Thursday, Friday and Saturday January 6, 7 and 8th, 2011

Thursday Night / Friday Night – Thursday and Friday night were left up to us students to plan. My goal was meet locals and see how sustainability is viewed outside of the city. To do that I looked to Couchsurfing.org to meet someone willing to host me. I was fortunate to meet Ben Hubrand. Ben lives in a roughly 192 sf cabin in the rural town of Maungatoroto about an hour and forty minutes north of Auckland. Some of the sustainable features Ben incorporated into his house were.


Rainwater collection for showering, drinking and toilet.

Instant-on LP gas hot water heater (with no standing pilot)

Flow through ventilation provides cooling in the summer time and due to the high ceiling and relatively small foot print works surprisingly well.



While in town Ben lamented about the amount of fuel his van used and his father offered up a wrecked scooter that had been given to him (his Dad’s is ever the ‘recycler’ constantly picking up things that he feels still has value left). Ben and I were able to repair the scooter over the course of the first evening and morning I was there. He now plans to use it for transportation when he’s not having to commute to Auckland for work.



Ben was gracious enough to get up at 1:00am to drive me to the airport for my 5:50am flight after I missed my bus back to Auckland on Saturday afternoon.