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Published: March 3rd 2007
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farewell blighty
me and buckers at victoric greenline bus station to be precise. I felt like death Spent the 1st week of “vacation” in Auckland getting all the boring stuff out of the way i.e. Bank accounts, tax numbers etc …….. However I did meet up with Laura (sister) and Paul (Laura's boi) which was good as I hadn’t seen them in over a year. We managed to pack in a few bits and bobs such as going for a meal at the top of the sky tower and going to Kelly Tarlton’s ice world which was errrrr unique. On my last night in Auckland I managed to win a bungee jump off Auckland Harbour Bridge. The free jump expires at the end of March so I shall be heading back that way before the month ends.
Auckland was ok but at the end of the day it’s a city where money tends to fly out of your pocket. Also when the sun is shining a city is no place to be, in my opinion that is.
Post Auckland I went up to a place called Pahiri in the bay of islands. The hostel there was really good and I met a fair number of characters that I hope to meet up again with over the
me any lauz
Albert park, Auckland duration of my travels.
Most people I meet seem to have some sort of itinery, but surely there is no need for an unemployed BP grunt to have a definitive plan ?! A month here a month there suits me fine, anyhow leaves me open to silly suggestions which always provide a bit of a giggle.
Whilst in Pahiri I went on a day trip up to cape Reinga which is the northern most part of New Zealand. Apparently when a Maori dies there spirit falls of the end of cape Reinga and I presume fly’s of to happy places. I had my mp3 player on for the duration of the journey so I wasn’t able to catch all the commentary. I do think that spirits falling of…….. Is the pick of the lot though. Actually talking of guides and facts I also traveled up 90 mile beach on the way up to cape Reinga. The problem is that 90 miles beach is only 67! Stick that in your pipe and smoke it Mr. Trade descriptions man. Also on that trip I went sand boarding which was pretty cool (the 1st of many adrenaline sports I shall do
KIWI BIRD
There suppsoed to be quite timid things. This one only had one leg so i guess it didnt have the option whilst in NZ so I am told)
As of now I am staying at Arranga backpackers which is a sprawling development of chalets which is also happens to be very cheap. Arranga is in a place called Kerikeri about fours hours north of Auckland. This hostel is uber tranquil which I guess kinda contradicts the sprawling statement. I guess part of the reason it is tranquil is because there are very few people here and also because it is in the middle of a sub tropical forest which has a river running through it. Very scenic if you can imagine it.
I have managed to find a couple of weeks work in kerikeri working on a Kiwi orchard. I am working with eight other blokes (2 Czechs, 1 French, 2 English and 3 Kiwi’s) The French bloke is something of an Arranga legend having camped there for 3 years solid. I am not sure if this is fact or fiction. I think it will be the second week before I feel comfortable in his presence to ask if him if this is true or not.
Where I work seems to be primarily a kiwi orchard, though it
Cape Reinga
watch the spirits does seem to grow other fodder. To start with our job was something called girdling which is basically carving a 1 cm deep circle around the trunk of every kiwi tree. I am not sure entirely why I do this but that’s what I do. Our taskmaster is a one eyed Maori bloke with gold teeth called Sunni. He seems a nice bloke though, manages to hide the group in obscure parts of the orchard for impromptu “smoke break” These seem to become ever frequent as the day roles on. I think over the two week period our group has to give about 20’000 tree’s a bit of surgery. So if you have a tasty kiwi in a few months time you know you have me to thank. After a few days of girdling we moved on to pruning with these pretty exotic looking machetes. Early doors I managed to prune most the nail off my thumb with a pretty agricultural swipe at a kiwi tree, cue blood lots of. I was going to take a picture of it but I wasn’t sure if this was correct web blog protocol so I decided to leave it out. I managed to
A spot of socialising
me, heinz and anne marie in pahiri pacify the pain with a visit to liquor land which has to be seen to be believed. It’s kind of like a toys r us but instead of toys r us its just one gigantic fridge that’s stocks every possible alcoholic beverage you can think of, quite a good set up really. Good prices as well, bonus.
After a week of orchard work I seem to be finally hitting my stride in terms of pruning productivity, Titchmarsh watch out. Its one of those jobs where you use muscles that you didn’t even realize existed. This is a very painful exercise for the first few days. Now I am just a lean mean pruning machine soon to be picking I think.
Contrary to what I have heard about various jobs alike our orchard treats us pretty well. We seem to get long breaks in the sun and the money isn’t bad. On Thursday we finished an hour early and back at orchard HQ our boss presented us with a few cooler boxes stacked full of beer, not entirely sure why but no arguments from moi. I’m not sure if this is because we have been pruning like men possessed
or because it’s just the NZ way ?! On top of that we still got paid for the hour we spent re hydrating ourselves in the sun. I think it’s the kinda system English business’s should be implementing. Could be a knife in the eye in terms of worker productivity but never mind.
Last night some Australian showed up at the hostel. I don’t think I have ever seen someone so intoxicated in my life. Upon arriving he managed to hum loudly for about 4 hours like some aborigine lost in the Australian wilderness. After about 10 minutes it had lost all comedy value apart from the odd time when he would change note. Unfortunately he was sleeping my room. Fortunately he seemed to get lost on the way from the kitchen to the room which is roughly a 10 meter walk. He didn’t show up in the room till about 8 this morning by 10 he was gone. I can’t quite decide whether I would describe him as a colorful character or just a tosser??? Had I spent a few more days in his company I would have probably come to the conclusion that the later was more
A spot of socialising mark II
(l-r) anne marie, mario, heinz, joe, sara, me appropriate.
until next time bye
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Buckers
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Good to hear from you
Alright Coates? Glad you're doing alright - well done on getting that work, I must look out for tasty Kiwi. Also, I'm happy to see you're exporting your unique brand of cynicsm to the Southern Hemisphere! Looking forward to your next entry. Have fun.