Hello its Olivia here. This blog is long overdue as i have been back on the south island for a few days. Anyway heres what i got upto on the north island.

The festival- was amazing! Made some really good friends in the form of Rach, Chloe, catherine, vanity case (verity), neil and beeeen. Obvioulsy lots more but i may refere to these as i go along. Not too much good stuff though, dont want them getting big head! Anyway all fun and games making decorations, telling stall holders where to set up, serving people beeerrr(and ourselfs of course), drinking cider. Got speaking to one man in particular who was selling enviromental dvds to raise enough money to get them in every school and library in NZ. He was a really nice guy and thankfull that i was interested. Anyway i bought a few dvds and as i wont be able to watch them will send them home to ste. who will very much aprritiate them i hope. So ask him if you wanna see them.

On the first day it rained heavily in the morning but by mid day there was glorious sunshine, by 7ish there were 15+ people in a huge mud puddle dancing to some DUB. Skanking away like a bloody mad'ed was a man with one wooden leg. New Zealand hippies are amazing!

one of the main highlights was going down to the river at night time where there were 3 barrels hanging on wodden poles (hard to explain). With drum circles surrounding each and people dancing round the fire. We had a good old dance as you can imagine. Down close to the river edge there was allso a guy on a cordian playing classic hits such as 'purple rain' and what not. Then the next day was all fun and games again. Sorry i am rushing. swimming in the river was amazing, dancing to all the bands and stuff. i learnt how to make a dream catcher :). Allso on the second night most of the woofers were sat in the chai tent eating all the leftover food when it starting pouring down so all the people from the river came in the tent. People were appearing from nowhere with drums and once again a drum sesh was going on. Then all of a sudden there was more food being passed around campers had left over. There was even a cheese board going round at one point. allso i have to mention how much rachael and ben embarrassed themselves by laughing uncontrolably for far too long. hahaha. The whole festival was a really inspirational and amazing experience. Even working in the zero zone (rubbish recycling) area was fun. One woman called us 'the heroes of the festival' because we were sorting out the rubbish to recycle. It wasnt too bad though because most of the poeple if not all really wanted to get into recycling and asked for help. Met some really nice people.

Anyway with nothing to do for a few days before i fly i decided to travel to Auckland with rachael (lovely northern lass!) so we stoped of every couple of hours to do walks and visit beaches and made 2 stops at hostels. We had a really good time going to some of the most remote places on the north island. Were went going to the museum tomorrow and the park and stuff. We spent a few days in Auckland then rachael had to leave me to go to Sydney. So i taveled to Napier the next day. My bus broke down in the middle of nowhere for 3 hours. With the most annoying 14 year old god ever invented. ARGHHH. he only appeared when we broke down, im sure he just come out of the bushes. But yer we had a laugh ignoring him and i made friends with a guy who gave me laods of advice on organic stuff which was helpfull.

The next day i went to wellington then to the 'one love' festival on the 6th (happy birthday bob) that was cool, met up with some poeple from the festival. Then flew to christchurch. Ill end here. Sorry its such a huge entry. If you dont read it i wont be offended.

I have got a few contacts from the festval so i will hopefully be doing some more volunteer work thoughout NZ, i will be meeting up with some of the above people allso :). xx