Life Lately: Kiwifruit Season End & New Horizons
Kiwifruit Season End
Wow. Just over two months of work and we're done. The kiwifruit season has ended and work has slowed in our former packhouse and others in the area. The last three weeks of the season were killer, though. We worked over 60 hours per week, 6 days a week (at minimum wage with no overtime). We also had pretty intense colds towards the end, I think caused more by our physical exhaustion than anything else. When we had closing statements this past Saturday by the "big boss," he mentioned that our packhouse had packed 42 million kiwifruit. Just about one hundred of us packed forty-two million kiwi in just over a month! I can't believe it. I sort of never want to see a kiwifruit again.
Emmett and I are so glad to be done with the job! We felt like we were starting to live in the factory. Since winter has been swiftly approaching, we would arrive at sunrise and leave at sunset. Which left us feeling starved for daylight under the factory florescents. Luckily, we made some pretty cool friends there that helped make the days more enjoyable. But anyway, we made ourselves finish out the season and, most importantly, we were able to save up some $$$. In fact, we have plans to travel quite a lot in the next few months on our packhouse money.
New Camera!!
As of yesterday, Emmett & I are the proud owners of a Nikon D3300 DSLR camera. It was not cheap but I think it was worth it. I've been lamenting the loss of my old Pentax DSLR for a few years now (it died on us in Prague in 2014). We're both excited to be taking high quality photos again. Especially because we are about to go on some pretty exciting trips very soon. Aaand we've already tried it out a little (see below).
not a photo from the camera, since it's of the camera. hopefully this is the last crap cell phone pic I upload on this blog.
Hanging around Motueka
Since we finished our jobs this past weekend, we've been spending some time in our current home of Motueka just planning our next travels and relaxing. Today, though, we took the new Nikon out and did a little exploring and also just generally fell in love with the quality of the photos. See for yourself what you think.
Steamy cattle near the Riwaka Resurgence
The Riwaka Resurgence, a sacred Maori site near Takaka Hill.
Just some flowers. Macro plant pics are one of my favorite types of photo to take.
Kahurangi National Park's snow-capped Mount Arthur, as seen from the Motueka Inlet Walk.
New Horizons
In the next two months we've planned (another) road trip around New Zealand and then we will be off to Vanuatu and Australia... Stay tuned for more info about our plans soon.