Good morning folks!
I've been terrible at updating, four months terrible in fact. So, there's a lot to say but I'll divide it up so you're not plagued with a big old wall of text.
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| Ron's kiwifruit orchard |
I left my dear readership on the precipice of my hunt for fortune in Napier. Being the ridiculously lucky geezer that I am, i did not have to ask for a job but was offered one at a kiwi orchard not 5 km away. The next hurdle was for car-less me to get there in a timely fashion. This was provided in the form of Tjade and Katie, two friendly Germans who got the same job. So, up at the butt-crack of dawn for the next week at least. The work was exhilarating... I jest of course, but my paycheck made it bearable. Towards the end of the week, I realised that I should probably go about finding further employment... the Germans, again came to my rescue - the following week I would be thinning apples. Again, this is not nearly as interesting as it may at first appear. I resorted to re-teaching myself some french in order to relieve the monotony. Weekends and evenings were spent at the beach and jumping into waterfalls with more Germans. The toad hall backpackers was mostly populated by these lovely Europeans, and as a result, much of my conversation was not in English.
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| The open road |
After two and a half weeks in the glaring sun of Napier, I quit work and started making my merry way north, up to Auckland... but the long way around. On the first day of hitchhiking I intended to make it to Gisborne and was about three hours away by five that evening. This was facilitated by the kindness of some four parties of kiwis - including a truck driver! It was empowering to be so high up on the road trailing a few tonnes of manure which swang like a giant, putrid tail behind us on the winding coastal road. Three hours later, I was still in Wairoa, still three hours away, hungry and grumpy. I started walking along the road with my thumb out, scouting out somewhere to put up my tent. Within minutes, I was picked up by a hunter who had started in Christchurch that morning (a good 13 hours south, on the south island). After a few hours of chatting, he offered me a place to put up my tent in Gisborne at his friend's house... this patch of grass quickly became a queen size bed in their newly renovated historic home by the river.
Well rested and eager to move on, I left for the town at around 10 and met up with Alice - a local who I'd met at Uni last semester. She showed me some lovely sites on the coast, we had a swim, and then I was on my way. My destination this time was East Cape - the easternmost point in New Zealand and the first spot to see the sun. Lifts were a bit slow again that day as I was really leaving civilisation, however by four in the afternoon I had made it about half way. I was picked up by a Filipino lady who wasn't able to take me very far but asked if I'd like to have a drink at her house. There, I talked to her husband for a couple of hours about hydrogen fuel cells and he asked me to work for him, developing a method of using hydrogen from a process that he uses at his wood mill. He doesn't wish to patent or sell the idea, but simply to use it in his own home for power. So there's an opportunity I suppose.
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| Joseph and his truck |
It was getting late, and I really wanted to see the sunrise the following morning so I decided to continue.
Joseph picked me up in his beat-up old van and took me to his home-town of Tikitiki, where he introduced me to to his home, his animals and various members of his family. This left me still 70 km on gravel road away from the East Cape lighthouse - and Joseph, out of the kindness of his heart took me all the way there... where his battery died. He told me to by a tiki necklace, which I'm still wearing and I have promised to get him a classic black cowboy hat. After climbing the stairs up to the lighthouse I collapsed in my tent, finally at my destination.
The sunrise... was slightly disappointing, but nonetheless I've seen it. I was woken up by the excited chatter of some Chinese tourists and had breakfast there. So then it was down the stairs, and back along the unsealed road in hopes of catching another lift. My load was far to heavy for this sort of thing... but I
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| Pohutakawa in Te Araroa |
survived and after two hours got picked up by a dutch couple who took me to the oldest Pohutakawa tree in
the world at Te Araroa. Nice shady spot to hichhike from. I got back to civilisation, a bit away from the coast. A very rainy civilisation. After mosying about a bit, I ended up getting my second ride in a truck, for which I had to run. He took me as far as Rotorua, and gave me beer. The rest of the trip was pretty simple. I stayed the night in Tauranga, right by the highway and got to Auckland by the afternoon to catch Marion at the market. There, I rested up before the start of the next adventure... we'll stop there for now, kiddies.
