Kawhaka Lodge, Hokitika

We arrived at the Kawhaka Lodge in Hokitika on March 13th.  Our hosts were Marj and Tony.  Their house was a fly fishing lodge in the summer (guided tours by Tony) and a small cranberry farm and home garden during the other seasons.  There was a french couple, Gwla-dys and Valentin, and a woman from Taiwan, Wendy, also WWOOFing at the lodge.  Valentine is a website developer and developed a website for the lodge.  Eddie took some pictures of the lodge and cranberry products for the website

Some HDR's of the Lodge

Eddie, Gla-dys, and Wendy helped Tony in the cranberry field weeding and planting the cranberry beds while Valentine and I worked on our projects using our computers.  Marj and Tony still had dial up internet so sometimes Valentine and I drove 30 minutes (one way) into town for the free wireless internet provided at the library.  I worked on two projects for Marj and Tony to help their businesses.  First, I made a Food Safety Plan for the kitchen in the lodge. Marj makes cranberry relish and sauces she is hoping to sell commercially.  In order to sell her cranberry products Marj has to pass a food inspection to certify her kitchen.  In order to do that she has to follow a food saftey plan.  I was able to do that fairly easily with little need for the internet (except to convert the temperatures from Fahrenheit to Celsius).  The second project I did was much bigger and more detailed.  Marj and Tony were in the process of taking ownership of a cranberry farm that recently went bankrupt. They wanted to harvest their cranberry crop before an Australian coal mining company destroyed the land to mine for coal.  They wanted this new farm to be GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) certified so they could sell the cranberries to super markets.  In order to do this they have to pass the GAP assessment a 20 page document listing all the qualifications the farm has to meet before harvest.  Harvest was in 2 weeks.  They asked me to create the program to run their farm.  It is basically a business plan including staff saftey hazards and food saftey hazards.  It was a bit of a challange since most of education is in food saftey management for restaurants and hospital kitchens.  I have never done anything like this for a farm before.  It was an added challenge doing the project without ever visiting the farm itself.  Needless to say, I felt very accomplished and proud when the project was finally completed.  I now know how to get a farm GAP certified in New Zealand!  That could be good for my resume.

A green Cranberry, not yet ready to pick.

                                                                                                               Sand fly bites. No bueno.

The crew: Us, Valentin, Gwla Dys(Gladis), Tony, Marj, and Wendy

Baby plants making the transition from soil to sand, where they will spend the rest of their days.

Here in New Zealand, Cranberries are grown in sand rather than flooded plains. Cuts down on the water bill no doubt.

Always a need and time for good ol fashioned wood chopping in New Zealand.

Tony demonstrating how to remove the cranberries from the plants. Nifty. 

Devon asked Marj if she needed help making dinner....

....Marj said "sure" can you make the "Rollie Pollie Pudding....?"

So Devon made it with nothing but a quick description from Marj, no recipe or anything

The delicious result. Well done Devon. A rollie pollie pudding = a long baked pastry with apple filling

Tony's DIY solution to mass planting = ATV with drum barrel trailer

Infant cranberries making the move to the paddock

Apparently I was supervising at this point in time, its an important job.

Tony demonstrating the difficult task of raking.

Waiting anxiously for Tony to cut the fresh bread...mmmm

Bundaberg: Delicious Australian Ginger Beer

If you think Eddie is hairy in this picture.  Just wait it gets worse...
(Eddie: or better?!)

A rally car race was held on the dirt road near the lodge so we took a break and watched the cars speed by.

The second day working at the lodge, Eddie and I worked 8 hours so we could take the next day off.  We drove 2 hours to see the Frans-Joseph Glacier and the Fox Glacier.  It was a beautiful drive and the the say the glaciers were amazing would be an understatement.

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Multiple waterfalls flowed into the valley from above.

Rich people glacier tour, jealous. 

Franz-Joseph Glacier

Fox Glacier

No filters, no photoshop, no tricks....just really blue water, like Glacier Freeze Gatorade!

We left Kawhaka Lodge on Saturday, March 24th and drove to Christchurch to stay with a couple who are friends with Rachel and Scott (our Greymouth hosts).