselves the bus ride. Besides the magnificent food and comfortable accommodation, I will especially miss our evening Rummy rounds, where we always had a lot of fun.

Now we are mainly occupied with one thing: finding a job! Which proves to be much more difficult than expected. Tomorrow we will travel to nearby Raglan on the west coast for a short time. And then...

Wish us luck!

Richi & Maggi, 29.11.2016, Hamilton 22:06