North Canterbury Tales (Mar. 17 – 28)

So after our first week in Amberley, we’d had such a good time that we were keen to stay on longer and continue to help out at the farm and the brewery. Luckily, Kieran and Belinda were also happy to have us continue wwoofing as well, so we extended our time in Amberley for another busy week and a half.

Back at the big red farm house...

We should first mention that staying with a winemaker and brewer certainly has its merits. Seriously, Becky and I are now experts on the Brew Moon beers and most of the Muddy Water wines. Although I remain extremely suspect to suggestion when tasting wines, so hopefully K&B are steering us in the right direction there…

Add in the fact that we ate really well the entire time, and from a gustatory standpoint we had a fantastic few weeks here in the North Canterbury area. Dinners have been great, with plenty of vegetables from the garden, lamb, and pears, especially. K&B have a pear tree that is ridiculously laden with fruit, so we’ve been thinking up as many uses for pears as possible, with pears usually in dessert somewhere. Muffins, cobbler, crisp, poached pears in wine, we’ve really run the gamut for pear possibilities I think.

This display almost put me (Becky) off the meat again, but then dinner was so delicious...

At the brewery, Kieran and I did more brewing, cleaning, bottling, and labeling, and I think I acquitted myself well in the end. I must have appeared like I knew what I was doing in the brewery, since Kieran would occasionally ask me technical questions or my opinion on things. Hopefully my answers didn’t steer us too far afield! Although I must say I think I got the hang of bottling, as I’m now known as the ‘Automated Bottling Machine’ in certain parts of Amberley.

On the farm, Becky spent a lot more time in the garden, mostly weeding anything that moved in the garden. A few of the sections were her favorite type of weeding, pulling everything indiscriminately, so that you know you can’t make a mistake and pull the wrong thing. Becky also did heaps of other things on the farm as well, plaiting and planting garlic, feeding the chooks and horses, and trying to prevent Moses, Belinda’s parents’ dog who was staying for a few days, from buggering off back to their house a few km away. It was mostly a success; the chooks got fed, and Moses stayed at home more days than not.

He may look sweet and innocent (if a little bit scruffy), but Moses used to be a well-known chicken killer before he saw the light and mended his ways

I helped at the farm a bit as well, mostly in skimming some of the paths, basically ripping up the grass that had grown there. Take our word for it, the grass didn’t seem keen on being ripped up. Kieran and I also did some lumberjack-type stuff, cutting down a pine tree and splitting firewood with a hydraulic ram. It’s good fun and really the only way to do a heap of firewood; using an axe is for the birds. Taking down the pine tree also gave me a chance to drive the tractor down the road laden with huge logs. I’m not sure why Kieran thought I’d be good at it, but I didn’t lose the logs or ram anyone, so it seemed to go OK. And I now think that everyone should drive a tractor at some point in their life, so thanks Kieran.

An aerial view of the garden, sans weeds

We also worked the farmer’s market in Lyttelton, just south of Christchurch, for Brew Moon on a couple Saturdays as part of our wwoofing work. We have to say it was really good fun, giving samples and selling beer at the market, which was easily the best farmer’s market we’ve seen in NZ so far. We had absolutely gorgeous weather two weeks in a row for the market, which is quite helpful when you’re trying to sell beer. Our first day at the market also coincided with St. Patrick’s Day, and while it’s not as big of a drinking holiday here as in the States, was quite helpful in trying to persuade people to try beers samples before noon. We sold a lot of beer that day, and did pretty well the next week as well.

Andrew sellings his wares at the farmers' market

On a similar note, we also helped to sell wine for Muddy Water at the Waipara Food & Wine Festival on Sunday, a few days ago. We had a great time pouring and tasting wine, listening to jazz, and seeing people walk around in wine-induced stupors in the afternoon sun. How people can drink heaps of wine in 30C sunny weather is beyond me, but to each their own. To be fair though, I did really find it helpful to taste a number of the Muddy Water wines to really pick out the differences (Note to my brother Adam: please don’t take this to mean that I’ll be able to follow you when you’re talking about wines now).

Our sweet ride to the Lyttleton farmers' market

Whew, I get tired just thinking of all the stuff we did these past few weeks! All in all, we have to say we had a great time, worked hard, ate and drank extremely well, and learned a lot. Many thanks to Kieran and Belinda, who couldn’t have been more gracious or accommodating, putting us up and making us feel at home. You’ve made it hard to leave, but worry not, as we’ll definitely be back on our way up through the country later this year!

Amberley Alert (Mar. 9-16)

While on the west coast in the first week of March, we got a call back from one of the places we’d inquired at about wwoofing. Not to complain about the travel we’ve gotten to do, but after the past few weeks of driving we, not to mention our wallets, were feeling like it was time to get off the road and to get a bit of rest from driving and sightseeing. With that in mind, we were keen to do some wwoofing to earn the extended accommodations, even if we did have to criss-cross back to the Christchurch area to do so.

Kieran and Belinda's big red farmhouse in Amberley

I was particularly interested in this wwoofing spot because the hosts own Brew Moon Brewing, a microbrewery in Amberley that produces a line of 4 beers: a pale ale, a brown ale, a stout, and an organic IPA. Given my interest in beer, this is pretty much the hot setup (as our official source for longrifles, Scott, might say) for me as far as wwoofing hosts go. Brew Moon is basically a one-man operation run by Kieran, a Kiwi bloke whose partner, Belinda, is also an accomplished winemaker at Muddy Water Winery. We suspect that my brother Adam (semi-pro beverage enthusiast) would be quite jealous of this arrangement, as he would likely be in heaven being able to stay with a couple like this.

The Brew Moon Cafe

Belinda and Kieran (hereafter B&K) live on a farm outside of Amberley, surrounded by other farms and wineries, which are multiplying like rabbits (or possums, rather, since this is NZ) throughout the north Canterbury countryside. The grape-growing fever probably won’t subside until growers are precluded from drawing aquifer water, or America’s taste for NZ Sauvignon Blanc is finally sated. It’s probably an even-money proposition at this point.

Their farm is a pretty little spot of farmland only about 10-15 km from the sea and has nice views of the surrounding mountains. They have chooks (chickens), cattle, and several horses, as Kieran is quite a horse enthusiast, having broken and trained racehorses for much of his life. Becky is much more familiar with the horses, but from memory I can recall Clyde, Jimmy, Blue, Wendell and Kermit. If I missed anyone, sorry boys. Come to think of it, my Uncle Bill, who raises racehorses as well, might also be envious of our wwoofing location.

Blue posing for the camera, while Wendell and Kermit look on

At the moment, Canterbury is ‘dry as’, and is often ridiculously gusty, at least to us, but until it starts slamming doors and windows it doesn’t seem to bother B&K much. On one of the nights we stayed here, Becky and I were literally (seriously, not figuratively) woken up every 15 minutes by the howling wind. If Rodgers and Hammerstein had been from NZ, the song probably would go: Cannnnnnnnnnn-ter-bu-ry, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain…

Fortunately, unlike our first wwoofing experience (see the posts on Tony in the Coromandel), we’ve gotten along swimmingly with B&K. It probably helps that we have a few more common interests, but also that they seem to have neither a creepy streak nor a poorly disguised distaste for all things American. B&K actually lived in California with their children for several years a few years back and had a positive experience, as they appreciated country music, blues, New Orleans, and most shockingly for Kiwis, hot peppers! Compared to Tony, where we were ready to leave his house after a week - especially after we determined he’d never teach us to turn on the lights - we were quite happy to stay at K&B’s an additional week.

Kieran and Belinda pose by Old Glory

For much of our first week here, I’ve helped in the brewery while Becky has helped out doing odd chores on the farm. Brewing, transferring beer, cleaning kettles, bottling, labeling, standing on top of fermenters running hot water to melt the ice on a malfunctioning chiller, you name it and I’ve probably done it this week at the brewery. It’s been a great experience though, and very cool to see the practical side of making beer in a small-scale microbrewery setting.

Andrew stirring up a fine brew

Our first week here has been really pretty busy, with early rises and early bedtimes. As noted above, K&B have found many ways to fill our time. Not that we’re complaining; on the contrary, it’s been good to be busy and productive. After so much traveling, you start to feel more than a little decadent doing nothing but spending money and sightseeing, which takes away from the fun of it all. So wwoofing here has been good for us from that aspect. And we’d also feel badly sitting around while K&B worked hard around us. We should also mention that K&B seem to spend very little time idly; in particular, Belinda is a force of nature. Up at sunrise, biking to/from work, working all day, cooking, gardening on days off, riding her horse, administrative work on the computer, we get tired just thinking of all the non-stop work – Belinda we salute you!

The Brew Moon beerworks

Trying to be mindful that some readers aren’t into the whole extended post thing, I’ll try to wrap this up quickly. But this did try to cover an entire eventful week, so hopefully you’ll understand. In any event, we’ll probably have more about the rest of our time in Amberley later. Until then, this is A&B signing off…