Spring Equinox at South Karori Hippie Commune

Well, I think the best course of action since so much has happened since I last posted is to make separate posts for the different parts of our adventures. Therefore, this entry will only be for the weekend we spend in Karori, the suburb of Wellington, purportedly the biggest suburb in the world (I have my doubts, as does Deeps, the Indian American CSer we stayed with at Niv's... apparently NZ claims a lot of doubtful superlatives).

Friday night we were picked up at Niv's by Robbie, Emma's 'partner' (this seems to be a term that everyone uses... not sure if it has any sort of connotations). We first went to his friend's engagement party (she is lesbian... I think there is no distinction here [yay!] but I don't know how recent this is at all), where we talked to an interesting girl from Christchurch who offered us a place to stay once we get down there, or discounts on sporting goods and apparell at the shop she's working at in Wellington. We then went with Robbie to South Karori to a hippie commune, where we met Emma (the girl we'd been communicating with via CouchSurfing.org), but were quickly offered communal food (after a hand-held ohm and thanks-giving song). We then sat around for a while until I was introduced to the other mandolin player, Dune Kitten (I swear this was here name! Or atleast how people refered to her). As luck would have it, she only knew melodies and I only knew chords, but since I spent 8 years doing Irish dance, and more than that around Irish musicians, I knew a lot of the tunes she knew and could, for most of them, pretty quickly pick out which chords would work well. For so long I have wanted to be able to play at an Irish jam and now for the first time, in NZ of all places, I have been able to competently play! We stayed up until 3 in the morning playing tunes, when most everyone else had gone to bed, then Woody and I set our sleeping bags up on the floor underneath the table, one of the only floor spots left.

In the morning we were awakened at 7 or 8 am by kids running around (everyone else seemed able to sleep through it, but we got up), and after getting dressed, headed outside to the fire pit. We were offered beers and swigs of champagne (the earliest I've ever started drinking!), then after listening to two guys poke fun at each other for a while, I started jamming on jembe with a guy who was playing blues guitar... one of the more interesting jam sounds I've experienced! But he seemed pleased.

During the day there wasn't much to do. People kept making calls for food to be made, cleaning to be done, etc., but no one really seemed to pay any mind, so when we did a few dishes or cut up cucumbers, we were lauded for our help. There was also a call to make a giant dreamcatcher out of flax (a native weed), and Woody and I, along with the other American traveller, Laura, volunteered and then surprised them all by actually following through and making a big 3 foot diameter dreamcatcher with a lashed bambooo base and rope made out of tied split flax. It was actually very relaxing to sit out in the partial sun for a few hours (I was the one who actually wove the dreamcatcher once they'd helped me split the flax) weaving with no one around and no stress, surrounded by towering beautiful mountains with blooming yellow gorse, and yet also sort of relaxing to have this task to do instead of just sitting around.

That night there was a big party/festival for the Spring Equinox (yes, it's Spring here!). During the day they'd made a 'hangi', a big earth-covered long-cooking fire pit, with veggies all dumpster dived from the town (almost all the food we all ate that weekend was dumpster dived... it's horrific how much good food is thrown away!), but they got impatient and dug it up before it was ready. There were also two lambs that had been slow roasted in a makeshift smoke house made of aluminum siding and a turning cog aparatus that kept them moving for the hours before the hangi was dug up. Having been vegetarian for the past 6 or so years (except when abroad), it was a bit odd to eat meat, but I figured I ought to try the lamb, there being more sheep than people in NZ. However, because I'm not used to eating meat, I think I got a particularly fatty bit and it was really rather gross.

After the food was served, the fire spinners of the group (who I got to count myself among!) were enlisted to light their fire toys from the food fire to spin in the drive way and then light the giant bonfire made up specially for the Spring Equinox celebration. How cool! I actually was holding back at first with Dune Kitten, worried about too many people spinning in too small a space, so I didn't get to light the bonfire, but I did light off of the bonfire to go spin with a few of the stragglers with the little bit of kerosene that was left. How cool to be a part of it!

Unfortunately, since we'd stayed up late the night before, and gotten awakened so early, Woody and I were both pretty tired (and quite a bit more sober than most of the people there), so we opted to claim the couches early and call it a night. I hope we didn't offend our hosts!

The next day we hung out in the morning, but since we had a 2 o'clock bus to catch from Wellington to Palmerston North (for our first WWOOFing adventure), and after a small misunderstanding with our CS hosts being too out of it in a fire tub to drive, we caught a ride with someone else, along with one other person who ended up being the housemate of the girl whose engagement party we'd been to--small world! Apparently Wellington is often like that.

So that was our hippie Spring Equinox in South Karori... relaxing, funny, awkward, exciting, possibly a good time, but definitely a good story! Stay tuned for the next adventure: WWOOFing at Highden Manor, the Fawlty Towers of the Manawatu!