Kerikeri, Bay of Islands (March 5th - 12th April 2007)

We set of to our next destination which is in one of the most beautiful and hottest parts of New Zealand. We arrived at Hone Heke lodge which is just superb. We have a fridge in our room and everything which is great when for the past 5 weeks you have shared with 100+ people. It's really quite aswel at the moment so you have the whole place to youselves including the huge wide screen tv, yey! The giant trampoline is endless fun for those with no money! We came to Kerikeri and hoped to get some work but because of the late summer the fruit ain't ready until the start of April so we secured a job here for April and will be heading back to Auckland soon to work there and save some pennies for a few weeks. Kerikeri is really small and hasn't got too much going on but the place is really beautiful and has so many bits hidden away, my favorite bit so far is Fairy Springs, a short walk in the woods takes you to a part of Kerikeri river, you can swim in the fresh water pools by the waterfalls, but we will get some pictures of that soon so you can all get jealous.

Well we never made it out of Kerikeri and back to Auckland so we are still here. When we were due to leave somebody offered us some gardening work, cash in hand for two days so we snapped it up but when we got there he had had a plan drawn out of where he wanted trees to be planted to block out the view of the kennels they were soon to put up so it took us 7 days, which wasn't bad becasue it was really sunny so we managed to get some good tans.

After that we took a few days off and visited my favorite Fairy Springs and Rainbow Falls and waited for our phone call to start in the packhouse. They finally called us last Saturday and we started work last Sunday, I am a Kiwi grader soon to be Mandarin grader and Pete works the floor. We are working from 8am at the moment until 7pm but sometimes a little earlier depending on how much fruit has been picked. The girls I'm working with are really nice and the job is made easier because you get to wear a hairnet and can steal the fruit but idiot here stole some kiwi fruit and it will take 2 weeks + to ripen, I've had it a week already and it still feels like a stone!

We have had quite alot of time off though because we have had a cyclone here, 4 months rainfall in 38 hours, we went out to check the damage when we could finally get out and Fairy Springs has been completely ruined which makes one unhappy Kate and the bridge has been pulled away so its a marathon getting out of Kerikeri now.

Apart from that I haven't been up to much becasue of work but I will be sure to have some better stories once we move on.

 

Right it’s been a while so hang on in there while I actually think about what I have actually done!The packhouse was rubbish, pure and simple, they wanted us to do 15 hour shifts one day and 12hours the next day then not work at all for days on end so we just weren’t getting paid enough to save plus Pete was lugging boxes for hours on end and he was cream crackered so we did the decent thing and sacked it off. But before we finished Jo came up to see us which was great, I expected her to ring  when she got to Kerikeri but instead she happened to pick the backpackers we were staying and surprised me loads when she was waiting for me when I got home from work looking a little worse for wear. We were all a bit skint so we spent a few days just looking around Kerkeri (doesn’t take long) and travelling up North a bit so Jo could see what New Zealand was about, which is an awful lot of green and beaches, we also went to New Zealand’s most famous fish and chip shop in Manganoui and it really was delicious!Then Jo jetted off so we sent on a few adventures of our own. We decided to see all there was to see in the Northland and went to look around Puketi Kauri forest, it was a beautiful walk around a forest would you belive. The kauri trees are ancient and absolutely huge (we have a few pics of us trying to hug them) then we travelled further north and visited the Ancient Kauri Kingdom, it’s a place where they carve alsorts of things out of  ancient Kauri wood, including a life size golom (that thing from Lord of the rings), a giant chair, tables, beds and other really great original stuff, in the centre is a huge tree that they have carved a stairwell in the centre of to take you up a floor. We then travelled up to 90 mile beach, this is an absolute gorgeous beach (very long of course), the coaches drive all the way along to Cape Reinga but our Nissan Bluebird was not up to the challenge, apparently you can see the roof of cars that have tried, failed and sunk. We followed it via the road which showed us some amazing views to Cape Reinga which is the very Northern point of New Zealand, here you can see where the Tasman sea meets the Pacific sea and a famous lighthouse. There is also a sign which tells you how far away you are from places and Pete just kept snapping the thing for some reason unknown to others. The weather then took a small turn for the worst so we had to head home.After a few days it was time to say goodbye to our faithful friend Mace the cat, it followed us everywhere and would constantly be sat by our door when we got up and came home from work, sometimes we would find it in Petes suitcase, it was hard I can tell ya! Next stop Paihia about 40 mins away.