For the last week and a half, Pete and I have been staying with the Meroiti family in a coastal town called Paraparaumu. In addition to owning their own businesses, the Meroitis have a beautiful home and vineyard that backs up to native bush and overlooks the ocean. We have met their two older daughters, Chelsey and Kelly, who now live away from home, but their youngest, Megan, is just 3 years old. If you know my cousin Megan, think of her as a 3-year-old but with a Kiwi accent. Yes, this little girl is a talker, and it is often difficult to keep a straight face when she sings her songs or tells a story. They also have 2 big dogs, Benny and Bella, and a mean cat.
Our first job on the vineyard was pruning, a job we did thoroughly... hopefully there will still be a grape crop this year... Since then we have been doing the less glamorous jobs of mowing (Pete) and weeding (me). These are no more exciting than the mowing and weeding one would do in the US, but the views make up for it.
John and Jill (the dad and mum) have been very hospitable, feeding us gourmet meals every night for dinner, and Jill makes fresh bread for sandwiches at lunch. There is a hot tub and both John and Jill urge us to "take a spa" in the evenings, even offering a glass of wine. They are excellent hosts, and now that I'm thinking of it, I'm not sure our mowing and weeding have earned this great stay.
When we haven't been working or eating, we've been given a few opportunities to see the area. At a bird sanctuary we saw our first real kiwi birds and a tuatara, also known as a "living dinosaur". Pete was lucky enough to attract a kaka bird that had a seat right on his head. The sanctuary is home to a talking tui, but all of Pete's efforts to chat with it were unsuccessful. :-( But we were lucky enough to witness the eel feeding. A nice man fed them bits of rat as he chatted about their population decline, but it was tough to listen to his information while the eels swam away with tails dangling from their mouths. Really, REALLY nasty. And while I thought I may never recover from the event, the nice man went on to mowing the lawns.
One afternoon we were able to take a walk on the beach in Waikanae, where the clams were just washed up on shore like driftwood. We've also walked around town a bit. Right now we are in John and Jill's office, but we'll be heading into Paraparaumu again in a bit (we should be working outside, but Jill doesn't like to make us work in the rain). We have plans to buy a "Thank You" pie for our hosts, preferably pumpkin, but that doesn't seem to be a popular menu item in NZ.
Sadly, we are leaving tomorrow. We'll leave on a ferry from Wellington to Picton, where we will work in a hostel for a couple of weeks. Our goal is to get to Abel Tasman for my 26th! :-)
