For the past few weeks, I've been hanging out in Nelson and Motueka. This area is the sunniest area of New Zealand, which I've definitely been enjoying! It's starting to feel like summer here now, so I've been swimming in the ocean lately, instead of just looking at it. I've had a really good time these last couple weeks.

I spent one week doing another wwoofing stint on a farm outside of Motueka. This has been the first place I've gone to where there has been more than one wwoofer. I really enjoyed the company of the other wwoofers on the farm, who were from the US, Germany, Canada, and Japan. Mostly, we spent a lot of time weeding the various gardens around the place, although we did get to finally plant some beans and corn at the end of my stay. We also had to pick up some horse manure, which obviously doesn't rank super high on my list of highlights for this trip, but that is the reality of being on a farm with a few horses. For those unfamilair with wwoofing, you basically work 4 hours a day on an organic farm in exchange for room and board. Generally, it's a great way to save some money, learn more about organic farming, and meet some pretty cool people.

A few days after I left the farm, I ran in a 30k (18.6 mile) trail race in Kahurangi National Park. I was pretty excited, but also kind of nervous for this race. I've been doing some good runs while I've been travelling, but haven't done any runs close to that distance. Overall though, the race went really well! It was a really nice course, although unfortunately the fog obscured the views from the top when we finally got up there. I was pretty tired at that point anyway, and probably wouldn't have fully appreciated the beauty anyway.

All the competitors met at a certain point in the morning, where we then piled in the back of two big trucks and sat on bales of hay for the uphill, dirt road drive to the start of the race. It was raining before the race started and during parts of the race as well, but we actually had really good running temperatures for most of the race. The first part of the course was very easy, as after 4 minutes of easy uphill, we had about 45 minutes of easy down hill ahead of us. Of course, what goes down usually goes up, and the next hour and a half of the course was up hill. Some of that was a somewhat gentle uphill, although there were a few pretty steep sections as well. Even the not so steep sections felt pretty rough by the end though! This was followed by some downhill, then some more uphill, then (finally!) the last 30 minutes were all downhill again.

I had only entered the mountain run section of the race, although the race actually continued on, as competitors (either individually or as a team) completed an 18k kayak, a 30k mountain bike, and a 40k road bike to the finish line. I got a ride out from the end of the run section with a few people who were doing the entire race as a team, so we followed their bike rider for the rest of the race to the finish, which was at a beautiful beach. Afterwards, we all sat around and finished the day with a cold beer at a bar overlooking the ocean.

Overall, a really good day! I even won a headlamp for my efforts! It was a really good way to meet some fun people and to see a beautiful national park in a different way.

Its now time to head off back south I think. Not sure exactly yet where I'll spend the holidays, but I guess I have time to think about that still. Until then....