Farewell Opotoki!

We have been here in Opotoki for a total of 4 weeks now, and have been working on the kiwi orchards. Jobs included squeezing the vine buds, pulling down fruitless shoots, trunk girdling, setting up the sprinklers, picking flowers, and cutting away vines affected with Psa (a bacterial kiwifruit disease). We are thankful that we had this work available to us, but we are more than ready now to continue our exploration in the North Island. This was an experience that we will never forget, and who knows...maybe we will return to pick the kiwi fruit later on (I hope not). We now have a different appreciation for the amount of work that goes into orchards, but we have a greater appreciation for our degrees and jobs at home.
We are also grateful that our new friends, Ian and Malayna, let us stay with them for the month while we were working. We also had the opportunity to meet some of their friends and family, and try some new foods from the sea that they gathered. The treasured abalone or paua was amazing and the sea urchin or kina was amazingly disgusting. Even though the work was miserable at times, it was a great experience visiting Opotiki, the heartland of the Eastern Bay of Plenty.
Our plans now are to continue exploring the North Island for a couple of weeks and then ferry down to the South Island and anxiously wait for the arrival of our friend Bob on New Years' Eve. We don't really have any definitive plans on where we are going or what we are doing. All we can tell you is that we will be fishing, hiking, swimming, and driving. We can't wait!

Hot Tubbin

A few weeks ago we left our friends place in Orewa in order to do some orchard work, but we had a few stops to make on our way; the Coromandel peninsula being one of them. One of the highlights of the area was the Pinnacles hike in the Thames area. This hike takes you through a rainforest and up a mountain to these towering rocks called the pinnacles where we were rewarded with a beautiful view of the east coast and its islands. The hike was interesting since it had many different microclimates; cold rainforest to a hot desert all in a matter of hours. 

Once the hike was done we stumbled upon a 25 ft cliff over a river. You’ll never guess what we did. It was refreshing and necessary, since we didn’t know when we would have our next shower ;-)  

Cathedral Cove

The next day we did a short day hike in Hahei called Cathedral cove and saw more beautiful and interesting coastal features, but the highlight of the trip is our visit to Hot Water Beach. Hot water beach is known for natural hot water springs coming up though the sand (no sulfur smell either). We rented a spade and dug a hole in the sand to sit in our personal hot tub. It is best done 2hrs either side of low tide. We got there just in time. As you can see, and imagine, it’s quite a popular destination.

We left hot water beach for cold rain in Rotorua. As we approached the city we both noticed a stench, scrunched our faces and blamed each other for passing gas, but it’s really the sulfur from the geothermal activity. Rotorua is known for its geothermal activity, relaxing spas, hotsprings, and smells. Since we’re on a budget we opted out of the spas and hotsprings and decided to walk along some mud pits and hot pools in the rain. Truthfully it wasn’t that great, but we heard about a free hot pool out of town and decided to go there. Kerosene Creek is a beautiful, free, hot pool about 30 minutes out of town. The atmosphere was amazing; beautiful hot waterfall, surrounded by a rainforest, with the smell of only slightly rotting eggs (you do become desensitized to the smell).

The next day the sun decided to come out so we did a few hour hike up Rainbow Mountain. The hike took us along more geothermal pits to an overlook of the area. I feel that this picture really captures the New Zealand landscape well. It’s really green, hilly/mountainous, and covered in farmland. 

Once we finished the hike the temptation of Kerosene creek was too great. So we went back in for a quick relaxing dip.

We made our way to Ian and Malayna’s house in Opotiki. They were the ones who got us the job on the kiwi orchard and are kind enough to put us up for a couple of weeks. As mentioned before the work isn’t great but it will do for now. We didn’t work the second week due to rain and some other miscommunications. So we visited Whakatane and did some hikes there. The hikes gave us more spectacular views of the NZ coast. The river walk was really cool because so many people were out fishing and foraging, like a boat with the 100 lb shark, the locals collecting oysters and sea urchins, and the boat with 100’s of lobsters.

Whakatane River

Whakatane Coast from Above

We have done a little bit of fishing since we’ve been here. We’ve caught more interesting fish like the Red Moki (delicious), rock cod, john dory, trevally, and more snapper. While fishing one day we saw a seal swim up and sunbath on the rocks next to us. When I first saw it I thought it was a big bulldog swimming in the water, but I then realized we were in the middle of nowhere so it had to be a seal. It was a pretty awesome experience once I could wrap my head around what was happening.

We left Opotiki for a couple of days for Lake Waikaremoana.  It was rainy and cold, but we did some tramping in the forest, so we barely noticed the weather. It was a great way to make the best of the weather. The next day we awoke to more rain but decided to do a hike up a mountain anyways. As we started the sun came out and we had fantastic views of the lake and surrounding areas.

We are now back in Opotiki and should be working for the next 2 or 3 weeks. Hopefully the weather cooperates. Once we are finished working we’ll finish up our north island travels and head down to the south island to prepare for the Bob. Yes, our friend Bob is coming to visit for New Years. We are super excited to have our first guest in our "new mobile home". Please feel free to load him up with coffee, beef jerky, and wine as house warming gifts.

We are really starting to miss everyone especially knowing that Thanksgiving is in a couple of days and families are getting together. Although we will have our own thanksgiving here, it won’t be the same. 
Here is a link to Picasa for more pictures: Picasa Web Albums

Kiwi Work is FUN!!!

Michelle and I have been really busy the past 2 weeks. Our friend Hamish knew somebody in his old home town, Opotiki, that worked for the kiwi orchards and was able to get us work for a couple of weeks. Before we started working, we decided to go on one more trip around the north (more to come later). We started work on a kiwi orchard last monday and have worked our tails off.  The work is not difficult, but it is boring, repetitive, and we are looking up the whole time. Our days consist of squeezing the buds of the vines and some basic pruning.It doesn't sound too bad, but when there are thousands of buds it becomes miserable. All those years of schooling, to earn a degree, just to work on an orchard? We didn't thnk we would make it past the second day, but we've toughed it out and know we can do it for a few weeks. We are staying at the friends house and it is working out great. It may be some time before we can post some pictures and write about our prework trip. We just figured we would let ya'll know what's going on. There is no reason for anybody to be jealous of us now ;-)