Another Small Interim Report

Mar 31, 2015 | Photos, The Great Journey, Updates

Too much green cabbage. Unfortunately, I only realise when there’s already a massive amount inside the colorful frying pan. The rest, thinking in advance as a good chef does, already lies finely chopped…

Now you must be strong and find alternatives and compromise. Right, a salad. But I only have chives, onions, garlic and cabbage. A little plain in terms of color… I submit (young and inexperienced as I am) to the online advice and let the leftover cabbage mingle amongst a mixture of garlic, oil, salt and pepper and some slightly expired lime juice.

Thus, I have completed the second salad of my life and the 24th warm meal (Ha! As if I still count 😀 ).

And it is delicious. I’m still mum’s son, in the end. 😛

The calculation around the time change gets much more complicated. From the 5th of April, I am only 10 hours ahead of you… I don’t know who invented this. At mine, we go FORWARDS and at yours you go BACKWARDS. 😀

These days I am picking apples again and from tomorrow we will harvest the world-famous variety ‘Granny Smith’. These apples won’t get to Germany, but the look of the trees is overwhelming. Not the least in the eyes of the picker. 😊

The mornings grow increasingly ‘crisp’, but it always ends in baking heat. 😀 Did your sweat ever go INTO your ears? 😀

4 arms would be the only logical answer.

Monstrous compared to other trees and as full as it ever gets.

The days until my (temporary at first) arrival at the family grow less and less and the anticipation rises on both sides, as I have heard…

By then there would be quite different things and all new impressions to report. Now the working life only flows by itself as it is… 😊

All as planned

Mar 13, 2015 | Photos, The Great Journey, Trips, Updates

In 33 days, I will open a door. A door that belongs to my home of the next months.

My plan to spend the 12 mandatory weeks in the apple orchard, in order to extend my visa, works out. Only I will go back to Hawke’s Bay after one week with my host family to use April’s last two weeks for work. Cause theoretically you have to work only one day per week, to make it count for the extension.

After all bureaucratic and also physically exhausting efforts I can settle in my (in the beginning planned as the only station) host family.

When I really think about it (Attention, try this for yourself. Sorry to all parents.), I am giving myself an outstanding package of New Zealand…

Firstly, one (out of max. 3) months a tourist, no work, just ‘being’ here. In that time, I looked for a host family. The advantage of having the applicant sitting in front of you is that huge, you can actually go for the perfect family. Also, that they most likely will accept. Skype is nothing compared to a talk facing each other over a table…

Then I applied for the working holiday visa. Disadvantage: For stays longer than a year you need a health certificate. They cost, but that’s just the way things work. For an extended stay I am more than happy to go through that.

Holding the working visa, you can dive into the life as work-and-traveler. You can spend long days picking apples in screaming heat and think about life, the meaning of education and a qualified job. You learn what saving money means. You learn that work clothes begin to smell quicker. Also, you learn that life is not all fun and games.

So, when you are either sick of it or you completed you 12 weeks for the extension, you can ignite the second stage. You go out to your host family and..well, I will report when time has come.

The calculation in months is easy. My case shows as follows:

1 month on the tourist visa

12 months on the working holiday visa

3 months in extension of the WHV

When I arrive in my family, I will have spent 5 months in New Zealand already. Effectively, 11 months remain. The last of them I would like to spend traveling the South Island, so that I have 9-10 months with the family.

 The other disadvantage is the rebooking of my flight ticket. On arrival as a tourist you must show a ticket homebound. It is no problem to extend a flight ticket (doesn’t cost the world). But flight tickets are only extendable over the span of one year. For my stay lasts longer than a year, I had to let the booked flight go and will have to look for a new one. Maybe this could’ve gone smoother, so make sure to speak early enough with your travel agent…

Anyhow, even this circumstance is fully worth the additional time I have here at the end of the world.

Amongst others because of this:

Most Au Pairs arrive at their host family directly and leave them directly for home. 1 year as an Au Pair, some traveling on the side, the end. In the beginning that was my plan, too. But it has changed dramatically.

When arriving at my family, I will be familiar with the Kiwi way of life. Then I have already seen streets, supermarkets, gas stations and mannerisms, food and the slang. Within my stay, being an Au Pair is on the one hand the biggest part, on the other hand not the only one.

And after traveling the South Island, I can have a little ‘reunion’ with the family before I return home. I travel, work, be an Au Pair, travel again and then I go home. After 16 months worth New Zealand…

On a road trip it went up as it often does and this time again, I was not disappointed. New Zealand is SO beautiful!

Remember: For trips with your camera, sunset hours are the best. 😉

In the end of my road trip, I found this place. A world record, only 100km from my current stay! 😀 (The name describes a hill and actually is a full sentence.)

Small Interim Report

Mar 5, 2015 | Photos, The Great Journey, Updates

Stretching out the white cloth, collecting the white cloth, that’s how every day goes. On some days I even picked some apples and I have gotten quicker at it. 😊

One day my supervisor noticed a fact: I have become much skinnier working on the orchard. I am happy that next to my bags, I have put myself on the scale as well. Otherwise I couldn’t surely say that I already have lost 10kg! 😀

A daily routine has formed as well. Getting up, eating a bit, packing a bit, off to work, driving home in the 70 degrees hot car, conducting a shower, having dinner, cultivating contacts, some entertainment, scooping ice cream, off to bed, dream straight garbage, alarm goes off, and from the top…

Being on this journey I have learned a lot about myself. For example, that you can be the friendliest person, but that not everyone appreciates that equally.

Less and less I can imagine driving on the right-hand side of the road. I clean the trash for the (obviously very fussy) garbage collection und do the dishes with this despicable brush. I live amongst real Kiwis, eat meat pies and the flat still is fantastic…

I got a Jooooob!

Feb 10, 2015 | Photos, The Great Journey, Updates

Yes, work starts tomorrow. The serious of life. 😊 (Yet I can use smileys.)
The apples are ripe and ready to be plucked AND I am with the party…
To be honest, it is time. Another reason to have this job is, next to the cash, approval for the visa extension. And it will bring some routine to my weeks in the next months. No excessive sleep-ins anymore, no random road trips to nice places because you have nothing better to do, no cinema nights with nachos and dip until late (cinema = Lenovo + Bose Soundlink Mini 😊 )…

The last days have been a blast with all these Elements. 😊
Some of the activities we carried out with a group of German (what else) work-and-travelers. They for sure count to my most pleasant acquaintances in New Zealand.

Ocean Beach. Name says it all.

At the beach for the first time (admittedly; there are things I haven’t done yet…) I had the chance to live the dream to just walk the sand towards the sea and join the waves. Until now I had only blessed the stone beach in Napier for short, Wellington Harbor, the Mediterranean Sea on Mallorca or the North Sea and some lakes in Germany with my physical presence. But never that certain water that has South America as next stop over the horizon.
Nevertheless, the ocean is still oversalted…

The other day we visited “Te Mata Peak” and completed a little hike. This place is the next high ground of the area (about 400m) and offers stunning views of the landscape. It was somewhat of an insanely hot day and the hike was about as much as my weakened bones could bear. To run into the ocean afterwards is just the change you might desire after that… 😀

View from the top. New Zealand is very green in general, but after a few days in the sun the grass looks rather brownish…

Dust on the lens for effects. The backpacker always thinks handily! 😀

Look at me mom! 😀

Sounds like fun… 😊

Looks like fun. 😀

My hiking company. 😊

Well, soon more news will come up and some close-ups of ripe apples, too… 😉

Grand Liberty

Jan 27, 2015 | Photos, The Great Journey, Updates

I have bought a car!

The Grand Liberty is a Mazda Lantis, automatic gearbox, 16V, in good shape, not expensive. Reminds me of our Proton back in the day. 😉

You are, where you are. But what counts as well, is where you CAN go and how comfortably. I have been in different places yet, but always bound to busses, my feet or lovely people who pick up hitchhikers.

I am in one place now, but I can INDEPENDENTLY move greater distances in less time and with less wear-off of my soles. Now I can shop for far more than I can carry, I can go to the neighbor towns and yeah, perhaps even go to work…

Further, my overall stowage is not limited to my backpack, my pockets or the big trolley, but to the whole capacity of the car. What follows, is that I don’t have to worry about size when purchasing different stuff and that I needn’t pack so tight anymore. 😊

I waited for this moment a long time. Here it is!

Until now I have only driven the vehicle to the hostel here in Hastings and you have to be on the edge of your seat not to become a ghost driver. It feels unbelievable! Just like the first moments of sitting in my Audi alone and driving about.

I have looked for contact and stand a good chance to get a job in blueberry-/ apple picking. The plans to work for 3 months straight helps heaps. Thus, soon more seriousness and routine will paint my daily life.

My current hostel is situated inside somewhat of a forest, as you can notice quickly. There are 34 flies whirring around me and my limbs show strange lumps that itch. Otherwise the hostel is really alright. And the fact that the owner appeared in The Lord of the Rings shouldn’t go unnoticed, either. 😊

Before I came to buy the Grand Liberty, I hiked to a river ‘close’ to Hastings. 6km are not little, but it was well worth it…

Outta da House!

Jan 8, 2015 | Photos, The Great Journey, Updates

New Zealand is beautiful! It is magnificently green, you close your weary eyes, and the next moment it is all dry and brown. The green hills are rough now, setting into the beackground and the lanscape turns flat. It is getting green, the earth is rutted, the hills become finer. That scenery leaves me in pity of the travellers on the bus who just stare at their screens. To my cousins (you know who you are ;)): Imagine our sandpit along a stunning river, 2000x more beautiful and with a better view on wheatfields and our Wiehengebirge. That’s what it looked like in some parts! Though the bus doesn’t stop, it goes on. The most irregular thing I saw was the ice skating place in Taupo. It is summer and they just put an ice skating venue there! 😀

As we get closer to our destination, the city Rotorua which is known for its hot springs, you can actually see white smoke rising from the forest. At the last light of the day, we walk over to the hostel…

It is enough. I have spent a whole month in Wellington. The hostel, that still is my first accomodation here, became some sort of home to me. But it felt not quite like traveling, as nice as it has been there… I have grown very fond of Wellington, know myself around and got to know marvellous people. 🙂 I predominantly awaited my bag and haven’t seen a bit of it yet. Why hold on to your plan then? That’s why I decided to take a little trip in the North Island.

A most lovely Japanese girl which I got to know in Wellington works in a hostel in Rotorua, which I of course booked for the nights. We actually got there on the same bus and I was happy to have somebody who knows herself around here. 🙂

Rotorua smells of sulphur, sometimes more, sometimes less. I hope to get used to it soon… The wheather is different from Wellington. It is hot and feels like summer. Wellington is always windy, it hardly gets properly warm. I have had breakfast, sit in the curtilage of the quirky hostel now and the cat rests next to me. Cats are funny beasts. Sometimes they scratch, sometimes they beg for attention, then they have enough of your care…

It feels like traveling now, save to say. You are not bound to a place anymore, you can move freely. And only because you got to change your way of thinking.