The Waiting Game

Greetings from sunny(ish) Napier!

We’ve been doing a little traveling since the last entry, making a number of stops as we worked our way south to this lovely beach town. Arron’s return to NZ meant we got to see another familiar face (yay!) but it also meant that our days of Stella watching and free housing were up. Moreover, I was also getting a little antsy to get out of the city and see some new places, so off we went! Oh, did I mention we bought a car?? Our mode of transportation these days is a 1995 blue Mitsubishi station wagon. It only has 115,000kms on it and it’s in pretty good shape and, most importantly, it is OURS.

Our first stop was the Franks. Okay so we didn’t make it too far—not even out of Auckland-- but the Franks’ is at least an hour south of Arron’s so I count this as a stop. It seems crazy that we’ve only spent maybe 10 nights there, but it already feels like our NZ home. As a thank you for all their hospitality and as a celebration for Paul’s completion of the initial fire fighter’s entrance exam we made another round of pumpkin pies. Personally I thought round 2 was better than the first go round. Side note: I can’t wait to cook a Thanksgiving feast here. We spent our last Auckland evening running and playing ultimate frisbee in Cornwall Park with Paul and Dave and Sarah and lots of their friends, many of which we’ve already met! It’s nice to remember people and feel the beginnings of a social network taking shape. Three hours of running around was all it took for me to fall in love with the area—I’ve decided when we go back to Auckland I want to live near Cornwall Park. Frisbee was followed by one last fish & chips takeaway (what else would we eat on our last night in Auckland??) and then back to the Franks to pack up, finish making our insulation-based car bed, and get on the road the next morning!

Stop #2 was Rotorua. The lovely Jodi (07) really took care of us and showed us some of the perks of Rotorua! She even let us sleep on her fabulous airbed for freezies, which is always a perk. Highlights of the weekend include walking around a downtown park full of bubbling mud, sampling beer and chips at the Corner Pub, Jodi’s hilarious roommates and cute cats, yum pizza, the Saturday morning crafts fair, a picnic lunch at one of the lakes near town, meeting a Leprechaun at a headpiece party, and walking through the red wood forest (who would have thought that I would see my first California Redwood tree in NZ??). Unfortunately we didn’t make it to the Zorbing place, but I feel confident that I’ll get back there as “rolling down a hill in a giant hamster ball” is now #1 on my sister’s list of things to do when she comes to visit in March. Also, for the record, Rotorua really does smell. I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised since everyone told me it would, but there really is a distinct smell of sulfur in the area.

Stop #3 was Taupo, where we stayed with Toni, Corban (08) and little Roman (future camper)!!! We also go to see Judy and Alan who were in town for the long weekend (Labour Day). The GV hospitality continued here as we stayed in Toni & Corban’s guest bedroom (one day I will be a real person and my house will have a guest bedroom…) and they showed us around town! Well, mostly it was Corban showing us around as Toni had some big school assignments due at the end of the week plus a 10 month old to take care of. Highlights include: amazing views on the drive into town, yum food, drinks at the Irish pub (Redland beer? my new favorite), the sunny & tidy little guest room in T&C’s real people house, Huka falls (such a crazy shade of blue for a river and SO much water rushing through), picnic out at Lake Taupo with friends of T&C, Roman, Roman, Roman, swimming in Lake Taupo (NOT the coldest swim we’ve had), skipping stones, meeting Corban’s mum and learning more about Maori culture/history, playing with Roman some more, and some nighttime lounging at “the hotspot” (a natural hot spring where you can sit in the pools free of charge).

So now here we are at our final stop for a while: Napier. We came down early Tuesday to try and get started on the job hunt. There were nearly 20 of us that first morning driving to Hastings (next town over—maybe a 20 min drive). Some of them left town to look for employment elsewhere but of those that remain we are all still unemployed. At the moment fruit picking jobs (the kind we were expecting to get here) are a few and far between. Or, at least, there are more seasonal workers than jobs at the moment. An exceptionally rainy winter/spring has pushed back a lot of the work so where seasonal work would usually take off last week and this week, things are starting a little bit slower. In the meantime Stu and I are applying to a whole heap of jobs (mostly café jobs for me, though a few random ones too and mostly random jobs for Stu), exploring the area, and making friends at the hostel. We are confident that the jobs will come—we’ve been promised a job starting Nov 21 at the latest so worst cast scenario we hang out until then but hopefully we’ll work odd jobs until then or land something outside the agricultural sector.

Mostly, we want to try living somewhere outside Auckland and we really like the area so we’re willing to stick it out for a while. The beach is rocky but it goes on forever and there is a grassy area that hugs the beach and is perfect for running or playing soccer (where Stu is right now) There are lots of cool restaurants, neat bars (we’ve already found trivia nights on Tuesdays and Wednesdays!), and cafes. There are some good hikes in the area as well—we’re pretty close to the largest national park in NZ so I’m hoping to do some walks there as we can. We’ve only done one hike so far—16kms of beach walking from Clifton (a town) to Cape Kidnappers, which had some beautiful views from the cliffs at the end and a huge gannet (bird) colony. Plus Hawke’s Bay (Napier is a town, Hawke’s Bay is the larger region) is “the fruit bowl of NZ” so if we are going to work on some farms this is as good a place as any. Plus (and this might be the biggest plus), Stu has found a studio and pottery community that he really likes. We found it totally by chance; we just saw some pots in a crafty looking shop on the way to Hastings so we went to check it out. As it turns out, the land behind the shop is owned and run by a community of artists who share the workspace and sell their pieces in the store. Primarily the community is made up of potters, felt workers, wood carvers, and painters, but there is some space that any artist could rent out to make whatever they like. There is also a community center where some of the artists teach their trade to “at risk” youth (and just some regular youth too) in the community—Stu’s hoping to help out with some of the summer pottery lessons if we’re still here when that’s going on.

Well, that’s all for now. Everyone keep their fingers crossed for a job (preferably two)! I have about a million pictures to put up at the moment so I’m working on sorting through those….look for them on facebook in the next couple of days.