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 […]
Then the Rain Came Read More »
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
Home Sweet Home (or Van) Read More »
Yellow Eyed Penguin near Curio Bay Our first stop in the Catlins was the historic Waipapa Point lighthouse that had many a sleepy fur seals sunbathing on the beach. It is amazing how big (and smelly) these creatures really are. We journeyed on to Slope Point, the southernmost point of the South Island, then
Penguins and Chocolate Read More »
The next week of our great adventure started out at a lake at the southern end of Fiordland National Park. On Wednesday March 13th we made our way off the beaten path to a little campground. There we met a nice barefoot dread locked hippie fellow who joined us in conversation about the hydro dam
At Least We Ate Well Read More »
Three weeks of driving, fishing, hiking, site seeing, rain, sun, smelly clothes, wet shoes, and sleeping in a van have finally ended and back to the shearing sheds we go. Our trip started out leaving Alexandra on March 4th and headed straight for Queenstown for a few supplies. My hiking pants were ripped, my headlamp
On the Road to Milford Read More »
I guess I should spare everyone from one my most recent New Zealand discoveries, but I can’t help it. In these past few weeks of working with sheep I learned (and witnessed) that a live sheep can have maggots living on them. This can be caused from a special fly that has come here from
A day in the life of the sheep shearing business, this is how it works. Peter Lyons and his wife Elsie have a sheep shearing contract business, one of the largest in New Zealand in fact, shearing 1.5 million sheep per year. They live near the small town of Alexandra where they have several horses,
Last weekend was our first real weekend off of work in New Zealand. What to do? Go fishing of course. After negotiating different hikes and fishing spots (some of the water is too high, too low, or too fished out) we took up an invitation to go fishing in Twizel for the weekend. Twizel is
There are really very few skills required to pick cherries. The first is having a work visa and tax number, which I would not consider skills, the other is being able to stand on a three legged ladder with a gallon bucket in a harness around your neck, that is all the skills you need.
Buckets of Cherries Read More »
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
Moving on From the Tent Read More »