I'm still working at the packhouse...just! It's becoming more and more of a challenge to motivate myself to work there, but the end is in sight. Luckily I get on well with most of the people there and so the tedious nature of the work is bearable. Javier and Diego left for Wellington last week so it has been a bit quieter around the hostel, and I've since been going to work with 3 of my Japanese recruits - Yumi, Kazu and Shinya.
I've had visits from 2 of my friends from Paihia over the last week. First to call in was Jacco, the guy who fell down the hole in the road on the way home from the pub! He was only in town for a few hours so we played some table tennis, had a drive around in his van, and went for a coffee in town. It was nice to see him again and we'll no doubt meet up in Queenstown in a month or so. In fact, everyone I know seems to be heading down there for the ski season - George, Craig, Justin, Nathan and Yumi amongst others. I can't wait to get down there!
On Tuesday, Nicole arrived at the hostel (on my recommendation) for 2 nights. I woke up early the next day after working until 4am so that we could spend some time together, and we had a pleasant day walking along the beach, browsing in the shops, and relaxing in front of a huge fire in a great cafe in town. I was amazed at some of her photos from the South Island! Unfortunately, she is now on her way back to England but we'll keep in touch, despite the fact that she made me watch the awful Poison Ivy before I went to work!
The highlight of my week was definitely on Saturday when 6 of us travelled down to Rotorua to watch the British Lions take on the Bay of Plenty. There was no accommodation available in Rotorua as the Barmy Army had probably booked up months in advance, and so our only option was the Rotorua Thermal Holiday Park (an unsurprising name as virtually everything in Rotorua has the word 'thermal' in its title!).
Claudine, a pre-school teacher from Christchurch, was meeting a friend first and so we met her at the camp. Amy and Matti were travelling down separately as they wanted to do a mornings work at their packhouse. That left George and me to accompany Peter in his van which had a variety of problems with it, none of which were too serious though! Incidentally, Peter had snapped a couple of days before and packed in his kiwifruit job after a nightmare shift - he says there's only so long you can work there before you go crazy!
On our way down we stopped off to see the giant kiwifruit in Te Puke - as if we haven't seen enough of those bloody things already! Just over an hour later, we were at the campsite, which seemed like a really nice place, although there were far too many British people there for my liking! It was already getting cold and so the discussions about who was sleeping where began, and I enjoyed winding George up in the process! In the end, I decided that the front seat of Peter's van was the place for me.
Before long, we followed the line of face-painted supporters towards the 30,000 capacity stadium and headed towards the grass embankment behind the goal posts (tickets were only $35, as opposed to the $100 for seats in the grandstand). The first thing to strike me was that the pitch seemed really small, and we had a pretty good view. The second thing to strike me was the fact that it was muddy on the embankment. Very muddy. Luckily Peter had brought a big plastic sheet for us to sit on so we were ok, but others fared much worse, especially an embarrassed young women who slipped and lost half of her chips! She wasn't the only one, as the list of casualties must have been in double figures.
After watching the entertaining opening ceremony, we huddled together and waited for the match to begin. After the first 20 minutes, the Lions had scored 3 tries and were leading 17-0 - the crowd had gone eerily quiet! Thankfully the Bay made a good fist of it and somehow dragged it back to 17-17 at half time. The atmosphere in the second half was great, with Mexican waves often sweeping around the embankment, and the scoreline close. Fortunately, the Lions proved too strong in the end and won 34-20, thus sparing my blushes when I returned to work the next day!
The scenes following the match were somewhat comical, as hundreds of fans tried to pack onto the free buses into town. It was reminiscent of a scene from a rock concert as everyone surged forward when a new bus opened its doors! By some miracle, all 6 of us managed to get on the same bus and after 30 minutes of drunken banter onboard, we were in town. It soon became clear that most of the bars (especially the Irish ones!) were a touch overcrowded, i.e. it was impossible to get a drink! Eventually we ended up at the Grumpy Mole where we queued for about half an hour, but once inside it wasn't bad at all. Numerous beers and tequilas later, we were all a little intoxicated!
At 4am, the others headed back to the camp but George, Amy and me decided to go to the Irish bar - the idea was to stay up all night and watch Martin Johnson's testimonial match at 7am. However, within an hour we were falling asleep and it wasn't the greatest bar in the world anyway, so we called it a night. The next hour involved waiting in the freezing cold for a taxi, whilst simultaneously trying to find a chippie that was still open. While we had no luck with the latter, we did arrive back at about 5.30am and I subsequently passed out in Peter's front seat!
To my surprise, Sunday was also an enjoyable day, although when I woke up at 9.30am I didn't think this would be the case! We were all a little worse for wear, but the sun was shining and it was actually quite warm at the camp. Amy was going straight to the Coromandel and so we said our good byes, exchanged email addresses, and...her van broke down! After numerous attempts at a restart came to no avail, Peter called for someone to come and look at it. I therefore spent the next hour and a half laying in the sun and listening to Peter's Portishead cds - the breakdown had been a blessing in disguise as my hangover had disappeared by the time the guy showed up. Literally 2 minutes after arriving, he had fixed the problem and we were ready to go. I said goodbye to George as he was getting a flight from Rotorua to Queenstown as he had a job interview at a ski field cafe the next day.
Peter, Matti, Claudine and me decided to take advantage of the great weather and we went to the spectacular Blue Lake for a picnic. We bought lots of food from the supermarket such as chicken, salad, cakes and fruit - it turned out to be a nice feast! Although a little chilly at this point, it was very pleasant after the previous nights debauchery! After stopping off at a lookout to see the sacred Green Lake, we drove back to Mount Maunganui where I relaxed for a full 10 minutes before it was time for work...no rest for the wicked!
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