One week and 2 tents later!

Happy belated New Year!

I hope New Year celebrations, whether chilled or very drunkard, was good for everyone. As you can see from the picture mine was both very chilled and extremely drunkard. This was taken at 5.00am, apparently Angie had to price the beer out of my hand as my grip was so tight, that, I thought, was impressive as I had passed out! New year was spent in with a few new travelling buddy's from the hostel and towards the end of the night I gate crashed Chrissy and Jacks party and drank all their booze!

So we have made it to the South Island and started work this week in Blenheim. Blenheim itself is not the most interesting of areas, pretty flat, agricultural land and not a lot going on from what we have seen so far apart from the town with the obvious, shops and a few bars and cafes which we have yet to explore. The best feature is of course, the vine yards, there are hundreds of the bad boys and fields full of vines carrying capsules of juice! We should be working today but thanks to the universe we have an extra day off. We started work on Monday for an agency who contract us out to vine yards in the Marlborough area 6 days a week, 7.00am to 4.30.

I had this romantic idea that I would be tasting the wine and crushing the grapes with my bare feet in one of those big wooden cases..........not even close. Our job consists of pruning the vines, hundreds of them, row after row all day long!! Sometimes we have to take off 80% of the leaves and others just 30%, thrilling stuff .The agency itself makes a mint out of us, they contract us out to apparently 'posh vineyards' and give us the minimum wage. We were told that the wine goes straight to the US and UK but we have not been told which wine it is yet but look out for the Marlborough and Nelson area on your white wines, usually Savaugion Blanc, and think of us. The work itself is not that taxing but when it is hot and we are in the sun all day it can be pretty hard going.

If the work in anyway starts to put me off the wine then I'm leaving, I am not prepared to compromise my wine drinking for a job! We have still not done any wine tasting, hoping to pop into a vine yard on the way home today.

Although Blenheim is not the most scenic of places, we staying in some lovely DOC campsites just out of the Blenheim, the facilities are scarce but the location and views are stunning. We are staying in 2 mainly, Rangarari and Whites Bay, along the East cost, both seconds away from the sea and in the distance views of the Malborough Sounds and mountain ranges. We are surviving the camping. I think we are coping pretty well considering a few problems on the way, tears, laughter and a lot of bites from the bastard sand flies and mossies. Lessons are certainly being learnt not only emotionally and in stress management but also practically, like never buy a cheap tent, it's not worth it! Within the first week tent number 1 was destroyed by the high winds breaking the tubes and ripping the fabric! We have decided to take the tent down on a daily basis, as most travelling dudes seem to be doing. This does mean getting up at 5.30am-brilliant!! I'm starting to like the early hour really, especially the sunrise over the ocean, perfect start to the day.

The solar shower has been interesting! trying to find a spot that is private and then getting it high enough to work, our height causes a few problems and when it's winy it's soo cold. Angie's perfected the art of the seated shower using our camping chair with the bag'resting on top of the car-genius! Weather permitting, we'll stay doing the camping, we both love being in the outdoors and starting the master the art of cooking in wind and rain!

We have not been able to do much exploring yet, but once the work in finished in 3 weeks we have the next 4-6 weeks to travel around the South Island before heading back to the North in mid March. Being free spirits with the car and tent does mean we can go off after work on Saturday and camp over night where ever we decide to go. We're off to Picton tomorrow at the head of Queen Charlottes Sounds.

We managed to have another day in Wellington before catching the ferry over to the South Island, time again mainly spent in the Te Papa, 2 more floors to go. They have an amazing iwi (tribe) exhibition there from the Nagi Tahu Whanui, Maori tribe in the South Island who migrated from the North 10 generations ago. Much of the exhibition revolves around their culture, values, way of life past and present. The exhibition is organised around the 4 cultural valvues: Culture, Tenacity, Sustainability and Innovation. There are loads of facinating taonga (treasures) such as art work engraved on stone, hunting tools from hundreds of years ago, clothing and jewlerry. Their story is very important and much of it is told through taonga.Keep you posted!

Lots and love and hugs xxxx

PS. If anyone is messaging me on Face book, just to let you know that I'm not using it that much while being away, the blog takes it out of me and best to e-mail!!

I'm so excited you are looking into coming over Sarah, I hope it's possible. You could either meet us in the South Island if you are coming at the start of March and then travel up with us to the North or we can meet in the North, what ever works best with you and when the flights are. anytime is cool with us. Love you xxx