The New Zealand Chapters. IV: Raglan, Part I

The fog of sleep clears slowly as the world blurs into view. With a groan, I get up off the mattress, the fifth different bed I've slept in in 6 days. Sunlight streams into the bell-tent as the zip opening unravels and my toes step onto the dew-tipped grass. Every step towards the front brings a crunch from the gravel underfoot, my skin caressed by the warm morning sun. Stepping onto the deck, a smile involuntarily creeps across my face. Ocean as far as the eye can see, lush rolling hills, waves crashing onto the beach. The start of another day in paradise.

Oh Raglan, you sneaky little devil. Let me start this chapter with a public service announcement. If you're doing a working holiday or even just travelling New Zealand and happen to be on the North Island, do yourself a favour and spend some time in Raglan. The only thing I'd caution against is going there as your first destination. More than once have I seen people checking out Raglan and just never leaving. Heck, if I didn't have a deadline to leave and see the South Island, I would probably still be there right now. You think I'm exaggerating but there is an inside joke in Raglan where you ask people when they're leaving and the answer will always be tomorrow. Nobody leaves, and why would you when you've found paradise.

View from reception.

My love affair with Raglan didn't exactly start like a house on fire though. First of all, Raglan was never even part of my plans. Towards the end of my time in Ohakune, I spotted an ad for jobs in Raglan on the Facebook page. I sent the owner an email and she called me telling me I was hired and that she wanted me to help her set up the restaurant for the summer. After a bit of asking around, I found out that Raglan was a surf mecca filled with hippies and that a few of the winter staff from Ohakune were actually headed there for summer. That gave me my next destination and I let the owner know I would be there on the first of November after my North Island road trip.

First of November rolled around and I texted the owner, saying I would rock up pretty soon and that I was ready to start work. She replies with "I think I've hired too many staff and it's quieter than I thought, if you wait until December, I'll give you some hours." Does this sound familiar yet? It was the Powderkeg all over again. I told her to jog on, I didn't have nearly enough cash to live a month in Raglan without work. After doing so much research about Raglan though, I was determined to make it my next destination. You know that feeling when you're playing poker and you try to buy the pot so you raise-check everyone a ridiculous amount but there's that one bastard who calls your bluff, but you're in too deep now so you keep raising anyway and every time you do it, you ask yourself why, then you lose everything to that damn German who's now taken your laundry money for the week. You shrug it off and smile, a smile that is trying it's best to hold back a torrent of tears. Yeah, it kind of felt like that. I was committed now.

By research, of course I meant that I took a quick look on google maps to find out where Raglan was and that the backpackers closest to town was named Raglan Backpackers. Of course when I turned up, it was full. But I was in too deep now! The guy who owned the place gave me a few suggestions on where to sleep for the night. The first of which was Solscape, a 10 minute drive into the mountains. I headed there and obviously it was also full. With a stroke of luck, the owner, Phil, was in the back room and he poked his head out, saying he could give me a bed in the surf shack. It was just that, a shed that used to be a store room for surf boards. I wasn't so sure but it was a bed for the night. While walking up to the shed though, we walked pass caboose 8 (almost all of the rooms in Solscape are re-purposed train carriages but I'll go in to depth about that in the next chapter with my full review of the place). Caboose 8 was under maintenance but there were beds in there still. We poked our heads in and both decided it was good enough for the night. And that's how I spent my first night in Raglan, pure luck.

I did some walking around the place and one of the first things I saw whilst wandering around in the woods was a natural spring with a plaque that invited you to take a drink from the sacred space. Whoa... I thought the hippie thing was a joke, but as I was about to find out after, it wasn't. The train carriages, sacred spaces, tents and train station that served as the lounge had piqued my interest and I had a browse on their website to find out what the place was all about. Solscape at it's core tries to spread a message of sustainability, which again, I'll go into further in my full review. But anyway, at the corner of the website was a little button which said volunteers. At this point, cash was running pretty low so my thinking was volunteering for accommodation would be a good way to stop the cash from bleeding out too quickly.

The next morning, I walked to the reception to have some breakfast. Let me first say that the view you have from your table at breakfast will punch you in the gut with it's beauty. The kind of view that you sit at and pretend to write poetry and before you know it, a few hours have gone by. Solscape sits on Mt. Karioi so when you sit at the deck, the town of Raglan opens up beneath you alongside the sea and Ngarunui beach, which stretches on forever. With a good flat white, you could sit there forever with a glazed look in your eyes. Well at least until you finished your coffee anyway. They say a picture says a thousand words, this would be the kind of picture they're talking about, but it doesn't say a thousand words or I wouldn't be writing, would I.

At reception, I had a chat with Christian, the German receptionist who's been stuck in Raglan for 3 years, about volunteering. He said they were full at the moment but handed me an application in case something opened up. To his disbelief and my incredible luck, a volunteer left the next day and boom, I was in.

I spent a total of over 7 weeks in Raglan, volunteering at Solscape for 6 and a half. Let me begin to try and explain why Raglan remains very close to the top of places I've lived. First up, I lived in a fricking train carriage for a good 5 weeks. When was the last time you saw that sentence anywhere? If that wasn't good enough, I then moved into a tipi, then back into another train carriage, then into a huge belle tent, and finally into my car. Secondly, as a person who's grown up and lived most his life in cities and suburbs, it is incredibly refreshing to spend a majority of time lounging around outdoors, most of the time barefoot. For half the time we stayed at Solscape, our kitchen was outdoors and had 3 walls. Most of all though, it's the people. The core crew of volunteers we had obviously helped with the experience. Really cool, funny and chill people who just enjoyed life. Over the course of 7 weeks though, during which people come and go as is natural, I don't remember meeting any bad eggs. Anyone who stayed on longer or any new volunteers that replaced the old ones were just as cool and fit into the group just as easily. I suppose with a place like Raglan and Solscape, you get a very similar group of people who decide to stay on and anyone who doesn't like the vibes moves on pretty quickly.

3-sided kitchen.

On the volunteering and work front, a large part of it was housekeeping. Making beds, a little bit of gardening and maintenance, and a lot of toilet scrubbing. On days when you're feeling particularly high and mighty, I suggest you try wiping and scrubbing a toilet seat that's still warm. You'll be surprised how quickly that brings you crashing back down to earth. For work, I picked up a few hours here and there working in the cafe that was a part of the Solscape reception. Just basic waitering, although serving a wedding (I can't escape weddings no matter how far I run) was pretty fun, and we did have quite a few yoga retreats that had breakfast and lunches included.

I really didn't mind the work or volunteering though, working alongside friends with some banter and loads of good music is definitely a good recipe. Waking up and almost looking forward to work is such a foreign feeling especially when contrasted with my time in Singapore where every working day I woke up with a dread of the day ahead.

Good music and creativity is definitely healthily nourished at Solscape. In fact, in the time I was there, I played the guitar more than the past 3 years combined. Hanging out in the sun, playing the guitar with or without other people was a daily feature. The hippie vibes, alongside the sustainability, huge open spaces, sunshine, and mainly lack of internet or plug points led to a lot of drawing, colouring, reading, music discussion, and in my case, writing. Most of the chapters you've read so far were written in a stained, sun-kissed notebook during my time in Raglan before I bothered to transfer them here.

When I wasn't at Solscape, I was usually at the beach. That's the main attraction of Raglan, the beach and longest left hand break in the world at Manu Bay. I'll go into my adventures surfing, hiking, what I did for money, and the number of great bands I managed to catch in Raglan in the next chapter. Stay tuned, and see you next week.