Apple Picking in Fruit Bowl Central

Imagine this - everyday you get up at 6.30am you get in a van with a bunch of international backpackers to descend on the orchard with the sun rising through the trees. You pretend you are a monkey for 8 hours climbing up and down a 3 metre ladder. You try and pick as fast as you can to make more than $10 an hour (3 quid). You go home covered in dirt and appley goodness with your muscles telling you to go back to bed.
But I actually really like apple picking and its only for three weeks. Bonus - I'm getting faster and a bit stronger so in the last few days i picked three instead of two bins (worth $30 a bin). I've found my monkey ladder feet and am enjoying being way up high, apple tree orchard queen, the only place where there is a refreshing breeze (its HOT work). I like the meditative side of picking, you let your mind relax and wander and keep in a happy zone and its a really rather pleasant form a strenuous, exhausting exercise!
So three weeks in Napier, i'm in a great hostel called Wallys with some other fellow working backpackers. I think this was what i was after in my festival aftermath. I was really feeling like i needed to stop and refresh for a time and i realised my money is low so here i am. Working life is good, so long as you stay in the positive mindset. Loads of people have picked apples for the morning, realised that they had just worked the hardest they ever have in their whole lives for the WORST pay ever, and quit. Sensible perhaps but i like the challenge of enjoying it for three weeks and also pushing myself to maybe one day make 4 boxes instead of 2 or 3! Why serve arrogant idiots in restaurants when you could monkey around in trees eh!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Raglan Reggae

After 2 weekends of festivals I do believe i am 'almost' festivaled out. Meaning, although i reacon i could be persuaded to go to another festival sometime somewhere, i won't be making plans just yet - all that fun is exhausting. I think i may have been burning the candle at both ends and am feeling a little run down and tired. All the goodbyes are tiring too with Janie and I saying bye bye to Ricky Goz and Andy and the Coramandel where we had such a fantastic fishy holiday. It's sad saying goodbye to friends but also to all those people you meet fleetingly at festivals who in a more settled existance could happily form a freindship group to be reaconed with. We randomly (or not to randomly as is the way with the universe) were camped next to the same people we met on the last night at Splore festival and we hung out with them all festival. Its great having a big group to dance around fields with to reggae music! Brilliant. We all camped together on the sunday night too at an amazing place that had tipis and old railway carriages to sleep in overlooking the best surf breaks in New Zealand. Really beautiful chilled out place Raglan, surfers everywhere.
And now Janie and I are in smelly eggy Rotoroa, where the smell of sulphur sinks into your skin until it is entirely normal. We don't seem to have much energy for the touristy tours round all the bubbly mud pools and boiling geisers but we will find our way to a natural hot pool where a hot and a cold stream meet in the middle so you can vary your temperature. Nice. I hope i will find the energy to walk the amazing Tongoriro Crossing tommorrow...

Splore festival!

The festival was.....AWESOME (people say that alot out here and to be honest sometimes i catch myself saying things like 'CRIKEY' but i always deny stringently that i said such a world. im no kiwi yet thats for sure). Anyway so Janie and I are back on the Coramandel peninsula recovering in a lovely hostel in Whitianga. I realised that ive been camping for 3 weeks solidly, bathing in the sea and cold showers and so a comfy bed, warm shower and a washing machine has been really really great. The above picture was taken on saturday night when we all dressed up for the Butterfly Zoo, which was a caberet of crazy acts and all sorts of madness. I brought my dress for $3 from a transvestites shop on K road in Auckland (i was wondering while in there why all the pretty dresses were size 16+, a funny shape and the man was so....pretty...Janie had to explain afterwards!) So this orange 'thing' was purchased and i cut and sewed until it resembled a dress fit for a woman at a crazy festival - i was the most orange one there, almost reaching orangatang status. We saw some incredible new zealand bands, the music here is really really good and theres great musical talent - Fat Freddies Drop is only the tip of the NZ musical iceberg. In fact Janie and I loved our festival experience so much that we are off to another one, even more up my street this time - an eco reggae festival in raglan on friday! The summer is certainly here in NZ xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Fish fish fishing

Work is for people who don't know how to fish?

I've just discovered the fun of fishing! Why did noone tell me what fun it was before? And actually, although fishing is clearly wonderful I have also been working this week. I've been sanding down Lauries plastering, coming home each day looking like i've aged 30 years with all the white dusk in my hair! Laurie and I visited a cool community on saturday called Karuna Falls and hiked up to their namesake - a beautiful small trio of falls with deep round pools below and then one massive waterfall. We swam around in the pools and i plucked up the courage to jump off one of the rocks 6 metres above the pool below - it was such a rush i had to do it again!!
We've been eating fresh fish every day - Ricky took me fishing off the rocks on friday where i caught some snapper then i went out in Lauries boat into the choppy ocean where i caught some Kahawai which we ate for dinner! yummmmmmm

It's a fabulous place here and Laurie, Asha and their 2 year old delightful son Jai have been very welcoming but it's time to leave sadly. At least I am now the beginnings of a fisher-type woman Jones.