Next stop Christchurch! Well that was the plan until we woke up in the rain in Geraldine, most construction companies were still on holiday for another week, and lets face it we weren’t ready to stop just yet. After hours of debating of where to go and what to do, we got in the car and decided to head south to Dunedin. After 2.5 hours of driving we stopped at a windy beachside campground, luckily we were able to find a little area sheltered enough from the trees to make it bearable. We even were able to get our stove lit long enough to heat up some veggie soup and some water for tea. That evening we walked along the beach, doing our best not to blow away or get too much sand in our mouths. There was also a men’s bathroom that was so odd Tony made me go in their to see it. It was really just an entire wall dedicated to peeing, I imagine similar to the Roman times. I can’t find another way to describe this.
The next morning we drove into Dunedin, which is described as the Edinburgh of the south as it was built by Scottish settlers. Dunedin is an east coast city with about 125,000 people and one of the largest party colleges in NZ. This center of the city is also an octagon and then awkwardly branches outward, but is dotted with early 19th century churches, buildings, and a lovely train station. After driving around aimlessly for an hour or so in this compact city, Tony was ready to leave and get back to the countryside. I would personally love to live in Dunedin filled with Victorian era houses, farmers markets, coastal views, and many art galleries, but driving in this area makes it a complete nightmare. So unless I could walk everywhere I needed to, I don’t’ think I would enjoy the area to it’s fullest extent. We decided that we will come back for a weekend visit when we have the funds to actually enjoy our time there. Onward we went.
We had seen a place to rent on TradeMe (similar to Craigslist) in central Otago that was an old church, literally. They had renovated an early 20th century church into a one bedroom loft apartment. It was located in Alexandra, only an hour from Queenstown and Wanaka, known as some of the prettiest areas in NZ. The church ended up being rented already, but we headed for the area anyway, as there are plenty of fruit picking jobs. We came into the town of about 5,000 people clueless as to where to camp, work, live, etc. The backpacker hostels were filled with fruit picking workers, and looked rather like that as well. At least that was the impression I was given from the 6 bunk beds stacked in front of the plate glass window accompanied by some children’s bikes, an overflowing mini fridge, and random exercise equipment laying in the floor. So we chose to spend the evening camping at the Alexandra Holiday Park. While checking in, Tony struck up a conversation with the owner, by the end of the conversation I had an offer of some housekeeping hours and he had directions to NZ’s largest sheep shearing contractor down the road. We set up our tent and made our way down the road to Peter Lyon’s shearing. Tony was to be there at 6am the next morning to see if he liked the job of working with sheep. I was able to pick up some housekeeping hours at the campground in order to pay for another night of tenting ($33). After he worked a half day we spent the rest of the day printing out CV’s and me looking for a job, as Tony was supposed to talk with Peter that night about getting hired. Luckily he was able to catch him on the phone and had a job secured for the next day. We spent the last night in the tent in a torrential downpour that had at least 2 inches of standing water in our awning that the tent floor felt like a water bed. Lucky for us we had an air mattress and no overhead leaks. I dropped him off at work, dried out the tent, packed up all of our belongings, and went to work scrubbing toilets and making beds, even though I didn’t know where we would be sleeping that night.
Sheep shearing is a fast paced business. The way it works is that you show up around 5:30am and check to see if you are working that day, and you will have to ride in the company van at least an hour each way to get to the shed for the day. With this sporadic lifestyle, Peter Lyons has housing for his employees and feeds them breakfast, lunch, and dinner if they are working, with a deduction from your check for the expenses. Since we are a couple, they gave us a wee cabin (as the locals say), with access to a communal bathroom and laundry. The cabin is literally 8×12 and has a queen bed, but it has a roof for the rain, 2 outlets for my laptop and iphone, and toilets that flush nearby. What more could a person ask for after living on the road in a tent for 6 weeks? Yes I will take it! We moved in immediately and went to the store to buy pillows, sheets, and a mattress pad, life is good.
The job searched continued on my end, after handing out 23 resumes, applying to several jobs online, and filling out several applications, I heard nothing. The one café that was hiring seemed dishearten by my lack of barista experience, despite my confidence in my ability to learn how to make coffee. The problem with a small town is that no one is hiring, and if no one is hiring, you go fruit picking. Cherries is the fruit of choice right now, I will never look at one the same again.
