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Published: January 25th 2008
We left off our last adventure with the exciting prospect of spending some wonderful days in an orchard picking cherries.
Well it turned out great for seeing and experiencing someting new, but horribly as for making any cash. We worked it out that we got paid $4.80/hr Canadian, which is under minimum wage in any province. Partially we were slow pickers (only put 3 days under our belts so we were still rookies), partially they were near the end of the season for cherries and we were assigned to some of the "less-fruitful" trees. Ultimately our decision to throw in the towel after 3 days was due to our supervisor being
anything but super. Once he came up and dumped out my half-filled bucket. He said they didn't meet specifications, but they were the best cherries on the trees we were on, so I began wondering why we were picking these trees. Some things we learned about cherry-picking...
1) You will
NEVER make it rich picking cherries, let alone cover the cost of accommodation and food.
2) The best time to pick cherries is
before the sun comes up.
3) Music can be an incredible morale booster.
4) Since
we were getting paid $5.50 NZ for each 5 kg bucket, it made more financial sense to eat the cherries than to pick them!
After the cherry picking we began heading north with our destination set as Auckland to meet my parents who get off the plane on Jan 29th. First we lingered around the Queenstown area. It's a bit comparable to Banff. Kinda pricey and kinda touristy. We went on a Gondola up 400m over Queenstown and had an incredible view of the town and lake. The best part was at the top they have a luge track. It was like riding go-carts downhill! We did 3 rides each and it was totally sweet as! We also went to a cool theatre in Wanaka. It had couches instead of seats, and one seat was in an old VW Beetle. The owner gave a bit of an intro for the movie then it opened with some "home-made" commercials, it was pretty indy and very neat. They even served homemade cookies, homemade ice cream, lasagna and beer, wine, etc. in the cafe next door! We also went to a toy museum in Wanaka, it was awesome! Smurfs, Barbie, Star Wars,
Die-cast cars, piggy-banks, lego, war models, die-cast fire trucks, real fire trucks, antique cars, and more. Man, you name it they probably had it.
Now lets tell you all about the west coast of the south island which we drove through over a span of 2 days...
1) It rains pretty well
ALL the time!!! 2) Its grey and thats how the town of Greymouth got its name, both sea and sky were grey.
3) Rainforest is also apptly named.
A couple days driving after our Ferry from Picton to Wellington and we made it! Through the long trek back up both islands from the southern tip all the way to Auckland in the north. A few things we discovered...
1) there is no need of an alarm clock or rooster when the NZ sun is shining on your tent.
2a) our car is basically an oversized oven
2b) chocolate melted onto clothes looks like... use your imagination
3) it is possible to sun burn that tiny spot on your arm that is in the sunshine coming through the window.
Finally onto "what we are doing in Auckland". I have been in contact with a
Teacher recruiting agency and got a call from him last night.
"Where are you?" He asked.
"South of Auckland" I replied. "I forget the name, Manurere..." I mumbled.
"You still interested in teaching Maths for term 1?".
"yup"
"Well isn't this a bit of serendipity I have a school in Mangere lookin for a math teacher for term 1".
Anyway I was really pumped, he basically offered me the job, but now I have to go in for a meeting with him, just before we're supposed to be meeting my parents at the airport...
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Auntie Julia
non-member comment
Teaching Math
Hope all goes well with the 'interview' for the Math teaching job. Glad to hear you are both doing well. Take Care.