New Zealand

“Before and after Fiji”

Well, before Fiji I was working at a nursery in Blenheim. I put grafted grape plants in boxes with vermiculite (a mineral that may contain asbestos). Though the work was not at all interesting, it was a good place to work. We got tea/milo (hot chocolate)/coffee made for us three times a day and on Fridays we had a raffle and morning tea (translation = snacks).

After Fiji I took the bus down to Wellington and the ferry to Picton (costs just as much to fly.. so it was silly). After one night in Picton, I rejoined Joy and Annie. Well, Joy and I rejoined Annie on D’Urville Island in the Marlborough Sounds where Annie had been Wwoofing (working in exchange for room and board) for the past two weeks. A crazy German girl came along. We had Christmas with the Bee-keepers Annie had been working for. Actually, on Christmas day we took the boat over to some friends of theirs. I had gone for a hike, trying to think about whether or not to go to Aussie because I had not idea we were going somewhere for Christmas lunch. Apparently the question had been asked three times that morning. I, however, had been on the phone with my dad, trying to hear what he was saying (the connection was pretty bad), and had not heard the question. No matter, the food wasn’t ready when we finally got over there. Anyway, we had a second Christmas in Nelson where Joy, Annie and I exchanged gifts. It was weird, because this does not feel like Christmas at all. No snow- no Christmas. I cannot believe it’s been almost four months since I arrived in NZ. Sometimes it feels like forever, sometimes it feels like it’s flown by.

Oh, I mentioned that the German girl was crazy. Well, there’s a reason. To put it this way, it’s a wonder she’s still alive. We hiked up to the top of the Island and there was some sort of hole in the ground (an old mineshaft or something), and she decided to climb down it. She didn’t climb all the way down, thank God, but with the rock being as crumbly as it was, and the hole so narrow, it’s a wonder she didn’t fall down and break her neck or something else (like a leg, or hit her head). She refused to listen to Marci (a girl from Montana) and me, telling her to stop what she was doing and come back up. Getting help for her, to the remote island, would have been left to us. She has no notion of safety at all. She was a little scared, phew, so she came back up. However, she kept insisting she couldn’t have hurt herself falling from that height. BS. It’s truly a wonder she’s not dead.

So, we finally got to the South Island. We spent a few days at Hopewell in the Marlborough Sounds (Kenepuru sound to be specific). The hostel was great. We had a huge, professional kitchen (shared of course) and a very nice common room. Annie and Joy cooked Halloween food, and we had a party for everyone in the hostel. The hosts have said that we can come back for Thanksgiving and have free room and board if we prepare a Thanksgiving meal for them. Too bad we'll be working. If we do go, however, we are taking the water taxi next time. There is no way we're driving that road from hell again. A very narrow and curvy gravel road....

Anyway, we're now in Blenheim on the top of the South Island. We're working in a nursery where they do grape propagation (they grow grapevines for vineyards).. The job is repetitive and boring, but we only work 8-9 hours a day, five days a week. So it's not bad. The Blenheim area is beautiful, and I am going to go SCUBA diving if the wind ever calms down.

So, I am at Bushy Bark, a bird sanctuary in Wanganui, which is on the east coast of the southern part of the north island. (It has a web-site) We have been here for 1.5 weeks and are staying another few days, working for our keep. Next we are going to the south island to thin and pick cherries. Yesterday, we went tramping (hiking) through the forest with the bird researcher and saw a saddleback. We were also stalked by a northern robin. We were looking for kiwis, but unfortunately Jo (the researcher) didn't find any. Today we went to a rugby game. It was fun in that it wasn't the most boring sport I've ever watched.... Unfortunately, Wanganui lost.

The fact that Bushy Park is a WWOOFING (willing workers on organic farms) place is very strange. There is nothing there that even remotely resembles organic farming (or farming for that matter). Basically, we've done jobs that have nothing at all to do with organic farming, suich as raking the driveway (twice) that is about a mile long. It is a pointless job, since the next gust of wind throws all the leaves back on the driveway.... We prooned the driveway once. It looked no different afterwards. On a rainy Saturday, they had no idea what to do with us, so they sent us to their run-down house in Wanganui and told us to strip the wall-paper in, not one, but ALL the rooms. Well, after 8 hours there we were not done with even one room, so we gave up. We had not even been giving any proper tools. Between the three of us, we had two scrapers and a bucket of ammonia. Annie went and bought her own scraper and a set of speakers for the IPOD. Joy drove.

Right now I'm living at a hostel that is seems to be based on the song "Hotel California." People come there and then don't seem to leave. One guy came to stay a week.. two months later he's still here. He does some maintenance work so he gets free rent. Anyway, tomorrow we are going to the Coronmandel peninsula and Hot Water Beach... 68 degrees even this time of year (spring) We are going Sea Kayaking on Tuesday.. it'll be fun.. Hopefully we will have fruit picking jobs soon. We need jobs!

Kevin (nice guy who lives here) is our NZ guide while we're at Orwea. He's taken us to Piha beach on the Tasman sea and Hot Water beach on the Coromandel peninsula on the east coast. I will put more pictures (from the whole NZ trip) in my YAHOO photos album.

Sea kayaking was tons of fun. The water was clear, but cold. The weather was really nice and the guide was fun. He made us hot chocolates and lattes on the beach in Cathedral Cove. Unbelievable. (look it up).

Today we went to a Backpackers car market in Auckland and bought a 1993 Mitsubitshi Magna GLX. It's a stick-shift, which is good because I love them and bad because so far, I am the only one of the three of us (me, Joy and Annie) who knows how to drive one. But I'm sure they'll pick it up. It's really not that hard! Anyway, as most of you probably know they drive on the wrong side of the road here, I mean the left... The driver is on the right side of the car. The signal and windshield wiper controls are on opposite sides of the wheel (so I have turned the windshield wipers on when trying to signal.. fun). Driving in Auckland is not fun, mostly because I am so not used to driving on the wrong, sorry left, side of the road. Soon, however, we will be driving out of Auckland, heading out to work on dairy farms and picking fruit.

The woman who worked at the car market was really pushy, so it's a good thing we talked to a nice guy first.. Had we met her first we would have left immediately. She kept going on and on about the same stuff.. how she knows a lot about cars and insurance for travellers. Their car insurance was about twice as much as the one our MIGRANT bank offers, however, so we are going to go talk to them first. If the bank doesn't really offer insurance for backpackers, we are going to go get the third party insurance at a hostel. We are NOT going back to that car market just to have that woman tell us "I told you so!" I wanted to punch her, but I didn't because I'm nice... Somewhat anyway.

Yesterday we went to guiz night at a local pub with the people that work at IEP and a few other travellers. We lost, but it was still fun. There were so many questions about NZ that we did not stand a chance.