Rainy Monday

Usually, I hate rain. Having grown up in England, the land of rain, I'd rather there not be water falling from the sky. However, rainy days out here in vineyard world means no work, which is fine by me, I love 3 day weekends! Its a pity though that we actually had to turn up for work at 7am to then be told to go back home again...

So today I've actually got time to come to the library and tap into their free wifi and do a bit of catching up with the emails that I've been neglecting so badly for the past few weeks. Working 9-10 hours a day really doesn't leave you with much free time, so its been nice having this extra day off to do some things I've not had time to do lately.

This little town seems to be having a very strange effect on me, lately I've been doing things I never thought I would... like baking! Whoever knows me will know I'm not one for the kitchen, I'd rather do the washing up and cleaning than actually cook... but times are indeed changing! The past few weeks I've had a go at making scones (my first attempt turned out better than my second - so much for improvement with practice), cookies, a date loaf. Just sweet stuff for now, but its a start! With Stacy, I've made a few proper meals from scratch such as toad in the hole, cottage pie and I think later this week we'll be making pumpkin soup. Oh how my proud my mum will be of my new found kitchen skills! I think the hostel I'm staying in is partly to blame for this, a lot of people there like to bake and cook and its slowly being transfered to the likes of me! Its always fun to see what people are cooking and of course to have a little sample every so often!

Tonight I think I might attempt my first ever loaf of bread... I'll let you know how it goes.

Weekend, why art thou nearly over...?

Weekends have become like gold-dust to me now that I'm working again. The past year on the road has been like one long weekend, forever going to new places and doing new things, its been like one big holiday. But now that I'm back to being employed, its back to relishing the weekends!

2 weekends ago we had a party at the hostel, a rave themed full moon party which we all got dressed up for, hired out a UV light, decked out the shed, our place for fun and games, with brightly coloured beach items and drank our drinks out of buckets. You could almost have imagined you were in Koh Phangan at a full moon party... though perhaps without the full moon!

Last night we had a one glove party, as tribute to Michael Jackson, where we all wore one glove and spent the night playing drinking games. My glove of choice was an oven glove, certainly kept it interesting trying to pick up my glass!

Next weekend, mine and Stacy's last full weekend here, I think we might be having a mexican themed night, which'll should be interesting! Certainly a good way to spend our last weekend here, we just have to get through another long week at work first!

My life as a vineyard worker

Its been a good 2 weeks since I last wrote, I seem to have settled into life quite quickly over here, waking up at 6am 5 days a week to the freezing cold and having permanenly sore hands are all part of every day life for me now. I've been working in the vineyards for 3 weeks and I'm slowly getting better, this last week being my best yet, I even broke the $150 a day mark yesterday! My first week was pretty appauling, it rained a lot so we ended up having a few half days and I was very very slow, so my first pay cheque wasn't much to sing and dance about.

However, I just received my second week's pay and I did much better, almost doubling my first pay cheque (to be honest, it wasn't very hard!) so fingers crossed it only gets better from now on!

That said, I'll be glad when me and Stacy leave in 2 weeks time, my hands and back will certainly appreciate the break from vineyard work. We'll be heading back to Christchurch to meet up with a friend of ours who'll be joining us for a few months and hopefully by then we'll either have ourselves a nice little campervan, or will soon be buying one! Definitely looking forward to having a little place to call our own, our little house on wheels!

I'll be sad to leave the hostel we're in though, my current home away from home in New Zealand. There's a great group of people staying at the moment and hopefully we'll meet up again sometime in the future, whether it be back in our own home countries or somewhere else in the world!

A little something about vineyards

Marlborough, the area at the north of the South Island where I'm staying at the moment, is New Zealands largest wine producing region and there really are an awful lot of vineyards around. Apparently the wine made from this region is quite distinctive and popular and a lot of the vineyards in the area make profits in the million dollar region, which makes me think that perhaps I should look into owning a vineyard instead of working on one!


An awful lot goes on throughout the year on a vineyard and at the moment I'm working just after the harvest season has ended to get the vineyard ready for next year's growth. After all the grapes are harvested, the vines have to be pruned, stripped, trimmed and then wrapped, ready for the next year. As I mentioned in an earlier post, pruning, stripping and trimming are usually done by guys and girls usually do the wrapping, mainly because pruning and stripping are a lot more physically demanding than wrapping.


The vines, which after the harvest will consist of many canes, will be pruned to leave just 4-6 canes, which will then be stripped and trimmed of any extra leaves, etc and after that, they'll be wrapped along the wire trellis and fastened with a wire tie. Its quite time consuming work, each vineyard needing a pruning, stripping/trimming and wrapping team to finish off the harvest season. Its tough work, but pays good money if you're fast and attracts many holidaying backpackers who need to earn a little extra money to fund their travels.


Anyhow, this wasn't a very detailed description of vineyard work, but hopefully it'll give you all a better idea of what it all entails.

Day 2 on the job

So this morning I awoke super early (6am!) for day 2 of working in the vineyards, though we were uncertain whether the weather would hold out for a full day. But a few hours is better than nothing I guess.

My introduction into wrapping yesterday was quite brief and so today I got to put all I had learnt into action... suffice to say I'm still not very good and very very slow. For the 5 or so hours I worked this morning before the rain got too heavy, I managed a total of 1.5 rows (at the moment, a row consists of 84 vines) which I thought was pretty good, until I found out that other people were doing more than double that!! Fingers crossed I can speed up, otherwise I just might become unemployed again...!

Leaving Christchurch and back to the rat race...

After spending 3 freezing days in Christchurch, I decided it was time to move on and get back to life with Stacy. So last Thursday began with a ridiculously early start as I packed up all my belongings (including a few newly purchased warm clothes) and took a coach up north to one of the wine regions of the South Island to be reunited with Stacy.

The little hostel where Stacy had been staying for the past 2-3 weeks before I arrived and where I'd now also be staying is a great homely place about a 20min walk from the town centre. Currently full to capacity with long term backpackers, nearly all of whom work in the local vineyards to earn some money to fund their travels, there is a great feeling of comradery between the backpackers who live and work together as well as with the managers who live on site. After a long day at work and at the weekends you know you'll always find someone cooking or baking in the kitchen to chat to, a film playing in the tv lounge or a lazy moment in the shed, its definitely a great place to be when you're so far away from home.

My first few days were spent catching up with Stacy, getting to know the other backpackers in the hostel and looking for work. After spending nearly a year on the road, my bank account is in dire need of replenishing! Most of the work that travellers such as myself go into out here in New Zealand is seasonal work and the main such work in the area is working the many vineyards. There are 3 main vineyard jobs; pruning, stripping and wrapping, the latter usually given to girls - for what reason I'm not too sure.

Anyhow, after a lazy weekend I began my job hunting in earnest early yesterday morning when I followed Stacy to her pick up point at 6.45am for her job in the vineyards. Not much happened other than giving my name and phone number to a few places in the hope that they were looking for people to work, but later yesterday evening I got a call a contractor asking if I could start work tomorrow.

And so now I have a job wrapping grape vines! It was my first day today (although after 2 hours we were taken back to the pick up point because it was raining) and the work is very repetitive and tiring - tying between 2-4 stems of the grapevine to the wire trellis - however thats nothing my ipod can't fix! I've been told I'll get faster as I get more experienced and since we get paid per each vine we wrap, I'll hopefully be earning some good money soon. Fingers crossed!

Jetlag is not my friend!

Its certainly not fun when you can't sleep and right now, that is my current state. Even though I've been travelling for the past year, all of it has been throughout Asia and the time difference between countries has been minimal to none. So my sleep patterns were never really affected by moving around... until now that is!

New Zealand is only 4 hours ahead of Malaysia, yet it is enough to make me sleepy during the day and awake in the middle of the night. Tonight is only night 3 so I'm hoping this will pass soon enough, that said, tonight is my worst night yet, as its now 2am New Zealand time (10pm Malaysian time) and I'm yet to feel sleepy. Lets hope that an early start tomorrow morning will bring sleep to me at a decent time tomorrow night. Fingers crossed!

Return to the Western World

I'm slowly adjusting to being out of Asia, part of the world where I've spent the past 2 years living and travelling. It's only been 3 days but I'm getting there slowly. The climate for one is taking some getting used to, but thats nothing a coat and some warm clothes won't fix.

Being surrounded by native English speakers has taken a little getting used to, as everywhere I go I can understand conversations that are happening all around me as well as being able to read and understand all the signboards and shop names. I had become so used to not understanding a lot of what I hear (or read) when I was travelling through Asia that I now find myself evesdropping on other people's conversations! Its certainly nice being back in a land where I can make myself understood easily.

Life out here in New Zealand though is certainly more expensive than Asia and that's going to take a lot of getting used to. Not being able to eat for £2 a meal and have my money stretch like it did will be a hard one, but thankfully the British Pound still goes a fair way out here. Time to be a little more stringent with my money perhaps.

Crossing roads is like a dream come true out here. After the manic experiences of China and Vietnam of fearing for your life everytime you even think about crossing the road, or in Malaysia where there are random holes and open drains everywhere, or even Cambodia and Laos where the pavement and road are merged into one, when drivers obey traffic lights and having cars stop to let me cross here in New Zealand makes me want to weep for joy.

The land of the Kiwi

I parted ways with Danny in Melbourne and headed to Christchurch by myself that same night, the Jetstar flight much more comfortable than the AirAsiaX flight.. At least the AirAsia flight was cheap, thats one thing it has going for it!

Arriving in Christchurch late on the 1st, I was met by my brother at the airport who I hadn't seen in over a year! It was so good seeing him again and we spent much of the night catching up on what we'd each been up to and marveling in the fact that we were together again.

The next morning we headed to the Honey Pot Cafe on the corner of Manchester St. and Lichfield St, a cute little cafe that had a good selection of food, with large servings at a decent price for a late breakfast before my brother headed up to Auckland, our reunion only fleeting! After he left I spent the day strolling around Christchuch and doing some much needed errands; opening a bank account, applying for a tax number and obtaining a New Zealand phone number - which were all surprisingly easy to do!

New Zealand is currently coming into their winter months and its absolutley freezing down here in Christchuch! Bit of a shock to the system after being in Malaysia where the average daily temperature was above 30 degrees C. Alas, it is only going to get colder so I think its about time I invested in a warm coat.. which can only mean one thing, its shopping time!

Back on the road

With my packing finally complete and the apartment tidy, it was time to leave KL. Having lived there on and off for the past 6 months I was really reluctant to leave, it had been great getting to know my relatives better and having a proper base where I wasn't living out of a backpack! However, it was time to move on to pastures new...

So I left KL last night on an AirAsia X flight to Melbourne, my second time on an AirAsiaX plane (Airbus) and I still stand by my view that they aren't very comfortable! The seats don't recline and they didn't even have a TV on this plane, at least on the last AirAsiaX flight I took (KL to Hangzhou, China) there were screens and the option of paying for a film to watch. However, despite the uncomfortable seats I did manage to sleep a little with the help of my new purchase - a travel pillow! My travel pillow wasn't my only purchase at the KL LCCT airport, I also managed to get my hands on a pair of those pinhole glasses I recently found out about! Will give them a go soon, lets see if I can actually improve my eyesight from wearing them.

Anyhow, I arrived at Melbourne International Airport this morning and I choose to leave my bags in storage and head downtown for the 6 hours I had before I checked in for my flight to Christchurch, seemed like a better option than sitting at the airport all day, especially since wireless internet connection isn't free - very cheeky!

It was my first time in Melbourne and even though I only had a few hours I absolutely loved it. I started off my mini excursion with a trip on the free city circle tram, after which I did a little exploring on foot. Its been very strange being out of the humidity and heat of Malaysia, I've been travelling in tropical climates for nearly a year now and the coolness of Melbourne has been very refreshing. I hear its a lot colder in Christchurch at the moment, not sure if I'll like that too much!

And so now I wait to board for my flight to Christchuch. It was just a fleeting visit in Melbourne today but I'll definitely be coming back again!