The earth moved for us

Last night we were watching telly - nothing new there, we must be one of the most unsociable couples in Wanaka - and it suddenly occurred to me that everything was moving. It was subtle, but unmistakable. A strange thought began to occur to me...then it stepped up a notch - the curtains were swaying to and from the windows - and I realised it definitely was an earthquake. I've never experienced one before but remembered the advice we'd been given at our orientation here in NZ and grabbed Isaac - who was still oblivious - and dragged him to the doorway between our lounge and bedroom. We knelt down, giggling and in disbelief, and waited for the odd sensation to stop.

There are few reliable things in this world, but the solidity of the ground beneath our feet is - or rather should be - one of them. When the whole house and the earth beneath it begins to shake and sway, your brain finds it devilishly hard to register - I'd have wondered if I was drunk if I didn't know that I haven't had a drink since May 2008! As it turns out, this was a fairly big earthquake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, and was the biggest one in NZ for 80 years. No one was hurt, thank goodness, and the resultant tsunami that hit the Haast coast was only a tiddler. Still, it was all very exciting, even if nothing even fell over in our house.

And in other news, the lovely Kat Von B: Queen of Beaver is in town. She's from Perth (Australia, not Scotland) and has flown over on holiday to see me and her friend Lucy, who lives not too far from us. Sadly her trip has coincided with me developing a rather nasty virus - no, not swine flu thank goodness - and I've had to bail out of our planned skiing trip today in favour of sitting on the sofa feeling sorry for myself and eating Tim Tams. We did however manage to get out snowboarding together on Monday before I fell ill, which was great, and I was terribly relieved that we seemed to be fairly well matched with our riding abilities, with Kate being rather rusty (not having been on snow since we left Sunshine last year) and with me still being fairly gimpy.

I must admit, I had hoped that I'd pick up this snowboarding business a bit quicker - I mean, how hard can it be? But as usual, my desire for perfection is found to be lacking in the riding department. I can now get down a run without falling over, pretty much, and I've even been on blue runs. In fact, I actually prefer blue runs because the steeper it is, the easier it is for me to turn. But it still all feels rather unnatural to me and I feel like everything is harder on a board than on skis. Cat tracks for example (relatively flat and narrow) are easy as pie on skis - point them in the right direction and pole it if you slow down - but a nightmare on a board because you have to be on one edge or the other all the time and I just can't get the bloody hang of it. Isaac, who has been riding for 12-odd years, just says 'oh you don't need to be fully on an edge, just put more pressure on one side or another, and you don't have to make turns, just go straight'. Well all that is fine if you are instinctive about it, but for me, having to think about everything I do because it's not muscle memory yet, this always ends up with me a) trying to put too much pressure on an edge, losing balance and falling over, b) ending up right at the side of the run, hitting something, like a wall of snow, and falling over, c) hitting someone who's trying to pass me because I'm so slow and falling over, d) getting some speed up, panicking, trying to slow down and falling over or e) getting just too tired holding my legs in that awkward position and falling over. So falling over is still a big thing for me. And most of all, the thing that has surprised and disappointed me in all of this is that I haven't fallen in love with it yet. Everyone I know who snowboards says that it just suddenly clicks and you just love it and to be honest, it hasn't happened with me yet. I still yearn for skis and how easy and familiar it all is. I know in my heart of hearts that I didn't always feel that way about skiing - it was hard to begin with and I fell over alot - but now I feel very comfortable on skis I just wish it wasn't all so much of an effort on a board.

That said, I'm determined to continue with it, because I hate giving up at things I've decided I'm going to do. To that end, I'm delighted that Isaac's brother Reilly and his dad Imo are coming out to visit us in a week and a half. Imo has been a ski and snowboard instructor for years and is apparently keen to help me get my riding up to scratch* so that would be fabulous. Watch this space - I'll be hucking and shredding that gnar before you know it.

*actually, I only have Mary Lynn's word on that, and he might actually be going around saying 'God I hope she doesn't expect me to teach her anything, what a busman's holiday THAT would be!'

Wanna bet?

Son cuts off father's penis as a dare.

Best quote:

According to local media father and son were drinking together and at some point started to argue whether the son would dare to cut off his father’s penis. The son won the bet while the father was rushed to the surgery department of a local hospital.

"The son won the bet". Jeez.

Birthday blues

You're quite right Jenny (see comment on previous post), I have no real excuse for not blogging now. I can't blame lack of internet anymore, certainly - I suppose I've just got out of the habit. It is true however, that the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of training, working and snowboarding, so even when I have had time I must admit that the most I can do in the evenings is sit and stare at the telly like a zombie before crashing. It's pathetic. You'd think I'd never worked before!

So basically Isaac & I have both started work at our respective resorts, me at Cardrona and him at Treble Cone. In many ways I think I've got the better end of the deal, because Cardi is very similar to Sunshine in many ways, so it was easier to pick up for me, whereas TC has some fairly archaic systems. The ticket windows don't have computers, they sell pre-printed tickets by hand, which turns cashing up into a nightmare. It can take up to 3 hours for them to balance! I, in related news, was promoted during my training, when myself and an Aussie girl called Lisa were asked if we could help handle the 'money room'. Basically we have a woman called Margaret - English*, ex-banker - who handles all the money coming in and out for the whole mountain 2 days a week. The other 5 is now covered by Lisa & myself. It's nice to be trusted, and it's a bit more money, but it's also longer hours and very like being in an all-day maths class, which is hardly my idea of a relaxing time. Anyway. Treble Cone has more extreme terrain, whereas Cardi is more beginner/intermediate, so we get the lion's share of the family market. Plus we're between Wanaka & Queenstown, so we get people from both towns, whereas TC is a bit of a hike if you're not in Wanaka. We both work with some great people who we've been out with a few times, so that's nice, and working at both resorts means we get to play on both mountains. It's a good thing that Isaac's at TC really, as I'm rubbish on a snowboard at the moment and probably wouldn't be able to handle its steeps! We both get the opportunity to go on ride breaks most days, though I've realised that going for an hour by myself when I'm this new at it can actually be counter-productive, because I lose my confidence very quickly, so I don't go very often.

It was my birthday last week and I was working. I only had one card to open (thanks Toni!) in the morning and I had told Isaac not to buy me anything, since we were totally broke. However, getting up at 6.15am to make porridge before work, I suddenly, and without warning, burst into tears. Isaac naturally asked me what was wrong and I genuinely had no idea, but managed to blurt out "I don't WANT to be 35!" This pretty much set the tone for the day. I cried walking to the bus. I cried on the bus. I went for a ride break - just to be able to say I'd snowboarded on my birthday - and cried at how awful I was and how terrified I was at turning ('I know I've got to turn, I've got to turn, I've GOT to turn.....NO!' Cue falling over) and when I was asked to stay late AGAIN when everyone else was going home I ran off and cried in the stationary cupboard. I got dropped off by a bus driver who was heading up near where I live but he set me down in a road I was unfamiliar with and I got lost walking home, crying the whole way. A dog I passed in a garden went completely mental when he saw this howling figure! I made it home ahead of Isaac (the one and only time I have) and turned on the computer, only to see a whole load of happy birthday messages on my facebook, which made me howl even harder. Poor Isaac came back to find me in a heap on the sofa, sobbing my heart out. He was brilliant (as ever) - he hugged me, made me tea, listened to me wail for an hour about how awful I was at snowboarding and how I couldn't turn without falling over, gave me a present of a new jar of marmite and both a bought AND a homemade card (showing stick figures of us snowboarding together) and then took me out for dinner. We went to Amigos, the local mexican restaurant, for which we had a birthday voucher for $30, and the food was nice (I had a very bloody steak) but the service was TERRIBLE. It's a family-run restaurant, and they're very friendly, but the waiter that night was the owner's 13 year-old son, who slouches up to you and says in a bored voice 'Is everything alright with your meal?', which of course means 'Mum told me to ask you if everything's alright with your meal'. It took an hour to get our food after ordering and then we sat with dirty plates for so long that I eventually had to go up to the desk and ask them to clear our table. By this time I was so tired I was looking at my coat next to me on the bench and genuinely debating putting my head down and falling asleep. We ordered churros for dessert and ate them at breakneck speed before heading home - I'd barely made it through the door before I was undressing and falling into bed. So not a good day all round, and many apologies go out to the ever-lovely Isaac who had to put up with me being such awful company. The next day I woke up feeling fine! Go figure, as the Americans would say.

The following Tuesday we both had the day off so we decided to have birthday #2. After a leisurely morning, we headed up to Cardi and spent the afternoon working on getting me over my turning phobia. I even took a demo board out, the Rossignol Diva, which has some fancy serrated edge they called Magnetraction, which I was assured was like 'cheating' at turning. Fine with me! I loved the board and want one badly. We had a very good afternoon and, though I'm still by no means elegant on a board, I finally got the hang of turning (most of the time) without being terrified. Hurray! We had a great day, with my favourite, corned beef hash, for dinner, so that is how I'll choose to remember my 35th birthday.

So all in all, work is going fine - if a bit frustrating/anti-social/exhausting for me - and we still love our little flat. We keep hearing awful stories from other people about how freezing cold their houses are, so we feel very lucky to be in one of the only warm places in Wanaka! Still, we haven't had a heating bill yet, so we might yet have a terrible shock awaiting us...

*as if I even have to say it. EVERYONE we meet is bloody English. Sometimes I feel like I'm in England, but an England where everything is a bit wrong and you can't get Pizza Express**
**my worst nightmare of an England then

The big catch up

Okay okay okay. Now we're officially installed into our lovely flat with free internet I have no excuse not to get this thing up to date and start blogging properly, by which I mean not having to cover a month's worth of stuff everytime I sit down to type. So, in order to play catch up I shall give you a run down of everything that's happened since I last blogged and start afresh. Is that okay with everyone?*

So we picked up Mary Lynn from Nelson airport and stayed in Nelson for a couple of days before heading down the west coast. Highlights (and lowlights) included:

• Getting pastries from the Swedish bakery and eating them as we walked around the block...and then returning to get a second round as soon as we'd finished them
• Going through our newly-brought-out snowboard bag and getting excited about getting back on snow
• Taking Mary Lynn on a mini-tour of the vineyards we'd picked at, campsites we'd stayed at regularly, our WWOOFing farm and, of course, eating fish & chips from the unsurpassed Smokehouse Cafe in Mapua
• Going to Kris Fisher's 21st birthday party and watching him drink a yard of ale, with only the gentlest of vomits. Ah to be young again...
  
• Doing the 'Supaman' over the Buller Gorge
  
• Spending ages playing with a very friendly weka at Cape Foulwind
• The Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki, which we saw in perfect, 'golden hour' sun
• Monteith's Brewery tour at Greymouth, where Isaac had to drink his own samples of beer along with mine and Mary Lynn's (once we'd had a small taste). All at 11.30am. With no breakfast.
• Seeing kiwis and giant eels at Hokatika Kiwi House, including the eel that was so old it was bent over like a crochet hook which freaked Isaac out
• Walking over the incredible Hokatika Gorge, with its ice blue glacial waters
• Doing somersaults on the bed at the highly recommended Franz Joseph Top 10 Motor Park - which was the nicest self-contained unit we stayed in. The beds were like clouds, everything was clean and well-equipped and, once we got all the heaters running, it was warm as bro.
• Blowing a major fuse while cooking dinner at the Franz Joseph Top 10 cabin by having every single appliance running at once. Haha.
• Having not one but FOUR attempts to fly to the glaciers by helicopter cancelled due to bad weather. At least we got to see the IMAX film...
• Having a decent curry in Franz Joseph. Can't beat a good saag chicken.
• Going to the Franz Joseph Glacier Hot Pools - for my money a hundred times better than the ones at Hanmer Springs - in the evening and in the pouring rain, lending it the air of a fabulous luxurious rainforest. And getting chatting to an English couple who happen to live in Weybridge, right opposite the Queens Head.
• Getting lost in the maze at Puzzling World in Wanaka and feeling funny for ages after coming out of the Illusion Rooms
• Discovering the wonderful Aspiring Campervan Park in Wanaka, which is the nicest, cleanest, friendliest campsite in the whole country
• Going for interviews for jobs at Treble Cone (Isaac) and Cardrona (both of us) which went well
  
• Seeing the monster trucks at the Cardrona Adventure Park (including the one that was used on the 'V' energy drink advert out here in NZ)
• Having a lovely lunch at the historic Cardrona Hotel, but having to turn back to Wanaka and take the other, longer, route to Queenstown, because it started snowing and the Crown Pass was, well, impassable. By Jaffa at least.
• Eating Fergburgers that were as big as our heads. Amazingly, both Isaac and Mary Lynn finished theirs!
  
• Mary Lynn having a full roast lamb dinner, complete with peas, carrots and roast potatoes, on a pizza
• Isaac buying himself a new Burton Love snowboard, after some gentle persuasion from his mum and I. He got the 155, 'Hammock Girl'
• Trying to take Mary Lynn to Guilty restaurant in Queenstown for her birthday, only to find it was closed. Apparently this is a common occurance when trying to take Mary Lynn out for a meal. As it happens we then found an amazing steak restaurant that did the most enormous ribs you ever did see so we were happy...
• Finding out that Isaac got the job at Treble Cone
  

Phew. Okay. So we dropped Mary Lynn off at Queenstown airport and spent another couple of days in Q'town, catching up with me ol' mucker Nate, who worked in the rental tech shop at Sunshine Village, whose birthday it was. We even played a drinking game with him and his flatmates**, which Isaac lost and had to drink a mug full of everyone else's slops. We headed back to Wanaka on Sunday afternoon, to catch up with Pat, one of our supervisors from Sunshine Guest Services, who will be working with Isaac at Treble Cone. On the Monday I popped into the Cardrona office to see if there was any news about a job and the woman who'd interviewed us was a bit worryingly vague about it all and I began to brick it. Jobs are not just hard to come by in Wanaka, they're impossible to come by. The local paper even had the front page headline: 'NO JOBS'. The woman told me she'd let me know by Wednesday, so I decided to try to be positive and on Tuesday we went to see a couple of flats, the second of which Mary Lynn had found out about while asking everyone she met whether they knew of anywhere nice to rent. The first flat was a small self-contained shed at the back of someone's house. It was cold, dirty, everything was dated and/or broken and I just knew I'd be depressed as hell if we had to live there for the season. An hour later we went to see the other flat and felt like we'd walked into heaven. It was warm, modern, well-equipped with a HUGE bed and a dishwasher (oh the luxury!) and we'd barely set foot in the door before we said we'd love to take it. It turns out the landlady, Helen, knows my friends Ron & Jemma who live nearby in Lake Hawea too, so all worked out perfectly. We arranged to move in at the end of the following week, since we'd planned to go to Dunedin for a few days to meet up with our friends Josie & Becky, the Canadian girls we were grape picking with. Wednesday I still hadn't heard from Cardrona, and by 4pm I was like a pea on a drum so decided to 'pop in' to the office again. However, just as we got into town I received an email offering me the job - huzzah! I burst into tears, I was so relieved. On Saturday we went to visit Ron & Jemma, with their boys Andrew & Jack***, and had a fabulous roast dinner. Being the terrible moochers that we are, when they offered for us to stay the night - complete with power from their garage into Jaffa - we agreed and had a great day the next day too, complete with Isaac teaching Ron how to fish in the river at the bottom of their property. We had another great meal - pasta this time - before heading off to meet up with Isaac's new work colleagues from Treble Cone at the rather nice Uno bar in town.

Monday brought us down to Dunedin to meet with Becky & Josie for a spectacular Thai meal, and Tuesday saw us going to the Cadbury Factory tour (mmmm free chocolate), lunch at Velvet Burger (delicious), over to the Speights Brewery tour (Isaac having to drink more beer, though at least it was with a full stomach this time), a quick trip up and down the world's steepest street (ouch my burning thighs), quick stop at McDonalds (bleugh. But quick) before heading over to see 'I Love You, Man' at the cinema (not a classic, but worth a viewing). Spent the next day shopping and yet trying not to spend money. Hmmm.

Thursday we headed back to Wanaka and stopped into to see Jemma & Ron again, where once again they offered to let us stay (thanks guys) and even fed us a gorgeous Thai green curry into the bargain, in return for Isaac helping the boys make a helicopter and cement truck out of lego.

Friday. The day we'd been waiting for. We moved into our flat.

Much as I don't have a bad word to say about Jaffa, having the room to get changed standing up, to put our clothes somewhere where we can see them all at once, not having to get the gas burners out to cook outside in the dark, having a bathroom that you don't have to get dressed and walk across a campsite to go to and most of all, being WARM, is incredible. It's amazing how a few months roughing it can make you appreciate the little things in life you took for granted before, like a freezer, or a washing machine. We spent a fortune on groceries and have now effectively holed ourselves up in the flat, for fear of going out and spending anymore money ahead of our starting work (17th June for Isaac, 21st for me).

Except...we had to remind ourselves why we're here. So when Coronet Peak, a ski resort near Queenstown, opened last Saturday, we gave it a few days to calm down and then arranged to meet Nate up there. I'm a skier, as you know, but this season I am determined to get this snowboarding thing cracked, so when Mary Lynn brought out our gear, I asked only for my snowboard, a Salomon Driver that I got from some friends in Banff at the end of the season for $40 (£20). It's a good beginner board and, despite the multiple temptations, there's no point in me getting anything decent until I can actually snowboard. I must admit, on my first run on the nursery slope, I thought I'd made a huge mistake. Although I've snowboaded a couple of times before, it was over 18 months ago and I could barely stand up on the thing for sliding around. A couple more runs in however, I was able to do 'falling leaf' (going side to side down the hill, just using one edge of the board) and pretty soon I felt up for going on a chair lift to a bigger slope.

I was amazed that I was enjoying it so much, given how much I hated it last time I'd been on a board, and I wasn't falling over nearly as much. It helped that I had Isaac there giving me lots of encouragement. Last time I'd pushed myself to start turning from heel to toe edge pretty quickly, but had no control and was just scaring myself, so this time I decided to try to master my edges using falling leaf first so I knew that at least I was able to stop when I wanted to! By the end of the day I was exhausted but had got a few good turns in and had really enjoyed myself, which is, after all, the whole point of the exercise. I'm now really really looking forward to our hills opening, so I can get more practice in and start getting good at it.

Okay, so now I'm up to date. No excuses now! Photos can be seen at the following places:
general travel, Mary Lynn's trip, Wanaka and our flat, and snowboarding.

*well obviously not with the anonymous person who commented on my last post, but to be honest I was merely relieved they didn't think it was the dullest thing they'd ever read
**though I always feel the amusement factor for this kind of shenanigan is diminished somewhat by the fact that I'm just drinking straight Coke
***with whom Isaac turned out to be a big hit, due to his ability to build train sets and play with lego almost ceaselessly

Penguins, jerseys and jail-time

Been a busy couple of weeks so apologies for what is basically just an overview of events.

Christchurch was okay, we had a couple of days decent shopping out of it and a trip to the multiplex to see Fast & Furious 4 (yawn), but I must admit I rather enjoyed the feeling of being back in a city. I do relish the endless possibilities...okay, not exactly endless in a city the size of Christchurch, but still wider than we've had in months, and Christchurch does have a very English feel - underlined by the large number of English place names they've adopted in their suburbs (St Albans, Scarborough, Richmond etc.) Indeed we found a great English import store, run by a rather eccentric old man, and managed to relieve my homesickness a little by picking up a couple of packets of Angel Delight and a can of Tizer.

On our third night in Christchurch, we ended up in jail. Always a sign of a good night, I'm sure you'll agree. This particular jail, however, was decommissioned in 1999 and is now Christchurch's coolest hostel and, though the rooms are a bit on the small side (well, it WAS a jail), it has a well-equipped kitchen, free pool table and a cinema-style DVD room. Highly recommended if you're passing through, if only for the photo op in the lobby, which Isaac made look frighteningly realistic... The following day we drove to Sumner beach where we partook of a cream tea (whipped, rather than clotted, cream of course but the scones were delicious) before going on one of the most beautiful drives we've done the whole trip, over to the Banks Peninsula. The whole thing is basically one massive - now thankfully dormant - volcano, and every turn on every corner (and there are a LOT of corners) has a stunning view. We decided to take Jude's advice and take the long drive out to the very remote and beautiful Le Bons Bay, hoping to have a lovely private spot, so imagine our surprise when not two minutes after our arrival a big motorhome pulled in behind us and decided to park right next to us. I mean, really?!

Next on the agenda was the small town of Geraldine - another tip from Jude - home of the world's most Giant Jersey and a half-scale reproduction of the Bayeaux Tapestry made out of knitting machine off-cuts. Yes, really. It took the man who made it 20 years to complete and boy, does he like to tell you about it! And show you the one and only paintbrush he used. And point out all the bits he had to invent because the orginal tapestry was incomplete. But no time to dawdle there, no matter how tempting it may have been, because we were off to Oamaru to see penguins goddamnit. The yellow-eyed penguins were free to see from a vantage point way above their nesting ground on the beach, so we perched ourselves up there around 4pm to watch a few waddle in before racing back to town to see the little blue penguins, who arrive a little later. This one we had to pay to see, but it was worth it to see a 'raft' of penguins swim in to shore right in front of us, run the gauntlet past a fur seal, and take up residence in a purpose built hobbit-style village. A highly amusing period where the penguins ran around making barking noises* ensued.

The next day we began our journey back up north - popping back in to Hanmer Springs to see Ben & Coleanne again - to Nelson, since Isaac's mum Mary Lynn was due to arrive in a couple of days time. We needed to get a WOF** done on Jaffa and decided to do it in Nelson in case we ended up off the road for a day or two. Sure enough the poor old girl failed her test, needing two new front tyres, an repair on our exhaust mounting, a handbrake adjustment, an a small rusted section cut out of the driver's floor and a new panel welded in. A mere $450*** and one day later she was fully legal, just in time to pick up Mary Lynn the following morning.

More on that later...
*Who knew?
**Like an MOT for the English among you, or a certification for all you Canadians
***This is sarcasm

Roadtrippin' again

A couple of weeks or so ago, we finished our grape harvest work and headed off around the South Island to do a bit more travelling. We hadn't saved up as much money as we'd hoped...actually that's an understatement, we hadn't saved up anything like as much money as we'd expected, but hey ho, we are not going to let it stop us. We left Nelson, with some trepidation; we felt like we'd become slightly institutionalised - Nelsonised if you like - by staying in one spot for so long. We headed east towards Blenheim and visited the excellent Aviation Heritage Centre, which has been revamped by the Weta Workshop, who did the special effects for Lord of the Rings. Basically it's just a bunch of old war planes which, in any other setting, I probably wouldn't find that interesting, however the Weta Workshop have put so much attention in the detail that they have really brought the planes to life. I found the stories of friends and family loved and lost very moving and particularly liked tableau, based on actual photos and film footage, of the Australian regiment's discovery of the legendary Red Baron's plane after he was finally shot down.

We spent one night in Blenheim and visted Montana's winery the next day for a tour. You'd think we might be a bit over the whole grape thing but in fact it was really interesting to see what happens when the grapes we pick leave the vineyard. We did some wine tasting - yes, even me. No, I didn't like it, still tastes like pretty horrible stuff to me, but I could smell the blackcurrant in the Pinot Noir and the peach in the Sauvignon Blanc so that's a start, eh? Isaac rather liked it and decided he should start drinking more wine but since we can't afford alcohol he'll have to wait until we get back to Canada.

Downwards to Kaikoura - stopping only to watch the seal pups playing on the rocks - and a visit to my friend Justine, who was my first mentor during my midwifery training. She moved to NZ in 2001 and got married in January to a sheep farmer called Barry. Barry's family has been sheep farming in Kaikoura since the 1850s, so he tells me he's almost a local now. They have 600+ acres at the foothills of Mount Fyffe, with some damn spectacular views down to the town and coastline; on a very clear day up at the top you can see the North Island apparently. Justine had clearly settled into sheep farmer's wife mode very comfortably indeed. She gets up ridiculously early (when I told her I normally woke around 8.30/9am, which I think is pretty good, she just laughed) and helps Barry with sheepy things until it's time for her to go to work, then when she's not working she bakes cakes and biscuits and produces perfect, stodgy, farm-type food. We got the chance to help (read: watch) Barry with the dagging, which is when you cut the wool off from around the sheep's bottoms to prevent it getting all clogged with poo - nice - and troughing, which is where you get them to walk through some stuff to remove infection from their feet. We also got to ride his quad bike up and over the hills, through the paddocks and fields, and check out those views.

The first night we were there, we went to reverse Jaffa back towards the garage so we could hook up to power. As I did so, there was a horrible, crunching, grinding noise - I kept checking the handbrake to see if I'd left it on but no. I pulled into place and turned her off, whereby Isaac & I looked at each other with concern. We decided that if we didn't talk about it too much then it probably didn't happen - a strategy that usually works for a bit at least - and then headed back inside. A couple of days later we decided to visit the town and got back into Jaffa for the journey. She started off just fine but as soon as we got down to the main road the grinding, crunching noise started again. I stopped immediately and we took a moment to consider our options.We lifted the front seats to look at the engine, which is located underneath and both stared at it. For quite some time. Suddenly, I spotted something! I reached down gingerly into the engine and pulled out...a travel adaptor. Wedged in amongst the abundance of pipes and metalwork. Not one we'd brought, I hasten to add, so presumably wedged there for some time. I reached in and pulled it out, but to be honest, even I didn't expect it to help. "So what do you think we should do?" I asked Isaac. "Well, if I was back home I'd call Hale* to come and see what was wrong" he replied, hopefully. "Ah, the thing is, Hale is in Canada, so we might have to try to deal with it ourselves" I reminded him. Thank goodness we had decided to take out an AA** policy way back at the beginning of our trip for just such an eventuality. I did hope that he might find our handbrake was sticking and he could fix it by the side of the road, but in my heart of hearts I knew that this was just a pipe dream. Sure enough, a tow truck came along and, after listening to our story, he said immediately "Yeah, your gearbox is buggered. I'll tow you into a garage to get a new one". Damn.

The garage we got towed too seemed nice. Murray the mechanic started draining the oil out of the sump and showed us that it had that tell-tale sheen caused by metal filiments from a disintegrating gearbox, along with some lumps of metal that - and remember here that I'm NOT a mechanic - didn't seem good news to me. He seemed eager to help us as quickly and inexpensively as possible but a new gearbox doesn't come cheap. He managed to source a second-hand one from Christchurch, which he had sent up immediately, and told us he could fit it first thing in the morning. Justine was kind enough to come and collect us later from town and took us back to stay at her house - thank goodness for friends! Next morning at around 11.30am I called Murray to see what the latest was and he told me it was all fixed and ready to be picked up. Not only had they put a new gearbox in, but they'd also replaced our sump plug, which was the cause of our (still slowly dripping) oil leak and he'd even repaired the heating for us, which in perfectly typical fashion had broken down just as the weather turned cool. All in it cost $750, which I guess wasn't bad, but when you're on as tight a budget as we are, it was one hell of a blow. Still, we are now warm, have a gearbox that works AND a new travel adaptor!

We felt we'd taken advantage of Justine and Barry's hospitality long enough so we said our goodbyes and drove down the coast towards Hanmer Springs, where our friends Ben & Coleanne are staying for the winter. We stopped one night in a town called Waiau (no idea how to pronounce that without sounding like an idiot) which had a very OVER enthusiastic campsite owner who insisted we call him 'Hutch'. I'm sure he felt it lent him kudos. The campsite was great though, with a well equipped kitchen and not one but TWO television rooms, neither of which we frequented of course, preferring to stay in the van and watch films on my laptop. We're SO anti-social. We didn't even use the kitchen because we walked down to the shop (one of two in town, but the only one open after 5pm) and got fish and chips. The following morning we headed off again towards Hanmer Springs and met up with Ben & Coleanne at the lovely house they're renting. Hanmer is a tiny town in the middle of some mountains, so we could see why these two Banff residents had stopped a-while there. It's famous for its hot springs and Coleanne, as a massage therapist, was working at the springs Spa, while Ben had a job in a local bar. This meant of course that they didn't see each other for most of the week, as Ben went to work before Coleanne came home, so I think they were happy to have some company for a few days!

We spent a very pleasant few days hanging out there, playing monopoly, visiting the hot springs (where we got ourselves a private thermal pool for half an hour), going through an Indiana Jones-inspired maze (which was very lame), playing mini-golf/crazy golf and cooking food that we never get to make in the van (because we don't have an oven!) like my famously good corned beef hash, which went down very well with Ben & Coleanne (Ben just before he went to work, Coleanne just after she came back).

Eventually, a couple of days ago, we moved on once again, driving down to Christchurch, which I've long been told is very like England. Well yesterday we spent most of the day walking around the town in the pouring rain, so I guess that reminded me somewhat of home, but I don't think we've quite 'got' Christchurch yet. We'll stay a few more days and see what we think.

*Matt Hale, Isaac's best friend, who is an apprentice mechanic
**Automobile Association, for the non-UK, non-Kiwis amongst you. It's a breakdown service.

Having some fun again

Other than spending our days picking grapes - we're onto the proper harvesting now - we have also spent the last couple of weekends trying to remind ourselves that we're here to travel and have fun.

The weekend before last we went to the Havelock Mussel Festival with Debbie, her mum and Nicola, her brother's girlfriend. Now, I think mussels are okay, but I was a bit shocked that it cost us $20 EACH to get in to what was, frankly, less exciting than the Oatlands County Fair back home. There were plenty of food stands and few stalls selling crafty-type stuff, but nowhere near enough free stuff to justify such an extortionate entrance fee. There was a mussel opening competition going on and a big stage where the highlight was the Topp Twins, who appear to be New Zealand's lesbian equivilent of a cross between French and Saunders and the Beverley Sisters. They yodel. And do comedy. But not at the same time. Fairly soon Isaac & I got bored and went to the nearby marina to look at big boats, which was way more fun and much cheaper. Then we headed off - throwing away the religious pamphletry that had been put under Jaffa's windscreen wiper - and went via Blenheim to St Arnaud and Lake Rotoiti, where the Power Boat Nationals were being held that weekend. We arrived in time to see the last race of the first day and Isaac warned me that I might be shocked as to how loud it would be. Yeah yeah. Then the boats started up and I nearly fell over! Never heard anything so loud in my life. After the race we left to look for a campsite for the night. As we went round the lake we spotted a Department of Conservation (DOC) campsite that appeared to be totally empty. It even had power, which is very unusual for the DOC campsites, which are usually pretty basic. We parked up and tested the power, which was still on! The loo block had showers, but they were cold, and we couldn't work out where to pay, so we decided to drive up a bit further to see if we could find anything more. Sure enough, a bit further up the road was a second half of the campsite, which was packed. The showers here were hot, so we each had a quick shower* and got back in the van. I'd spotted a sign saying that there was a fish and chip shop** open only on Fridays & Saturdays till 8pm so we went down to the town (one shop) and for $8.50 bought a feast for us to eat, then headed back to the uninhabited campsite, reasoning that if they wanted us to pay they'd come round and find us.

Sure enough around 7.30pm a woman arrived to tell us that this campsite was supposed to be closed, and that we could go up to the other one if we liked. I said we'd been up there but that it was very busy and could we not stay here? She looked around and then said "Yes alright, you weren't to know it was closed, we obviously forgot to chain it off, so you can stay here." So that is how, for $16 for a powered site, we got a whole campsite to ourselves. The next day we spent the day watching ridiculously fast and noisy boats race around the lake. We were sat right by one team's headquarters - Annhilator team - who did exactly what it says on the tin and annhilated the competition. They had money behind them alright, they even had their own crane to lift the boats in and out of the water, which was very cool to watch.

Then last weekend I decided to say to hell with the cost (that's what credit cards are for!) and took Isaac to Happy Valley to go quad bike trekking. We bluffed our way onto the 'Blue Hills Special' which is for experienced riders only, and had three hours racing up and down logging trails and in and out of mud holes. We got covered in mud, which is always the sign of a good day out. I'd paid extra to do the Skywire, a zipline or flying fox as they call them here, which is 1.6 kilometres long and reaches speeds of up to 100kph. It runs over a valley, the views are stunning and you normally get to ride it once forwards and once backwards, only we were trekking with someone who was friendly with the guide so we got to do it all twice! Well worth the money.

And this weekend? Well as I write, I am alone for the first time this in months. Isaac has left me. For a pig. Literally.

Ever since we got to Nelson and he found out that Debbie's dad and brothers are into pig hunting, he's been wanting to go along. Since it's been summer it's been too hot but as the mornings have cooled down, Debbie's brother Daniel has been true to his word and taken Isaac out, picking him up at 6am this morning. I have no idea how the day is going or if they've managed to catch anything, but he's been sent out with my camera so if there's anything to report, gentle reader, I shall of course do so.


Oh and I made new curtains for the van! A bargain at $2 a metre...





*When you're travelling you never know where your next shower is coming from, so you grab them while you can!
**Isaac's new addiction is fish and chips. They are oh-so-good and very abundant over here

French revolution

The annoying thing about not being able to blog very often is that by the time you do, the big news you have to tell is usually a bit stale and you've forgotten half the details. Still, I'll give it my best shot.

A couple of weeks ago, shortly after I wrote my last proper blog post in fact, we found ourselves staying at the vineyard we'd been picking at, the one with the manager called Atilla. We'd seen that they had a loo and a shower, as well as the kitchen we'd all been using for lunch, so we asked if it were possible to park our van there, just for the night and the German girls we were working with asked the same thing. Atilla said it was fine with him, but that we should check with the owner, Andy, who was also picking with us. I asked Andy, and he said he didn't have a problem with it as long as Atilla thought it would be fine. We went back to Atilla to double check and he said we were welcome to. He said that there was a French couple who worked on the vineyard and lived there, but that they were away on holiday with their parents. They were due back to work the next day however, so he assumed they'd be back at some point, but thought it would be fine. The German girls, Simone and Marie, went to the supermarket and bought us a feast - schnizel, potatoes and veggies - since we had a proper kitchen to use for once! So come 8.30pm, we were all in the kitchen preparing the food with plans to sit and watch a dvd on my laptop afterwards, when the French couple arrived back.

They walked into the kitchen and looked at us with shock. We all smiled and said hello - they did not return the smiles or the greetings - and I immediately explained that we'd been working there that day and were only staying for the one night. They asked us who had said we could stay and we said that Atilla and Andy had both agreed to it. They muttered a few words together in French (which I couldn't hear) and walked out, only to come back in looking confused and sour-faced a few minutes later. They asked, in very broken English, how long we'd be preparing food. We said we'd be done in around 20 minutes. They left again. We all sat around looking at each other, saying 'ooh, they don't seem to like us much do they?!' and decided that since the owner and manager had agreed to us being there, we had done nothing wrong and refused to feel bad about it. We finished making our food and sat at the table to eat. As we were just finishing, we were suddenly startled by the appearance of an older gentlemen - who I took to be the father of one of the French couple - at the window ,who immediately began screaming "SCHNELL SCHNELL! WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU!" And when I say screaming, I mean SCREAMING. We were all so shocked we had no idea what to do. At first, I'll admit, I thought it was a joke, but it quickly became apparent that it was not. He burst into the kitchen and carried on his tirade, in extremely broken English and German, shouting that this was their HOME and that we must LEAVE and so on, before he ran out again. A minute or so later, he returned with his wife and the French couple.

Now, I'm no longer a youngster, like the people I was with, and I will not tolerate that kind of behaviour towards me, particularly when it is completely unwarranted. I stood up and began to explain, calmly, that we were entitled to be there and that we had assumed that they were waiting for us to finish using the hob, so they could begin cooking their food, not that they were waiting for us to vacate the kitchen entirely. The older man began screaming again and...well I'll save you the verbal tennis* but it descended somewhat into a shouting match. From our side, however, the German girls remained silent and Isaac and I only raised our voices to be heard over the increasingly hysterical French contingent. The couple appeared to be trying to be fairly reasonable, the woman did say that it was not our fault and I agreed, saying that I thought that the behaviour of her father was completely unacceptable seeing as how we had done nothing wrong. When the father began screaming again - boy he liked to scream! - I turned to him with as fierce a look as I could muster and said 'YOU must stop speaking now as you are being very rude indeed!' He blustered for a moment and said "Why should I?" to which Isaac countered "Because you are ESCALATING this situation". He paused and turned to me, saying "You will not afraid me!" I fixed him with a furious glare and said "You will not afraid me either". For the rest of the conversation, when he tried to butt in, Isaac gave him the 'YOU. SHUT IT' signals with his hands, and the man did what he was told. Ha ha.

Eventually it was agreed that the French couple would take it up with Atilla and Andy in the morning - they were under the obviously erroneous impression that the facilities were theirs and theirs alone to use and were horrified that all the workers had been using 'their' kitchen at lunchtime. They said that they'd been there for three months- I said "So, in the last three months, no one else has stayed here?" No, they said, to which I replied "Well lucky you then, you only get us for one night!" They failed to see the funny side. Simone, Marie, Isaac and I decided we wanted no more to do with it, so (having already had our showers and eaten our food) we left, slightly afraid for what the crazy older man might do to us in the middle of the night if we did not...

*okay, it being a couple of weeks ago, I can't remember it word for word

gnikrow t'nsi sihT

Okay, firstly my computer is doing some thing REALLY weird just now. I've been trying to write this and it keeps putting everything I'm typing - get this - BACKWARDS. No idea why. I'm having to write this on another programme and cut and paste it over in order for the letters to be in the right order. Whisky Tango Foxtrot?!

Secondly, I have lots to tell you, I really do, mostly good and one little thing bad. But as, once again, we're rushing our internet time, it'll have to wait a little bit longer (The other day I uploaded pictures to Isaac's facebook and it took over 2 hours because it kept failing and cost us SIXTEEN DOLLARS in internet time. This bloody backwards country!) In the meantime I thought I'd just post a link to this, written by the ever-brilliant Clive James, because it amused me so greatly.

Apples vs. Grapes: The Showdown

As soon as we quit the apple picking, I texted my friend Debbie to let her know and to tell her we weren't sure what our plan B was. We talked about just starting our South Island tour a month or two ahead of schedule, putting it on the credit cards and arriving early in Wanaka and getting jobs ahead of the ski season to pay it back. Wasn't ideal but we had to think fast. However, the following day Debbie texted me to say that her mother had been talking to a friend of hers, Margaret, who wondered if she knew of anyone who wanted a few weeks work on a vineyard? We got in touch with Margaret and arranged to start work on the Monday, in two days time. Sorted!

We had no idea what we'd be doing on the vineyard, but we knew we'd be getting $13 per hour, so we'd be earning a heck of a lot more than we were getting at the orchard. We hoped the work wouldn't be as back breaking, or as depressing, as the apples but thought we'd give it a go anyway and if we could stick it out for 4 weeks, we'd at least have some money to travel with. When we arrived bright and early at 7.30am on the Monday we were set to work: leaf plucking. This involves pulling leaves off the vine around the grapes so the thinning and harvesting is easier. You have to work quickly, so no time for thoroughness, just grab handfuls of leaves, pull down, drop them and carry on moving. We literally laughed - we couldn't believe we were being paid more to do this than the nightmare that is apple picking! It was literally the easiest work I've ever done - boring, yes, but we chatted or listened to our iPods which made the day pass quickly. Come 10am it was down tools (well, not that we had tools,, save our hands) for morning tea and 12.30pm signalled lunch. No afternoon break so we finished at 3.45pm. On Thursday we turned up only to see Debbie arriving - she was doing a couple of weeks work with us while she waited for the hospital to get their act together and get her job sorted! It was nice to work with her and have a good natter. Finally on Friday we finished the leaf plucking (across two vineyards) and were handed our big boys toys: our snippers. We had been upgraded to thinning and we actually really enjoyed the going through and finding rotten or unripe grapes which we dropped on the floor. It involved your brain a bit (a BIT), so it was more fun than the leaf plucking and we chatted to all of the older ladies who did this year in year out while we went along. In order to remember the things we were looking for to chop off I kept chanting them to myself: bot; second set; pinky wings. Yeah, that's what I thought when I first heard of them too. Bot is a mould that grows on the grape due to dampness. Second set is the second growth of grapes that will never ripen in time. Pinky wings are little wings of second set grapes that spring off the main grape stem. Aha! Now you know, in case you ever decide to go into winemaking.

Come Monday, after a very relaxing weekend at our favourite freecamping spot at the Aniseed Valley (where we had the place almost completely to ourselves the whole weekend so we lay in to our hearts content - lovely) we went to yet another vineyard* to do some harvesting of Chardonnay grapes, plus some Pinot Noir to combine with the Chardonnay to make a rose. Our tractor driver (and, I think, manager) was called Atilla, which is quite the coolest name ever, and was a thorougly lovely guy. Originally from Austria but has lived here for 52 years now - still has an Austrian accent! Anyway, the work has been reasonably enjoyable, the people lovely, the money far better and the thought that we never have to pick apples again has made us very happy campers indeed. The early morning starts are a bit of a bugger it's true, and we don't have accommodation so we're doing a combination of freecamping and paying for campsites as our need for showers and laundry facilities dictate.

*the people we're working for are contractors so we move around a bit

Can you hear the sound of apples being shoved up arses?

Quick news flash: we quit the apple picking yesterday. We got our paychecks in the morning and, despite having worked really really hard the past week, we made a measly $282 each. That's £108 in case you're interested. And that's for 40 hours work. So that's £2.70 per hour. For the hardest work I've ever done. Bugger that. They even had the cheek to take $45 off us for 'picker damage', despite having told us every single day our bins were perfect. I got very cross. Then very upset. I talked to the bosses and decided we could do without that kind of crap in our lives so told them - as nicely as I could - to shove it.

We'll let you know what we decide to do next!

People of the World: Stop Eating Apples

After the relative luxury of the WWOOFing, where we did work hard but for only 4 hours a day, had dinner cooked for us and lived in our own cabin with bathroom, we always knew that the apple picking would be an adjustment. We're back to living in the van, which is lovely actually, but sharing cooking and bathroom facilities again which is a bit of pain (2 loos, 2 showers, 1 sink, 22 people). No internet of course. And then there's the actual picking.

Picking apples is hard. HARD. You have a bag strapped to your front into which you have to place each apple you pick - place, not drop, because otherwise they bruise. When they are full they weigh between 15 and 20kg, which means that your back and shoulders ache like hell by the end of the day. A full bag contains around 100 apples, which takes around 5-15 mins to fill, depending on how fast you go and how easy the apples are to reach and pick. It takes around 20 bags to fill a bin, and we get paid $30 per bin we fill. Every bin you pick has 25 apples taken from it at random, which are examined for 'picker damage', bruising, stem breaks, stem punctures, fingernail marks. A dollar is taken off your bin for every apple found to be damaged. Many of the apples you pick have insects living in and around them - spiders, earwigs, wasps - so you often find an unwelcome passenger as you put the apples in your bag. I find it's best not to look too hard. Each new variety* requires a different technique - e.g. twisting to remove or looping up and over the branch - and takes some getting used to before you're back up to speed. The trees are tall, so you need a ladder to reach the top half and you often find yourself teetering on tippy toes up at the very top of the ladder, holding on to a branch (hoping it doesn't break) and straining to reach all the apples you can. If you don't reach them all, you get bollocked - I got told 'You pick them ALL' by the tractor driver the other day, who threw my ladder against the tree and dismissed my protests that I couldn't reach them. 'Well I can reach them' he said, 'Oh great,' I replied 'well can you get them down for me then? It's just I'm not 6ft 3...' He then threw the apples at Isaac and myself stroppily. My arms are covered in scratches from reaching into the trees. The first bag I was given had a had plastic case which was a little too big for me, so it pressed on my thighs and made walking and climbing ladders both difficult and painful. I have a colourful array of bruises** to show for it, not including those I get whenever I accidentally kick or slip down the ladder. Fortunately, the bosses heard my complaints about how bruised I was and they bought me a new bag, brand new, which has a soft surround and is smaller, and therefore shorter, so it no longer hurts my legs. Now it just puts more strain on my shoulders instead. Hurray! Isaac and I did the maths on our first week's picking. If it takes 100 apples to fill a bag, and 20 bags to fill a bin, that's 2000 apples per bin. We picked 4 bins the first day, 5 bins the next two days and 6 bins per day for the last two. This means we picked 52,000 apples in our first week. It bloody feels like it too. My only hope now is to try to persuade the people of the world to stop eating apples, so demand will go down and we can get laid off with severance pay. Please tell all your friends.

But I guess it's not all bad. We get to be outside in the open air, now the fierce heat of summer has dissipated into a more pleasant warmth, and because we're working a fairly physical job it's even quite nice when it rains (lightly at least). We finish at 4.30pm, which gives us the rest of the afternoon and evening to relax, something we sorely need by then. We've made friends with some of the other pickers, most particularly with a Kiwi couple called Stu and Holly, who have done a fair bit of fruit picking in their time and know all the tips and tricks. They come over to our aisle at break time in the morning with a flask of coffee, and we sit on the grass and drink it feeling, for all of 10 minutes, like kings, and in the evening we often hang out with them in their cabin and chat. The bugs aren't too bad here. We get weekends off to lie in and explore the area - this weekend we went to a car show in Nelson where we watched people drive round in circles until their tyres blew up (I'm told by Isaac that this is what they're supposed to do, and that it's very cool, though I think it's a bit of a waste myself). And anytime in the rest of my life if someone tells me "You've never done a hard day's work in your whole life, have you?" I'll sure as hell have my answer ready for them...

*we've done Cox's Orange Pippins and Royal Gala so far - moving onto pears next week which is totally different and much harder, or so I'm led to believe by the people who know these things
** par for the course for me of course. Poor Isaac. He's never even SEEN me without being covered in bruises from skiing, climbing trees, carrying logs etc. He must think purple is the normal skin colour for English people.

Getting up to date

Right. I promised, here it is. I'll try to be a better blogger from now on.

So after the wedding*, Suzie, Simon & Joey were planning to take their big motorhome (that they'd borrowed from our mutual friends Jemma & Ron, who emigrated to NZ last year and now live in Wanaka) up to Golden Bay and the Abel Tasman, which is a big National Park just a little north of here. We decided, having really nothing better to do, we decided to tag along and spend a few days exploring the area. We went to Totaranui to do the walk to Anapai Beach, which is said to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. It's a 45 minute walk (not 20 mins, as we were led to believe), but it's definitely worth it, we pretty much had the whole beach to ourselves and it was incredible. Should you choose to visit however, be aware that the sandflies are abundant, the sand is very rough on the feet and the resident Oystercatchers, when nesting, can be liable to attack!

The following day was January 20th, Isaac's 20th birthday - hurray! - and we had booked to go on a Farewell Spit Eco Tour, which meant an early start. Farewell Spit is the longest sandspit in New Zealand - well I'd been to Spurn Point so I thought I'd better check out its Antipodean and somewhat longer rival - and the plan was to drive along the beach in a big 4x4 bus to visit the lighthouse at the end of the spit. We saw lots of fur seals lounging around in the beach and, during one of our stops, Isaac got a little bit close for my comfort to one of them. They are pretty big but can move fast if they want to! We passed by some huge sand dunes and stopped so we could play - apologies once more to Suzie for accidentally kicking sand in her face - and we ran up and down in the sand for ages. Eventually we headed back, but not before we'd stopped at the most northern tip of the South Island and watched more fur seals swimming lazily about in the beautifully clear water.

On the way back into Nelson we stopped at Pupu Springs**, said to be the clearest water in the world with a horizontal visibility of 63 metres and then, while Suzie, Simon & Joey headed back into town, Isaac & I drove to Mapua Leisure Park - a 'clothes optional' campsite*** - to set up camp for the night. We walked along the beach to the Smokehouse Cafe, which had been recommended to us by the Heaphys, and had a fantastic meal (I had the soup of the day and the smoked salmon, Isaac had seafood chowder and the peppered fillet steak). I told Isaac I was going to the loo but sneaked off to speak to the waitress, so shortly after she brought us ice cream with a candle in to celebrate Isaac's birthday. It wasn't the most exciting birthday ever, I have to admit, but at least we had a damn good feed (many thanks to Isaac's mum, Mary Lynn for that) and a very pleasant day.

We went back to the Heaphy's the next day but resolved to find work. We had decided that we fancied having a go at fruit picking, which is a typical Kiwi summer job, and as luck would have it, apple picking in Nelson begins in February. I did some research and found a few orchards advertising for pickers and did a ring around. The first couple I called were full but finally I spoke to someone from Dobbie's farm****who was happy to take us on, though it turns out the season wasn't due to begin until 25th Feb, so we needed to find something to do - and somewhere to stay, since we couldn't impose much longer on the Heaphy's - till then. A chance meeting with the girlfriend of the assistant manager of Kathmandu, an outdoor clothing and camping chain, led to us spending one day helping them with their stock take. It was easy work and a good bunch of people, and we (eventually) got $150 for our trouble, so that was nice. We didn't want to travel around too much because we were running pretty low on funds - the whole point of us stopping here to earn money was to make enough to afford to travel the South Island properly - so our next plan was to try WWOOFing. Willing Workers On Organic Farms is a scheme where you pay $40 per person or couple to join and receive a booklet, which details hundreds - nay thousands - of farms, smallholdings and households who hold an organic philosophy and take in travellers who are willing to give around 4 hrs work per day in return for a bed and food. The kind of work varies, it can be anything from weeding, building, working in a shop to babysitting, and it is usually detailed in the book the kind of thing you can expect. It seemed a good way to save money and try something a bit different so we paid our subs and went through the book to find our preferred places, based on their description. Isaac wanted to do some sort of bush work if possible, so we started with places with lots of land, and not anyone who said they were vegetarian, because as carnivores we thought we might prefer to be with our 'own kind'. We started calling a few places, but all of our first choices were full, so eventually I decided it would be easier (and cheaper) for me to fire off a few emails. This I did, giving our mobile number and within an hour I received a call back from a chap called Michael Keylock, who sounded English, who asked if Isaac was strong and if he knew how to use a chainsaw. "He's Canadian - of course he does!" was my reply and we arranged for us to come and stay from the following week until we started apple picking, as long as we all got on of course.

We had to leave the Heaphys by the weekend, since they had their other son, his wife and their two kids coming to stay and things were going to get crowded, so we a little north of Nelson to the Aniseed Valley to spend a few days free camping. We'd found the place a few days before while exploring with Debbie and it seemed a perfect spot to stay - it was right next to a beautiful river, had flushing toilets and running water on site, free BBQs, picnic tables and, though technically it said no camping on the entrance, we figured we weren't really camping since we didn't have a tent and anyway we had found a little hidden away part to park where we probably wouldn't be spotted if anyone came to look. Can you spot Jaffa? We spent four happy days here and every morning we went into the river to wash. Certainly the most picturesque bathroom I've ever had.

Finally it was time to go the the Keylock's house to begin our WWOOFing. We were both nervous about staying with strangers and doing as yet unknown work, but we had to give it a go. Fortunately Michael & Judy seemed nice enough - Mike was English and Judy grew up in Zambia but her mother, Katherine, who lives in her own house next door to Mike & Judy, was originally a Kiwi before moving to South Africa as a child. They had a daughter called Chloe who was moving to Wellington a couple of days after we arrived, which would mean we could move into the sleepout/cabin/bunky next to Mike's workshop. They had all emigrated to NZ four years ago from Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire. They live in an adobe mud brick house with grass on the roof, a nice big vegetable garden and three acres of land, including bush going up a steep hill behind the house, three sheep (which still have their long tails, which freaked Isaac out a bit as he'd never seen sheep with tails before and had no idea they were usually docked), a chicken that actually lives next door but has adopted them, and tried to live, grow and buy as organically as possible. They were also vegetarians. Damn!

The next day we were set to work. Unusually for Nelson it was raining hard and we set to work weeding the vegetable garden, which was, I have to admit, a bit miserable. It's back-breaking work and, given that we are not gardeners ourselves, I was a bit paranoid that I might pull up something vital. As my mind wandered during the mindless task, I began to come up with rules for rookie weeders: if it sits with its peers, it's probably supposed to be there. If you pull up something that looks like a vegetable, don't pull up any others. If it looks a bit like a vegetable you are familiar with, it probably is one. It seemed to get us through without too much damage and we ate our (admittedly delicious) vegetarian dinner with much gusto that evening.

As we were eating dinner we heard via a phone call that there was a bush fire going on in Nelson. Some friends of Mike & Judy's were having to evacuate their home so were coming out to stay at the house. We chatted to them about where the fire was and were horrified to discover that it was right where Ian & Debbie were staying with Debbie's brother Daniel. We had no mobile phone reception at the Keylocks so we decided to hop in the car, drive down to see what we could see of the fire and call them to check they were okay. This we did, and while we watched the fire raging on the hill, we spoke to Debbie who said they were fine, that the helicopters dumping water on the fire seemed to have it under control, and they were preparing to evacuate if necessary but thought they'd be okay. We hung up and watched for a while as the helicopters flew back and forth. Then, suddenly, they all disappeared and the fire started raging bigger than ever. Debbie called me back and sounded panicked as she said the firemen were leaving for the night, but that the fire was closer than ever and could we come and help them? Of course we rushed round and discovered that the fire department were indeed leaving, with a promise that the rural/volunteer fire department would take over. They told Daniel to hose down their garden and to call them again if the fire reached their house! We frantically hosed down the garden, house, deck and flooded the gutters while they prepared the house for evacuation and gave their dogs to family to look after. All the while we could see the fire raging just over the hill from the house, sometimes dying down a bit, sometimes flaring up again. Finally, we took a walk up the hill to see how far it had come. It was pretty close, and still raging, but it seemed the rural fire department had arrived and were tackling the fire at the source, and having more luck than the 'paid' fire department. Within the next hour or so they had put the upper part of the fire out, so the danger for Ian & Debbie had passed. We went home to bed, glad to know they were all safe and sound.

We've now been here at the Keylocks for nearly 3 weeks. During this time we have had a variety of tasks to do - we've built a new raised veg bed for their paddock; composted, mulched and dug over a whole heap of raised beds; planted out leeks and onions grown from seed in four of the beds; transplanted a heap of salvia, roses & irises; tied garlic into bunches; named the chicken Mrs Warburton and Isaac built her a makeshift coop; helped move stones and gravel from around the back of the house in readiness for their new deck being laid; helped build the frame for the deck; baked bread and prepared some meals. But the task we've enjoyed the most, and spent most time on, is one that Mike didn't initially think we'd get done. The bushland going up the hill was thick with bramble and gorse, so it was impenetrable. Mike said he eventually wanted to make a wide path going up the centre, drop a bunch of the eucalyptus trees, and get back to native bush. We managed to create a big clearing in only a few short days, hacking away at the bramble and gorse and bringing it back to dirt. Mike dropped 6 trees and we limbed them, cut them up, stacked them and Isaac split a pile into firewood. We also went up to the very top of the hill, which involved following the sheep's path, and crawling on hands and knees under gorse bushes, to clear it and make it accessible for future WWOOFers to continue our work. I have learnt to use a machete, an axe and a chainsaw, and found to my immense surprise that I loved using them; I have found the work on the bush enormously satisfying. I'll be sorry to leave here, not least of all because we have had our own little space (and bathroom!), but also because I feel like we've become part of the family. I've learnt so much being here and shall miss rolling out of bed to check my emails (thank god for internet access while we've been here!), having a shower in our own bathroom and then going over to the main house to make a cup of tea and toast, then heading out to put in some hard manual labour. Mike is always laughing and Judy has made a point of finding out things we liked and going out and buying them for us (Hokey Pokey and Boysenberry Ripple ice cream, Lurpack butter, blue cheese, chocolate, cookies). Katherine makes the best meringues in the world and today she taught me how to make them, and we feasted on them for dessert, with ice cream naturally after the home made pizza we had in the outdoor adobe mud brick pizza oven. I'm even going to miss Judy's strange, random stories which have no beginning, middle or end, and her habit of always asking "What's your favourite...[insert, well, anything you can think of - meal your mother used to make, thing to do outdoors, type of movie]?" I crocheted a hat each for Judy & Mike as a thank you present, which they seemed to like very much!

So tomorrow we leave for the orchard which will, all being well, become our home for the next couple of months. I'm nervous about changing again, going back to sharing facilities and living in the van, and whether or not we'll take to the work. Everyone we talk to has an opinion - because it's a big industry here everyone has done it, or knows someone who has, and either loved it or hated it. I reckon that after the kind of manual labour we've been doing here, we'll find it perfectly manageable physically, if a bit dull. Personally, I don't mind mindless repetitive manual tasks but we'll see whether that still stands after 10 weeks! My main concern is trying to get Isaac out of bed in the morning; we've been starting later and later here...not sure what time we'll have to start apple picking in the mornings but if we have to get up early, then I'm sure we will. Hear that Isaac?!

I doubt we'll have internet access there but I'll try to keep on top of the blogging this time, mainly so Jude won't have cause to nag me... ;-)

*which is the title of one of my favourite films incidentally.
**okay, YOU try to say that without laughing. It's beyond me.
***during the months of Feb & March only of course, and this was still January remember
****which, given we've spent much of the past month or two listening to the audio books of Harry Potter (read by the unsurpassed Stephen Fry), seemed like fate to me

A journey south and a wedding

So finally I have a chance to catch up a bit. Sorry about that.

We took the ferry from Wellington to Picton on 11th Jan (which, I've just realised, is over a month ago, so that makes me feel very ashamed I've not blogged about it yet) at the crack of dawn. A slight lack of preparation on my part (which is unlike me) meant that we got a bit lost finding the ferry terminal and ended up driving about 5km past where we needed to be, but arrived at the ferry with whole minutes to spare. I knew from good ol' facebook that my friend Denise, quite by coincidence, was booked on the same ferry as us so I kept my eyes peeled for her as soon as we arrived on board and parked Jaffa up among the much larger and flasher motorhomes, amid the smell of diesel. The journey takes around 3 hrs and the boat was very similar, if a little smaller, than the one we used to take over to Denmark on holiday. It has a bar, a cafe, a 'posh' restaurant, even a cinema! But we didn't want to waste our time sat in the dark when we knew we were arriving on the South Island past the Marlborough Sounds, famous for their beauty. After indulging in a huge breakfast, we headed to the stern of the boat to find Denise sitting in the bar with some people she knew from the coach tour she'd been on. It was great to catch up, though Isaac took some time out to see the sights while we nattered on.

Eventually we arrived in Picton, where Ian & Debbie had come to pick Denise up. After a nice lunch and a lovely catch up with them, they headed straight back to Nelson while we took the scenic route - and in NZ this tends to be very scenic - on the Queen Charlotte's Track around the Marlborough Sounds. We drove up as far as Okiwi Bay, where we stopped at a campsite for the night, before winding our way leisurely into Nelson the following day.

We liked Nelson immediately, which was just as well, seeing as we'd planned to make it our home for the next few months! It's not a huge town but big enough, and seems to have everything you might need. We went to the home of some of Debbie & Ian's friends, Debbie & Brian Heaphy, who had offered to let us park our van in the driveway of their parents' farm for a while. They are a lovely family who have around 50 sheep, 20 chickens, a handful of ducks and ducklings, a pig (they had had two pigs till Christmas ahem) and a gorgeous dog. I'm not usually fond of dogs at all, but she was a real sweetie, very well trained, which was probably due to the fact that she was there to help with the sheep, though Brian & Debbie's kids, Connor & Luke seemed to be very well trained too, so maybe it was just the way of things in that family...

A few days later - during which time I'd been ill with some sort of viral infection - we went on a fishing trip with Ian as a pre-cursor to his stag do. As is so often the case, I was rather outnumbered by men (including Brian Heaphy and Simon, my friend Suzie's ex-husband, who was out there for the wedding with Suzie and their son Joey*) but I had been really looking forward to doing some sea fishing and hoped that we'd have more luck than when we went on The Rock cruise. A huge quantity of beer had been brought aboard and Isaac got stuck in along with all the other blokes. Once we got out to the Marlborough Sounds, up around French Pass, we found each grabbed a rod and tried out luck using squid as bait. Almost immediately the first fish was caught, to huge acclaim, and one by one each of the gang raised their rods to find one or two blue cod sitting on there....all except Isaac and I that is. We were fishing in the same spot as the others, using the same rods, the same bait and the same technique, but for some reason the buggers just avoided our rods like the plague! A couple of hours went by, the boat moving on to 3 different spots, and we still hadn't caught a thing, despite Simon next to us having caught around 17 fish by now. Isaac wasn't speaking to anyone and I threatened to disembowel the next person who asked me if I had definitely let out enough line, or if I knew how to strike when I felt a bite. Then, finally, around 3 hours in to the trip, joy! Finally Isaac raised his line to find a blue cod and shortly thereafter, so did I. Our dry spell was broken and during the rest of the day we each caught, if not anything like as many as old 'crack bait' Simon, a respectable haul nonetheless. Phew!

Of course by now, Isaac had had plenty of beers to make up for the ridiculously hot weather. I did try to tell him to pace himself a bit, given that he'd started at 8am, that the sun was beating down and he still had the stag do to attend that night, but boys know best, don't they? The other lads on the trip had a few years, and thus a few drinking years, on Isaac, who is rather slight of frame and light of weight, but he seemed determined to try to keep up. Nevertheless, as I predicted, when we began our journey back to shore, Isaac decided to take a little, ahem, nap.


We arrived back at the Heaphy's, which was where the stag party was starting proceedings. I was getting ready for the hen do but not feeling too good by this point, on which I blamed a combination of mild sunstroke and the left over of my virus. I left Isaac telling me he was going to have a bit of a nap before the stag do started and drove with Debbie Heaphy to the hen do around 10 mins up the road. After an hour or two I decided that I was not really feeling up to the high jinks involved so I decided a refreshing walk home and early to bed would be in order.

When I got back to the Heaphy's, I suddenly panicked. Brian had told Debbie that under no circumstances should the hen party crash the stag do and I worried that if he saw me, he'd think that I was there to spy on them, or that I'd brought all the girls with me, and get angry. However, I was also worried that if I just sneaked into the van, that if Debbie Heaphy spoke to Brian or came home saying I'd left early, that Isaac would worry that I'd not made it back, so I did the only thing I could do and hid in a bush in the garden, trying to spot Isaac and call him over. Eventually, after around 10 mins and feeling not a little bit silly, I spotted Isaac wondering on the periphery. "Isaac!" I tried to both shout and whisper at the same time. He saw me and came over, looking puzzled. I explained the situation and that I was planning to go to bed in the van, and he looked relieved. As it turns out he'd drunk nothing but water since returning home from fishing, and had been throwing up at regular intervals behind the van. I blamed the sunstroke ;-) We both sneaked away from the stag do, who were all preparing to go into town to visit a few bars and a rather dodgy-looking strip club, and cuddled up together in bed with a ton of drugs instead.

Two days later we found ourselves getting dolled up (traveller stylee, which basically means fairly casual but not jeans) and waiting with Brian, Debbie & their two boys for a big red (ex-London) double decker bus to pick us up for the wedding. Suzie, Simon, Joey & Denise were already on board. Isaac, of course, had never been on a double decker before, so was as excited as the kids, but I was more excited to see all the old Travelcard and Vodaphone advertising billboards inside! The weather was overcast but dry, but all the talk was of the rain predicted. Nelson, famous for having the most sun hours in NZ, had had no rain for over 2 months by now, so we were sure it would be fine for the wedding. We arrived at The Gardens of the World along with everyone and waited for Debbie to arrive, looking gorgeous in her hourglass dress. As she and her parents walked down the, for want of a better word, aisle, her mother, clearly relieved, made a remark about the lack of rain - BIG mistake. Naturally, as soon as the ceremony started it begin bucketing down and, though Isaac & I stood, silently getting drenched and pretending not to have noticed, we eventually turned round to find that everyone else had legged it under the trees, seeking some sort of shelter. Though the ceremony continued under the cover of a couple of huge umbrellas, eventually the celebrant and the bride & groom retreated to a small gazebo, where the promised readings were abandoned with promises to read them at the reception, and the required parts of the ceremony were completed out of earshot of us. Ian & Debbie had been together for 18 years and planning the wedding for the past six, but Sod's Law says she had to choose the one day in 'Sunny' Nelson it pissed down! Such a shame, but made a good story at least. The bus took us back early to the reception where a much anticipated feast awaited us; everything on the table, wild boar, venison, ham, paua, whitebait patties, crayfish and steamed hoki fish, had been caught or harvested by Debbie's family. We were on a table with Debbie & Brian, their friends Dan & Sarah who we'd met and liked enormously, and Emma (one of my former midwifery colleagues from Queen Charlotte's) and her husband Mick. We had a good night - I got one of Ian's aunts to approach Isaac and offer him work as a male stripper, which he almost bought - and headed home, now dried off, shortly after midnight.

Hope that makes up somewhat for my blogging slovenliness, and I shall try to bring us completely up to date as soon as possible, I promise.

*yes, ex-husband. She has a boyfriend back home, also conveniently called Simon, but was travelling with (old) Simon so he could spend time with Joey. They are definitely contenders for the title of most odd, new-age family unit, but it works for them, which is all that matters...