Normality

Leaving Te Puke with our middle fingers high in the air we set off back down South to Wellington to follow our initial plan (remind us - we should always stick to our plans). 

Arriving, we set up camp in a place called Porirua, about 26kms North of the city and this is where, despite continuing to live in the back of the van, often in the wind and rain, on a wet field, next to a donkey and two shetland ponies, life started to become normal again. 

We set to work looking for jobs and within a few days Chad was shrink wrapping buildings (yes, this is a real thing) and practically leading his own team and I had secured a job working in a shop selling all sorts of things for the kitchen - pots, pans, bean slicers, you know, the usual. 

As regulars on the site, and in the camp kitchen, we started to make some friends; the two German Daniels both perfectly blonde and blue eyed, both unemployed and both living in their tents with a rifle and plans to hunt Possum; Silke another German travelling alone, eager to chat to everyone and make new friends; Donald the token mad-haired permanent camp resident who was almost always situated in the communal kitchen, parked in front of the TV, silent in concentration with the remote in his pocket; David, the suspected compulsive liar who claimed that at one time in his life he had worked at every job possible, airline pilot, sailor, health assistant, chemist. He'd also lived in every country under the sun for years at a time, despite the fact he was not a vampire and cannot possibly have lived long enough. He would drink a lot of red wine and say "fuck man" a lot. It was his standard reaction to anything. "I just bought a load of bread" "FUCK MAN" - that kind of thing; And finally, some normal folk, the two red headed beauties, Graham and Rachael. It was a relief to hear their British accents and we started chatting straight away. 

They were from the UK, mid-adventure, travelling here, there and everywhere, planning to stay in Wellington for a couple of months. They'd been WWOOFING, camping and now were hoping for a bit of house-sitting to tide them over. I wasn't aware that this was a done thing but apparently you sign up online, create yourself an appealing profile and if someone is going away for a while and doesn't like the thought of leaving their home empty, or have pets in need of looking after, they'll have a nose through the site and pick out someone to stay in their home FOR FREE! 

Now what happened next was either a very strange coincidence or a crazy synchronicity but either way, mid conversation Graham received a telephone call from a lady who'd stumbled upon their house sitting profile and wondered if they could help. 

Sue was recently separated from her unfaithful husband, raw and exhausted, she hoped to go away and spend a good few months in India and hopefully join a yoga retreat. She needed house sitters to care for her two dogs and two guinea pigs and hoped that Graham and Rachael would be the ones for the job. 

Unfortunately, they'd already booked their ferry to the South Island and would be leaving on the 2nd January - Sue needed folks until mid February at least. Thinking on his feet, Graham quickly suggested that Chad and I get in on the action and proposed that the four of us move in until they moved on, at which time Chad and I would take over alone for the remaining few weeks. 

In all honesty, we weren't expecting a positive response, who in their right mind would allow a group of (relatively) young travellers to move into their home without any supervision?! However, lucky for us, Sue wasn't in her right mind having been the recent victim of being ditched for a younger woman, and so she thought it was a great idea!

A few days later, off we trotted to meet Sue and perhaps see the place we would be moving to. 

The house was amazing, beautifully decorated, classic wooden floor, open fire places, vintage furniture, eccentric artwork, an almost library and two adorable dogs, albeit with questionable names, Pumpkin and Puppy. It was literally across the road from Wellington Zoo and you could apparently hear the monkeys wake each morning.

Sue herself seemed lovely, scatty and mad as a box of frogs, but clearly kind and warm and heart broken. She'd never had housesitters before but seemed keen to have us there and promised to follow up on the references we provided and let us know her confirmed plans asap. 

However, days and long nights in the van passed and we heard nothing. The day Sue was due to leave for India was fast approaching but we'd no confirmation or even word from her that she'd changed her mind. Eventually, tired of living in vans, Graham picked up the phone. His call went unanswered and was never returned. Instead, later that same evening, we were emailed with a, you guessed it, "I'm really sorry but..."

Sue had apparently cancelled her trip due to family reasons (the reason probably being her family thought she'd lost the plot entirely and had checked her into the local asylum) and so she no longer required our services. 

Bummer. 

We'd made no attempt to look for an alternative and life in the van was becoming more and more difficult as Chad needed our home for work transportation.

So there we were again, trawling through the internet, for only an hour at a time, at the local library, this time looking for a place to live. 

Thankfully, it didn't take long and we now have a roof over our head. Rachael and Graham survived to and are continuing their journey on the South Island. 

And so here we are, it's a new year and we're living and working in Wellington, with our clothes unpacked and a fridge full of food. Life is very much back to normal. 

Which leaves me with only one problem... what can I write about now?

Rhymes with Cookie

We travelled all the way to Wellington without another stop and found the nearest camp site to the city. It was a pretty busy site, lots of travellers gathering round their picnic tables and vans, sharing their stories. We were cooking and chatting to a Swedish couple about where we'd been so far and our hunt for work when we were interrupted by a Chinese girl. She told us she'd just finished a job in agriculture close to where we'd already been, back up North in the Bay of Plenty. She told us there was a lot of work and lots of accommodation for travellers where she'd been and gave us a telephone number for the lady she worked for, assuring us there would definitely be work available to start straight away. 

The next morning, before heading in to Wellington and starting the dreaded process of job hunting, we called this lady, Arianna, to see if she had work. We decided that if she did and we could start immediately, we would drive all the way back and do the work to top up our funds. We could always come back to Wellington later if we wanted with a bit more time to hunt for the right kind of work, or we could travel on and on picking up these kind of jobs for the year. 

Arianna answered the call straight away. She sounded friendly and sweet and really enthusiastic. She definitely had work we could start straight away and  we were to call her as soon as we arrived in Te Puke (pronounced puck-ee apparently, not pewke).

And that ladies and gents, is how we found ourselves, later that same evening, in the centre of a town called Te Puke (THE KIWI FRUIT CAPITAL OF THE WORLD!) brewing up, cooking and sleeping in a car park, by a public loo, beneath glaring street lamps, alongside a drunk, passed out on the back seat of his car, bottle in hand. This was a new low, even for us. 

The next morning we awoke, surrounded by early morning workers and kids waiting to catch their school bus. Not a great time to leap from the van, wearing pyjamas and run to the loo in desperation... but I did. Because I clearly have no shame. 

Later that morning we called Arianna and arranged to meet her in the McDonalds car park (I can't believe this town had a McDonalds - it consisted of one street!)  and carry on to start our first day at work in at least a couple of months. 

It was only on our way to McDonalds that we realised we didn't have the faintest idea what we were letting ourselves in for. We didn't have a clue what the work was, what our hours would be, how, how much or how often we would be paid. We'd travelled 500kms in one day and slept in a car park without an iota of information. Still, Arianna sounded like a nice lady. I imagined a brisk, strong, farmer type with a short, practical hair cut and rosy red cheeks all bundled up in outdoor clothing and raring to go. Instead we were greeted with a shrunken, stocky, slobby looking mixed race woman, with an incredibly long, tatty, greying, braid poking out of baseball cap and hanging by her hips. Her smile revealed many crooked, long, thin, teeth pointing in all directions, each one standing alone with a wide gap until the next. She was perhaps in her 50s and had with her two sulky daughters who remained in the car looking miserable. 

Hellos and quick handshakes were exchanged but we were back in the van before we knew it, following her to the place we would start our work, whatever that might be.

We were led to an orchard of low entangled trees, given a bag to strap to our front and within less that two minutes it was explained that we were meant to pick slightly blooming or almost blooming flowers from the male trees only, leaving behind any green or overly open buds behind and then we were swiftly left to our own devices and off we went, still not knowing how much we would be paid for our labour and really, what the hell we were doing. 

Now it doesn't sound like it, but flower picking is back breaking work, flowers are light enough until you have a whole load of them hanging from your front. My neck ached from constantly looking and reaching above my head and my lower back ached from walking on uneven ground. Still, we were making money - oh wait - how much were we earning? We asked a young, sprightly kiwi girl of about 18 and she explained that we were to be paid by the kilo. For every kg of flowers we produced by the end of the day we'd be paid $6.00 provided the quality was good. If they found green or closed flowers a percentage would be reduced. This didn't sound like a great deal to us but we figured if kiwis were doing it for their livelihood, it can't be too bad, right? And so we went back the next day. 

We worked our asses off from seven in the morning, until five in the evening without a break. By the end of the day I could barely move, we literally shuffled around, too exhausted to speak. We were hungry, hot and thirsty but hopeful we'd picked enough to make it worth our while.  We loaded our wares into Arianna's car and asked her to let us know how we'd done. At this point we were more than a little suspicious, we wondered why we'd never been told the rate of pay by Arianna herself, why there was no proper training, why the flowers weren't checked and weighed in front of us and why the hell someone would put themselves through such mind numbing and painful work for the number of years Arianna said she had. 

We were too knackered to question it then and instead left to check into the local backpackers, where there was just enough room to park Peggie on the lawn outside. Arianna's girls were living here as were a few of the other travellers we'd been working with that day. It was clean, cheap and cheerful supposedly. We paid for a week. 

Later that evening, Arianna pulled up to the hostel to return her girls and to let us know our start time for the next day. We were about to remind her we wanted to know how much we'd picked when the hostel door burst open and the owners ran out screaming and shouting, insisting that Arianna get off their land immediately. A bitter slanging match ensued. 

Hostel owners: "You should be ashamed of yourself!"

Arianna: "Fuck you - speak to my lawyer!"

Hostel owners: "Lawyer?! Yeah right!"

Arianna eventually squealed away in her beat up car, arrogantly honking her hown as she went. 

The owners approached us and told us the tale of Arianna, the tale we wished we'd known earlier...

Apparently, Arianna is an experienced traveller rip off merchant. Paying the workers less than she is given by the farmer per kilo, lying about the weight they've picked and the quality and always skimming some off herself. They'd banned her from the site before as a result, and they warned us not to work for her.

At this point, we still didn't know how much we'd picked and so we text to check, deciding that if we'd picked enough to make at least minimum wage we'd crack on for the week only, if not, we'd sack it off and look for something temporary elsewhere in the area. 

We didn't get a reply. 

Despite the clear message that she was not wanted on the property, Arianna arrived at 6.30am the following morning to round up her troops for the day. Chad was up and ready to confront her. I was too chicken and so stayed hidden behind the blacked out windows of the van. There were no raised voices, no aggressive gestures and no fires started but Chad still came back shaking his head. "We're not going to work today" he said. 

Turns out that over our ten hour gruelling day we'd allegedly picked only 10kgs each, meaning we'd made $60.00 each, meaning we'd made £30.00 each, meaning we'd worked for £3.00 an hour!

As I mentioned earlier, Te Puke is a one street town, with only kiwi orchards surrounding said street for miles and miles. There was no work to be had - unless of course you don't mind utter exploitation. 

We had to stay for the week, we'd paid for 7 nights at the hostel and we wanted that pittance of a wage from Arianna and so we hung on, and on, and on... 

The days were long with free time and blisteringly hot. I started to write (this lot) and read lots of books and Chad started to run and train a lot in the evenings when the sun started to set.

Slowly going mad...

And so although we grew to despise Te Puke and the folks that ripped us off, some good came of it - well if you call this blog and the start of a mental illness good...

Fellow travellers - let this be a lesson to you. Don't bother with Te Puke. Seriously. 

Screw you kiwis

Fawlty Towers

Following Rotorua we started to realise we were burning through our money quite quickly despite the fact we had been living off packet food and staying on cheap, sometimes free, DOC campsites. We'd been boiling water on the camping stove to wash with and using long drop toilets for God's sake. We needed to start making some money.

We'd heard that a lot of travellers made money as they go along by fruit-picking in different places depending on the season. We thought this would suit us staying in the van and would facilitate us moving from place to place over the year and so we looked online for location options and discovered that Hawkes Bay on the East Coast has year-round fruit picking work and workers were always needed. 

We planned to drive there, stay on a free site by the sea and see what was what. 

We arrived, and the next day registered with a kind of fruit picking temping agency and were told to keep our phone on and with us at all times. As soon as work was available the agency would send out a group text to everyone registered and they would give the work to whoever responded, on a first come first served basis. She couldn't (or rather refused) to answer any of our questions about when work was likely to start or how long an assignment was likely to last but we decided to give it a few days anyway, stick to the area and see if anything came up. 

...Nothing came up...

The towns around were so small and dedicated only to their agricultural trade, there was no other work to be found and so we decided to move to a city, we would head to Wellington and see what was available there. 

The drive was long and so en-route we searched for another free site to save us some cash. We were lucky enough to find one a little off the beaten track, inland and close to the Ruahine Ranges. 

When reading about the site we discovered that there was no access for campervans but we figured Peggie was small enough to squeeze in, and if needs be we could throw up the tent and feign ignorance about the van if we were spotted. 

Turns out, we needn't have worried. We reached the camp site to find a small fenced off field with one ginormous overlander truck, parked smack bang in the middle, complete with a chimney billowing smoke - this guy was taking the piss out of the no campervan rule! 

Relieved we pulled in and within seconds, we were surrounded by three jack russell dogs, yapping from all directions. To our surprise a face appeared from nowhere, right in our window "Hey! I'm Fawlty" it said. 

Fawlty was a tall, thin man with sallow cheeks, only a few teeth and strands of greasy dark grey hair, barely covering his mottled head, slicked back into a pony tail. His clothes were worn through with holes exposing his knees and elbows. He thrust his grubby, Fagin gloved, hand through our window for a shake. 

Turns out the overlander was Fawlty's and so was the table right next to it, the table I just noticed was covered in animal skulls...

"Ignore the dogs" He yabbered "I like to let them out when people arrive in case they don't like them". I didn't understand his logic here, in case the people didn't like dogs or the dogs didn't like the people? In either case, it still didn't make sense to me. I didn't question him though, I was distracted by the animal skulls at the time. 

"I live here in conjunction with the DOC." He carried on. "they were going to shut this site down but i'm keeping note of everyone that comes here and so far i've convinced them to keep it open" He looked very pleased with himself. 

"Erm, well done?" (Still distracted by animal skulls...)

"So, you guys are?" We told him and he made a note of us in his shabby notebook. "Couple from England, alright guys, enjoy your stay". 

"Thanks Fawlty"

The camp was quite remote and aside from another vault long-drop toilet there were no facilities, but being British and all we wanted a cup of tea and so I set off on a hunt for water. 

Despite attempting to creep pink panther style round Fawlty's skull collection, he once again appeared from nowhere with his gap-tooth grin. "Alright there lav?!"

"Yes thanks Fawlty, just looking for some water" Holding up my pan at him as proof. (I hadn't even noticed your skulls! Nothing to see here!)

"Ah there's no water supply up here, gotta walk to the stream back there, but no worries I can spare yas a couple of litres - come in!"

It probably wasn't my wisest move to enter Fawlty's Tower but I did, and while he filled my pan I had a little nosy. But just with my eyes, from where I stood, because you literally could not move in there. The place was filled with rubbish, and by that I mean actual litter that you're supposed to put in a bin. Beer cans, crisp packets, tins, all over the place. His unmade bed was raised at the end of his trailer and underneath were more piles of garbage and stacks and stacks of books and magazines.

He'd cleared a skinny trail amidst the mounds from his bed to the sink and to what, presumably, was his bathroom. I was grateful I couldn't see in there. His wood burning stove was aflame, probably fuelled by his accumulated crap. 

He had pots and pans littering his only kitchen work bench and more still filling his tiny sink. Half a joint lay still smoking in a full ash tray and the dogs lay amongst the rubbish looking a little stoned - they were nowhere near as active as they had been earlier that's for sure. 

"Nice place" I coughed. 

He smiled happily "I like it. Lived this way since I was three years old."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, my parents liked to travel a lot. I gave it up for fifteen years for a woman and her God but it all got too much for me. We had eight kids, all girls, but they're all too busy now chasing that God to bother with me. Only the youngest sneaks out to see me sometimes"

"Are they Christian?" Chad wasn't with me, I could ask questions. 

He laughed "Aw nah, nothing like that. Their God is money. Always chasing money. They want to live in a nice house, with a nice car and all that. Me, I prefer to live simply. Got all the comforts I need here"

I warmed up to Fawlty then, we could all learn a lot from him. But not about cleanliness. Stick to your own ideas about that. 

"Yeah, we've got nothing at the moment apart from the stuff in our van over there". 

"Good for you kid!" He proferred the joint toward me. "Smoke?"

"Nah thanks Fawlty. Don't smoke" He lit up anyway, leaving my full pan of water just out of reach, surrounded by his dirty pots. 

"I shouldn't smoke really" he started. "I'm lucky to be alive. Had nine hours of intensive surgery to keep me here so every day I feel fortunate to wake up. I don't need fancy things, I'm just grateful for my life and each day I'm still here"

"Nine hours of surgery? What was wrong?" More intrusive questions. 

"Ah you know, all sorts lav, mainly my testicles"

"Oh..." Did I hear him right I wondered? I was pretty sure I had. Can't be many body parts that sound like testicles. How should I respond? Argh! I was suddenly out of questions.

I couldn't think of anything and Fawlty didn't appear to be elaborating any further either. I stood awkwardly, staring meaningfully at the pan of water, trying desperately not to think of Fawlty's testicles. 

What could only have been a matter of seconds, seemed like hours (well not really, but it seemed like a long time and you know what I mean) but eventually I was rescued by other campers arriving on site. Fawlty jumped up in excitement and practically leapt past me out the door "here ya go" he shouted as he passed "here's me mate, he's English to!" I grabbed my pan and watched as Fawlty's "mate" jumped out of the driver's seat, dived into the back of his van, locked the door and drew the curtains in record time, before Fawlty was even half way across the field. 

"Where were you?" Chas asked when I eventually returned. 

"Oh you know, just chatting to Fawlty about his balls" 

I'm annoyed with myself for not taking a picture of Fawlty's skull collection. So I googled "animal skulls on a table" instead. This is similar to what I saw that day - except there were more skulls.