Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We finally left Blenheim! We all agreed it was kind of a backpackers purgatory, you get sucked into it and find it very hard to leave - even though you really want to!!
We were there for a total of six weeks, which we spent working to earn enough money to carry on travelling around New Zealand. Unfortunately, this 'we' is just me and Tom, Eddie is still working in Auckland and wants to do the travelling at a later date when hes got more money and can take his time, as were doing the whole thing in two weeks! i think il definaltely come back and do a more thorough travel in the summer sometime though.
Ok so the six weeks. Tom joined me in Blenheim after 3 days of me being there, and immediately started working for some contracters in the vineyards, pruning the vines. Apparently, its too much hard work for girls, so we did wrapping, tying the pruned vines to the wires ready for new growth. We even worked in the Villa Maria vineyard! I also did evening shifts at Subway sandwiches, which I really enjoyed! The vineyards was a very long day, we got picked up every morning at 6:30am and usually worked until 4pm, in the freezing cold and sometime frost...brrr! I didn't work in the vineyards the whole time, i injured my wrist one day when a particularly unruly vine wouldnt let me cut it and then snapped back and hit me. They do that a lot (often in your face which isnt all that nice) but this time it struck something and i couldnt grip properly which meant a couldnt grip the secateura hard enough to cut the vines, and so I was sent home with my tail between my legs. The two weeks that followed I asked for full time shifts at Subway, which I got :-) and so did that until last week.
We made some awesome friends while in Blenheim, first of all at the Lemon Tree, where we met Kaylan, Cody and Rob the Canadians, Edgar the Scot, Nicole the German, Paul and Amandine the French, Kaoru the Japanese, countless South Americans and many more.
We moved from the Lemon Tree to the City Hotel Hostel about 10 days from the end because the Lemon Tree was so cold half the time that we were all having trouble sleeping! City Hotel is right in the town centre so everythings really close, it has ensuite bathrooms and its WARM. The weekly rate is actually cheaper too! Our little group there was the 3 canadian, George the s.american (pronounced hor-hey) and tom and i. We had a great time, and as Kaylan wasnt working, the days i had off we just hung out and had a laugh, and became good friends quickly.
On our last night in Blenheim we decided to go out with a bang and so organised a Hawaiian themed party at the hostel! it was our little group plus about 10 people from the lemon tree and a few from elsewhere. We all wore leis (hawaiian flower necklaces) and played drinking games, the 3 boys finished a bottle and a half of Jim Beam and countless beers, me and Kaylan had a bottle of rum, pinapple juice and coconut cream and made pina coladas! The nights a bit of a blur, the funniest drinking game was one where one of the rules was before taking a drink you had to say 'matt damon' in a retard voice (like on team america if youve seen it) and if you forgot you had to chug your drink! i have a great film of us all sat there saying matt damon like retards, its looks like something from shaun of the dead!! After the games (and after id failed miserably in trying to get on the roof of the shop across the street by climbing up a roadsign) we headed out to the 'club'. I put inverted commas because if you'd seen it, its fairly tacky, but its beach themed so in our leis we fitted right in. kaylan and i started the dancing while the boys played on the punchbag machine to see who was most macho. boys eh. before long everyone was dancing and it was a great night for all, except rob, who passed out on the sofa and got a telling off from the bouncer!
And now, tom and i are in christchurch. The bus ride down here was all on the coastal road and was realy spectacular, peak after peak of snow covered mountains, beautiful beaches (we saw a seal colony) and amazing lakes. cant wait to see more! Were getting the campervan in about an hour then getting on the road down to Lake Tekapo, where we will be sleeping tonight. I will blog again when we get to Queenstown at the end of the week, so until then, ta ta!!!
p.s Go gordon brown - bring back our troops!!
- comments