Blogs from Tauranga, Bay of Plenty, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 6

There was an earthquake close to Christchurch a few days ago, I did not even feel it as I am on the north island. To the best of my knowledge it was a 7.4 and somehow there were no fatalities whatsoever! I will update again as any news arrives! PS: The pictured of the car have been uploaded on the previous entry.... read more

Hello family and friends, I’m still working at the pack house and will have 2 long weeks so I thought I’d update you while I had the chance. I’m still renting the car and will be until this Sunday when I’ll be thinking about buying a car (more on that as it happens). It’s not worth renting any longer and having my own transportation for the rest of the New Zealand portion of the trip will be a great advantage. The work here will probably last until the 3rd week of September, at that point I plan to go to Lake Taupo to do some stupid extreme sports stuff like skydiving and tramping (hiking for us North Americans) on some of the nicest tracks on the north island. Here are a couple of pictures from the ... read more

Hello everyone! I have a job now (if only an on call basis one) working at a fish factory. I had always thought that fish were caught out in the ocean, but apparently they just come out of a hole in the wall on a conveyor belt in this place. I can only assume that there is a massive workshop on the other side with cheap backpacker labour where they make the fish. They probably divide the workers into sections like bones, guts, meat, skin, final paint, and the job they all dream of one day having, the slime guy (as in the guy who gets to spray all the smelly fish slime on the finished work). The fish come out pretty fast too so either the people are working really fast, or they just have ... read more

Hello everyone! Kerstin and I are now employed full time at a landscaping company! It is very relieving to have a steady job with hourly pay, something about knowing how much money you’re going to get at the end of the week is just nice. The work is physically demanding, but not a great deal more than what is required for kiwi fruit picking and pruning. We only work weekdays so Saturdays and Sundays are time for rest and relaxation (and updating everyone back home). We’ve been doing the landscaping at criminal youth rehabilitation centre that is currently under construction, most of the work is just planting small plants and covering them with week mats, but yesterday and the day before we were laying turf. More accurately, I was hauling the turf off the pallets, the ... read more

A few days before I climbed to the top of Mount Manganui! Ines, Katja, Timo, and I went along the main path with another German couple (Alana and Tobias) form the hostel. Anika and Kerstin decided to skip the climb as they had both done it on an earlier occasion. The hike to the top took about 45 minutes and we got very lucky as the weather stayed nice long enough for us to get back to the hostel before it started to dump. We split off of the main path close to the top of the mountain to follow what we decided to call the extreme trail (trail being a very strong word for this little rut in the side of the mountain) and got to the top before Alana and Tobias. The view from ... read more