“What?!” Cecil shouts back.
“What’s your cats name?” Increasing my volume and slowing down this time.
“Oh, I can’t remember…” he says.
Our first couple nights in Wellington were full of conversations like these with our 75-year-old Couchsurfing host, Cecil. He’s a really friendly kiwi, very hard of hearing with heavily accented, and mumbled speech, and a tender heart. It remains a mystery to all of us, including Cecil, how he ended up on Couchsurfing.com. Jenn asked him and he said he could remember how he found out about the website. He’s been a member for 10 years! He acted as our Wellington tour guide driving us around town, giving little history tid bits along the way. Then, took us for a 1.5 hour country drive the following morning. We had a lovely few nights in Wellington. My sister, Erica, met us here. She has been on the north island of New Zealand now for two months, WWOOFing all over. She’s worked at a blueberry farm, wine vineyard and a few more, too.
We have started our first WWOOFing stint together at a huge 200 acre property about 1 hour from Wellington with our host, Rohnan. We have spent the last few days doing a variety of work including weeding, building a fence and painting the house.
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| Cecil's cat. He remember the cat's name the following day. It's Jade (I assume for its green eyes) |
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| We made it! |
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| Teamwork while picking wild blackberries from thorn bushes. |
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| Erica making wild blackberry muffins |
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| Berries that we later used for muffins and a pie. |
Looks like a super fun place!
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