Kerikeri

Picking Mandarins
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After sorting out all I needed to start work over here I was all set to book a bus further up north to do some fruit picking when I got chatting to a guy who had just sold his car. He told me how it was a buyers market at the moment and at the backpackers car market he’d seen the same faces day after day trying to sell their vehicles, getting more and more desperate as their departure date loomed.

The reason is most people get here around the beginning of summer and leave at the end so I looked into it and found there were some real bargins around. I decided to buy one and after test driving a few I picked out a white 1990 Toyota Corona 2L. I gave it a good check over before buying, the engine seems sound and it just passed it’s W.O.F. (M.O.T.) although it only lasts six months so I’ll probably have to put it through the next one. I got third party insurance and AA membership for it as well and all in it still only cost me a scratch over 500 quid!

Poker in the Hostel
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The next day I headed 300k up here to the sunny town of Kiri Kiri. The region is called the Northland and nicknamed the winterless north because they are classed as sub tropical and get very mild winters. I paid up for a week in a 7 bed dorm at a holiday park that caters for backpaking fruit pickers. The guys I’m sharing with are sound and I soon found some mandarin picking work through one of them.

I started yesterday afternoon but the fruit was too small and sparse so I quit this afternoon and I’ll look for more work tomorrow although I have to say getting work in a city and setting up in a shared house is looking more tempting but I’ll see the week out to give it a fair chance. It works out quite well too because there is a free BBQ at the park tonight so I think I’ll be laying into my box of cheap wine and probably wont feel like getting up at 7 in the morning to pick kilos and kilos of fruit.