Our days in New Zealand are numbered and it will be a bittersweet ending. We will be arriving in Austin on August 28th after 9 months of traveling through this little country. Most of the time we honestly didn’t think that we would make it this long. Not only were we homesick, missed family, friends, …
The past month we have been doing a work exchange as managers of an amazing backpackers in Turangi (central North Island) and really it is more like a home with only 5 rooms and 14 beds. After the tough life of relaxing, fishing, slightly working, cooking, and cleaning we took a few days break to …
After 7 months I have finally unpacked my toothbrush onto a shelf, in our very own bathroom, at a beautiful hostel we will be looking after for the next month. Tony and I are finally at a place we love and things are starting to look up and go our way, but getting to that …
Three weeks of snipping, bending, and wrapping grape vines has past, but the pain in my hands has not. The current vineyard we are at has some extremely unruly vines that one by one are being tamed into the shape of motorcycle handlebars onto wire. It is kind of amazing to see such a transition. …
Last weekend was a fairly routine weekend. I went out on the town Friday night with a new friend named Sarah. She is from Australia, but has been living in Blenheim for a few years and had asked Tony and I to meet up for a drink. Tony was dead tired by 8pm since he …
Well the rain started again last Friday, but let up for the weekend. Tony and I were able to walk to town on Saturday and run some errands. It is really only a 20-30 minute walk to the town center and everything is a surprisingly close stroll from there. Walking to town one of my …
After all the mold from the previous work week, we decided to treat ourselves to something fun. Sunday Tony was able to check another goal off the list by going diving with his new boss, Martin. I dropped Tony off at Robin Hood bay which is surrounded by mountains and bright blue water. He boarded …
What is worse than cabin fever? The answer is van fever. We had spent the past week watching our money dwindle since rain put pretty much everyone out of work. Instead of making money we were using every resource possible looking for a place to live including online listings, real estate leasing agents, talking to …
After four days of working in the vineyards, meandering along snipping off green grapes, the rain came. New Zealand is known for it’s green hills and pristine rivers, which of course means it rains alot. However this summer this country has been in a drought which might just end this week. The forecast is predicting …
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 …