Heavy Rain Warning

As of tomorrow the GST here is increasing from 12.5% to 15% so all the stores have been pushing sales to "beat the GST rise." So we booked our ferry travel and paid our road user charges this week. The ferries were nearly booked up around the time we want to head South so it was a good thing to get it sorted. On our way back there was a lot of choice but we didn't want to leave it until later. The more decisions we can make up front, the fewer we have to make on the road. And if we learned anything last time, we learned that making heaps of small and large decisions every day wears on tired travellers. So we're on a later ferry going down and a morning ferry coming back. Hopefully one of them will have clear weather because on our previous trip it was a foggy, rainy day so we didn't get to marvel at the scenery. Yeah, since we drive a diesel we pay an extra fee which amounts to about 4 cents per kilometre and it's called road user charges. There isn't as much tax when you buy diesel so this way they still collect taxes for road maintenance. But they are going up tomorrow so I paid for 5000 kms and that should nearly cover our travels. You can pay for as little as 1000 kms so if we need to top it up it's not a big deal. I love how flexible it is too - again, Dustin didn't need to be there to get it done even though he's the registered owner and I just had to go to any post shop. I don't think we'll notice the GST increase much because all prices always show the GST in them so you know what you'll pay right away.

We've got more heavy rain today but the weekend is supposed to be fine. I don't mean fine like nice, I mean that when the weather will be sunny, the forecast is actually just called fine. We had that in Australia and here before but it was still cute to hear again. Then next week there's more fine weather on the way! I hope it stays around! This climate is kind of always damp. For instance, I used a rag to clean the bathroom and hung it over the edge of a bucket in the bathroom and it'll sit there drying for days! And if we don't put our clothes-drying rack over the heater, they don't dry very quickly. Another thing here is the ants! I'm not sure if it has to do with how houses are built or if it's just where we are but we've had several ant invasions in the kitchen. I always try to wipe everything down and we rarely let dishes sit out dirty, but that doesn't always stop them. So I looked up ways to keep them out and apparently strongly-scented herbs (such as the fresh rosemary we got at the market for 75 cents last week!) do the trick. So I stuck a heap of sprigs outside in the bricks near the window frame where we see the ant trail. I also put a couple inside the cupboards and in the seam of where the sink and counter meet the wall. I'm happy to report it's been successful! Not sure if it's the smell or if they have been more of a blockage in their paths. Either way it suits me. I didn't want to have to resort to the chemical route because it's so often near our food prep areas and we don't have a lot of other staples like vinegar which were also apparently good repellents. So we'll see how we go with it.

It's been funny seeing movie previews because all the new releases here were released in Canada near when we left, or earlier. This weekend it's that Will Ferrell/Mark Whalberg cop movie and the Steve Carrell one Dinner for Shmucks hasn't been released yet. It's similar with CDs as well. I recall getting Jack Johnson's To the Sea album back in early June and during an ad for his tour it mentions his "forthcoming" CD To the Sea. I can imagine that taking a trip to North America holds lots of novelty, you can see movies well before your friends, and you can come back with CDs that aren't even out yet!

With my free time this week I've been doing lots of research into WWOOFing. I've been combing through our book of listings and then cross-referencing any with their online profile to see if anyone has commented on their stays. I found two (out of around a hundred probably) that had a negative or mediocre comment so we'll avoid those. Not everyone uses their online profile though so sometimes there wasn't additional info. But the ones that had photos were great and I made note of people who had pictures of fishing or diving or swimming pools! (But to be honest, most are a short distance from the ocean or a river or a lake.) It would be a bonus if we could fish or dive (Dustin) during a stay rather than having to do so on a tour. Some people even have mentioned they have property with a creek or lake that they fish out of so it's certainly possible to find. The diving might be a bit trickier but there are a couple hosts who run charter boat tours. Once we have dates set out better (and once we're actually within a month or so of them) we can start contacting hosts to arrange our stays. A lot of them don't book far ahead because too many people change their plans without letting them know. I am really excited for the farmstays. Not only do most people produce their own veggies, many also raise their own meat as well! Or they make honey, have hens for fresh eggs, bake their own bread, make their own wine and beer and the list goes on! Hmm, can you tell I like food? The activities will also interest me and there's such a variety of them so I can't wait to see what we find! December is likely the earliest we'll be starting to WWOOF so I'll have to wait a while before we start making plans.
Tomorrow there's this massive used book sale that goes for 24 hours. It's a fundraiser for something. So that's where I might spend my afternoon - yes I said afternoon, they hold it at the stadium where we went to the G-Taranaki concert so there's heaps of books! Then there's an orchid show this weekend - yep I'm a 75 year old lady! We're hoping to take out a demo board from the shaper in town, and go surfing so hopefully the winds are good! I am still waiting to hear back from my interview last week for the lingerie shop, she called me to say they are waiting on reference checks so I don't have the job but I also haven't been ruled out yet. I could really use those 5-10 hours a month!