Another Day, Another Dollar
Jun 23, 2008
It took a while, but things have finally settled. Here are some pictures from the past few weeks.
The Magicbus leaving early in the morning. Good riddance.
A very short lived obsession with the microsoft card games.
Dunedin might be one of New Zealand's major cities, but like everywhere else, amazing nature is only a short drive away. One unseasonably warm afternoon, I drove out to Sandfly Bay on the Otago Peninsula to scope out some of the wildlife.
Away from the more heavily touristed Taiaroa Head, a walk along the unspoiled beaches of Sandfly Bay lead to...
GRAAHHHHH!!!! New Zealand Sea Lions. They're big, they're mean, and they're fast (you wouldn't think so with their clumsy waddle, but they are). This one gave me a good 10 meter chase up the sand dunes when got too close to take a picture. Pretty scary slipping down the sandy slope, but what a shot!
That is ONE ANGRY SEA LION. Looks like something from Resident Evil.
That is one chilled out sea lion.
Big waves and a pastel sunset.
Watching the All Blacks vs. Ireland game at an Irish pub. After last year's World Cup fiasco, it seems many Kiwis have become skeptical of their team's dominance in the sport. When the game was tied 11-11 in the second half, it seemed entirely possible that Ireland could win, even though they've never beat the New Zealand in the history of the sport. The All Blacks eventually won, order was maintained, but questions still remain.
My mate Ruairí from Galway was disappointed by Ireland's loss but extremely disappointed by how abominable the Guinness was.
Hmm, what can this be?
28 seconds until the next price change at the Stock Exchange. Awesome idea!!!
After the traffic control job for Fulton Hogan finished, Kaye at Adecco immediately called me with a potential work available at Dunedin Wool Dumpers, but warned me that when I arrive at 7 in the morning, the boss might not be expecting me, might not want to train a new guy and send me home, will likely be in a bad mood, the building will be cold and dusty, and that the job would be repetitive, dirty, and strenuous. She gave me every reason not to take the job, but I took it anyway hoping I would be sent home in the morning (I get paid for 4 hours just for showing up). But it turns out the boss was cool, there was plenty of work to be done, and it's exactly the type of character building Southern Man work I was hoping to find in Dunedin.
So what exactly is wool dumping? Simply put, it's taking bales of wool and pressing them into packs that can be shipped overseas. A wool bale arrives in an already pressed state, so this more powerful pressing and binding process is called dumping. My job is simple... feed the metal straps into the machine once the bales are pressed. The press operator on the other side secures the straps and sends the packs down the belt, and the process repeats. It's zen-like.
Baling hook... such a simple and indispensable tool for moving around heavy things in a manly way.
12:30 is pie o'clock. Why would anyone want a burger from McDonalds when they can have this? I'm so gonna miss these when I come home.
I don't know what Kaye was talking about... Neil, the boss, is awesome... a down to earth Kiwi bloke who says what's on his mind and doesn't mind what he says. Best part is he keeps the radio on The Rock and no one dares change it.
Most of the time, Daniel is the voice yelling over rumbling of the machinery telling me which straps to feed into the press. When we're not operating the press, Daniel is a guy that talks about the Subarus he builds and wrecks, the music playing on the radio, and the cool things going on in Dunedin.
The stamp identifies that the recycled wool pack came from us.
Me stamping and bundling... one of the many things to do when not operating the press.
Working full time hours now, I only only run into Martin when I do cleaning at the hostel on the weekends. Just doing it 2 days a weeks cuts the cost from $100 to $70... every dollar counts.
Backing up my photos on an external hard-drive... something that should've been done a loooong time ago. I don't even want to imagine the potential disaster if something should've happened to my laptop.
Nora and Alex are one of the couples who run the hostel. The other couple, Ben and Katherine, own the hostel (haven't gotten around to getting a picture of them yet)... Alex is Katherine's brother and they're from Chicago. Ben and Katherine are having a baby. Nora is a German, though I assumed she was from Chicago as well because she doesn't speak with an accent until she spoke German with Martin, which totally confused me because I'd never heard Martin speak German until that point, though I knew he was, and he speaks English with a French accent for some reason. Anyway, they and the other regulars at the hostel are all part of my colorful social network since I've been here.
All Blacks tickets... I GOT EM!!! Katherine helped me get them online before they were available to the general public using the hostel address as a residential address. Even then, all the terrace tickets have been sold out so I had to get the next cheapest tickets still available. As of now, all tickets are sold out. Fuckin' fortunate! The game is against the Springboks, the South African national team and winner of last year's rugby world cup. It's gonna be amazing. Only question is... who will I give/sell my second ticket to? hmm...
Quarter of 8, which means 7:45 to people who speak American English. But apparently, the expression "of" (meaning number of minutes before the hour) make no sense to Kiwis and English people. What else am I saying that doesn't make sense to people... I wonder.
Daniel stomping down the sorted and baled wool packs.
Tiola sewing up damaged wool packs which we then bundle and send back to wool scouring plants. I wonder how much profit recycling wool packs make the company with all the labour put into sorting, sewing, and bundling them... they must be worth a lot more than they look.
Listening to some Tiola and Tony speaking Tongan during smoko... one of those paintings waiting to be painted moments.
Smoko for me is coffee and cookie time. Ohhh coffee... it's never been so good.
Dumped wool. Sometimes a strap would snap, the sound reverberating throughout the storehouse like a gunshot. And you know what happens when one goes, they all go. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!
An packed bale contains the fleeces of about 60 sheep and weighs around 200kg. Depending on the type of wool, a bale can be worth $1500 or more. So every time we run a tri-pack through the press, which can be one every 2 minutes, that's $5000 worth of wool. Shiiiiiit!
One photo to represent a pretty shitty Saturday afternoon. The plan was to head down to the peninsula to see the albatross and penguins with Ruairí and an American girl, Sarah. On the way driving there, I took an onramp onto what looked like a multilane overpass. Turns out it was a single lane road, and that I missed a give way sign and cut somebody off. Hoooonk. Woo... that was close. Suddenly, blue and red lights were flashing on the dashboard of the car behind me. Turns out the guy I cut off was an off duty cop or detective or something. He pulled me over. "GET OUT OF THE CAR!" yelled this Clint Eastwood / Dirty Harry character, "Where'd you get your license?!". Fuckin traumatic. After a few questions about what I was doing in New Zealand, he got all my info and drove off. I really should've asked if I was going to get a ticket in the mail because now I was left wondering what my consequence will be. Anyway, after that incident we continued onto the peninsula, but distracted by what just happened, I forgot to stop for petrol. Oh well, there MUST be a petrol station somewhere... the peninsula is quite big and there are several communities on it. But as we continued driving, there wasn't a petrol station in sight. We stopped and asked a random stranger outside their home who told us there might or might not be one open in Portobello. It wasn't too far a drive, but it didn't matter because it was closed when we got there. Bugger. Bugger bugger bugger bugger. Sarah and Ruairí asked around to see if anyone can help us... I've seen this before... my adventure with Dan to find THE LONGEST PLACE NAME IN THE WORLD. I was in no mood for adventure after the traffic cop incident. I didn't want to be stuck in a car with no gas like what happened in Wellington, and definitely not on the peninsula's narrow winding roads. So I turned back, had a somber drive back to town, put some petrol in my tank, and much to Ruairí and Sarah's disappointment, didn't return back to the peninsula that day.
The next day however, I was keen. It was too nice a day to lament on yesterday's fiasco. After giving up on waiting for Sarah, Ruairí and I headed out to try again. Driving up that ill-fated road again, but this time it was without incident.
At the Royal Albatross Center, we didn't want to pay $30 to take the tour of the colony (it just doesn't seem right to have to pay to see nature). There were plenty of informative displays about these majestic Southern Hemisphere birds though.
Because the barbed wire fence wasn't enough to keep them out.
Ruairi and I headed toward the cliffs hoping to see an albatross on our own. He was walking about 10 meters ahead of me when suddenly, whooooooooffff, this... thing... came swooping in in front of him. It might as well have been a plane, with a 3 meter wingspan and a body like the fusalage of a light aircraft... it was HUGE. We both couldn't believe what we just saw. It circled around a bit and retreated to the colony on the other side of the cliff. Unfortunately, other people started gathering at the cliff, and we didn't have any more close encounters with the albatross. The picture above is absolute shit, but just realize that the bird is as far away as the lighthouse, and hopefully you'll get a sense of their massive size.
A colony of spotted shag... some more of New Zealand's special native birds.
A whole crowd of us waited at the beach for hours waiting for the penguins to come out, but they never came... how rude.
What famous American document was signed in 1776? Can't believe no one else put their hand up. Hoorah for being American, half price drinks... and silly wigs.
Shipments of wool... they never end.
Forklift accident.
Branding bales of wool.
Bas and Michael sorting wool packs. They're temps from Adecco as well but somehow got stuck doing only this shitty job all day (literally... covered in dried sheep skin and who knows what). Bas is Dutch, looks like Gonzo, complains a lot, and gets defensive when people take the piss out of him... which makes it that much funnier.
Ofa's been working here 27 years! Or is it 17?.... either way, Holy Forklift!
So yeah... that's been my last few weeks. Working heaps, stuffing my face with pie, coming home sore and smelly, and finally saving up money. The folks at Dunedin Wool Dumpers said I can work as long as I wanted, though they've axed the other temps (guess I've made a good impression). So I'll do just that... work a couple more weeks until the All Blacks game. Then... who knows.