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We've been busy moving around. The rest of the guys from Vanuatu came over so we had to move out of our nice 4 bedroom house leaving Cliff Richard and Michael and we moved back into the sleep out at our boss's house. We finished off pruning some apple trees and made plans to move on as Murray was running out of work for us. A week later we had organised another job and accommodation. We are staying in a place called Bannockburn; it's about half an hour from Alexandra. Bannockburn is a really small place, one antique shop, one hotel/restaurant/pub and that's it. They call it the heart of the desert because it gets so dry and hot which makes it perfect for growing vines and there are vineyards everywhere you look! We're working on a vineyard and staying at a campsite so we are sleeping in our van again. It's colder in our van than outside in the mornings! The first day we arrived it rained non-stop and once the clouds had cleared over the mountains you could see a thick layer of snow. The sun is really intense here in Otago, apparently the ozone layer is a lot thinner here so it's important to wear sunscreen. San burnt the back of her ears the other day! We have met some fun people at work and it feels like we are back packing again. We are spur thinning vines which are sprayed with fertiliser which contains sulphur so means that we smell of Sulphur (which is upsetting San a lot). We have separate work clothes which we have to keep away from anything else. We helped the farmer to make the largest, smelliest and dirtiest compost heap yesterday using the entire run off from the filtering of the wine from last year - as the farmer said there are no glamorous jobs on a vineyard so the next few weeks should be interesting. Hopefully we've got work here until Christmas which is when we wanted to head back onto the road again. We've decided we are going to spend Christmas in Moeraki at a campsite right on the beach, we were going to go up north to some beautiful deserted beaches but they are really busy and are a twelve hour drive away so Moeraki is the next best idea and we're going to Wanaka for new year which has music and beer by the waterfront with a big fireworks display.
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Mummy So proud that your efforts resulted in you getting work so quickly Really pleased you feel you are experiencing the back packing culture. Don't forget the sunscreen xxx