Last Post?

Well guys I'm home. Actually I have been for a week, but I'm just now getting around to posting. Since I posted last I spent two days up in Northland. I didn't go very far since I didn't have much time until I had to be back in Auckland to pick up Joe, but what I saw was beautiful. I wish I had a little more time up there. I hitched up to Warkworth and stopped at the I-site there to get some information on what I should do for two days. They suggested going to Omaha and staying at a backpacker there, which is what I did, and I'm glad. The backpacker that I stayed at was run by a couple out of their home. They were super friendly and actually hung out with us in the evening just talking and joking around. While I was there I saw Omaha beach and went snorkeling at Goat Island. The snorkeling was pretty amazing. I got to see tons of fish and a couple of sting rays.

When I got back to Auckland I went straight to the airport. Joe's plane was supposed to come in a 4.00 the next morning, so I decided to stay there for the night rather than paying for a backpacker and then leaving so early. It wasn't too bad of a night. People were coming and going all the time so I woke up every now and then but I did get some sleep. We were going to meet Michi and Waldi for breakfast in the morning, but our communication broke down and we wern't able to make it work.

Sorry guys. I wish we could have had one last meal together. I guess I'll just have to see you when you come to the States, or if I ever get to Europe.

So Joe and I took off on a pretty crazy blitz of the North Island. (or maybe I should say part of the North Island) We first went down to Reglan, where we took surfing lessons and caught some waves. Pretty good times, but we aren't any good. We were then planning on heading down and looping around Lake Taupo. Our plans changed a little because Joe had hurt his ankle and surfing set it off again. So we decided to head to the east side of our loop since there was a little less activity there, and come back when his ankle had gotten a little better. So the next day we headed over to Matamata (aka. Hobbiton) and took a tour of the Anderson farm where the only remaining set from the LOTR movies is located. That was probably the best money we spent on our trip. The picture below is us at the Party Tree. It was a pretty awesome tour. We then headed to Rotorua and walked around the Rotorua Museum. Pretty neat place, definitely unique. The next day we headed towards Taupo. On the way we stopped at the Redwood forest and the Thermal Wonderland. Both very cool, but extremely different. The Thermal Wonderland was a wasteland. (though pretty in it's own way) A lot of different colors and bubbling mud set to a dropback of dull gray and the smell of sulfur. Whereas the forest was hundreds of huge California Redwoods in a green forest. A day of extremes I guess. That evening when we got to Taupo we took a sailboat out to some Maori rock carvings out on Lake Taupo. That was a pretty awesome way to spend the evening, tooling around the lake on a sailboat. The next day we headed down to Tongariro and did some Whitewater rafting. You've got to love guides and their ridiculous jokes. We got some pictures from there but Joe has the CD so I won't be able to post any now. On the 29th we headed up to Waitomo and did some caving. It's been a long time since I did any spelunking, so that was pretty awesome. Then we headed back up to Auckland. We spent some time walking around the city, ate, got some ice cream and then spent the night at a backpacker downtown. The next morning we Bungied off the Auckland Bridge into the harbor (both of us got part way into the water), and then we pretty much went straight to the airport.

It was an amazing trip. Good times, good food, good people. I'm glad I had the opportunity to do it.

I kind of doubt I'll keep posting anything on this blog. (maybe a few pictures as I get them sorted) So thanks for reading and checking in with me. I'll be seeing you soon.

Some Highlights

I posted a new slideshow with some of the best pictures from the west coast.

Some Fun on the Streets

After a couple of days travel, (which were quite the experience) I'm now in Auckland. The story goes something like this. I had planned on sleeping at the ferry terminal until morning, but as it turns out they don't allow that. So two girls from San Francisco who were planning on doing the same thing, headed into the city. They had a bus to catch at the railway station, so they were going to sleep there. I figured I'd head into the city and try and find a backpacker. The only one that I could find which had a 24-hr reception was full. I spent about 2 hours walking around to other places (which were also full). The city was pretty much dead at that hour. (though I did meet a nice man who was wandering around mumbling to himself) So I laid down on a bench by the museum, which looked like a pretty nice spot, but as I laid there I felt a little weird so I went back to the railway station where the americans were and we hung out just outside until it opened around 5:30. Pretty fun night.

In the morning I started to hitchhike north, but then I remembered that Michi and Valdi had told me about a rental company that rented relocation to Auckland for 15 dollars a day. So I dropped into the Ferry terminal to use the internet and found a car that was free for 2 days to get it up to Auckland. I thought it would be an old little car that would just barely make it there. As it turns out it was a 2008 Camry. Very nice. So I had a quick but pretty nice 2 day trip up to Auckland.

Joe and I won't have a lot of time when he gets here so I think I'll try and see a little of Northland before he shows up. Once he gets here we're going to do a whirlwind tour of (at least part of) the north island. I'll be seeing you all pretty soon. I'm excited about that.

To The North

I'm sitting at a computer waiting for the ferry which leaves at 10.25. It's a 3 hour trip so I'll be getting there at about 1.30 in the morning. Not really sure what I'll do when I get there. Probably sleep in the lounge until it's really morning. Joe will be here in a week. I was going to do a little work until then, but I'm not sure I will be able to find anything. This last week has been really fun, traveling the west coast with Michi and Waldi. They will be on the south island for another week and then they'll be up in Auckland. I think we'll get lunch with them when I pick up Joe there.I'll try and let you know how everything is going and post some pics soon.

Quick Update

I figured I could give you all a quick update. I met up with Michi and Waldi in Queenstown and we dicided to travel the west coast for a week together. They had booked a car from Christchurch so while they went to pick it up I rented a car for two days and went down to Fiordland. I spent a day traveling from Te Anau to Milford Sound via the Milford Rd. It was absolutely brilliant. Amazing temperate rain forest. On Wednesday morning I took a Milford Sound Cruise which was also pretty amazing, and then headed back to Queenstown where I met up with Michi and Waldi. We left for the west coast on Thursday morning. I have been taking a ton of pictures, and when I get the chance I'll post a bunch and tell you more about the trip. Until then, Stay Classy USA.

Moving On

Well, my time in Cromwell has come to a close. Yesterday was my last day at work and tomorrow I will be traveling to Queenstown. One of the guys I work with has a van and he was planning on going so I'll ride with him. I'm not 100% sure of my plans for the rest of the month. I'm thinking at this point I'll rent a car for about a week and travel the west coast. I have been wishing I'd seen a little more of the South Island before I left. I think I'm going to miss everything south of Queenstown, but there is no way I'll be able to see everything with the time left, so that might have to wait for another trip. After a week of travel here I'll be heading up to the North Island. I really only have three weeks left so I'll probably work a week in the bay of plenty, and then Joe comes. What a solid guy, that Joe Leman. He's pretty awesome. We'll just spend the week traveling around the North Island.

We are hoping to have a BBQ tonight as kind of a splitting up party. BYO meat. We had one Tuesday, and it was a lot of fun. This has been a pretty awesome group of people to work with. Very diverse and tonnes of fun. (a wee bit of metric humor there)

I'm kind of looking forward to coming home. There's something about Americans that I miss a little. I'm not exactly sure what it is. It might just be that I don't have to explain things as much, or that our experiences are just a little bit closer, but there's a little bit of comfortableness that there is in being with Americans in general and my friends specifically. The relationships where you're beyond the finding out about a friend stage, and just able to spend time are a little lacking here. If I were that kind of person, this would be the part where I would encourage you to reflect and be thankful for the close relationships that you have, but I'm not really so I'll let you come to that reflective state on your own.

Anyway, I'm not sure what my internet access will be like, (especially if I live in a car) so I'll take lots of pictures, and keep a journal every day (full on sarcasm) so I can fill you in on the west coast.

Relatively Good News and Bad News

The bad news is my job with John Austin Ltd. doesn't look like it's going to happen. I haven't heard from them for sure, which is most of the reason that it doesn't look good. The good news is that my job here is pretty secure for the next week, and I'm now the one riding behind the tractor, so my job is pretty good too. (we're netting now) I go back and forth on whether having a job here is really good news. Cromwell is not a very happening place, and I don't have any transportation so I'm kind of stuck here after work, not a ton of stuff to do. I don't mind experiencing this part of NZ, in fact I'm really glad I did. I'm just not sure I want to spend another week of my last month here.

Oh by the way IT'S MY LAST MONTH. WHAT? Time has gone really fast. "what's that you say Mom? It hasn't gone fast for you? Awww, thanks"

So anyway, I'll call John Austin tomorrow to be sure I can't work there and then I guess I'll spend the next week here, it might not be that bad. I am getting to meet all sorts of people. The crew right now is: 3 Belgians, 1 Czech, 1 Argentinian, 2 Chileans, 2 French, 1 Israeli, 1 Aussie, 3 Kiwis 1 German and myself. It's a really diverse group and it's really interesting getting to know everyone, and it makes for a fun workplace. At any time you can here conversations going on in English, French, Spanish and a mix of the three. We are never short of cross cultural humor, and interesting situations. For example, the vineyard has a air cannon to scare away birds, so every 15 minutes or so it sounds like someone is shooting a 12 guage, and for the first day or so we weren't sure what it was. Today I was was working with the Israeli girl named Nurit, we were talking about the air cannon, and she says, "It reminds me of home" and then laughed. So I laughed, and felt a little weird, so I asked "Should I be laughing?" She was saying it as a joke so it was ok, but she was kind of serious.

Speaking of OK, I heard today that OK originated in battle statistics. It's an abreviation for 0 Kills, so everything is OK.

Anyways, it was good thinking about you guys. (We'll have to save talking for later) I may sound a little depressed but I'm not so don't worry. I'm having a great time. I'll catch you on the flip side.

I was going to post earlier today, but I thankfully had to work. It started raining last Friday and it pretty much didn’t let up until about 11 this morning. Actually it didn’t last all day yesterday, but it was Sunday. So I’m hoping that I might be able to get close to a full week in, but it’s looking like it might rain the next couple of days too.

Mom sent me a book so on Friday I read pretty much the whole book. On Saturday I didn’t have a book so the day was a little more boring. I made a deal with Michi to trade cookies for some German cake, so I baked some chocolate chip cookies on Saturday afternoon and then we found a monopoly game to kill the rest of the evening.

On Sunday we decided that we really wanted a sub of the day at Subway for lunch, which is a problem since the closest Subway is in Queenstown (about 60 km away). So around noon we walked out to the 6 and hitch-hiked there. We ate a Subway, walked the waterfront, and Vladi bought some new sandals (or as the Kiwis call them, jandals). Hitching back didn’t go quite as smoothly as the way there, but we did make it. We split up the last 30 km and I actually rode with a South American couple that I work with.

It rained again this morning, but it cleared up around 11.00, so we went in around 12.30 and worked till about 4.30. I haven’t seen the weather for tomorrow yet, but we’re hoping to start at 7.00. We’ll see how that goes.

Let the Blood Letting Begin

I was introduced to the darker side of seasonal work in NZ. A half dozen people were given the ax today. Somehow I escaped the bloodbath, and I still have a job. Also the guy that I've been riding with to the vineyard is still with us so I have transportation. So I'll be working here in Cromwell for a couple more weeks. We're still fruit thinning, but later this week we are going to switch to putting on nets to keep the birds out.

Michi and Valdi are now in Cromwell doing netting for another vineyard, so we're staying together again. Last Sunday Jude (a kiwi that's staying at the chalets) took us on a loop up to Wanaka then down to Arrowtown and back to Cromwell. It was some pretty awesome scenery and we stopped in Arrowtown for ice cream. I had cherry made with locally grown cherries. It was amazing.

The weather has been really nice this week, sunny and warm. I'm hoping that we get a full week in. Last week it rained a couple of days so we didn't get as many hours as I would like. It's hard to make any money when you never work a full week.

I got my camera back, so there are a few new pics on the slide show. I promise I'll post more often now that I have my camera back.

Life at the Chalets

Time to check in. Hope everything's going well on the home front. I've been having a pretty good time. We've been fruit thinning at the vineyard. The wine that this vineyard makes is "boutique" which basically means everything is done by hand and then they charge three times as much. On each shoot there are between 1 and 3 bunches of grapes. For their highest quality wine we thinned them down to 1, and now we're thinning down to 2 bunches per shoot. It's been pretty warm, between 25 and 30 and sunny. We have been working from 7.30 to 4.00, but later this week we might start at 7.oo skip after noon smoker and quit at 3.15.

There's a Presbyterian church in Cromwell and their sign says they have an evening service at 6.30, so I decided to try and go to that. Well it turns out tha'ts not exactly true. They actually have a youth group meeting then. So they made me feel at home, and I spent the next hour playing the name game and doing a Bible study. It was actually pretty fun.

I called the camera place today and they have it all figured out and they'll be shipping it back tomorrow, so I should be able to post some pictures soon.

Oh, Hey Guys

Ok the suspense has gone on long enough. I can't find a job, I'm starving and I'm flying home tommorrow. Ok, not really. Actually thing have been going rather well.

(Mom maybe you shouldn't read this paragraph)
Last Saturday I packed up and left Ashburton. Valdi and Michi had hitchhiked from Auckland to Ashburton and said it'd had been really easy so I decided to give it a shot. At about 1pm I walked out to Highway 1 and sat down to wait. It took about a half hour but a guy in a pickup that was heading down to Timaru to visit family stopped and said he could take me down close to Geraldine. I said that'd be great and my hike was hitched. (or hitch was hiked, I'm not really sure how that goes) anyway after about ten minutes of waiting a couple of young guys stopped and took me into Geraldine. By this time I didn't think I was going to make it all the way to Queenstown so I stopped at the I-site and asked about accomodation further down the road. The lady there said that Lake Tekapo (tee-ka-poo, hehe) had some nice accomodation and even called ahead to see if they had vacancies, which they did. So I walked to the outskrits of Geraldine and sat down to wait again. In about fifteen minutes two girls from south Wales that happened to be heading to Lake Tekapo picked me up and took me the rest of the way.

So I spent the night at Lake Tekapo, which is beautiful, and the backpacker there is super nice. Unfortunately I still don't have my camera, so I wasn't able to take any pictures, but you should google it cause it's really nice.

The next morning it was raining and I really didn't feel like hitching so I bought a bus ticket for the rest of the way (I probably saved $15-20 hitching half way) I decided to just go straight to Cromwell since it was already Sunday and I wanted to start working as soon as I could. So I walked to the Chalets where I'm staying and met a guy who was doing some vineyard work. He gave me the number of his boss and I called him. To keep a short story short, I'm currently engaged in my first experience with viticulture. It's pretty cool. I work outside the pay is ok and I get some exercise, so I'm pretty happy.

I'll try and check in a little later on in the week.

If you could be any type of Talley's chips, which would you be?

I'd be the Natural Cut.

So just a quick post. Yesterday was our last day at Talley's and now we're kind of splitting up. Valdi and Michi are heading down to Stewart Island for a few days, Francisco is probably heading up to the North Island and I think I'm going to spend some time in the Queenstown area. Valdi, Michi and I might end up together again in Cromwell depending on where I find work and what not. So I'll hopefully be in Queenstown sometime tonight or tomorrow. I'll check in with you again soon.

Hey guys, give me a break on the posting thing. Kyle I bet it's been ten days since you talked to your mom, and you're only in West LaFiesta.

Ok, I am sorry, I was online a few days ago but I didn't have much time or my pics so I didn't post. Right now I'm sitting in a relatively cheap internet cafe in Christchurch. We got off work at noon and then headed north for an afternoon at the beach.

I have some very bad news. My camera won't turn on. The other day we were heading up to Lake Colridge, and it worked on the way there and while we were there, and then Fransico asked to look at the pictures and it wouldn't turn on. (Yes the battery is charged) So I stopped at a camera shop in Christchurch and they're going to take a look at it, but the bottom line is it's going to be a couple of weeks until I get it back. Soooo.... luckly I have friends with cameras. Not as good, not as flashy, not as fun, but they'll hvae to do. Actually that's not exactly true, Valdi and Michi's camera is an underwater one, so that's pretty sweet.

So I guess it's time I introduce you to Rose. She is a miracle. Our miracle. She was given to us to use while we work for Canstaff. Though she's not perfect (she kind of shutters and lurches sometimes) she is never the less amazing. We don't have to rent a car to drive to work or to take us around on the weekends. She's amazing.

(so I was going to put a photo here, but wouldn't you know it, as soon as I get to a fast internet connection they're having trouble uploading photos. I guess that's life)

Oh yeah, so it turns out the "something different" was just a one day thing to keep us "busy" since they couldn't have us doing cut opens that day. So we got to wear different overalls (blue and orange) and we went outside and kind of stood around since nobody knew what we should be doing. We eventually found a few things to do. (I ended up tearing apart and fixing broken pallets) Yeah it was amazing. But we did at least get to spend a day outside and it kind of made me happy to see all those frozen vege's again. So now we're back inside doinging cutopens. They never end.

I got a few new photos up on Picasa (including a pic of Rose) and I linked to them on the side, so enjoy.

Until next time. (that's way more open ended then you might think)

Life at Talley's

I should tell you that it's pronounced "tell." Sorry its been so long since I posted. I'm not making enough money to pay for the internet here. Ok it's really not that bad, but it is pretty expensive. It's kind of crazy, you pay for everything around here. Anyway, I started work. It's not exactly what I came here looking for, but that's ok. Basically we are dumping packaged food that was either messed up, or passed expiration. I think it will be tested and then repackaged. So 8 hours a day I open boxes cut open bags and dump them in a bin. We talk a little but it's pretty loud so not too much. On the up side we do get to wear these sweet outfits. That's Valdi and Michi. (I have no idea how to spell that, but it's said me-he and its a nickname for Micheala so...)

Interesting facts: 1) It takes roughly 20 minutes to sing "99 bottles of beer on the wall" down to zero. 2) I make a little over 1 NZD every 5 minutes. 3) Depending on what kind of frozen food we are dumping that works out to somewhere between 10 and 25 cents per box. 4) I can come up with no plausible invention to automatically open and dump bags of frozen food (trust me I've thought about it a lot)

We get off work at five, and it's a great feeling. There are a few jobs that I'm not ready to be done with at the end of the day. Most (even farming) I'm glad I'm done when it's time to quit. There are some that I'm ready to be done with half way through the day. There are a couple, however, which I am ready to be done with before they begin... Ok it's really not that bad.

After work we have a great time. We do pretty much everything together. We normally cook together for supper and then hang out for a while before heading off to bed.

This weekend we decided to make the most of our time off even though the weather was not that great. On Saturday afternoon we took off for Methven, a little town to the north west, and then decided to go on up to a lake in the mountains. It took us a while to get up there, partly because we didn't know exactly how to get there and partly because we stopped a bunch to look at stuff. I took almost 600 pictures that afternoon so it's well documented. I don't have a very fast internet connection right now so you'll have to wait but I've got a couple pics to whet your appetite. On our way back we stopped in Methven for supper at a Bavarian restaurant, which was a little pricey but really good.

On Sunday we decided to head east to the beach. It's about a half hour drive from where we live. I don't know if you can tell from the photo but it's not really a swim or lay out kind of beach, but it it beautiful and we hung out for a little bit. I've got some pictures that show ho big that bluff is. That's a fence post on top, if that helps. It's huge. And Long. It was kind of cold and windy so we didn't swim at all. I guess we'll have to find a better beach for that.

It's been great getting to know Francisco, Valdi and Michi better. They are really cool and a lot of fun to be around. Francisco invests himself in everything, it's awesome. As an example, there's a tv in the kitchen where we eat supper, and there's a cooking contest called celebrity chef on right about the time we get around to eating. Last Friday was the semi finals, and he was totally into it. When the guy that he liked got kicked out he was so mad/sad. It's hilarious.

Anyway I should head out. I hear tomorrow we'll be doing something a little different at work. We get to wear blue and orange overall now, so thats pretty exciting. Thanks for checking in. Cheers.

And Now the Work Begins

Well I'm finally here in Ashburton. Yesterday (monday) morning I got a hold of my contact from Canstaff and he told me that he'd have work for me if I came down. So I jumped on the afternoon service to Ashburton and got here about 5.00. I stopped by the Canstaff office to get stuff straightened out. Come to find out my contact here is actually blind. He's a really cool guy, super helpful, knows his stuff and he's got a sweet accent.

The arragement is a little different then I expected, but I think it should work out well. If I understand it correctlly, I actually work for Canstaff and they are kind of like contractors who businesses come to for seasonal labor. So I asked him about accomodation in the area and he said the cheapest place in the area was probably Holiday Park which is kind of a campground but the have a cabin/lodge available for backpackers.

He said he had a couple of other workers staying there and they would be coming back in just a little bit. While we were working stuff out they came back. So I ended up riding to the camp with them in a car that Canstaff had gotten them. They are really cool people, a couple from Germany named Valdi and Mehe (I guess that's kind of a knickname, I forget her real name, Miceala or something) , and a guy from Chile named Francisco. So we're all staying in the same place and we hit it off really well. They all speak English really well, but they want to learn more so they're always asking "how do you say this?"

We kind of settled in and then we drove into town to get some groceries. In the evening we all cooked together, BBQ chicken and pasta. I think this weekend we might try and go to a lake nearby or the ocean.

It looks like the first place I'll be working at is a food packaging plant called Talley's. I'll let you know how that all turns out. I have a bunch of pictures to put up, but I'm not going to be able to do it from the computer I'm on so I'll have to do it another time. I'll just give you a couple of the place I'm staying at now.

Day 1

Well here I am, sitting in an internet cafe. My flights all went really well, everything was on time and smooth. Turns out Air New Zealand does really well with leg room and entertainment. I slept quite a bit on the flight over. I didn't have a person in the seat next to me so I could kind of sprawl. As we were landing in Auckland they told us the local weather. The pilot says "In Christchurch it's mostly cloudy and 10 degrees," and I thought "Come on! I thought it was summer here, I know it's 5.30am but still, it's warmer then that back in Indiana." And that's true if you allow the midwest to measure in Fahrenheit and NZ to measure in Celsius. 10 degrees, 50 degrees, it's all the same. We landed in Christchurch around 8.30am. I spent a couple of hours at the airport figuring stuff out. I called home to tell the family that I'm fine and then tried to get a hold of my work contact. (no luck so far) Then I found a place to stay for the night. It's a really nice park bench in the square, well situated under a tree for cover and the armrest is just the right height so it wont put a crick in my neck. Actually it's just a backpacker hostel.

I've been tooling around Christchurch seeing the sights. Been pretty fun so far, but I will say that traveling is definitely more fun with other people. Guess I'll have to make some friends. So I suppose I'll just hang around Christchurch until I make contact with work and figure out what they want me to do. I've taken some photos but I'm not going to take the time to upload them at this very moment so you'll have to check back a little later. I'm kind of hungry, maybe I'll go scrounge something up. Is that how you spell scrounge?