portionguy

After staying with James in Auckland for a couple of nights a was due to get the bus down to National Park for the ski season at around 8am. Unfortunately we had been a bit mashed the night before and when I got ready to go, I found out that I was locked in the house and couldn't find a key for the front door. I couldn't wake James up and thought I was going to miss my bus but luckily I managed to get a key off one of his flat mates and blag a lift down to the bus station. I slept the majority of the 8 hour journey (4 hours in a car!) which involved two changes; one in Rotorua and one in Turangi. I finally arrived at the lodge and settled into ... read more

Kiwi Fruit Capital of the World, or more accurately Te Puke- Arsehole of New Zealand. After 10 days in Tauranga and Mt Maunganui, enjoying the last week of the holiday we headed to Te Puke (pronounced Te Pucky) where we would split up; I would stay and work and Tim & Janet would carry on south. I checked into the hostel called ‘The Hairy Berry’ which was one of the dirtiest and most expensive places I’ve stayed so far; the only bonus was that they sorted out work and the other people there were all really nice. I was trying to get any kind of work for the first week with only one day kiwi picking from the week. After that I got in contact with a contractor who was from a Pacific Island called Kiribos ... read more

On the 28th of November, we finally decided to get out of Auckland and move on again. We all finished our jobs and planned to head north to a place called Paihia in the Bay of Islands, in Northland of New Zealand. James had been to Paihia the summer before so we moved into a hostel there to plan where to look for work and stay long term. After two nights in Paihia, which is a popular tourist place right along a small beach, we went to check out a place called Keri Keri, 20 minutes drive inland (a place that Tim had heard of). We moved into a holiday camp called Aranga, which worked out reasonably cheap for the week; and Me, James, Tim and Georgia (James’ friend from home) moved into a backpacker flat ... read more

Wellington So after having no luck with work in Queenstown we have decided to write off the ski season this year and just worry about getting jobs elsewhere in the country. by the way, I haven’t done one of these for a while, so I’m not gonna lie, its going to be massive! We started our luck for the second time in Wellington where we moved straight into long term accommodation in a hostel called Wellywood. It is a really well laid out place with good facilities and very central; also cheaper than getting a flat on our own so that was a bonus. We started off handing out CV’s to hotels, bars and anyone else who would take them. However we got pretty much the same response that we’d been having down in Queenstown… “we’re ... read more

Well after a big spending time in New Zealand it was back to earth as I got back to Sydney again. After arriving back and checking into the same hostel as before it was nice to see nothing had changed. It was as if I hadn't been away and all of the same people were still in the hostel. When I got back I met up with Jill, the American girl that I threw myself off a bridge with in New Zealand. I spent the first few days searching for a job doing anything. I can't get a bar job in New South Wales without an RSA certificate which basically says you can work responsibly on a bar. It is $80 for the half day course so I decided to concentrate on labouring work. After a ... read more