Meditation on the north island

Hey all.
Long time no write...
I've emailed most of you yesterday.... especially the ones that thought I was dead... I've been meditating and working for no wages. at Dhamma Medini near Kaukappakappa, N.Z. on the north island, north of Auckland.
What an adventure it has been... hitching out after visiting Anna at the mount could not have gone better...we hopped on a couple of busses to get us out of the Tauranga area and walked up a hill... layed in the grass for a while to collect ourselves and Nick stuck out his thumb while I juggled a few Fijaroes (a strange new zealand fruit I found on the side of the highway - I tasted it, was good...ate a few of them and then later found out the were safe to eat, don't condone doing this, but I figured it was alright...it's sort of cross between a pear or guava and a passionfruit or something...bizzare) and we hooked a ride straight to where we were headed.. about 4 hours from there...the fellow at first was pretty serious and stodgey... but after a while I started to get his bone-dry sense of humour... he's a was a sound engineer... likes his drink and was very well spoken... he took us around Auckland when we arrived there... to a bunch of the major radio staions... the rock, some talk station... to the major rebroadcasting hubs.... all of his workplaces...met some of the radio personalities and his cooworkers, saw the studios the were setting up and got to take photos of the Auckland skyline with the tower from a studio on the upper floor of a tall building with a view... interesting times... and he drove us right to Kaukappakappa, near to the vipassana center there. We ended up walking (after dark) from this tiny little town, 2km out in the country, down a little road and then through a pasture and up a huuuuge hill...set up our tents up there.. had a great sleep and woke up to the fog clearing out of a a beautiful panoramic valley. phenomenal. hiked down and got a ride before even setting up to hitch... to the turnoff and walked about 4 or 5 km to the center...
Origianlly planned on sitting for 5 days and then serving for 5 days... but at the last minute was asked to serve for the whole 10 days... I agreed and spent my sesion working 6-8 hours a day for the 10 days... had about 5-6 hours a day to meditate... great times...had 10 different nationalities working in the kitchen (columbia, canada, germany, uk, japan, china, france, kiwi, aussie, and burma)
Yeah.. this session was not like the others... I was serving this time... cooking meals and doing dishes... getting one hour meditation periods, like islands, between. Really had to go really deep when you're working like that. There is alot of benifit to working these sessions... very humbling experiance and you are genuinely helping other peoiple for the right reasons.. and allowing them the chance to plunge deep into the deths of their unconcious minds, purififying them of destructive mental conditioning... best charity I can think of... because I have lived the results of it and know how good it is... And at the end of the session there was a guy from portugal who had this really beautiful sweater he was trying to sell, hand made in chile, purchased there (so that he could donate the money to the vipassana foundation) I wanted it.. but couldn't afford to give much. decided I wanted it and by the time I got back, an italian guy had bought it. I was kind of let down, but accepted it... later that day, the Italian guy knocked on the kitchen door I came to the door and he gave me the sweater, insisting that I have it, he was giving it from the bottom of his heart - I accepted it... bloody well made my day. I have never had anything quite like that happen. I was very touched. and thanked him thourally. Very rarely do you get to see such pure volition. at these sessions it runs rampant... every body giving and loving for the right reasons! if the outside world ran that way.........
anyway... I now have a beautiful new sweater and a bunch of new friends all over the planet! This session was actually really good for me. I took charge and had really stong confidence in the kitchen... cooked alot of the main courses (in batches big enough to feed 80 people, mind you) and was incharge of managing cleanup duties and such. really empowering to know that I am capable of organizing a group of a dozen people or so and actually getting the task accomplished efficiently with that many minds...
The whole time I stayed, I slept in a big canvas tent, which on the last day partially collapsed and flooded in a crazy storm which left the whole area flooded, all of the rivers at high water level and some roads submerged, wetting all of my gear.. soaking my wallet, etc. lovely... if I hadn't been meditating for the previous ten days that really would have pissed me off... but I was fine. I spent my evenings with hundereds of glow works in the forest... wonderful experiance. Cudos to John and Viviane especially for their wonderful company and inspiration!
And now I am back in Auckland. Spent last night in A YHA hostel just up the street. There were 4 of us from Vipassana staying there... spent the evening talking of our travels and what have you... and I introduced a bunch of people to "trailer park boys" because it came on TV last night and I insited that they watch it. hahah! they were as disgusted with it as I thought they would be... as disgusted with it before I watched a few episodes and learned to love it for what it is. hahah
anyhow... I am thinking of flying to qeenstown tomarrow... it's 1700km, wayy down on the other end of newzealnd... the end close to the south pole. it's going to be cold down there (shit, I just looked at the weather forcast for down there... and it's 6 degrees celcius right now and it's almost noon! ahhh! high of 13 degrees at the warmest part o the week! ahhh!) it's gonna cost me $180Nz ($135 canadian) to fly down there.. but I think it's a good bet... because it's just going to get colder and I really want to just get down there, go exploring and make my way back up as far north as I can... just kind of stupid how I planned things... I'm in Auckland right now, I fly out of auckland in 3 weeks but want to go somewhere that is 1700km away and get back to heare in that time... I'm going to be travelling alot in the next few weeks here.... oh well. it's gonna be fun... and then it's off to Thailand! yeyyyyah am I ever excited about that! My mate brandon in Sydney has bought his ticket too... he's meeting me in Bangkok and we're trippin around for a few weeks. gonna be a great!
ok. I'm going to try to get some pics up now. I'll write again soon... probably from queenstown. gonna check on those tickets right now.. all. talk soon.
Ok... it's the next day and I'm in queenstown! it's 10deg C and it's midday! no more flip-flops for me! just a little note to let you know that I uploaded over 60 new pictures, all of New Zealand!