Cool weather makes me think about the countdown to Christmas

It’s been raining consistently for four days straight, and the forecast for sun is shaky. The New Zealand weather should be getting progressively warmer and sunnier, but the country is experiencing a delay in summer conditions, leaving those of us who expected to spend Christmas on the beach a bit disappointed.

Fortunately my Christmas plans, though not on a beach, are anything but disappointing now that Katie, Brian and I have been invited to celebrate the holiday with the Rainey family in their lake house on Nelson Lake.

For about 2 weeks I will continue traveling alone, while Katie is with Brian, and then the three of us will reunite and join the Raineys on December 23.

Until I head toward the Christmas festivities I will continue traveling down the West Coast of the South Island, wwoofing along the way, and end in the Southern region where Fiordland, New Zealand’s glacial area, lays.

I expect cold in the South, but here it’s feeling a lot like Christmas with the rain and wind along the cold coast. Inside, the fire is burning, and I’m consuming mass amounts of hot tea and coffee, but the dreary weather makes me miss the comforts of home during the holidays.

The sun should be shining Sunday, so I may be back on the road…heading south. I’m still happy with my decision to travel alone, but it’s difficult to find available wwoofing places. (I’m too scared to camp out alone in the rain and too cheap to pay for a hostel.). Wwoofing in popular in NZ, everyone seems to be occupied until February, and travelers from around the world are pouring in and filling the positions.

Today at 11 a.m. a French couple arrived at Lynn’s house to wwoof, they are wonderful people, easy to talk with – in English – but there is always tension among wwoofers as the number of people increases and the amount of work decreases. Hosts can’t keep wwoofers without a fair labor exchange. Lynn and Brian should have enough work for us all, but I would hate for us to strain their resources.