Survivor: Rakaunui
Dec 18, 2007
So here I am... last day of apple thinning in Hawkes Bay. I sure wish I took care of updating this page along the way, because suddenly there are about 3 weeks worth of pictures to post. Here's the jist of what's been going on here. Wake up, work, break, work, lunch, work, break, work, dinner, some activity, sleep, and the occasional weekend. There are only a few people remaining on the orchard. Most have left during the past week for various reasons - some had only planned a short stay, but most made an early departure because it takes a certain type of person to wake up early in the morning, do laborous work in the blazing sun for 9 hours, and get paid less than minimum wage for it... foolish I suppose. Perhaps I'm a sucker for punishment. But in the past week, the orchard has finally sorted out the backpay they owed everyone. A couple days ago, Daniel, the orchard manager, gathered the few remaining workers to apologize for the payroll mistakes, though I was seriously hoping he'd say "Congratulations, you are the final contestants on Survivor: Rakaunui. Our first tribal council is tonight." But no.
Anyway, here's an update... It's weird because most of these people are gone now and some of this feels like ages ago.
Apples, apples everywhere, but not an apple to eat.
Annie making a poster for an internationally themed party, but one one actually bothered.
We just got piss drunk as usual.
When living on an orchard, there isn't much else you can do. Too bad there's no
5 cent deposit return for recycling. I'd probably earn more doing that than apple thinning.
That's Jule, German girl... she hates having her picture taken. My goal,
sneak a perfect candid shot of her before she leaves.
That's Tom, Czech guy. He and his buddies catch eel from the river
and grill them up for dinner. Something I wouldn't dare do in the States.
It's really easy to live off the land here. I found these in a nest and fried them
up for dinner one night.
View of the apples crawling underneath the tree.
.. kidding about the birds by the way.
This is a painting that simply hasn't been painted yet.
One Saturday afternoon after work, I was thinking about what to do with the rest of my day. I recalled reading something about the LONGEST PLACE NAME IN THE WORLD (must be said in a powerful god voice) being somewhere in this region. Dan decided to join me on the search for the LONGEST PLACE NAME IN THE WORLD, so we drove down to Burger King for a well deserved greasy lunch and planned our route on the map. Based on the distance, we reckoned it would take about half an hour to drive there. As we set off on our drive through small towns, my gas tank was getting a bit low... no worries, it didn't look too much further on the map; there must be a petrol station somewhere along the way. The drive continued through miles and miles of rolling hills... but around every sharp curve, as we expected to see a sign, there were just more rolling hills as far as the eyes can see. Gas on E, icon intermittently glowing orange, panic time. "Dan, where are we?". "We should be about here", he pointed to a squiggly line on the map. But there was no way to be sure since there wasn't a single road sign for almost an hour. We pressed on. Finally... after what felt like an eternity, signs... one for the LONGEST PLACE NAME IN THE WORLD, only 4km away. Whew, we breathed a sigh of relief. But that relief was short lived because as we drove around the nearby town, we discovered that the town's only petrol station (with only one rusty pump) was closed. Wow, what kind of backwards place is this? We pulled into the local inn/pub to ask for help. Walking past the patrons sitting outside, it felt like being in an old western movie. You could tell this was the type of place where everybody knew everybody, and strangers like us didn't come through very often. I asked the girl behind the bar if there was an open petrol station nearby. She told us the one across the street was the only one in town, and it was closed until Monday morning. "Hmm... where would the next nearest petrol station would be?" I asked. "We're out in the country, the nearest town is Waipukurau," she laughed. Damn! We drove past Waipukurau nearly an hour ago! We were in a bit of a pickle. But this probably wasn't the first time someone came into town with the same problem. After having a laugh with another girl in the bar, she made a quick call and told us someone will be coming to help us out. Dan and I didn't ask any questions... we were just grateful not to be stranded until Monday. So we waited in the bar, drank our Tui beers, and watched some golf on the very out of place big screen plasma TV.
And as promised, a guy came into the pub a short while later to help us. We followed him out of town and up a hill where he gave us enough petrol to get us back to Hastings. I gave him 30 bucks and a big thanks, and we were back on track to THE LONGEST PLACE NAME IN THE WORLD.
And as an added bonus, we enjoyed a glorious view of the countryside and ocean in the distance.
Signs for a sign... almost too ridiculous to think about.
And finally, we made it to... Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateoturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu,
or "The hill on which Tamatea, the chief of great physical stature and reknown, played a
lament on his flute to the memory of his brother". I'll just stick with saying the LONGEST
PLACE NAME IN THE WORLD.
BTW, there are a lot of sheep in NZ.
Lexie discovering the joys of Segregation. After its great success at the camp, Lexie,
Dave, and I decided to create a new, equally entertaining, card game... let's just say
we're all going to a feminist hell for it.
One Sunday, someone had the bright idea to go tubing down the Ngaruroro River all the way to the ocean. As with the drive to THE LONGEST PLACE NAME IN THE WORLD, it didn't seem too far on the map. Annie and Ewen filled their van up with inflated tire tubings, and a bunch of people from the orchard headed to the lake for some relaxing river fun.
Antje with a baby eel she caught from the river. Yum.
5 tubes for 8 people. One gets punctured while playing in the rocks. 4 tubes for 8 people.
My tube is too big!
And down the river we go... it was fun and relaxing...
...but not for long. Because of everyone's indecisiveness earlier in the day and the time it took to drive the pick-up vehicles to Clive, we didn't start tubing until 4 in the afternoon. We thought it would take about two hours to finish the 10km course, but two hours later, we were nowhere near Clive. The sky was clouding over, and as warm as the water was, it didn't make up for the icy blast felt every time the slightest breeze blew. At a point, the tubes simply weren't moving anymore because the ocean tides were rising and slowed the river to a standstill. So there we were... stuck, cold, wet, tired, and hungry (all I had that morning was toast and crackers). When we finally gave up paddling with our hands and feet, we got out of the river and walked along the riverbank. I realized that day that I've taken shoes for granted my entire life. Who knew walking barefoot on rocks was such a painful experience. It felt like daggers stabbing into my feet with every step, and it felt like heaven whenever there was a nice stretch of soft and soothing sand. We continued following the river for over an hour with the sun setting behind us, carrying the huge tubes, before someone finally had the bright idea to deflate them. I couldn't believe I didn't think if it sooner, but I did sort of save the day by picking up keys that Antje dropped. Disaster averted. On and on we continued, walking in the direction of some factory far off in the distance that never seemed to get any closer, not even sure if it was anywhere near Clive. Finally, after nearly 2 hours, exhausted, a van with the Czech guys came honking over the horizon. They were walking a bit ahead of us and had reached to the vehicles. Even though we were only 10 minutes from reaching there ourselves, the jubilation of feeling rescued was just overwhelming.
Dave and I have an arrangement to share food expenses, and though I tend to take
charge in the kitchen (Hell's Kitchen has had that effect on me), he makes an absolutely
brilliant pizza. It's funny to see everyone else at the camp get jealous.
The unglamourous side of apple thinning (not that there's anything glamourous about it).
My hands are numb to the point now where I didn't even feel the scalding water on my
fingertips while draining pasta.
Approaching a checkout with correctly labeled vegetables is obviously a
challenge for some. Fortunately, we never suffered such a public humiliation.
Just in case you need to do some last minutes shopping before heading to Hogwart's.
Amongst the myriad of things that go by a different name here.
Usually it's hot and sunny as fuck out here, but there is the occasional rainy day.
When it got too bad and dangerous to work (ladders + rain = slippery + dangerous),
we had the rest of the day off...
...and went bowling.
I sucked as usual and just fought to stay out of last place, but Dave and Nick (the character
looming in back) were both pretty good, and it got pretty competitive between them.
Dave won the first game, Nick edged out in this one. Dan couldn't care less what he got.
Talking about competitive games... the poker games here got intense. It turns out all the
time I spent playing online poker in Auckland wasn't such a waste after all. It's not that
I was great... but as they say, it's better to be lucky than good... and I was apparently
born with a horseshoe in my ass. It wasn't all luck obviously, but on more than one occassion,
I called, or went all in with nothing in my hand... only to get the most improbable river card
to complete a flush or straight. Dave called one game, "the most incredible game I've seen
live" when I wiped out half the table with an Ace high flush. The funniest things was of all
was how Nick never won a single game, though he the one running the game and giving
all the players advice, including me... funny indeed.
Apples after a spring rain.
Hippy bullshitting on a rainy afternoon.
How's this for amazing... after talking with Argentian guy a bit (in the carseat), I found out that he had worked in Connecticut for half a year. And while in CT, he lived in Manchester. !!!. And here we are talking about my hometown on the other side of the world. Too bad there wasn't much to really talk about. "Oh, you've been to the new mall too?", "Yeah, you?", "Yeah".
Dan couldn't get out of here soon enough.
With people constantly arriving and leaving, we never took a proper group shot
with everybody.
Sometimes, there was nothing better to do than make apple people.
Chocolate face apple... watch out, it steals.
Dave photographing Appla, Goddess of the Apples. This is most likely the result
of intense bordem and/or heatstroke.
Every trip to the bathroom was like a trip to Darfur.
Daniel drives the tractor around the orchard like "I can't believe I'm getting paid to
do this!"
The streets of Hasting on a rainy day. Not that much going on.
Nights out tended ot be as anti-climactic as picking up the weekly pay-slip.
It wasn't too bad... just that everyone was dead tired after a week of such
hard work. And the music played in clubs here is about 2 decades behind.
And the beer was expensive. And everyone didn't even want to pretend they
were having a good time. Okay, it was bad.
Oh so close!!!
Mathis and Camille on their last day. They're a beautiful French couple who
will have beautiful French children one day. But my kid is gonna kick their kid's
ass in poker.
Me
Macro capturing the tragic beauty of life and death encountered everyday
at the orchard.
So dark, we might as well be Mexicans. Wetback fun at Pack-n-Save!
THE winning entry!
And alas, our time at Rakaunui came to an end. As it turned out, Dave and I were the winners of Survivor: Rakaunui... being the only today who got our asses down the orchard for some exciting thinning action (can always use an extra hundred bucks). Tomorrow we leave this god forsaken place with only a rough idea about where we're going... but where will the roads take us?