Home Sweet Home (or Van)

We arrived in Blenheim on the north east coast of the South Island on Wednesday with our last $700. It was just simply time to move on from the shearing sheds whether fiscally responsible or not. Our first week back as the sheds we worked just over 30 hours each, which is more than usual believe it or not. We then had a 4 day weekend for Easter. For the holiday we took a trip back down to the Mataura River and the Oreti River to do some more fishing and camping. Tony found a great little spring creek and spent hours stalking fish, even laying on the ground using a bow cast to try and win some trout over. Unfortunately during this trip I came down with my usual April cold. Yes this nasty cold that I get every April in Yellowstone has followed me all the way across the world, but with even more spunk on the Southern Hemisphere. There was no fooling this bug for allergies. After camping for 2 nights we decided to treat ourselves to a night in Queenstown. I found a “secret hotel” on lastminute.com for $104, considering even a private hostel room would have been well over $120 in that town, this seemed like a good deal. Our “secret room” was defiantly a success, as it was a 4.5* star hotel called the Millennium near downtown. Since we didn’t arrive in town until 8pm and were just flat our worn out from camping (and my being sick) we plopped down on the king size bed, ordered pizza, and watched “The Hobbit” on pay per view. Once again I had my own indoor bathroom, the second time in over 4 months, and I was one happy camper. The next day we window shopped around Queenstown and did some people watching, which is never boring in this country. You can see anything from extreme mullets, waist length rat tails, middle aged men riding skateboards with short shorts on, business women, gypsy backpackers, and of course the usual shoeless laid back kiwi we have grown to love.
​The next week at the shearing sheds was disappointing. Firstly we had moved cabins after our vacation, and this new cabin was not a step in a good direction. There were several places you could see light through the slats, it had 1 outlet near the ceiling on the back wall, the incredibly soft bed was leaning to the left because the cabin was sinking, the 1 light bulb in the ceiling was controlled by a pull cord shoe string, there was some kind of patchwork job done on the floor that was covered with half rolled up wall paper, it was so cold you could see your breath in the mornings, and the door did not have a handle. Literally we had to deadbolt the outside from a latch similar to one found on the inside of an outhouse, and the inside was only held shut by a 1×2 inch piece of wood that was screwed into the frame and turned sideways to the keep the door in place. These type of latches can also be found on the inside of really old outhouses. To top it off Tony and I were not on the working list Tuesday. Wednesday our driver got lost driving for an hour to work, which was okay because the farmer wasn’t expecting us until noon, so we had to wait for an additional 2 hours for the sheep to be rounded up. Although we were gone from the quarters for 11 hours, we only earned 4.5 hours of work time. It rained all night and you can’t shear wet sheep, so Thursday we had 2.5 hours of work, and Friday we were once again not listed to work. Since I was still sick and had gross white bumps on my throat for a week, I finally went to the Doctor. He felt I was getting better and wrote me a prescription for antibiotics “just in case” it got worse, luckily I did not ever need them. We spent the rest of day the packing and Saturday we left our lives of sheep shearing behind us. Friday night we were able to get one last dinner at our favorite Thai Restaurant with our dear friend Menis before we left. Although we had many challenges to overcome at the sheds, there were many good memories and friends that we made, including Menis who we will miss so very much.
​Saturday morning we headed out for the West Coast of the South Island. Although this is not the fastest way to our destination we could not miss out on the opportunity to see the native bush, waterfalls, glaciers, and oceans this route has to offer. Truly it was a beautiful ride, but my cold now included a stuffy/runny nose and a bad cough. Between blowing my nose, chomping down throat drops, and coughing we finally stopped off in Haast for a $17 bottle of Vic’s cough syrup and carried on. We were able to see a bit of the Franz Joseph Glacier and Fox Glacier, both of which were very impressive. That night we camped in the van, and it was surprisingly warmer than our cabin had been. However my stuffy nose left me making bizarre moaning sounds in my sleep that woke up Tony as much as it did myself, so needless to say our sleep was sub par. Sunday we watched the eels at Rotorua Lake and camped at a nearby free campground we had stayed at before. The next day was spent in Nelson trying to decide if we should look for jobs in town or carry on to Blenheim for the grape harvest. Of course nothing can be easy and one of Tony’s back teeth started hurting and had to make a dentist appointment for the next day. 2 fillings, lots of numbing shots, and one sideways droopy looking face later and he was all set to go. Wednesday we swapped our summer clothes out for our winter clothes in our storage unit and made the 2 hour drive to Blenheim. This is where we started out in the South Island, a full circle had finally been made. Our bank account was dwindling along with our hopes, as many of the grape harvests had been cut short due to lake of work. I frantically used up internet time at the library seeking any temporary backpacking jobs in New Zealand. Unless we wanted to do unpaid housekeeping at hotels, motels, and hostels across the nation in exchange for a free room, our best bet was to stick it out here and find some grapes to pick. After driving around looking for free fishing access campgrounds, we pulled into a site for the night, exhausted and drained. A van with 3 people pulled up next to us and asked if they could camp by us for the night, and of course we quickly struck up conversations with them. These friendly British travelers had been working in a vineyard for about a week and gave us a few phone numbers to try. Lucky for us the lady they work for needed a few extra hands at several vineyards they contract to, and our new camping neighbors turned quickly into new friends and coworkers. Friday we spent our first day on the fields with a small team of workers from England, Germany, Spain, Asia, and us, the lone Americans. Our job was to snip off the green and less ripened grapes from the Pinot crop. Essentially this job is meandering through a vineyard, and taking off the less superior grapes. There are no angry sheep, there is no indoor smoking, and it is pretty peaceful all in all. After getting our last paycheck from the sheds of $100 and getting some work rolling in, our spirits were a bit lifted. However we currently are still homeless and just camping in our van. Back home this sounds like a very sad predicament, but here it is a pretty normal thing to do. It actually came in pretty handy because we had several days work at a vineyard 30 minutes from town, but instead of having to commute we just camped at the vineyard with the managers permission. That means more van sleep for me. I do not want to fool anyone into believing this is ideal however, van living is not always easy. We have to shuffle all of our bags daily into the front seat to make the bed up, the stove and propane has to be set up for every meal (preferably out of the wind), cooking dinner is always an event, and my cold has now moved onto Tony. Although we passed on the free option of jumping in the dam at the vineyard for a good old fashion body cleaning, we showered at the local recreation center. For $5 you can have a hot shower that is on a timer in which you have to repeatedly press a button, but it does the job after a day in the sun with the grapes. Truly these are the days of a migrant worker, living in a van, work visa in hand, and ready to pick grapes. Poor Tony has put up with me sick, complaining about money, and having meltdowns about homelessness. However many complaints I may have for the challenges we have faced, honestly it has been a great adventure with many stories to tell. If we can keep getting steady work, there seems to be a lot of flat mates needed according to the local ads posted at the supermarket. That’s right forget about craig’slist in New Zealand, instead you go to the local grocery store and look at the community postings for selling vehicles, buying parrots, or finding a place to live.