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... :-(

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!