Dear Robert

Dear Robert,
Cycling must be a great way to see a place, not too fast, miss less and also very efficient and sustainable. My course is going really well. An awesome group of people over here. This part of Aussie is really beautiful interesting and progressive.
The web site for the Permaforest Trust is www.permaforesttrust.org.au .
I am doing Applied Permaculture Training; certificate 4 course as a residential student. It is possible to attend as a day student of which there are 3 at present. We pay $160 Australian per week for the course and do 15 hours work per week over Monday Thursday and Friday in exchange for food and accommodation.
Tim Winton who runs the course is a very interesting switched on guy from Canada who studied with Mollison at Tagari farm years ago.  The emphasis here is sustainability education with permaculture as a fantastic tool to learn and develop our skills and understanding. We also get a Permaculture Design Certificate as part of Cert 4. Training.
Tuesday is activity based training which involves either on site training e.g. organic gardening and farming, compost making, making ferments preserves, alternative energy sources etc, or a field trip to a relevant location of interest.
Wednesday is theory day in class with Tim or guest lecturer on Permaculture or sustainability topic including a design workshop in the afternoon.
To date I have found the course and interaction with the people here very interesting and stimulating.
We now have 16 students, several who started late, so you can start late but I believe it is better to start at the beginning of a semester. The next semester starts at the end of July finishing mid December with some of the basics being repeated in the first few weeks of semester 2 for new students.
Check out the web site for more info. Including the blogs and forums.
To WWOOF or intern at some interesting place in NZ. I can recommend Rainbow Valley Farm in Matakana North of Auckland. www.rainbowvalleyfarm.co.nz
or Koanga Gardens/ Koatoa Ecovillage in Kaiwaka north of Auckland or the Wilderlands Trust farm in the Corromandel which is in the WWOOFing book.
Feel free to email me with any more questions or clarification.
Hope all is going well for you back in NZ.
Cheers
Matt