Back to Work

Whoever said I couldn't work hard was wrong!  I choose to play a lot harder, but I am apparently capable of hard work too!

After visiting friends in Dunedin and Invercargill, I got to Wanaka hoping to find a job.  The challenge was that I wanted to work as many hours as possible, but only for 2 weeks or so.  After only 2 days in Wanaka, I found a posting online for a farm job in Central Otago, and took it!

I am a general farm hand, primarily spraying weeds and splitting firewood, but am on a casual contract meaning I can leave whenever I want.  On the contrary, I can be fired at any time, but doubt that'd happen.  Food and accommodation is provided as well, which is good seeing as the farm is quite literally in the middle of nowhere!  It is called Linnburn Station and is nearest to Paerau, but the farm is over 20 miles long and over 8,000 hectares. Needless to say, I've only seen a small portion of it, but they primarily grow sheep and cattle for meat, but also do all sorts of other things. The house I am in is shared accommodation with my own bedroom.  When I got here there were 3 others, but now there are 4--an American, a Swede, and 2 Brits.  All are very friendly, the house is nothing fancy, but gets the job done, and the food is very good.  Surprisingly, we get lots of meat!

We start work at 7:30am, which took a bit of getting used to, but the sunrises are nice!  We finish at 5:30pm and they give us food for dinner, which we all eat at our house together.  The weather has been incredible, which is nice as its a lot of physical work outside.  While it will not go down as the most fun thing I did abroad, it is a really cool experience.  Plus, I learned to drive a manual truck.  While in 4WD offroad.  While towing a 1 ton spray tank.  Talk about trial by fire!  And the farmer still doesn't know that I don't actually really know how to drive a manual.  Anyway, I'm done 1 week and have 1 left, then 2 weeks to enjoy NZ before I follow the sun to Asia!