# HiTech Hippies > HiTech Hippies is the personal website of Meg and Mark Smith. We share our journey of using technology to live a more sustainable life on our rural property in Whangārei Heads, Northland, New Zealand. Topics include home automation, solar power, syntropic gardening, rainwater harvesting, slow Sundays, food, and off-grid living. ## Key pages - [Home](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/): Intro and latest stories - [Our Story](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/our-story): How we swapped city apartments for rural life - [Blog](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog): 32 stories on sustainable living and technology - [Connect](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/connect): Contact form and social links ## Blog categories - [Food](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/food): 7 articles - [Uncategorised](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/uncategorised): 3 articles - [Slow Sundays](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/slow-sundays): 2 articles - [Cocktails](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/cocktails): 2 articles - [Coffee](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/coffee): 2 articles - [Water](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/water): 2 articles - [The Bath House](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/the-bath-house): 2 articles - [Garden](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/garden): 1 article - [Vegetables](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/vegetables): 1 article - [AI](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/ai): 1 article - [Lawnmower](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/lawnmower): 1 article - [Solar Power](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/solar-power): 1 article - [School Gardens](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/school-gardens): 1 article - [Home Automation](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/home-automation): 1 article - [Syntropic](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/syntropic): 1 article - [House Plants](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/house-plants): 1 article - [Outdoor Living](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/outdoor-living): 1 article - [Robot](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/robot): 1 article - [Internet](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/category/internet): 1 article ## Recent posts - [Rebuilding soil on a clay hillside](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/rebuilding-soil-clay-hillside) (2026-06-23, Garden): Six contour swales, three pioneer species, one degraded dairy paddock, and a winter nursery for bana grass. This is the next step in rebuilding soil at Āhuru Mōwai. - [Swapping small city apartments for rural life on the coast](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/swapping-small-city-apartments-for-rural-life) (2024-02-06, Uncategorised): When we lived in London, we rented an attic flat in West Hampstead that I absolutely loved. It was small but bright and I liked that there were distinct spaces, rather than open plan living. We rarely cooked at home, preferring to eat out or order in. When our friend Ruthie ca... - [Summer garden: update sweet peas, capsicums and baby pumpkins](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/summer-garden-update) (2024-02-05, Vegetables): It always surprises me that while we’re in the height of summer and enjoying blazing sunshine in the day, that come February the mornings are already so dark. I have the privilege of being woken before 6am most mornings by little voices and hands. In the last week I’ve noticed... - [Slow Sundays: Activating holiday mode](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/activate-holiday-mode) (2024-02-04, Slow Sundays): Most Sundays you’ll find our little whānau at the beach. We’re spoilt for choice in Whangārei Heads. When our little ones wake up before 6am and we’re struggling to open our eyes, sometimes the best way to kick start the day is to get into the Hilux and head for Ocean Beach. - [3 tricks to get more helpful answers from ChatGPT](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/tricks-to-get-more-helpful-answers-from-chatgpt) (2024-02-02, AI): Mark and I have been using AI tools like ChatGPT, Bard and Midjourney more and more to help us in both our work and personal lives. In our day jobs we create training content for people in the tech industry and AI is a big focus. Things are changing so quickly that we’re less... - [Garden to glass: Bellini with homegrown peaches](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/bellini-with-homegrown-peaches) (2024-02-01, Cocktails): Since we planted our tree a few years ago I’ve been looking forward to being able to make a Bellini with homegrown peaches. The Bellini is a delightfully simple cocktail made by combining peach puree with Prosecco. The sweetness from the peaches pairs with light Italian sparkl... - [The best espresso machine for people who don't know how to use one](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/the-best-espresso-coffee-machine) (2024-02-01, Coffee): When I was at university, I had a very short-lived part time job as a barista. I spent an hour shadowing the outgoing barista and then the title was passed to me. I was a terrible barista, and I’ve often thought I should issue a general apology to anyone who bought a coffee fr... - [Where’s Robbie? Are we giving up on our robot lawnmower?](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/wheres-robbie) (2024-01-31, Lawnmower): Mark put up a post in our local Facebook group recently that sparked some concern for Robbie, our robot lawnmower. His post asked for assistance with lawn care, specifically looking for someone to scarify our mainly kikuyu lawn. A few minutes after he asked the question, I got... - [5 reasons why we planted bananas in our food forest](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/5-reasons-why-we-planted-bananas) (2024-01-30, Food): Last week we got another exciting delivery of plants for our burgeoning food forest from our friends at Twin Falls Nursery. Amongst them were six lady finger banana corms (they look a bit like pork knuckles), the part of the plant that produces offshoots that will become our f... - [From creating Minecraft worlds to curating a living ecosystem](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/from-creating-minecraft-worlds-to-curating-a-living-ecosystem) (2024-01-29, Uncategorised): Minecraft was one of the ways Mark stayed connected with his son, Connor, while we were living overseas. Mark set up a virtual server that Connor and his mates could use whenever they wanted to play. When we lived in a high-rise apartment in the middle of Sydney, Mark also use... - [Slow Sundays: Resetting our morning coffee ritual](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/morning-coffee-ritual) (2024-01-27, Coffee): One of the ‘to-dos’ that makes the list most weekends is to sort through one of our sheds or cupboards and pile up the things we don’t use so we can sell them or give them away. A few months ago, after a cupboard sort, I came across an unusual device that I couldn’t remember u... - [Tips to start growing your own food](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/tips-to-start-growing-your-own-food) (2024-01-25, Food): I’m getting so used to treating our garden like a supermarket, sometimes I forget how many failures we’ve had on our journey learning to grow our own food. There’s been so many hard lessons, we’ve had issues with soil quality, wind, pests, too much water, not enough water. - [Experimenting with solar powered devices](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/playing-with-solar-power) (2024-01-24, Solar Power): Going off-grid is one of our long-term sustainability goals. For now we’ve put it in our “someday” idea bucket, but we’re following the technology closely. It’s always exciting to talk to people who are living off-grid and hear about their set ups. Several of our close neighbo... - [Courgette hack: From missed marrows to easy zucchinis](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/courgette-hack) (2024-01-22, Food): I’ve fallen in love with courgettes this season. Thankfully ours are growing well this year since we gave each plant a stake to climb. Last year we had several plants in our garden, but I feel like I wasted them. I’d regularly forget to go and check for fruit under the huge, s... - [Giving Kiwi kids the chance to learn in outdoor garden classrooms](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/oke-charity-outdoor-classrooms) (2024-01-22, School Gardens): Last year I joined the Board for Oke Charity, an inspiring organisation that create outdoor classrooms for schools in Aotearoa New Zealand. I hadn’t heard of Oke before I saw the board role but the more I read, the more I wanted to get involved. - [Slow Sundays: what happened when we took a break from weed spraying](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/slow-sundays-poppies) (2024-01-20, Slow Sundays): Over the summer we have made a conscious effort to slow down and enjoy time with our friends and whānau. We also wanted to enjoy our place, Āhuru Mōwai, the sheltered haven we’ve worked so hard to create. - [Create new growing spaces in minutes with these sustainable grow bags](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/sustainable-fabric-grow-bags) (2024-01-19, Food): Sustainable fabric grow bags are one of the easiest ways to create more growing space. While our property has lots of space for us to turn into growing areas, it can be a bit of effort to set up new spaces. We experimented with planting rambling crops like potatoes, kūmara and... - [Our raspberries are destined for Clover Club cocktails](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/the-clover-club) (2024-01-19, Cocktails): Fresh raspberries have to be one of my favourite luxuries. I look forward to raspberry season every year and try to wait until the prices for the little punnets come down a bit before I indulge. The Clover Club is the very best way to use fresh raspberries. - [How we monitor our rainharvested water level remotely](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/monitor-water-level-remotely) (2024-01-17, Water): Mark grew up on a farm that relied on bore and tank water. Water was a vital resource. Showers were quick, and if anyone took too long his dad would turn off the tap from the wetback to the hot water cylinder to cut off the flow of hot water and cut short the person’s shower. - [Why we named our home Āhuru Mōwai](https://hitechhippies.co.nz/blog/ahuru-mowai) (2024-01-16, Uncategorised): We were in Dubrovnik, Croatia when we started looking for our forever home. It was November 2017 and Mark and I had been traveling since we left our jobs and packed up our central Sydney apartment in February of that year. For us travel was a way to forget everything we knew a... ## Authors - Meg Smith (primary author) - Mark Smith ## Location 99 Blue Horizon Road, Whangārei Heads, Northland 0174, New Zealand.