Year of the Kiwi

First off, a late Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I’ve been so out of touch where I am with no internet, no Americans around, I didn’t even know which day it was. When last Thursday rolled around, I had a feeling it was Thanksgiving day and had roasted chicken legs with mashed potatoes and gravy (the closest I could get to a traditional dinner with the ingredients on hand), only to remember that Thanksgiving was supposed to be the last Thursday of November and there was still one more Thursday in the month, then finding out later it was a week early this year. Ughhh… confused. Anyway, today I decided to splurge on the $4 an hour internet in town to make sure half of the world wasn’t destroyed in a nuclear holocaust, check some sports scores, and to update y’all on what I’ve been up to since leaving Auckland. All I have to say is… change is good… and the sun is hot.

 

The drive from Auckland to Hastings was awesome - mountian hugging roads and rolling
hills as far as the eye can see. Quite fun with a 3 liter engine car. It feels like driving in
a commercial.

 

 

Lake Taupo… I need to come back here for a skydive once I save up enough money.

 

 

Anytime there was a sign for a scenic lookout…

 

 

 …lookout, becuase it’s gonna be fuckin’ scenic

 

 

What am I doing in Hastings anyway? Picking these. But what are they?

 

 

Apples… baby apples. Mid-November through December is apple thinning season
in the Hawkes Bay region. Thinning apples requires removing small/damaged/crowded
apples from the tree so that the desirable ones can grow to become big and delicious
fruit. Apparently no one has devised an automated way of doing this, so massive
amounts of human labor is required.

 

 

I’m working at Rakaunui orchard, 150 acres of apples, lots of them. There are about
40 other workers here, mostly foreigners on working holidays like me.

 

 

And at the end of a long, exhausting day out in the sun, most of us come back
to caravan hut where we live on-site. Very rustic, but at only $10 a night,
it’s unbeatable. Such a drastic change from the comforts of living in Auckland,
but it’s been an awesome two weeks so far having fun and making heaps of friends.

 

 

My very first day of work was totally strange, and not at all a sign of things
to come. A huge storm moved through the region bringing downpours,
howling winds, and chilly temperatures. Once the rain stopped, we were able
to begin work. It was epic… clothed in a heavy ski jacket and knit cap to keep
warm, spending the whole day atop a 3 meter ladder, wrungs digging into my
shins so that the wind didn’t blow me off, reaching… reaching for the last apple
on the branch.

 

 

 But the rest of the days have been as promised; sunny and hot.
And without the protection of the ozone layer in the southern
hemisphere, it’s a bit brutal on some days, and downright
dangerous on others… lovely.

 

 

 The first week we were paid an hourly rate, but some people started
slacking off while others worked harder. Now we’re getting paid by
tree so there’s a whole lot of complaining going on. I’m thinking of it
as earning potential. Time to start being Asian and work extremely
efficiently.

 

 

Cooling off in the river during our lunchbreak.

 

 

 Chillin’ with my buddy, George, and trying to keep cool in the shade of the car.
It help when the sun is right overhead though. This picture doen’t do justice
to how incredibly tanned I am right now.

 

 

 There’s plenty of time on the weekends to enjoy the beaches a short drive away.

 

 

 

 From the left: Dan, Dave, Adam, Lexie, someone’s leg, Moritz’ head… There are
just so many people at the camp I’m not gonna bother posting pictures of
everyone.

 

 

Who needs a sandcastle when you can have a sandcat?

 

 

 

 Living in the caravan is freakin’ awesome. It looks small from the outside,
but it’s quite spacious inside, especially since I don’t have to share it with
anyone. Better yet, I got one with both a mini-fridge AND a heater (yes,
the simplest things do excite me).

 

 

 Such a simple life.

 

 

 Left to right: French, German, German, Canadian. Luckily, being in
New Zealand, everybody speaks at least some English.

 

 

 Okay, back to work. The lady on the left is one of the orchard supervisors.
She’s  really easy-going and doesn’t reprimand us when we break for too long
and stays out of my way when I’m working like a madman.

 

 

 Apples!! I never knew apples were so furry when they’re small. It was also
surprising to learn that they grew in bunches, almost like grapes. I always
thought they grew perfectly spaced on the tree like in children’s drawings.
But I guess we wouldn’t have jobs if they did.

 

 

 All sorts of fun things are to be found in the trees… such as two cicadas mating…

 

 

 …or nests full of baby birds. Just imagine the mother bird perched on a
tree in the distance, freaking out.

 

 

 On the truck, rattling on a country dirt road, heading from one orchard block to another.

 

 

 Mathias, French guy, working away. On the first few days, standing on the top
of the ladder was a bit scary. I actually always stood at the wrung below it so
I could brace myself instead of falling. After a few weeks, there’s no more fear.
I’m just dancing around on top and tipping back to get off.

 

 

 Dan, Dave, and I in Napier just relaxing and checking out the sites. Napier is the
bigger city just 20km away and it has a really Southern California feel to it…
really laid back and relaxed.

 

 

 A pedestrian street lined with shops.

 

 

 Some waterfall we in the city. We’ve decided it must be manmade because it flows
into a pond but doesn’t empty out anywhere.

 

 

 Cooking is always an adventure. Cheap sausages here are generally gross…
 way too much flour content. I discovered a way to make them palatable
by slicing them up and intensely frying them so they’re more like meat
flavored dumplings. We call them oozy sausages because while slicing them,
the filling nastily oozes out of the casing.

 

 

 Pizza Hut!!! The commercials made it look so good I couldn’t resist it any longer.
Unfortunately it’s really expensive here. Two large pizzas, cheesy bites and a 1.5
liter soda for 30 bucks. It doesn’t sound so bad except that a large here is like a
medium in the States. Then again we ended up paying for dinner AND entertainment.
Shortly after this picture was taken, Billie, the girl on the left saw a Maori guy
yelling at his kid and pulling him into his car, and she yelled out at him to stop treating
his kid like that. Maoris are the natives of NZ but have a bad reputation for being
really ghetto and violent and such. This guy wasn’t doing anything to dispel that
reputation. Anyway, he didn’t appreciate that she was being nosey and approached
the table and they both got into quite an exciting verbal discussion. It got to the
point where she was on the phone with the police and he we threatening to smash
her face in (not a great idea with me sitting across the table… I had a Jacky Chan
scenerio all planned out in my mind incase he did lay a finger on her. It involved
sliding under the table and doing a scissor kick to knock him to the ground).
Soon after, he left and the police came and chased them down while we all
had to give information as witnesses. Fun!

 

 

Daniel, one of the orchard managers cutting his own hose to help make a beer funnel.

 

 

Dave enjoying the beer funnel.

 

 

BBQing

 

 

The sun sets… two weeks down, three to go.