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Published: March 11th 2007
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I finished at the Kiwi orchard a few days so I have really just been lazing around generally. A few of us from the hostel went kayaking up the river that is at the bottom of the hostel a few days which was pretty cool and all importantly FREE.
I have now found another job doing pretty much the same thing as before but at a different orchard this time. The place is called Orangewood orchards. Orangewood is a bit misleading as it is actually a kiwi orchard. What is so wrong with kiwi wood?! Anyhow not to worry. The job starts in late march early April, so between now and then I have decided to familiarise myself with a bit of the north island for a few weeks. I am not entirely sure whereabouts on the north island as of yet but these things usually pan out along the way.
On my final night in KeriKeri (I shall be returning in a few weeks I think) a few of us offered to cook a meal for the other people in the hostel. Taking up the chef duties was me, my Swedish roomieeeeeeeeee and another English bloke. We came
The three chefs
l - r : phil, matthias and me to the conclusion a bit of English cuisine would go down a treat. Sadly the South American majority couldn’t be persuaded on the delights of English cuisine. We offered to cook them the English piece de la resistance of TOAD IN THE HOLE. This proposal was rejected outright partially because they though we were saying turd in the hole. In these circumstances I could understand there reservations about the choice of meal. We concluded that a good ol Mexican was the way forward. Next obstacle was eating time. The South American mob tends to eat at around 11 ish at night. This allows them a siesta of epic proportions after a hard days graft on the orchards. The north Europeans in contrast seem to treat eating times as less of a social occasion and more of necessity. Post work the hob is fired pronto. We settled on a compromise of 9. Argentines dragged there heals a bit to stretch it to 9.30 pm, some people!!!!!! The actual meal went down a treat. I think there must have been about a cows worth of mince on the table, mooooooo indeed.
Upon leaving my hostel in Kerikeri a few days ago
Tea time
l-r: matthias, phil, dani, gabby lukas, oszwaldo,maria,dont know and Lou I decided to get into the backpacker spirit and hitchhike from Kerikeri to Pahia. It’s not to far maybe 35 km. This saved me $17 which could come in handy when things are a bit tighter. I managed to get a lift with pretty much the first car that past me. He took me maybe 10km, much appreciated but not Pahiri. CUE Raymond, Billy, VW Beetle and a blind poodle. All in all weird. Raymond was an ex pat from Moss side. This is all I know of him really as he promptly fell into an alcohol induced deep sleep. He did however start talking to me about how he used to hit people over the head with wood when he was younger but now they used guns in Moss side. Alarm bells were ringing hahaha. At the same time I was trying to get this sodding blind poodle off me which was quite hard as the rest of the back seat was taken up by a beer keg, industrial amounts of dog food and probably a gun somewhere in the mix. I don’t know if you have ever come into contact with a blind poodle but they are a
bloomin nuisance. The actual driver was a bloke called Billy and I think he was just outright possessed. I presume he was under the influence as well as his driving was all over the place. He did offer to take me back to his farm but I told him I had a bus that I needed to catch in 30 minutes, sometimes you have got to exaggerate the truth. Billy pretty much spoke at me the whole journey. The general theme of the conversation was that dark stuff goes down in NZ and that I ought to watch my back. I asked him why this was, Billy reply “tourism hides the dirty face of this shitty place" I’m not sure whether he was been poetic or serious, anyway it was nice little ditty neverless. The best was still to come though. As we pulled into a car park in pahiri Billy overshot the curb drove down a grace verge and straight onto the beach. I really wanted to take a picture of this scene but by this time Raymond had re awakened and was getting a bit lairy about there current predicament. Anyhow I got out of the car thanked
them for the kindness and promptly legged it.
I am currently in Auckland. I plan to leave tomorrow or the next day for my little tour.
Bye bye folks
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Lefty
non-member comment
Down under
Mate sounds like you are having a good time keep it up! Have a beer on me!