The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry..

No matter how carefully a project is planned, even though we plan to the best of our ability, something may still go wrong with it.

Hey Look at me getting all fancy using a quote as a title for my blog but that’s exactly what has happened to me and my buddy Lloyd, the work we had arranged in Blenheim has been cancelled at the last minute so the plan from my previous post has all gone ‘tits up’. Soooo here is the revised plan, it’s not ideal and it does mean cutting our journey short, but with funds running low and not been able to find work that will see us through we have decided to WOOF our way north for a few months and then head over to Hong Kong for two nights giving Australia a miss on the way home then head back to blighty. It’s not ideal but rather than be stressing about money and travelling the length of the country to try and find work that might not even happen we have decided that this is the best option for us, at least we will hopefully be able to enjoy the remainder of our trip and not be stressed unless our windscreen gets chipped again.                                      

I really don’t mind spending my remaining time here woofing, so far its been the best part of my time here in New Zealand, We’ve been blessed with fantastic hosts who have really looked after us and shared their lives, advice and stories plus we have had the chance to do work that we normally wouldn’t have had the chance to do back home. I never in my life expected that I would ever be planting trees on the most beautiful landscape or pointing an outdoor wine cellar or working on a farm. So looking forward and trying to be positive I’ve learnt a lot about myself and what I am capable of. Over the past few years I’ve also tried my hardest to get out of Leeds and maybe pushed myself too hard and ended up burning myself out, now that I’ve been away and spent time in smaller cities and towns I’ve come to learn that Leeds isn’t so bad and I can now see it in a different light.

The only thing I’m not positive about is that my best buddy James won’t be there in Leeds when I return; he has decided to move to Brighton with his wife Jo. James has been a good friend to Lloyd and I for many years and has been a source of constant support when I’ve been through tough times and needed someone to talk to; he has also been a brother to me even more so than my own. I’ll miss been able to give my buddy a call and meet up for a swift pint or coffee and miss his wise Gandalf like advice!

Jamesy boy you will be greatly missed and Leeds will be an emptier place with out you! Good luck and stay in touch!

On the up?

So after my last post which was a bit of an outburst of frustration things have calmed down a bit. We unfortunately decided that we had to head back north to Nelson since we will hopefully have 3 months, fully time work in a factory in a few weeks time. I really didn’t want to leave Wanaka and Queenstown as they are really chilled out places plus we both really wanted to work a ski season, anyway so our plans have changed and here is the new ‘improved’ plan if the factory work happens.

• Work for 3 months in the factory.
• Save money like mad.
• Treat ourselves to beer on the weekend.
• When 3 months have passed shoot back down to Wanaka and snowboard and party for a week.
• Travel back north doing activities and drinking along the way.

Another beautiful WOOFING sunset

Queenstown...I miss you already

So as I said we’re back in Nelson, we left our woofing hosts, Miranda and John on the 13^th May and drove north only stopping to spend the night in a hostel and then setting of again in the morning. Lloyds been driving and reckons we have driven more than 6000 kilometres since we first bought our car and set off from Auckland (work that out into miles yourself), I feel bad for Lloyd since I don’t drive he has to do all the driving, I’ve even started sitting in the back of the car and started to call him Jeeves, his birthday is coming up soon so I might buy him a pair of driving gloves.

We’re now at our new woofing hosts place with Geoffrey and Briar who will be looking after us for the next few weeks. We’ve started work already helping to construct Geoffrey’s work shed, and it sure beats weeding for 4 hours a day. Geoffrey and Briar are both counsellors so are both very easy to get along with and very positive people, the only downside is that they are vegetarians… I’m a carnivore and vegetables bore the hell out of me, we’ve only been here 1 day and I’m already craving a kebab.

A rant and some nice pictures

After a short telephone call to my parents I’ve decided to do a short piece on the problems with travelling. I originally phoned my parents as I needed to hear some supportive words after having a run of shitty luck, we had our car wind screen chipped after an on coming truck flicked a stone at us while travelling to Queenstown to look for work, after arriving there and walking round to hand out CVs we didn’t get the best response from any place we went into to enquire about work during the winter season and now I’m full of cold and aching from working outside in the pouring rain, in the back of my mind I hear the quote from Withnail and I ‘’I feel like a pig just shat in my head’’ and ‘’We’ve  gone on holiday by mistake’’. The parents response during the telephone call was ‘’but you must be having the time of your lives down there etc etc’’. Yes travelling is an amazing experience but just like being at  home you do have your ups and downs and sometimes it’s a right pain in the arse as you’re constantly having to think and plan ahead plus sometimes you travel long distances and don’t spend long in one place. People must think that you spend all your time partying and living it up, this really isn’t the case, since arriving in New Zealand we’ve not had many nights out as we’ve been trying to save money and have been WOOFing in some quite remote places, most of out money has spent has gone on petrol, food and accommodation, I’ve not even had an hair cut for 2 months and am beginning to look like Stig of the Dump! (could be the reason I didn’t get the best responses when job hunting!)

As I’ve said in previous posts we both want to find somewhere to settle and find a flat/houseshare for our remaining months in NZ, I mean you can only enjoy the novelty of staying in hostels for a short while, fighting for a place in the kitchen and been woken by people coming in late pissed up or leaving rooms extremely early can knock a bit of the ‘fun’ out of travelling. You tend to take advice from other people you meet for example we were told to get to Queenstown early and start looking for work only to arrive here and be told that there won’t be anything for at least another month, 1 month is a hell of a long time when living on a really small budget. Even when we arrived here our woofing host told us that now is the best time to start looking, in hindsight could it be best to make your own decisions and not ask people for advice and find out for yourself when you get to your destination?

Despite my moaning I’ve got to say Queens town and (see pictures below) Wanaka are the pretties places I’ve seen so far in New Zealand the landscape is amazing  so I’d would really love to find work here but we will have to see!

(This piece is dedicated to Caro lin and her stinky cat get well soon)

The Long Road South

After we had arrived at the south island we decided to head across to Nelson and spend 1 night there since we were pretty eager to get as much distance in as possible. Nelson seems pretty nice but very small, since we were tiered from travelling we decided to check into a hostel and take it easy. One thing I don't like about hostels is that you have to check out really early at 10am, 10am isn't early if you have to get up for work but while travelling sometimes you want to have a nice long lie in and have a nice easy morning. We were up bright and early the next day for a long drive to punakaiki, the landscape on the south island is more impressive than the north island and it's defiantly getting colder. We drove along the coast line with it's crashing waves and jagged rocks sticking out of the sea it looked amazing.

It didn't as long as I thought before we got there and luckily we Lloyd had a great idea where we could stay for 1 night. The hostel we stopped in was situated in a small forest near a beach, it really felt like we were in the middle of nowhere  and there we were the only people there so that was a big bonus.

Near the hostel was a rock formation called Pancake Rocks, we went to have a look just as the tide was coming in.

Pancake Rocks

That evening we also took a walk down to the beach, I've never seen waves as big as they were down there, it really made you think that mother nature could easily kick your arse if she wanted to. It's a shame from the pictures below you can't really appreciate the size of the waves!

The next day we were up early again to drive down to Fox Glacier, the landscape as we drove further south was amazing with snow capped mountains jutting out of the earth and more wild coastal scenes.

Fox Glacier

Mount Cook and Mount Tasmin

Reflections

Tomorrow we will be up bright and early for our last,hopefully long drive to Wanaka where we can hopefully find some work, keep your fingers crossed for us people!