2004 was well before my blogging days, so I’m just writing a little summary from what I remember and add my photo memories down below.
In September 2004 – right after I finished my studies of “Documentation in Biosciences” – I treated myself to my first big (almost solo-) trip to the other end of the world.
I travelled there on a working holiday visa but naturally the traveling part was a lot more in focus than working 🙂
During the whole three months, I worked only three weeks in the vineyards around Blenheim.
Additionally, Michaela – whom I met online in search for a travel buddy – and I visited James on Waiheke island where we helped to tend to his garden in exchange for food and accommodation, excursions around the island.
The North island
Soon afterwards, Michaela and I split up and I travelled around the North island on long-distance busses. I went up to Cape Reinga where the Tasmanian Sea and the Pacific meet. And afterwards down along the West Coast, across the 90-mile Beach and through rainforest areas with huge Kaori trees, back to Auckland.
From there I went right through the middle of the North island, via Hamilton, Rotorua (with sulfur lakes and geysers) and Taupo with its stunning river until I reached the windy capital of New Zealand: Wellington.
There I took a ferry to the South island and the even nicer part (in my opinion) of my journey began.
The South island
I had met Martin, a guy from Switzerland, in one of the hostels and he offered me a shared ride in his rental car around the South island. So we spend the next weeks together and I visited a lot of places I couldn’t have seen otherwise 🙂
We drove down from Picton, via Christchurch (probably my most favorite city in the world), lake Tekapo, Oamaru down to Dunedin and Invercagill.
Then we visited brieflly the adventure city of Queenstown and the much quieter historic goldmining town Arrowtown near-by before we went up along the West coast: via Hokitika, Punakaiki with its famous pancake rocks, the Golden Bay and Collingwood with the most beautiful beaches back to Nelson with the actual Center of New Zealand.
Working in the vineyards
After almost two months of travelling it was time for some work :).
In Blenheim, I started to take over cleaning tasks at the hostel I was staying in, in exchange for accomodation. And a little later, I found a contractor who provided workers for several vineyards in the area and who hired me.
Since it was spring time, there was lots of pruning and twining work to be done.
There was a lot to learn and I liked to work outside the whole day in all weather conditions. Some of the tasks are pretty repetitive and so the work becomes almost meditative.
The highlight though when I qualified for working one day for Hunters, one of the biggest wine-companies in the area. That was pretty awesome 🙂
At the hostel, I was staying in a bungalow which was reserved for workers. So we were a nice little community with everybody being out at work during the day and meeting up in the evening, either in the kitchen or the backyard.
Altogether the time in Blenheim was absolutely amazing.
The Way back
At the beginning of December, I left Blenheim and first went to Kaikoura, hoping to get on a whale-watching tour on short notice. But unfortunately, on that day, it rained the whole day and was also terribly windy, so all the tours were cancelled.
I travelled further on, to Christchurch again.
There I spend some nice days again before I flew to Auckland and from there back to Frankfurt, Germany.
My résumé of the trip
Back then I was actually disappointed (I don’t know what I expected) because, I thought all the beautiful landscapes could also be found within Europe, just within a smaller area.
Looking back now, some 20 years later, I’m not so sure about that. Alone those beautiful beaches, the rain forests and the impressing rivers, I wouldn’t know where I’d find these in Europe. So, these days I would gladly go again…if it would be just a bit closer-by 😉