Managing a Backpackers in the Catlins...simply by chance!

So we wee WWOOFing in the Catlin's for 2 months, which is a long time to sum up in one blogpost, but I'm going to try. It will basically just contain the important parts of our experiences there.

So we left Dunedin and arrived at our new hosts house, in Surat Bay, North Catlins, around the 6th March. They were Ester (from the Philippines, 55) and Jack an 80 yr old Kiwi, who were looking for people to help out with a lodge they had just purchased. They also owned two self-contained units as a Bed and Breakfast, so we also helped out with cleaning or checking in guests for those occasionally. Little did we know that this lodge would be a busy backpackers right beside the sea, which they wanted us to manage full-time. We only learnt this upon arrival! We were rather excited but also a little nervous as we didn't really know much about how a Backpackers is run.

Our first few days were just settling in and working with the other French WWOOFer Laurent, we also went down to Hina Hina (a bay across from Surat Bay), where we went Cockling (in our area you could fish for Cockles, Mussels and Paua - a NZ only Shellfish, kind of an Abalone). We also saw plenty of Sea-Lions on our walks along the bay - Surat Bay is a Sea-Lion haul-up beach, along with Cannibal Bay, the next beach down. You can see Sea-Lions everywhere, there is a colony of around 20 of them. They will just be lying on the beach covered in sand and you'd almost trip over them! But they are super easy-going, they just look at you; 'oh there goes another human', and plop back down to sleep and cover themselves in more sand. The only time they would get territorial is if they have a pup with them or you block their path to the sea, then, they can run at you at terrifying speeds!

On the 10th March was the handover with the old owners, to Jack and Ester. The old owners we basically eventually found out, were assholes. A French couple who had come from New Caledonia and we eventually found out, after all the local community did for them to try and help them to stay, had basically been kicked out of the country (unable to get permanent visas) and we realised after taking over the lodge from all the letters, that they owed thousands of dollars in debt and hadn't paid their taxes properly!!

The day Ester and Jack were taking over, was also they day they were going on a 4-day holiday!! So not only did we have to take over a new business which we didn't know much about, we had to do it without the owners and on the worst day weather-wise! We were supposed to go and view and learn about the Lodge a few days before the takeover but the old owners Sylvianne and Christian wouldn't let any of us enter until 'they said' (Jack and Ester had to get a lawyer to negotiate things because they were being that difficult). So we ended up doing a quick and very brief session the day before, where Christian (who didn't speak much english after 7 years being in the country), basically insulted Jack, wouldn't let him see where the important things like the electrics board, gas, and water tanks were etc, and then came in and almost had a fight with Pierrick while his wife was teaching us the computer system (Pierrick held himself back and just ignored him but Christian put his wife in tears over it).

So the day we took over we had severe gale-force winds, rain and the electricity went down for about 4 hours! So we had to take over, just as check-in started, without really knowing what was going on, while Jack and Ester had to rush around before their flight left to Auckland in 4 hours. Then just before they left, the electricity went down, so we had customers which weren't happy, couldn't cook, there was no wifi and no lights....ahhhhh! Apparently the power went down across half of the south island but it was back up and running before night hit thank god!

That weekend was a busy weekend and we managed to deal with it ok, we basically taught ourselves everything and managed to keep the place in one piece until Ester and Jack arrived back. We moved into the lodge, so we had our own double room there with sea-views - lush, and then we would just go to the house every evening for dinner. Laurent was around to help us with the cleaning in the morning and then we got to work on things around the place like cleaning, making sure the kitchens were equipped, putting up signs, labelling cupboards, moving furniture, adding furniture, gardening (the garden was a mess!), basically making the place ten times better than it had been left!

Once Jack and Ester came back we got to work on the projects they had in mind, like moving reception from the tiny cupboard, and putting it back into the old reception area which they had used as an illegal living space (it had never been cleared by the council). Moving the linen into the actual linen cupboard rather than the laundry room, we got the electrician and plumbers out to take a look at things - everything was illegal and dangerous basically! We got new appliances, new matresses, new beds; changed the 7 bed dorm into an 8 bed dorm and eventually the 3-bed dorm into a family room for 5 people. There was so much to do it kept us all very busy!

And there will still be lots to do over the coming months. Jack wants to get planning permission to convert the old illegal living space next door to reception into a self contained unit for future wwoofers/managers. Make the outside sheds more stable so he can move all his tools into it. They want to eventually convert our double room into a 6-bed dorm and with our input, we suggested they will need to do some renovating - such as more bathrooms (as currently there is definitely not enough for the amount of people in high season), they needed to replace the slated windows with plane glass to stop the drafts, they also need to get more heaters, insulate the place and eventually double-glaze all the windows of the lodge. There is alot to do but they just don't have the money to do it all this winter so it may take a couple of years, but they trusted us to take our knowledge of other backpackers on board to help renovate and update it. It was almost as they they had started this hostel from scratch, we helped them build everything - the foundations of the business! All the admin side, all the advertising, helping to get reviews up, creating social media pages, investing in customer needs, adding services (like in summer, having a little shop with basic food and toiletry items as the nearest shop is a 5min drive away in Owaka), setting up the booking system, installing a hotel management system and channel manager, adding us to Booking.com, all things we had never done before but we took the initiative and just got on with it and trained ourselves up and learnt as we went!

In the end, we knew more about the business than Ester and Jack, and so we suggested they should live in it over winter while its quieter, so they would know the priorities and understand the daily running of it. As, they were quite stubborn people and insisted what they thought were priorities (like getting rid of a perfectly good couch because it looked 'ugly' to them, or getting rid of the perfectly good linen for all new things - which would be money wasted) were what needed to be done, and we knew they weren't priorities yet, that there were much bigger things to think about than wasting money when they needed to save money for the bigger projects. So we clashed (not argumentatively) but we had to try and try and try to drum into them what they should be doing, and luckily, when Jack's son and daughter came to visit, they also sat them down as they were concerned like we were, and drummed into them that we were right in everything we were saying. So they eventually began to realise.

It was just hard as Ester was a full-time nurse who worked only night shifts, they had their own B&B to run, plus the lodge to think about so they didn't really have their heads in the right place, plus they were taking over a very risky and very different business to their current one - 23-32 beds in a lodge is very different to two units! Plus, they didn't realise (and im not sure they still do yet to be honest), that their main customers were backpackers, not older richer people. They need to really understand the business better, so I really hope they do this winter before summer hits. Also, towards the end Ester was adament she was going to control reception herself...but we were trying to tell her you just can't, especially when your working nights and needing to sleep in the day, you need people there permanently for the emails, cleaning, checking in, phone calls etc...so I really hope this winter teaches them that its not the same as owning two self-contained units! Bless them, they were so lovely but just a little naive about what they had bought.

When we had a frank discussion with them, we got the feeling they had gone into it as though they were buying their dream home...not a business and they hadn't budgeted for what it would need done to it and that one day, especially in the summer, they would need to employ someone permanently as you can't have wwoofers running it every 1-2 months, it needed stability. Plus, unfortunately, even though we are very trusting, some other people wouldn't be. It was a business that was mainly taking cash, and in the first week alone when they were on holiday we had almost $2000 in cash in our keeping - if we hadn't have been trust-worthy people, we could have taken it and run! And thats also what Jack's family are worried about with having WWOOFers come and go, they are very trusting people but they just need that one person who's not and their business will fall because of it. They need to employ someone full-time even if just for the 6 months of summer, and then run the business themselves in winter.

But enough about all that! So, Laurent left just before Easter and then we had a week before the next WWOOFers, Camille and William (also french) came. In that time we had a full lodge hire over Easter - a group of friends and their families came to stay, it was an annual tradition to go on holiday in around NZ - they came with boats, instruments (most of them were Irish married to Kiwi's) loved a good sing-song and a drink! It was nice to see the place so lively! During those 5 days we only really had to clean the bathrooms and kitchens. So the rest of the day we had off and so we went sight-seeing a few times. Jack and Ester lent us one of their cars so we went out with that sometimes, but that weekend we planned on going down to the south Catlins, and only managed to get to Curio Bay (where we by chance happened to see our mate Becci from Dunedin again on a day out with her family!)

As, on our way to Slope Point, we had a wee little car accident. When I say wee, I mean, we were fine, but the car wasn't! It was on a gravel road, and basically we lost control of the car, it swerved towards a concrete pole, but Pierrick managed to steer it away, but consequently into a ditch...full of muddy water, on an area where the tide came in pretty high sometimes, in the middle of nowhere! The car landed, on it's side, so we were pretty panicked as at first we were stuck and couldn't get out. Luckily there were people behind us when it happened and they had all stopped and called the emergency services and eventually got us out. We had to wait for the fire engine and police to come out. Luckily they managed to tow the car out of the ditch and get it working again, but unfortunately when Ester went to get it road worthy again a few days later, she got told it would have to be written off as the suspension was too badly damaged! Grrr. So $300 excess later, plus a police fine of $150 (they have to fine you out here for an accident to make it worth their while being called out) it was a pretty costly crash! After the crash the volunteer firemen gave us a lift back to their house where we waited for Ester and Jack to come to take the car back. They were lovely and gave us coffee and chocolate as it was Easter Sunday. The next day we spent the whole day helping to clean the mud out of the car - it stank! It was a nasty job but it was the least we could do to say sorry. They were both so nice about it though and were more concerned about us!

The next month was spent with the new WWOOFers Camille and William, where they helped with various projects while we continued to run the backpackers. We did some good dinners like crepes and other french dishes. I started putting the great kitchen in the backpackers to use by doing alot of baking french baguettes, pizza's cookies etc - I forgot how much I missed baking! We did a bit more local sight-seeing, going for walks and hikes. We had Ivanna and Adrian come to stay with us for a night so we did some sight-seeing with them and had a great catchup and movie night. And we continued to better the backpackers, making slow but steady progress and enjoyed meeting the people who came through and getting some good reviews on TripAdvisor. One couple loved the place so much they stayed for 8 days!! I really would love to see it when it's all finished and looking it's best.

Camille and William left after a month - they stayed longer than intended as they had to spend $2000 getting their car fixed. And we spent the next week on our own, finishing up our stay with them. 3 weeks had turned into 2 months and we really had to leave to find paid work - we would have loved to have stayed but they couldn't afford to pay us. So we decided to continue and finish the rest of our Stray Pass as we had enough money to, then we would need to settle somewhere and find work until our visa ended. Ester and Jack had invited us back in the summer to pay us, which we may well come back and do but it would mean extending our visas, so until they are 100% sure they need us we won't plan anything just yet as for me its a good $500 for an extra year as I have to get a medical etc.

We managed to find Jack and Ester an experienced couple to come help them for another month and so we stayed until they arrived so we could give them some quick training. We also managed to secure (hopefully it stays that way), some work for accommodation in Dunedin, where we will be night managers in a hostel (2 hours a day in the evening each), to cover our accommodation, internet and laundry while we work, so that when we do find work, we don't have those expense to pay out for - we can save more! It also entitles us to work during the day - so hopefully no restaurant or bar work - yay! I don't mind a cafe but I really didn't want to go into hospo again. So although it means working and then working in our evenings, it's only light reception work and it means we can save more, so it will benefit us in the long run. So I guess after our two weeks of travel, Dunedin is our city of choice for work - wooo! Awesome city! I'm actually looking forward to living and working in a city for once, (as my jobs in Australia were in the middle of nowhere) plus it means me and Pierrick may actually have a normal relationship for the first time in our relationship as we will be working separate jobs.

So, I will update you on our travels soon, in the meantime, enjoy the pictures on Facebook (and instagram). Our first destination was Invercargill, then Queenstown and Mount Cook. We are now in Lake Tekapo, then on to Rangitata, Christchurch and ending in Kaikoura. Then we will slowly make our way down to Dunedin where we will start the next chapter of the NZ Working Holiday...the work part... :-(

Dunedin (Dunnerz) - student city and catching up with Becci!

So onwards to Dunedin. Dunedin would you know, is actually one of the first places settled in the South Island. It was also where the Scots landed, hence it's name Dunedin (the old name for Edinburgh). Dun = hill, so Edin-on-the-hill. Pretty good eh? It's still got alot of Scottish heritage, seen in the buildings and even the people and their accents. Everyone refers to people in Dunedin as crazy, with very rough accents (they roll their r's apparently), obviously descending from the Scottish accent. You can even see the Scottish genes in the locals (lots of ginger freckly people, and dark curly hair with freckles and pale skin colour).

Dunedin is a unique city and I would actually say it's my favourite 'city' in New Zealand so far. At only roughly 120,000 people, it's a small city on European terms but big for New Zealand, however it still had that 'South Island small-town-city' feel, nice and quiet! It felt like Bangor with it's hilly roads, old buildings and university lifestyle and it really took me back to the good old student days! There's even two beaches, St Kilda and Brighton beach and it has a really cool arty-scene, lots of street art - a bit like Melbourne in Australia. It's also home to New Zealands first and biggest University, The University of Otago, and the first and oldest Church, plus a super cute Train station!

We were staying at a super nice hostel, Geeky Gecko, which became our home for the 5 days we were there. The first thing we did when we arrived, went shopping as A. there was the 1st PAK'N'SAVE supermarket we'd seen on the South Island, and B. with the start of Autumn hitting pretty suddenly in temperature, we needed to buy some actual winter clothes and a coat! So I went long-sleeve top, leggings, gloves, coat and boots mad at Warehouse (I bought a bargain winter coat for only $12 at a 2nd hand clothing store - yay for being a student town!). We also decided to treat ourselves to Moules Frites Thai Curry as we had found a pak'n'save which is the cheapest place for Mussels.

Over our time there we decided to do some sight-seeing. We went and checked-out and walked up the Worlds Steepest Street, Baldwin Street, we walked through the beautiful Botanical Gardens and then walked back to town via the University. Which is very much like Bangor/Cambridge in it's architecture. We also walked via the student area which brought back so many memories seeing all the trashy houses with sofas outside and music blaring from inside, rubbish strewn around and alcohol bottles overflowing the bins. It was freshers week here that week so it was pumping with students!

We also checked out the Octagon; the centre of town, went on our own street art tour, checked out the oldest church, and just enjoyed spending our time chilling around town in parks. We also checked out the free museum there which was actually very interesting. They also have a Cadbury's factory but we decided not to pay $25 each for a tour. Our last day we met with Becci, our friend from Oz, and had a wonderful few hours catching up, especially as she had recently married her Nepalese fiance, and enjoyed hearing about her life living in Nepal. She was back for a while to escape life over there for a bit as it had become intense having to live with his parents with the culture and caste difference, and plus her sister was due to make her an auntie again so a good excuse for family time. We actually also met her again while we were touring the Catlins during our current WWOOFing placement, just randomly at Curio Bay...hang-on I know that girl, ah it's Becci! So weird but so cool!

Then it was time to venture off to another great HelpX/WWOOFing experience in Surat Bay,  the Catlins, with Jack and Ester, where we are currently managing a Hostel...pretty cool experience and great for future job prospects! More about that soon in my next blog!

Majestic Milford Sound and catching up with friends in Te Anau!

So we left Queenstown on the Stray Bus at the crack of dawn...it was still dark at 7am! The good thing was that as we were leaving Queenstown we got to see a magnificent sunrise over The Remarkables (a quite remarkable mountain range surrounding Queenstown).

It took us roughly 3 hours to reach Milford sound. We stopped on the way in Te Anau, (pronounced Tay-Arnew) where we tried to figure out how we were going to get to our boat cruise the next day. Basically, Stray only spend one night in Milford Sound at the off-the-beaten track location of Gunn's Camp. Today's weather forecast was rain, and so we decided to extend our stay to two nights, so that we could do our boat cruise the next day in the sunshine. However, we didn't realise Gunn's Camp is actually a good half hours drive from Milford sound, with no public buses on route, and only hitchhiking available to use (with a good hours walk to the main road) we realised we'd screwed up!

So. What we had decided after being told all this by the company of the boat cruise, was that maybe we could see when we get there, if there was availability to change to today with our Stray bus group at 3pm. The weather wasn't looking great but it was basically almost our only option, other than paying $120 for a round trip with a local pickup service. So we hoped and prayed on the hours journey from Te Anau to Milford sound that A. there would be space and B. the weather would clear up a little!

We stopped on the way once we got to Fiordland National Park for picture spots. Such as the mirror lake, and just before the tunnel heading through the mountain. Fiordland National Park is amazing, just huge towering peaks, some snow-capped, and loads of waterfalls (at least the rain was good for something). The thing is is that the west coast of New Zealand on the South Island and Fiordland National Park, is the wettest area ever, it's actually been dubbed the wettest place on earth (move over UK). Rainfall can reach 250 mm (10 in) during a span of 24 hours. On the forecasts all you ever see is maybe one or two days of sunshine, the rest is rain, so you have to be very lucky to see the sun! However, everyone we'd heard who'd done it in the rain, said that it was even more beautiful, because of the HUGE waterfalls it created through the sound.

Well, we definitely saw those, both driving through the National park and in Milford Sound itself. There were waterfalls everywhere! However, we were suuuuuuuper lucky...as when we arrived at the boat check-in, A. there was space and we only had to pay $10 for the price difference and B. the sun decided to burn through some of that cloud, and the rain had stopped - so we ended up having the best of both worlds; the joys of the waterfalls and a little blue sky! Woop! We unfortunately weren't able to see the top of Mitre Peak (the tall famous mountain at the entrance to Milford Sound), but I guess you can't be greedy when luck strikes. So we boarded our boat and went on our hour and a half cruise around the huuuuuge Milford Sound.

Milford Sound (also called Piopiotahi) is a Fiord (wrongly labelled a Sound), within Fiordland National Park and the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage site. Carved by glaciers during the ice age, it has been judged the world's top travel destination and labelled the '8th wonder of the world'. There are peaks up to 1200metres, some snowcapped, and there are many waterfalls. Seals and Dolphins (even Whales) can often be spotted - and we were lucky enough to spot a pod of Dolphins and some Seals lounging on the rocks in the sun. There is one waterfall, Lady Bowen Falls, which is actually 3 times higher than Niagara Falls, but due to the optical illusion presented by the huge peaks surrounding it, actually looks way smaller than it is. But boy is it powerful - we got very wet underneath it on our boat deck! The tour took us all around the Fiord on both sides and also out to the opening of the ocean where we saw the Dolphins. And thankfully the sun stayed out for the full hour and a half. We got some stunning pictures and even a little burnt.

Then we headed back on the Stray bus and towards Gunn's Camp, where we would stay for two nights, but there was no phone signal and no wifi, and limited electricity (from 6pm-10pm). So it was going to be a secluded couple of nights. But I was looking forward to it, time to catch up on some reading. We did a river walk the next day, had good Pasta, tried a bush walk but it got too slippery so we turned back, and then played some games, like battleship, trivial persuit etc, talked to people (yes we actually talked rather than everyone sitting on their phones) to bide away our day of rest. It was like going back to the old days when internet and phones didn't rule your life and it was great, so refreshing. The couple who owned the camp were also very lovely and had made the place very unique.

On the Monday we hopped off the Stray Bus in Te Anau for two nights where we did a few walks around the lake and ate amazing Pies at Miles Better Pies (the best pie I have ever tasted!) we had one a day while we were there. They had Thai curry, Satay Chicken, Venison, steak and bacon, steak and cheese, lamb and mint, you name it they had it; all freshly baked! We also met our friend from Sweden, Ivana, and her boyfriend Adrian while we were there, as they were working in a hotel there for the next couple of months. So we had a great catch up which was lovely and vowed we'd see each other again when they finished work. And in fact they are coming to stay with us at our hostel in the Catlin's next week!

Our next stop was Dunedin which we couldn't wait for! It was a whim decision as we'd been contacted on HelpX for a WWOOFing spot in the Catlins and had wanted to go to Steward Island before but the ferry was too expensive. So instead we decided to head to Dunedin as it was only an hour from the Catlins. So we booked our 4 nights there, and took the Intercity from Te Anau (we were going to use Stray but it meant spending a night in Invercargill and there was nothing to do there so we thought we'd save money). We'd heard lots about Dunedin and couldn't wait to go there...plus we'd contacted an old Kiwi friend from Australia (currently living in Nepal, but was from Dunedin) and found out she was actually HOME, so we were going to get to see her while we were there - amazing! Dunedin was awesome...more about that in the next blog.

Queenstown; we came, we conquered - it destroyed!

So I’ve not blogged in a while which is bad I know, but we’ve been super busy managing a hostel! So I’ll allow myself this one glitch!

So since I last blogged we visited Queenstown, adventure capital of New Zealand, also home to New Zealand’s best burger joint – FergBerger! We were pretty excited as we had our Canyon Swing booked for the 25^th February. We hopped on the Stray bus from Cromwell, stopping off at the AJ Hackett Bungy, Karawau Bridge jump – which is where the Bungy Jump was first invented by a Kiwi, AJ Hackett, and we watched some people jump. I tell you though, watching people do it was the first time in my life I’ve ever wanted to do a jump. It looked so cool, but I’m still not sure I could do one, unless I did a tandem one and someone forced me to go with them, or perhaps the Queenstown ledge bungy where you can get thrown off so you don’t have to jump yourself!

The night we arrived in Queenstown we met up with Guillaume again, it’s becoming a regular occurrence now! And we had a few drinks, we also got our $25 worth of drinks vouchers from Peter Pans, but we were a bit disappointed as it was promoted as ‘free drinks’  but actually it was just $25 worth of discounts, so like 25% off or half price drinks etc. We went into one bar where the voucher looked like it offered a free meal, idiot backpackers we are, didn’t realise it was actually a burger and drink for $25 rather than a voucher worth $25! It was a bloody good burger though, and huge so it was worth spending £50 for a meal! 

The next day was our Canyon Swing, it was a pretty wet and windy day so we didn’t have high hopes for it going ahead but when we got to the check-in they told us it looked ok. It was scheduled for 1pm. Before, we went for a short walk around Queenstown city centre and went for a $10 curry and rice! On the bus on the way there, we were getting pretty nervous, but we hid it by getting to know a few people going – one girl had won a ticket to do every bungy and every swing in New Zealand – however she did chicken out of the highest one The Nevis Bungy at 134m (I think I would too!).

When we got there we were told to check-in but it was on wind-hold (as its so high, its dangerous to operate in high winds), but we only had to wait half an hour before we got to walk along the wobbly bridge of no return! Once we got to the jump platform this is when we really were bricking it! Watching other people swing was probably one of the scariest things about it, as you see them suspended over the ground at 160m, and then they just drop, full force, free-fall, in all their screaming glory towards the ground! It’s a 70m free-fall, 300m arc swing at speeds of 150kmh! We saw around 7 people swing before us – tandem definitely dropped faster than the singles as you have more weight behind you. We were doing it tandem! 

So it came to our turn and we started freaking out, we told the guy we wanted no surprises, we wanted a countdown lol. Two couples had been surprised before – one had been made to put their arms around each other and as they were moving into position he dropped them, another had been made to smile at their friends camera and then dropped – it looked terrifying! They strapped us in, and then the terrifying part came – taking our feet off the platform and being suspended above the ground, waiting to drop! 

On a count of three, after smiling at the cameras, we dropped, it was awesome but breathtaking – I’m not even sure how I even managed to find the air to scream! Pierrick screamed like a girl too (haha), but only on the swing as he was too breathless on the drop. That feeling where your stomach feels like its in your lungs? Well multiply that by 2 (it’s stomach in the head feeling), for at least 3-4 seconds, and that’s how it felt to drop, it was worse than freefalling in a skydive!

After, we had a huge rush of adrenaline and I honestly could have done it again and again! I think next time we are in Queenstown I will do the other Canyon swing where you can chose how you fall (I really want to go down a slide and fall!) That night we got a FergBurger to celebrate – amazing! They are huge and delicious. Pierrick had the Big Al – basically the biggest you can get, and I had the Steak burger – full of juicy tender sirloin steak and onions! 

Then we decided to have a night on the town, where we met up with the couple we had met at the Canyon Swing, Guillaume and also Katrin (a girl we had met on one of our stray journeys from Germany) as she is working in Queenstown. We also saw Kookie (our previous stray driver). We had waaaaay too much to drink...think 2 vodka orange, desperados, half a bottle of wine each, a litre of beer for $10 in Cowboys (best bar ever, it even has a rodeo you can ride), plus shots and other drinks...needless to say, I don’t remember much of the evening and the next day I woke up with THE WORST HANGOVER EVERRRRRRRRR! 

I kid you not, from the moment I woke up at 11am, to the moment we went to bed, I was throwing up – I couldn’t even keep water down! I blame the litre of beer! Pierrick even went to get another Fergburger thinking the grease and a coke would help – which it normally does – nope, I got 3 bites in and up it came! What a waste of a Hawaiian Fergburger! We had to go shopping that evening too, in the pissing rain, while violently hungover, which was NOT fun. As the next day we were leaving for Milford Sound and the place we were staying for 2 nights was in the middle of nowhere. 

Needless to say, Queenstown destroyed me and my liver, and when we next go back, I want to actually see the place and do the walks, rather than just see the toilet bowl! Damn you Cowboys...

Our first (and great) work experience mixed with WWOOFING - Judge Rock Pinot Noir Vineyard!

Our main reason for coming to New Zealand on a working holiday visa, was to not only travel, but to work. And so it became apparent that halfway through the south island, we may have to top up our funds a little to keep us going until we had finished traveling the south. So when an opportunity arose after a few emails to local Vineyards and Orchards, we took it without hesitation. Initially we were looking for fulltime work, but once we realised that after paying for accommodation and food we really wouldn't make any more money than partime work while we WWOOFed. So therefore, after a bit of thought we contacted back Angela at Judge Rock Vineyard and accepted her offer of 20 hours paid work a week each, and the rest WWOOFING for our food and accommodation. And boy were we glad we did as it was a fantastic experience!

Paul, Angela's husband, picked us up from the Alexandra i-site at 3pm on Sunday 7th February and we were to start work on the Monday. The Vineyard is around 5mins drive or 30-40mins walk from the centre of town so on evenings or days off it was easy to get into town when we wanted, and even Paul kindly picked us up after he finished work. So a little background on the Vineyard and it's wines;

Judge Rock are a family run Vineyard that employs two regular vineyard workers, regional sales/distribution members, a farmers market sales person and occasionally when the work is demanding, people like us - backpackers! Their write up is: Elegant - Sensuous - Intimate. Award Winning Pinot Noir wines from the Jacobson-Chiaroni family boutique vineyard. The wines produced from this vineyard have received many awards, showcasing the premium quality of Judge Rock wines. A romance not a blockbuster, feminine not masculine, balance not power, family not corporate, and love not lust.(Quote-their website). And after working here and sampling all their wines every night (at least two glasses a night), I can honestly say it's some of the best wine I've ever tasted!

The unique location in Central Otago, with cold winters, long, hot, dry summers and crisp evenings, makes for a completely different tasting wine to those grown in other climates. The soil is rich glacial land, and it is a fantastic place to make wine. Cromwell, Alexandra, and Queenstown area are all prime areas for wine cultivation in a unique, beautiful location. The area is best known for it's red wines, whereas Hawkes Bay and Marlborough regions are better known for their whites, mainly because of the climates - warm and rainy in the north all year - best for white wine, cold but hot in the summers down south - best for red wine.

They offer wine tastings at the Vineyard and they also have a holiday cottage they rent during the year, with stunning views of the vineyard and surrounding mountains. Angela and Paul are trying very hard to market their wine and to get the business booming, and they take pride in everything they produce and sell, including being very active in food and wine festivals/events, farmers markets, local sales and international sales. If anyone is interested, they sell wine on their website, and they also have UK distributor in Wimbledon, London, as well as Australia/New Zealand, Singapore, China.

The family run Vineyard is smaller than most larger, commercialized vineyards at 4 hectares and I think this is far better. It means much care goes into the vineyard, into the wine, into the character of the place. It is planted with 12,000 Pinot Noir vines since 1998, along with some St Laurent vines (a French variety), from these they also produce a Rose wine. They also bottle Riesling under their name, but get these grapes from a specially selected vineyard elsewhere, to fit with their unique taste. I can honestly say that it's very hard to decide which is my favourite, but I love the Riesling, Pinot Noir and St Laurent the best. Because of the unique climate the taste is intense with many different notes to each wine, and they smell divine! I never really understood the smelling and tasting of wine until I came here, but these wines are outstanding and you really can smell and taste the hint of fruits and wood and everything else.

Our stay came during an important time before the harvest of the wine which is in April - leaf thinning, tucking and putting the nets on so the birds can't get to the grapes! I had always wanted to learn about vineyards, the process of wine growing and making and actually work on one. Even though it can be tough and hard work at times, it's very rewarding work, both for the look of the vineyard, the wine, and also for your body! haha, you definately don't need a gym membership while working on a vineyard! Pierrick wasn't keen at first because his last experience of a vineyard was in Australia where they never paid him, and it was horrible work pruning, there were no grapes and no rewards for the effort he put in. But luckily he was willing to give it another try and hope that it created a better memory for him - and it did! We both came away from this wonderful experience with great memories, better knowledge about vineyards and wine, and with a little money for our efforts.

We weren't working alone either, we met Sandrina on our first day, a German 19 year old who has become a wonderful friend. She was here for two weeks like us, but on a voluntary work exchange before heading back to study. She had been at a language school in Auckland for a bit then had a rep finding her placements throughout New Zealand, her next placement is on a dairy farm in the north, but she's decided to do Stray around the South Island like us to see a little of the place. There was then two workers, Helen and Barb, who are lovely women and helped us learn about the vineyard and taught us everything we now know about the stages we were helping with. Of course there was also Paul and Angela, our wonderful hosts. Paul enjoyed filling our wine glasses every night and taught us alot about the wines and industry. Angela has Italian in her blood and is a wonderful cook - her meals every evening were amazing, unique, homemade and homegrown mostly (she has a veggie garden) and plenty to go around. We ate recipes that we had never heard of or tried before and it was great - I've come away with some ideas from her cooking! They are both just wonderful company and made us feel so welcome in their business and home. They not only employed us but they took great care of us and that's very rare to find.

Our accommodation was in a private sleepout just beside the house and opposite the vineyard, very cosy and comfy, and we shared the facilities in the house like the bathroom, kitchen, living room. Every night was movie night and we watched a fair few, and we helped to prepare the evening food and wash up every night as a thanks for the wonderful cooking, Angela provided us lunch. Our hours were 8 hours a day (but during the netting period we worked extra - around 10 hours a day), so 4 hours a day WWOOFing, and 4 hours a day paid (we were also paid for the extra hours we did the first week which was really nice of them). On weekends we just did our WWOOfing hours in one day so we had sunday off, but as it turns out the first weekend we worked extra to get the nets on as it was important, so we just had the one day off, but this didn't bother us - we were here to work and that's what we did, there was plenty of time to have time off once we started traveling again! But we definitely appreciated that one Sunday - just to lie in bed with no alarm!

So our first week we spent our time lifting the wires on the vines to avoid growth drooping in the way of the grapes, and then we helped thin the leaves - so this means removing around 80% of the leaves around the grape bunches to expose them to enough sunlight to ripen them. At this time of year the grapes are going through a stage called 'Veraison', the term used when the grapes turn from green to red/violet/purple and begin to plump and ripen. Because of this, they become very tasty for birds, so the next step was to put the nets on so that the birds can't get to the much sacred grapes that would produce the wine! The first few days were great, they weren't too hard, but the days were very hot, so we decided to start early in the morning (7am); which allowed us tickets to some spectacular sunrises across the mountains, so that we could finish at 3.30pm so we weren't working too long during the heat of the day. The great thing was that they have a swimming pool, so after work we could just jump in there to cool down and it was sooooooo nice! Especially as I got heat rash a few times so this was perfect to cool the skin down. We also had to make sure we applied suncream regularly (luckily Angela kindly provided this for us all otherwise we would have finished our bottle in 2 days haha) as the New Zealand sun is super super strong (strongest in the world) due to no Ozone layer, so you burn quickly and fiercely.

It took us until Friday to finish the section we were working on which was the last of the Pinot Noir and the St Laurent area. Pierrick spent Friday biking the whole vineyard taking down all the water sprinklers so it was ready for the nets. Then on Saturday Paul and Angela came out to help us and we started putting the nets on. It was the first time they had their own machine to do it, kind of a spinning rod at the back of the tractor which we put the bails of nets on to then take them over 5 rows while we pulled them on. So it was all trial and error, however we encountered a few problems, mainly because the people they had hired last year to take the nets off, (a contractor with a group of men from Vanuatu) hadn't taken them off and wound them up properly, so we had knots, twists and strings getting stuck in the rod etc which made putting them on way more difficult - when it did work well, it was so much easier and went so much quicker, but the first few we had a lot of twists so we ended up having to just place them on the ground in a row and then come back over the next couple of days to put them on by hand - 'We'll have to walk them through' became a phrase we never wanted to hear again haha. It was very physical work putting on the nets and very tough on the arms and hands. We quickly realised on the first day that we were going to need extra hands so Angela contacted the local backpackers looking for two more workers - we stipulated they must be tall and strong, haha. The next day, two tall, strong lads from Germany who had experience with putting on nets arrived and helped us for the next two days and my god were we grateful for their help! It went so much faster and they had so much more strength to pull the nets down and to put the bails on the spindle, and also managed to help us walk the ones through that had twisted as they were tall enough to get the nets over the tall branches and posts of the vines! On the saturday it would seem good luck wasn't on our side as we also had a sand twister, of all the days! So because we hadn't yet secured the nets we'd just put on, the twister ripped through and threw them all off onto other rows, twisting them and basically meaning we had to start from scratch and WALK THEM THROUGH - but we did this with Phillip and Francesco! It was an awesome sight though, seeing all these heavy nets thrown into the air and then a twister follow behind, it was like...did that actually just happen?! And then we assessed the damage and yep, that actually did just happen - mass groan! During putting on the nets we were allowed to swear as many times as we liked haha.

There was then the last day of nets - we had almost finished our shift - half an hour left and I was helping to hold tension on the spindle so it didn't spin too fast and release the net too quickly, when I first got my arm trapped in a loose string, and then almost fatally got my hand trapped 5 mins later. Needless to say, I went down immediately and the outcome looked like I had at first dislocated my knuckle, but after applying ice and having anti-inflammatory medication the swelling and pain went down a little and it just was very badly bruised and I was able to move my hand again. I got my name in the accident book! lol Luckily I didn't need any time off work and was back working the next day - the final day of nets! We finished them on Monday but we had to continue sorting them out until Tuesday/Wednesday WALKING THEM THROUGH. The guys unfortunately had to leave us for another job so we said goodbye to them. It was then time to start tying them up and securing them. So every 5 rows we had to criss-cross the string closing all the gaps and tying each net to each other/the wire on the vines so there was no way for birds to get in. Again, great for the arms! We had a few problems with there not being enough net to pull over and tie so again we had to walk a few through. We also had to secure the outsides of the vineyard down with rocks/bricks, and tie the fronts of every 5th row into gates for entry. This took us until Thursday, and then Pierrick had to go back around the vineyard, this time walking it (it works out around 14km in total!) putting back all the sprinklers, and sewing the holes around them. He also almost got put in the accident book, as during this, he managed to hit himself on the forehead with the monkey wrench, while putting up a difficult sprinkler, cutting his head and almost passing out! I laughed when he told me this, bad I know!

Me, Sandrina and Helen and Barb then went through the whole vineyard sewing up any holes in the nets so that no birds could get through these to the grapes, which was work for the neck and arms as you were constantly looking up and sewing above you. But it was very satisfying work when we finished on Monday (yesterday) and could look back at the vineyard at our great work knowing the grapes were safe! There were a few birds in the net after we put them on so Paul went round in the tractor making noise and opening a few gaps in the nets to get them out which was successful. It's just getting the dogs Tui, and Barbs dog Jay, to chase the rabbits in there now.

When we leave, Barb and Helen then spend the next couple of weeks going through the whole vineyard again, removing the shoulder grape bunches off the main bunches to allow the main energy to be focused on ripening the main fruit bunch, taking more leaves off if it's too heavy and not enough sun coming through, and then they spend a few weeks off, just waiting for the fruit to fully ripen, then in April - it's harvest time! From harvest to bottle it takes almost a year, last years wine from their April harvest is bottled in March this year and so forth. They send their harvest down to Vinepro in Cromwell who make the wine for them, and it takes the roughly the full fruit of two vines to make one bottle! I would love to do a harvest one day, just to see how that part works and then also see how they make the wine and bottle it - maybe one day either here or in France or somewhere!

I have to say though, one of the best things about having the opportunity to work abroad and have visas in different countries, is being able to do something new, experience a new field of work, learn new things and broaden your horizons. I don't think I will ever be a girl who settles for just one job, one career - there are far too many opportunities out there to settle for just one. Even though people with high flying careers may look down on a cleaner, a vineyard worker, a hospitality worker etc, not many people can say they have done those jobs (or worked in more than one profession that probably doesn't even make them happy) and have experienced how rewarding they are, how exciting learning something new is, and how much you can push yourself. If I could ever pass on some knowledge from these experiences it's to seize every opportunity you can, there is nothing too low or too high that you can ever do, every job is as good as the rest, money doesn't matter as long as you enjoy what they inspire in you. They may be hard work and not very well paid, but I love knowing that I have worked in different countries, worked in something new every time, learnt something new either on the job or about myself, made new friends, and most of all, have lasting memories to cherish.

Our experience here at Judge Rock has been a great one, and we even came away with some pocket money. Our hosts were wonderful, their wine exquisite and their workers a pleasure to work with. I couldn't reccommend them highly enough and I will definitely be buying their wine in the future, knowing that we once helped them and remembering fond memories and I will definitely recommend their wines to others. I really hope the vineyard continues to flourish and wish them all the best for the future, maybe one day we will be back, who knows!

From here we have booked onward travel to Queenstown on Wednesday, where we will be back on the backpacker Stray bus and ready for some more adventures! We have a tandem Canyon Swing (70m freefall drop and a 300m arc swing over a canyon) booked for Thursday, a night on the town with $50 of drinks vouchers courtesy of Peter Pans Travel Agency and then onto Milford Sound and Te Anau where we will hopefully meet with Ivana and her boyfriend again. We are hoping to do some stunning treks through the Southlands/Fiordlands over the next week and then headed down to Stewart Island. We will be sad to leave Judge Rock, but we are looking forward to another New Zealand Chapter!

Hitch-Hiking to Wanaka and Skydive number two!

So, as I never got around to blogging about my first skydive in Australia (maybe one day I will write that 7 week trip up!) I thought I definitely need to write about the 2nd - and it was quite an adventurous journey there.

We had been WWOOFing for two weeks with Fay, sanding down her house and painting undercoat on, plus stripping wallpaper and other odd jobs like gardening at her daughters farm. We had the Saturday off before leaving on Sunday to our casual job on a local Vineyard in Alexandra, Central Otago.

So we asked if we could use the car to get to Wanaka to do our skydive, which was all good so we booked it. But the night before at 8pm Fay told us that she didn't think the car was safe enough to take as she had bumped it into a tree stump earlier that week and the bumper had half come off, which was fair enough. The only problem is we couldn't cancel the skydive as we would lose our money and we didn't know when to reschedule for. It was too late to try and arrange a lift there so our only option left was to wake up a little earlier and hitch hike there.

We had never hitched before so it was bound to either be a good experience or a bad one and we were hoping for a good one after the 2 weeks of bad weather.

In the morning we woke up super hyped and excited, made our signs to Wanaka and back to Roxburgh and then waiting on the road outside the house, thumbs up, signs out, boobs out and skirt hitched up (haha only joking). It didn't take long (around 10mins) for our first ride to pull up, James, a lovely dreadlocked dude from Dunedin. He was headed to Queenstown for a concert so he could take us to the junction in Cromwell which was a huge chunk of the journey done!

We made the normally hour long ride in record time (40mins) as he was a speed breaking lunatic but he could handle the roads and was a great character to chat to.

He dropped us at the junction in Cromwell and then we had our last leg to go - and it was only 10.30am! We walked a little further along to a fruit shop with a layby as there was another hitch-hiker and we didn't want to ruin his chances as he had all his bags too. There we waited for no more than 5-10mins when a van load of guys (about 10 of them) from Vanuatu came along and picked us up - lucky they had space for us! And drove us the 40mins to Wanaka. Again they were a lovely crew and we got to listen to some local music of theirs from home.

Once in Wanaka it was lunch time and so we went and got lunch from New World and had a picnic by the lake and ended up sharing our space with a lovely elderly Canadian couple who we had a fabulous chat with.

It was then...pickup time!! While our guide drove us to the airport we watched a safety video and how to prepare to jump out of the plane. In Australia they call it 'The banana' because you basically have to form the shape of a banana on the edge of the plane two seconds before jumping. Legs under the belly of the plane, hips out and head against the instructors left shoulder, hands holding onto your harness...then you jump! But to be honest you only literally have two seconds to do all of that so I have no idea if anyone actually ever really becomes a banana, more like a 'oh shit' and then your gone.

So we got to the skydive base where we signed in, paid for Pierrick's pictures (I didn't get pictures as it was too expensive and I already have them from Australia). We then had to change into our full body suits (they make you look like a condom its hilarious!) and wait until our names were called.

I was quite impressed as Pierrick still didn't feel nervous, or at least that's what he told me! We then had a lovely girl from Taiwan strap us into our harnesses and 10mins later, after the plane before us had landed, our instructors re-packed their parachutes and cane in to meet us...ready to go up again. You could tell they were tired - imagine every hour you have to go up, jump, then come down and do it all again.

Everyone in our plane headed off with their instructor, except me, who seemed to be missing an instructor, I had a little mini panic thinking I wasn't jumping with the same group as Pierrick but then good ol' Boris came running out apologising as he had needed the toilet - bless, I'd forgive him! He was from Serbia and had been jumping for yearsjump was actually excited it was my second jump as he said he could 'do more exciting things' this had my heart pumping. The only question I had was how to breathe during the freefall and he laughed saying many 2nd timers asked this as they normally find out in their first jump whether they found it hard to breathe, which for those of you who have seen my skydive video know that I had 60 seconds of sheer panic because I couldn't catch my breath lol its very entertaining - cheeks puffed out like a hamster struggling for breath with a 'oh fuck I'm going to pass out' expression! He told me that once he levels out and taps me on the shoulder I could either put my hands out in front of my face to shield the air flow, or breathe threw a teethy grin or my nose. So at least I had this down now, maybe I could actually enjoy the freefall this time.

So we started our ascent in the plane, I was in front of Pierrick, I kept checking he was OK and he was...until he saw the first two girls jump at 12,000ft, then he began to get nervous! The view from 15,000ft before we jumped though was amazing. You could not only see Lake Wanaka, the surrounding mountains and river, but also Queenstown lake which is over an hour away by car, and what they call here the Southern Alps - so many snow capped peaks! Mount Aspiring national park, Mount Cook (the highest peak of new Zealand) all the ski resorts (Treble Cone, Cardrona, Twin peaks, Coronet etc.) And you could also just about aee the coast line on either side. It was amazing! In fact, my lasting memory of this skydive will forever be the freefall I actually enjoyed, looking out over the lake with the snow capped mountains behind, it was quite literally breath-taking.

So when we had reached our jump height (15,000ft, 60 second freefall at 200kmh) it was time for the guy in front of me, then me to jump (Pierrick was unfortunately last, afterwards he told me he was shit-scared when we started seeing everyone else sit on the edge and then just disapeer, and it says its all in his photos!)

So we took off our oxygen masks (they gave us these at 12,000ft for some reason (we didn't have this in Australia), Boris quickly adjusted my harness, we put our goggles in place and our awful hats, which completed the condom look, and then banana-ed! Just before we shuffled down to the door, Boris shouted in my ear that the exciting thing was he was going to flip me loads (more than first timers) before we levelled out for the freefall. So I was suddenly excited-nervous. And let me tell you he certainly flipped me! The only feeling I can describe the fall out of the plane, is complete weightlessness, Pierrick said it was like a bungy, that feeling when you are falling in your dreams except this time you don't wake up, you live it out. You have no idea which way is down as most of the time you just see sky when you flip, and your heart goes into your throat, your stomach into you lungs and you momentarily forget how to breathe. It really is the most surreal feeling but somehow that adrenaline burst just keeps you going back to have that feeling again and again (well for me its like that). Boris must of flipped us around 4-5 times, normally you only flip once or twice if you are a newbie, and then he levelled us out. He then, bless him, put his hands in front of my face to block the air for me to breathe, but far enough away so I could still see the view, and my God, it helped sooooo much! I actually breathed normally the whole 60 seconds and I just remember laughing and admiring the amazing view, I took a mental note to snapshot this moment and I still can see the picture in my mind, the lake out in front of me, the snowcapped mountains to my right, the turquoise river beneath me and Queenstown lake and the hills/ski resorts to my left. The rush of the freefall ends when the parachute comes out and then you just float your way down to the ground. They let you have a go on the ropes sometimes, but even though it was a hot day, the wind draft was crazy so we lost height pretty quickly and Boris had to control the parachute so we didn't crash into the other jumpers (one went right beneath us, my feet skimmed their parachute). I also remember seeing Pierrick free falling as our parachute opened, it was pretty cool knowing he was currently shitting his pants lol.

Unfortunately a skydive is over before you know it - within 5-10mins, especially when the wind is not on your side. So our landing position was legs up and slide in on your bum!

Once down I waited for Pierrick to land before grabbing a quick photo from his photographer, then we went inside, took our gear off and had fun watching his picture slideshow - hilarious!

The trickiest part was yet to come - the bitch hike back to Roxburgh. We decided to pitch outside the airport as there was no point going back into Wanaka, as the airport was on the way to Cromwell.

It took us 1.5 hours in the blazing heat to get our first ride...and that was with the skydive pickup guide who had also picked up 3 other hitch hikers from Wanaka and was headed to Luggate on his way home, so be could drop us there, which was at least 5 mins up the road!

Then when we got out in Luggate an American guy left the pub opposite us and seeing we were about to put up our sign, called out an offered us a lift to Cromwell - woo! He was a lovely guy from New York who had been here for 9 months already and was going home soon. It turned out he didn't really like the look of Cromwell to spend the night in so decided to head to Alexandra and took us with him...even better that was only half hour from Roxburgh. Bless him we were so thankful!

We then walked to the bridge on the road to Roxburgh and it only took us another 15mins to find a lift with a high school girl, her mother and her brother who were all on their way back to down near Invercargill from a motorbike event. They were lovely and we were chatting so much we almost missed our stop!

Needless to say our first day trip hitch hike was a success and if we ever need to get somewhere short-distance without a car again, we could definitely do it. We both came back exhausted after the adrenaline rush ended and we spent the evening laughing our heads off at Pierrick's pictures. Well we had at least finally done our skydive, something we both, Pierrick especially, had been looking forward to doing for over a year! Woohoo, success! Enjoy laughing at some classic pictures!