Year of the Kiwi

“Why am I back here?”, I asked myself the first couple days at Rakaunui. There’s nothing quaint about apple picking. It’s hard work climbing up and down ladders, crawling underneath trees, reaching… reaching. It’s exhausting waking up to a chilly & wet mornings, then being baked by the hot Hawke Bay sun in the afternoon. It’s irritating having a 20 pound bag of apples dangling from your neck, straps digging into your sweaty shoulders all day, while getting eaten alive by sand flies. It’s disheartening watching the quality control people take rejects out of the bin… just as fast as you were plucking them off the tree, or getting your first paycheck and finding that they fucked it up… again (I swear orchard management needs to retake 5th grade math). Work sucked. But in spite of all that, my two weeks back at Rakaunui didn’t suck. I got a wicked tan, great memories with friends old and new, and some awesome photos. I guess to me, the bin will always be half full.

 

 

Heading to an orchard block for a long day of work.

 

 

Misty morning apples.

 

 

It’s amazing how the trees can support the weight of so many apples.

 

 

The morning grass is wet with morning dew after the cold cloudless nights.
Lunchtime is a good time to let the feet dry out.

 

 

A day’s work, 5 bins of apples, 1800 apples per bin.
That’s a whole lot of apples.

 

 

A peacock that always hang around the caravan site.

 

 

Playing a hand of Segregation with Jake, Ruby, and Dave. It was the
first time I played my game with people I didn’t personally teach.
Dave did a good job though.

 

 

Ron’s a Kiwi from the South Island working his way around the North Island.
It’s cool how he can be just as enthusiastic as foreigners travelling around his
own country. We had a lot of  fun stories to share about being homeless and
scraping by.

 

 

One day we got bored of only eating apples from our orchard, so we walked
to another orchard and stole their apples… snatched some of their pears
and kiwifruit as well.

 

 

Unfortunately, the kiwifruit were nowhere near ripe because their
harvesting season is not until May.

 

 

You can’t find an apple this fresh at any supermarket.

 

 

Taking a break from the orchard at Waimarama beach. I don’t know how
some of the people at the orchard lasted with a whole month without access
to a car.

 

 

Tragic, yet I smile.

 

 

It started as a little drawing in the sand and somehow the obscenity
got totally out of control.

 

 

Apples on steroids.

 

 

Tractor!!! You want to get along with these guys because without their help,
it can be awful long walks back to your bin.

 

 

If we’re getting paid about $27 per bin, and the orchard is getting $600
per bin, and there are 50 workers picking about 4 bins per day… I don’t
even want to think about the profit they’re making. It’ll make me sick.
It’s like $ka-ching$ in their eyes every time they tell you to pick another bin.

 

 

After work, it was Monopoly time. Who knew a childhood boardgame
could still be so fun? We bought the New Zealand version of the game
though Ruby, Jake, and Dave (all English) wanted to get the London
version they had at the Warehouse because it was the original. What?
The American one with Atlantic City is the orginal I argued. Boardwalk…
doesn’t that mean anything to you guys? Mayfair, they all agreed, was
the most expensive property in the original. At this point it was 3 to 1,
and even I had shadows of doubt in my mind. One quick search on
Wikipedia later… utter shock… for them.

 

 

This apple isn’t just on steroids, it’s on steriods and crack! Brad approves.

 

 

For comparison sake, a normal sized apple… my god.

 

 

Sunny morning.

 

 

Raewyn and Daniel… how could I have not seen the resemblance before?

 

 

The week before Easter, there were very few apples ripe enough
to pick. People living at the caravan site were given the option of
taking  an early holiday or doing other orchard work besides picking.
I chose to work of course and spent one entire day hammering
staples into the bases of saplings for tree training. Not very fun.

 

 

An aphid. They’d fall off the trees from the hammering
vibrations all over our backs. It was gross.

 

 

Stinging nettles. An irritating import from England. Dave told
me to rub some leave on the area I was stung to make it go away.
Blimey it worked!

 

 

Misty morning.

 

 

There were spectacular spider webs all over that morning.

 

 

Oh the joys of macro.

 

 

Me hard at work.

 

 

It almost annoyed me how Dave was so much better at apple
 picking than I was… considering what a shitty apple thinner he
was a few months ago. I guess when you’re trying to buy a plane
ticket back home, it’s all business.

 

 

On my last day of work, I stayed on a couple hours to do some
vinyard work they had available at the orchard. The task was
to prune rotted grapes off the vines. It was absolutely disgusting.

 

 

Chris, one of the tractor drivers gives me a final goodbye.

 

 

What type of melon? Water. I want to see the label “Berry, Straw”

 

 

I’m full of Speight.

 

 

That wimpy apple needs to get over it.

 

 

Kevin! My old flatmate from Auckland came down to Hastings
Easter weekend for his cousin’s birthday. How’s that for coincidence?
It was fun hanging out with his extended family and I got a chance to
play guitar hero. Woohoo!

 

 

Kev and his cousin James.

 

 

With the series tied 1-1, the final match of the test series between
New Zealand Blackcaps and England couldn’t be missed. With the final
match being held at Maclean Park in Napier, I had to at least see one
of the games. So wish my car loaded up with some Pommy mates (Huw’s
Welsh, but that’s close enough), we were off for 7 hours of riveting
cricket action.

 

 

The first few moments were absolutely amazing for the Blackcaps.
Tim Southee, a 19 year old making his test match debut bowled two
early wickets and kept his RPO at less than .80. At one point of the
match, England was 4 for 3. Unheard of!!! Unfortunately, the England
recovered as Pieterson hit his century. Just yesterday England bowled
NZ out to win the match and series… but not before Southee went crazy
at the crease hitting an astounding 77 off 40 balls. What a monster!

 

 

Lawn seats were only $22. The other 3 couldn’t pass it up since tickets
to test matches in England are well over $100.

 

 

Where do they think they are? The Rugby Sevens?

 

 

The boundary. If the ball projects beyond this line,
it scores 6 runs.  If it rolls over this line, it scores 4.

 

 

Groundskeepers tidying up the pitch.

 

 

During the lunchbreak fans were let onto the pitch (yes, there is a lunch break
during test cricket… afternoon tea break as well). The guy with the long hair
 enjoying his lunch is Ryan Sidebottom, English bowler. Can’t stand him.
He’s too good.

 

 

Fans were also allowed to bring in bats and soft balls and smack them around.
Dangerous!

 

 

In test cricket, both teams wear white and they use a red ball instead of white.
It’s supposed to be easier to see in the sunlight.

 

 

Sometimes the defense comes in close when they see an opportunity for
an easy catch off a deflection. I always thought the batter must feel pretty
insulted when they do that.

 

 

Barmy Army! Barmy Army! There’s a group of cricket fans from
England who follow their team around the world. They add a lot of fun
to the atmosphere with their chants, songs, trumpetting, and antics.
I heard there were 4,000 in New Zealand just for test series alone.

 

 

PWNED!

 

 

Final day at the orchard. And appropriately, a final hand of Segregation.
Goodbye Dave… for now.

 

 

Work boots + Kiwi = Shoes almost good enough for going out

 

 

Leaving Hastings to head back to Wellington to finally take the
Ferry to the South Island, I did something I’ve never done
since buying the car, fill up the tank. I had a voucher for 20 cent
off per liter… and with petrol prices rising, this is as cheap as I’ll
ever get it. Cheap is a relative term though… a staggering $89
for a fill up. That’s after saving $11 with the voucher. Disgusting.

 

But in the end, it’s a small price to pay for the adventures that are yet to come.