Friday, June 25, 2004
Moving on, But not too far
Well, as Nelson had yet to produce jobs for us, we up and headed to Motueka to visit(45 min around the bay from Nelson), and while we were there we stopped at the work and income office. There we found a couple leads and so we didn't feel guilty for spending the day wandering around and enjoying our day off from the job hunt, we wrote down some phone numbers. After our day in Motueka we felt better and were refreshed for a couple more days of searching.
A week ago Friday we phoned a fellow, whose number we brought home with us from Motueka, about a job picking olives. What do you know? We were hired on the spot. I must admit I was almost confused when I called and told him who I was, and that there were two of us, and he asked if we wanted to start Monday. Well that was a no-brainer, we took the job, and so spent the weekend no longer worrying about the money issue.
We picked up the much neglected map and found a beach rather near us and decided to head that way on Saturday. After nearly a week of rain we woke to a gloriously sunny day with clear blue skies...it was meant to be. We drove up to Rabbit Island and parked along the beach. The tide was on it's way out and so we spent nearly two hours just walking the beach and making long zigzagging lines of footprints, throwing shells into the water, rescuing oil cans from the waves, and all the other lazy, beach type things you do near the ocean. No sunbathing unfortunately, I'm not a polar bear, but it was lovely all the same.
Technically, we are in the middle of winter down here, but my brain hasn't accepted the fact yet, and may never do so. As far as I'm concerned it's June people, and nearly July so it isn't winter. Winter means Christmas and snow and that sort of thing. We are getting none of that so it must just be a cold summer this year. Yah that's it. Keep trying to convince yourself Meghan!! The day just wouldn't have been complete, however, without our spotting the funniest thing of the trip so far. Picture us driving along in the country with vineyards and apple orchards all along advertising wine tasting and selling fruit respectively. We are chatting some and just taking in the sights. As sweet as Nelson is, the country is just so green and big and it's wonderful. We stopped and bought a bag of freshly picked Fuji apples from an on-your-honor stand and were munching happily when we passed a sign that nearly made us choke with laughter on those very same apples. Perfect don't you think? We just had to stop and take a photo for all of you at home who missed out!
Sunday it rained again but we were happy to relax and sleep in and get ready for work the next morning.
Monday dawned wet again, but we got up in the dark and headed to the meet the olive man just south of Motueka. We are working for Peter Muir, aka the Olive Man, who works in turn for an American guy who apparently owns quite a bit of land from mountain to ocean out the Motueka way, lucky guy! The Olive Man is very friendly and right away all three of us began chatting away about everything from Survivor to what we studied at school, to (of course) OLIVES. We headed out to the orchard and mucked around out there scoping out the trees and the equipment. The orchard is gorgeous and as we arrived, the sun came out and made all the rain soaking everything sparkle. (there are silver clouds everywhere, so I'm told) We then went back to the office to check out the computer forecast for the day/week. Looked rather wet for the rest of Monday so we couldn't start picking right away. Instead we drove back to Nelson, paid our friend Trish for our room, went to Warehouse and bought 'gum boots'(or mud boots), and began packing our scattered belongings for the move...
The Olive Man, also helped us find a place to stay, just about a 20 minute walk from the orchard. It is a place he is trying to rent on a permanent basis, but seeing as this is the off season, he isn't having much luck. So we are renting it quite cheaply by the week. The place looks a bit like a little Italian villa, we've decided, and we took photos of the inside (totally unfurnished except for a mattress and a heater the landlord dug up for us) and of course forgot to take pictures of the outside, which is where the villa thing comes out. But next time... For now, here are some photos of where we are staying. We sadly are a bit removed from town and so don't have easy, or cheap access to email, so if we don't reply for awhile, know we really appreciate the emails and we'll write just as soon as we can. But the house we are renting is a really great place for what we are paying and we have: a stove with more than one burner, a fridge all to ourselves, a shower we can leave our shampoo in overnight, and FREE LAUNDRY! Amazing, I know. But these are all things one takes for granted until one becomes a backpacker and you literally have to live out of a backpack. It felt like we were practically showering in our packs too, for awhile. So here we have space and we bought a 1000 piece puzzle to while away the hours in the country without movies or the idiot box. Lovely.
Photos of the outside to come...
Tuesday it was only a little drizzly and so we again drove out to the orchard very early, from Nelson. We organized ourselves a bit in the new abode and when the skies cleared up a bit we headed to the orchard to start picking. We very nearly froze our fingers off the first few hours with the wet and cold but it warmed up nicely for the afternoon and we got moving a bit faster. The Olive Man popped out to chat and give us pointers and then we didn't see him for the rest of the day. Here are some photos of the orchard as we picked.
On Wed afternoon our first batch of olives was taken away to the press and we found we'd picked about 200kg of olives. Sheesh, pitiful so Thursday and Friday we hauled ass and way outpicked those first two days. The total tally has yet to come back however, but we'll let you know how we did after we got around that learning curve thing.
Thursday after work, we made some friends in out in our backyard. We were practicing our mooing -I know, it's too bad no one else was around out here in the country to hear us being so intelligent- and Mike made some friends, and even got some tongue action!!!
Looking back on our first week as olive pickers, we have decided that we quite enjoy this, but seeing as how the pay isn't what we could be making in other places, we are glad we don't have to rely on this for the rest of our lives. It's a perfect thing to do on this adventure, however, since the object is to have fun and do new and interesting things. Sadly the orchard isn't never ending and we will most likely have to move on in a week or two and then the job hunt will begin anew. Oh, and did I mention that this area is gorgeous? From the top of the hill in the orchard we look one direction and see the ocean and when we turn around we see Mt. Arthur, part of the snow-capped southern Alps.
Photo of Mt. Arthur to come...
Phenomenal! The air here is crystal clear because there is so much water around and you can see for miles and miles -or rather k's and k's. And the sunsets are stunning. Pink to the west over the ocean, and golds and silvers to the east behind the mountains and hills.
A week ago Friday we phoned a fellow, whose number we brought home with us from Motueka, about a job picking olives. What do you know? We were hired on the spot. I must admit I was almost confused when I called and told him who I was, and that there were two of us, and he asked if we wanted to start Monday. Well that was a no-brainer, we took the job, and so spent the weekend no longer worrying about the money issue.
We picked up the much neglected map and found a beach rather near us and decided to head that way on Saturday. After nearly a week of rain we woke to a gloriously sunny day with clear blue skies...it was meant to be. We drove up to Rabbit Island and parked along the beach. The tide was on it's way out and so we spent nearly two hours just walking the beach and making long zigzagging lines of footprints, throwing shells into the water, rescuing oil cans from the waves, and all the other lazy, beach type things you do near the ocean. No sunbathing unfortunately, I'm not a polar bear, but it was lovely all the same.
Technically, we are in the middle of winter down here, but my brain hasn't accepted the fact yet, and may never do so. As far as I'm concerned it's June people, and nearly July so it isn't winter. Winter means Christmas and snow and that sort of thing. We are getting none of that so it must just be a cold summer this year. Yah that's it. Keep trying to convince yourself Meghan!! The day just wouldn't have been complete, however, without our spotting the funniest thing of the trip so far. Picture us driving along in the country with vineyards and apple orchards all along advertising wine tasting and selling fruit respectively. We are chatting some and just taking in the sights. As sweet as Nelson is, the country is just so green and big and it's wonderful. We stopped and bought a bag of freshly picked Fuji apples from an on-your-honor stand and were munching happily when we passed a sign that nearly made us choke with laughter on those very same apples. Perfect don't you think? We just had to stop and take a photo for all of you at home who missed out!
Sunday it rained again but we were happy to relax and sleep in and get ready for work the next morning.
Monday dawned wet again, but we got up in the dark and headed to the meet the olive man just south of Motueka. We are working for Peter Muir, aka the Olive Man, who works in turn for an American guy who apparently owns quite a bit of land from mountain to ocean out the Motueka way, lucky guy! The Olive Man is very friendly and right away all three of us began chatting away about everything from Survivor to what we studied at school, to (of course) OLIVES. We headed out to the orchard and mucked around out there scoping out the trees and the equipment. The orchard is gorgeous and as we arrived, the sun came out and made all the rain soaking everything sparkle. (there are silver clouds everywhere, so I'm told) We then went back to the office to check out the computer forecast for the day/week. Looked rather wet for the rest of Monday so we couldn't start picking right away. Instead we drove back to Nelson, paid our friend Trish for our room, went to Warehouse and bought 'gum boots'(or mud boots), and began packing our scattered belongings for the move...
The Olive Man, also helped us find a place to stay, just about a 20 minute walk from the orchard. It is a place he is trying to rent on a permanent basis, but seeing as this is the off season, he isn't having much luck. So we are renting it quite cheaply by the week. The place looks a bit like a little Italian villa, we've decided, and we took photos of the inside (totally unfurnished except for a mattress and a heater the landlord dug up for us) and of course forgot to take pictures of the outside, which is where the villa thing comes out. But next time... For now, here are some photos of where we are staying. We sadly are a bit removed from town and so don't have easy, or cheap access to email, so if we don't reply for awhile, know we really appreciate the emails and we'll write just as soon as we can. But the house we are renting is a really great place for what we are paying and we have: a stove with more than one burner, a fridge all to ourselves, a shower we can leave our shampoo in overnight, and FREE LAUNDRY! Amazing, I know. But these are all things one takes for granted until one becomes a backpacker and you literally have to live out of a backpack. It felt like we were practically showering in our packs too, for awhile. So here we have space and we bought a 1000 piece puzzle to while away the hours in the country without movies or the idiot box. Lovely.
Photos of the outside to come...
Tuesday it was only a little drizzly and so we again drove out to the orchard very early, from Nelson. We organized ourselves a bit in the new abode and when the skies cleared up a bit we headed to the orchard to start picking. We very nearly froze our fingers off the first few hours with the wet and cold but it warmed up nicely for the afternoon and we got moving a bit faster. The Olive Man popped out to chat and give us pointers and then we didn't see him for the rest of the day. Here are some photos of the orchard as we picked.
On Wed afternoon our first batch of olives was taken away to the press and we found we'd picked about 200kg of olives. Sheesh, pitiful so Thursday and Friday we hauled ass and way outpicked those first two days. The total tally has yet to come back however, but we'll let you know how we did after we got around that learning curve thing.
Thursday after work, we made some friends in out in our backyard. We were practicing our mooing -I know, it's too bad no one else was around out here in the country to hear us being so intelligent- and Mike made some friends, and even got some tongue action!!!
Looking back on our first week as olive pickers, we have decided that we quite enjoy this, but seeing as how the pay isn't what we could be making in other places, we are glad we don't have to rely on this for the rest of our lives. It's a perfect thing to do on this adventure, however, since the object is to have fun and do new and interesting things. Sadly the orchard isn't never ending and we will most likely have to move on in a week or two and then the job hunt will begin anew. Oh, and did I mention that this area is gorgeous? From the top of the hill in the orchard we look one direction and see the ocean and when we turn around we see Mt. Arthur, part of the snow-capped southern Alps.
Photo of Mt. Arthur to come...
Phenomenal! The air here is crystal clear because there is so much water around and you can see for miles and miles -or rather k's and k's. And the sunsets are stunning. Pink to the west over the ocean, and golds and silvers to the east behind the mountains and hills.
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