Advertisement
Published: January 19th 2010
Well, if someone had told us a while back that we would be spending our two-year wedding anniversary in a tiny apartment in Balclutha, New Zealand, hunting for jobs and eating alarming amounts of Cadbury chocolate, we probably never would've believed it. Yet, here we are, exhausted from our one-day job yesterday involving planting flax plants on 800 acres of farmland. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
It's been a long and, frankly, quite dreary two weeks. Summer is giving New Zealand a miss this year, apparently (something to do with El Nino?), so we've been buried under gray overcast, blustery winds, and almost daily hailstorms (or freezing rain, at the least). Needless to say, it's been very difficult to get motivated to go out and look for work under those circumstances. But we've been plugging along, submitting applications all over Balclutha and Gore - offices, supermarkets, restaurants, hotels, stores, and anywhere else we can think of. We've gotten lots of very polite rejection letters back ha! Jeremy was even turned down from the slaughterhouse (not that he REALLY wanted to work there, but we'd been told that they'll hire just about anybody. Anybody except us dodgy Americans, apparently). Between
the depressing weather and rejection after rejection on the job front, we were starting to feel...well, depressed and rejected.
But then an amazing thing happened on Saturday. We woke up to a rare and beautiful sight...sunshine! I'd almost forgotten how glorious it was. Deciding we needed a break from rejection, we pulled out our touring maps to see if there were any sights within reasonable driving distance that we hadn't already seen. The name "Tunnel Beach" popped out at us, just south of Dunedin along a tucked-away coastal road. An hour later, we arrived bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at a stunning emerald coastline. The steep trail wound down for about half an hour through seaside sheep paddocks before dumping us out on top of a spectacular coastal arch. A narrow tunnel descended several hundred feet down to the actual beach, where we found ourselves sandwiched amongst sheer cliffs and crashing surf (and yes, I faced my fears and actually went into the tunnel!). It was a grand and glorious sight, and we laid there basking in the sunshine for the better part of the afternoon. It was just the boost we needed.
On Sunday, one of our friends at
the congregation here offered us a day of work planting flax on his 800-acre farm near Gore. We promptly said yes, though we had no idea what flax was nor had ever really done any serious planting in our lives - minor details. That afternoon we drove 45 minutes inland towards Gore, turned off onto a steep dirt road, and ascended to their spectacular farm that encompassed an entire hillside and several small valleys. I only wished the weather was better, so I could have taken some nice photos for all of you, but unfortunately the next wave of fog and misery was rolling in over the hills almost as soon as we arrived. Bummer. There went my sunshine.
We were greeted at Doug and Anthea's farmhouse by half a dozen lambs, who came running and baaaaaaaaa-ing right over to us as soon as we got out of the car. They're still being bottle-fed, so they assume at this point that any human equals food. We petted them for a moment before they realized they weren't being fed, at which point they lost interest and scampered away. Lambs are just so darn cute. I'm going to feel extremely guilty
now whenever I eat a rack of lamb.
We stayed the night at the farmhouse after a delicious gluten-free dinner (Anthea also has a gluten allergy, like Jeremy, and has mastered the art of gluten-free baking - YUM!). Then we groaned in agony when our alarm went off at 7am Monday morning (I won't even tell you how late we've been sleeping most days - it's rather embarrassing, actually). We dragged our sorry butts out to the kitchen, forced tea and homemade gluten-free toast down our gullet, and trudged outside to step into thermal cover-alls and gumboots. It wasn't cold, exactly, but the thick clouds and gloom made it seem chillier than it was.
On the way out to the paddocks where we'd be planting, we stopped for a moment to watch a professional crutcher in action. What is a crutcher, you may ask? The next time you think your job is rough, just think of this guy. He brings a machine out to the farm which captures a sheep and basically flips it upside-down. Then the crutcher takes his shearers and clips the sheep's filthy bottoms ("dags"), removing all the crusted manure, grass, and matted wool. Then
the machine flips back over and releases the sheep, and the next one comes in. Doug and Anthea have 780 sheep on their property, so you do the math. That's a lot of filthy bottoms! How'd you like to do that 40 hours a week?
After getting our share of dags and crutching, we climbed onto the back of an ancient pick-up truck with another worker, Jane, and were introduced to the enormous bag of flax we'd soon be planting. Flax is a tall plant with firm pointed leaves, kind of resembling the fronds of a palm tree. They're planted in long lines to provide a windbreak for sheep and cattle. They can grow well over a person's head, but the baby flax we were planting were only about 18-24 inches tall.
The next eight hours disappeared in a tedious blur of shoveling, digging, planting, and tramping down the tall overgrown grass between paddocks. Sharp thistles attacked us at every corner. I had one particularly graceful moment which involved trying to climb over a barbed-wire fence. The boots I was borrowing were just a little big, and my bottom foot slipped off the wire as I was halfway
over. My hand came down directly on a barb, and the worst part was, I had no other footing, so I was stuck dangling there for about ten seconds before I could get my feet and other hand somewhere safe and remove my palm from the barb. OUCH! I somehow managed to slice a gash on my leg, too, at the same time. Needless to say, I was much more careful the rest of the day while crossing the fences.
Anthea drove out just about every hour with piping hot jugs of tea, hot chocolate, homemade ginger beer, and all her baked goodies. So despite the hard labor, we were very well taken-care of for our efforts. We planted two long rows up and down several hills and were thrilled when, right at 5pm, rain began settling in, releasing us from our duties. I have a whole new appreciation now for the landscapers and farmers of the world - it is tough, tough work!
So today is our anniversary, and we're spending it complaining of aching muscles and comparing war wounds from the barbed wire (I have a perfectly centered little "hole" on my left palm from the
barb). Ah, the romance. This afternoon we're headed out to check on a couple of part-time jobs that became available over the weekend here in town. Our plan is to give it another week or two, max, to find work in the area before we reluctantly will need to move on. Tomorrow we're heading three hours north and west to Queenstown, the big ski resort and ritzy touristy town, to check on possible jobs up that way. There's plenty of work around, just none in the area we're in! So we'll see some of the sights up there and register with some employment agencies at the same time, and that will have to suffice this year for our anniversary celebration. Given all of our travels over the past three months, I guess that's more than fair!
We really do miss all of you back home. The rotten winter is a hot topic of conversation down here, on the other side of the world, so we're thinking about you and hoping you're all staying reasonably warm. Keep the comments and emails coming and let us know how you're doing!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.158s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 16; qc: 60; dbt: 0.0837s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
carol powers
non-member comment
Not to worry - there is a SUN
Just when I begin to worry about you guys and getting depressed you go to a place like Tunnel Beach and snap photos of just how absolutely beautiful New Zealand is. Breathtaking photos - glad you had a great SUNNY day and shared them with everyone - you guys look great! The sheep are too cute!