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Hello people, its been a while since i last updated my blog and the time has know come for us to leave New Zealand and depart to Asia for our final leg of travel before returning home.
Since Christmas and New year in Australia me and Barbs have been living and working in Blenheim at the top of the south island. As soon as we got back from our holiday in aus i was immediately back to work on the vineyards for a company called Focus Solutions. The vineyard work i was doing for them included bud rubbing, wire lifting, leaf plucking, fruit thinning, netting and finally young vine training (ie preparing the young vines to grow correctly and well) This work was over a number of different vineyards going as far out as the Wariu valley about 45 minutes out of Blenheim. I worked for Focus until around mid March before changing jobs and working for Pernod Ricard as a vintage cellar hand at there Montana Winery. I worked as a crusher operator during the vintage period doing 12 hour night shifts 7 days a week. I ended up doing 23 days work in a row before my first
day off. Once the vintage period had finished (around 4 weeks this year which was relatively short apparently) i was part of the clean up crew, water blasting all the floors, tanks and machinery in the winery. The clean up is a massive job as the place gets pretty filthy over vintage, i did around 4 weeks of it before leaving and i reckon they'd still have 2 or 3 months left before it is finished! I finished at Montana on the 21st may after making a lot of good friends and generally enjoying the work there! I think the highlight of the job however would of been the vintage party they held, where all the employees get free food and drink! This was at the Blenheim workmans club this year which is a pretty nice place and its safe to say there were a few extremely tanked up people, very funny. Since i finished work ive had a week off preparing for our travels for 3 months around south east Asia.
That pretty much covers the work aspect for my time in Blenheim now for the more fun side of our 5 months here. Life here's for me
has been pretty similar to that back home with work in the week and then partying on the weekend. Barbs worked as a chef in a bar called the Cornerstone with some pretty cool people who quickly became our mates. Most Saturday nights would involve me meeting all of them at the Cornerstone when they had finished work for a few drinks before heading to Fairweathers, Paddy Barrys (Irish pub, shock they get everywhere) and finishing the night in a bar/club called the loft. The nights out were always good fun and extremely messy! We also made sure that we spent plenty of time with Martin and Heather, Dicky and Hamish all of whom we met and helped us out last time we were in Blenheim a couple of years ago. It was awesome spending time with these guys, they all looked after us with Martin and heather and Dicky regularly feeding us and Hamish sorting me out my job at Montana so a massive thank you goes out to you all!!!
At around march time after i finished working on the vineyards me and Barbs wet on a road trip down to Christchurch with Shaun and Rachael (friends
of ours) for a few days/ nights out! We met up with a guy called Romy who used to work with Barbs and we had a great few days! We also had friends from the uk come to visit us whilst we were in Blenheim, in Febuary Kate visited, at the end of March Abbie and Elie came over for a few days and then Debbie came to visit with her friend Elka at the beginning of May. It was really good seeing and spending time with some friendly faces from back home.
I'll finish up by listing the 3 addresses we had whilst we were living in Blenheim (more for me than any of you lot!!!). First we lived at 15b Farmar St for around a month. Next was 20a Holdaway Road where we spent around 3 months and became good mates with one of our house mates John a South Korean guy. And finally we moved in with a guy called Dazza at 33b Faulkland Drive for around a month! It was really good living with Dazza who is another friend of ours who also works in the cornerstone, he gave us a really good deal o
rent also so cheers mate!
My 5 or so months in Blenheim has been really good and i will miss the place and more importantly all the great friends i now have here, it really did feel like home!
Take care people xx
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