Today I got up at 8 oclock (very late) because I had to start working at 10 o’clock. When I had arrived at the demanded address, there was nobody around and so I called Tradestaff. The building was hidden between  two other companies, and so it was really hard to find. Nevertheless I found it in time. The CEO, my supervisor, is called Brent, he is a nice, funny and presumably very rich guy. The company sells its goods worldwide and is quite famous for delivering products of good quality. I asked Brent how much you have to pay for one biomag, and he said 750NZD, so approximately 350€.

some biomags

We had to load hundreds of biomags, lots of cartons,  tables,  cupboards and sheets on containers, had to lift them and carry them, recycle the waste, clean the warehouse and were on our feet during the whole day.

Brent gave us some of his products for free. Quite nice.  In the end I got two new pairs of socks, a new T-shirt and some new pants.   In the end we (another woman from Tradestaff and me) had been working for 6 and a half hours (not so long ). When we had finished the woman (Vickie) gave me a lift and dropped me at my caravan-park.

Today I got up at 5:20 am because I had to be at work at 7:00 am. The busride took me 35 minutes and then I had to walk for 20 minutes till I got to the company. The company was called Retail Dimension (it is a company that produces paintings, advertisements and posters for different companies). At the reception I met a really nice guy called Carl, who informed me about being too early. (I will work for him on Wednesday ) He showed me where I could  get some coffee, and we had a good conversation till 8:00 am, when Richard, my supervisor, arrived. We headed straight to work to a construction site inside a store (got there in his van with all the necessary equipment). Westpac Bank wants to move in, so we had to design everything in red.

Richard (who is a really nice guy too) and me built up a wall for the ATM’s and the different bank counters. It was hard work and it took us till lunch to build it up.

Richard working

After lunch I had to scrape off the old advertisement from the windows inside the shop. Richard gave me a scraper and a watersprayer.

window with ad…

sexy HiViz …

You can’t scrape off posters without water, otherwise you would scratch the window. So I did this until 5:00 pm.

scraped poster

during lunch

finished work

On my way back (RIchard gave me a lift to my caravan park) I got a call from Tradestaff, that tomorrow I will have a job in a warehouse, on Wednesday with Carl, and on Thursday I will have to work in Beachhaven to unload containers.

Tough program for the week.    When I got home I went for a jog to the shops and bought my groceries for the next days.

Today I got up at 8:30 am and asked for the way to Henderson’s at the reception. I wanted to go to Henderson’s because there is the Tradestaff branch for which I want to work in Auckland. After a one-hour- bus-drive I arrived there. The guys in the office were really nice and they said they will call me as soon as there is some work available. So I had some free time and decided to go to Waiheke Island for the rest of the day. I checked how I could get there as fast as possible and arrived on Waiheke Island at 2:30 pm.

Down there I didn’t want to spend too much money and so I decided to hitchhike. A nice couple gave me a lift to the next town in their 4WD.

I spent the whole day walking around the island, enjoyed a beautiful scenery around me, met really nice people and the weather was warm and fine. I enjoyed a perfect day, went swimming in the sea, relaxed on the beach and took a lot of photos.

I returned by the ferry at 7:00 o’clock, had enjoyed a really good time and was just tired. On the way back to my hostel (half an hour walk^^) I got a call from the job-agency. I GOT A JOB STARTING ON MONDAY!!! AS A LABOURER. I was really happy about that and enjoyed a nice dinner.

Today I got up at 7:00 o’clock, said goodbye to Tim Lars and took the airport shuttle at 7:30 am. At the airport I had to wait for 2 hours, met a lot of nice people and arrived in Auckland at 12:15. Then I checked in at my hostel, did some shopping, called some numbers for jobs and finally walked around in Auckland (Harbour, Skytower, Harbour Bridge,)

Harbour

Skytower

Harbour Bridge

It was my last working-day in Christchurch and it was – to be honest – the hardest. We had to dig holes for 9 ½ hours.

I figured out why we had to dig the holes. The house had to be lifted up. So we had to dig a hole with a cave under the foundation to place the jag ( it can lift 20 tonnes).

the jag

me

the house

how to place a jag

We had to dig a hole every two meters (half a meter deep under the foundation) so that the jags can lift up the big house. 🙂 It needs to be lifted up because they want to fill the ground with cement. So that the house will be more solid and stable against e.g. earthquakes.

Tim Lars working

 

finished work

 After work we drove to Tradestaff to return my work-gear and my timesheet. 🙂 Then we drove to our hostel and I had to do my laundry, arrange my airport-shuttle and pack all my stuff. 🙂 The hostel was called Dorset House Backpackers and it was a really nice and luxurious hostel.

It was Tim Lars‘ and my last evening together before I will take off to Auckland, so we talked a lot and both agreed, that we had enjoyed a wonderful roadtrip together and hopefully we will see each other again in Auckland. 🙂

Today we got up at 7:00 and got to know our new boss. He’s called Richard and is a really nice guy. We drove to the house. It is one of the houses that had been destroyed by the earthquakes some 2 years ago.

We had to pull up the floor, remove nails, carry heavy stuff, dig really big holes and worked for 9 ½ hours.

After that we were really exhausted and went to New Brighton to take a shower on the beach.

Tomorrow we will work on another construction site at another damaged house. So we will sleep tonight in our car next to it again. 🙂

The next day we took off and drove to Kaikoura (1½ hour drive). In Kaikoura I had my  first experience of eating a feijoa. The taste is similiar to a lemon and you have to eat it like a kiwi.:)

It tasted quite good and I almost forgot about the really bad weather (stormy and heavy rain). The weather conditions were so bad that we decided to continue to Christchurch to get a job there.

In Christchurch we didn’t want to check in in at a hostel and so we spent the night sleeping in our car. 🙂

The next morning we drove to Tradestaff and applied for jobs. I got a job for the day at AVIS again, because one of the guys I had worked with before had cancelled and so I got his shift and Tim Lars and I got a job together on a construction site for the following day. I had worked that day from 11:30 till 22:00 and then Tim Lars picked me up at 24:00 in front of AVIS. We drove to a street near our working place for the next day and slept in our car again.

The last few days Tim Lars and I spent our time in Blenheim searching for a job (because the expected contractor didn’t appear to pick us up). Every day we got up at 6 o’clock, phoned a lot with different contractors and really stayed accurate for our jobsearch. The rest of the days we spent enjoying our journey and getting to know different people, who gave us a lot of telephone numbers of different contractors in the area.

Today we finally got a job and started to work. We got up at 6:00 o’clock and waited in front of KFC for our pick up. A nice woman came and we had to fill in our forms. We had to pick the green grapes and leave the red ones on the plants. We had to work really fast and the supervisor was very strict. :/

We had worked for 8 hours and were really happy when we  had finished without having been fired. 🙂

Tomorrow we will have to work again from 7:30 am.

By the way Happy Birthday to my sister

Today we got up at 8 o’clock. We had spent the night sleeping in our car on a carpark in Richmond, and at about eight o’clock the shops opened and the first customers arrived.

We decided to walk downtown to the library and to explore some parts of Richmond. After we had spent a pretty long time in the local library we decided to go to Nelson, because I had arranged to meet Luke there this day.

the library

So we drove to Nelson and met Luke. We enjoyed an awesome time with him and after we had been at a really nice pub, he invited us to his house to take a shower. We were really pleased with that and then we sat on his balcony, enjoying some ordered Indian food. I took chicken Tikka Masala and can really recommend it. It just tasted awesome. 🙂

“It was such a nice day, Luke, I really enjoyed spending time with you in New-Zealand. Good luck with your studies and hopefully we will meet up in Germany or in some other parts of the world some day. “

Chicken Tikka Masala

good time with my mates

At seven o’clock after some good conversations and a goodbye to Luke we took off and continued our trip to Blenheim (one and a half hour drive). We arrived there at night and slept in a dark street in our car.

Yesterday we had spent some time in the Abel-Tasman Nationalpark and went for some walks after we had booked our kayaks for the following day. 🙂 We found some beautiful mussels and shells on the beach, it was low-tide and so we could walk in the sand. 🙂

The night we slept in our car again. 🙂

Today we got up at 7:00 o’clock, prepared everything for our kayak tour and met our instructor at 8:15.. 🙂 She gave us some important safety instructions.

When she was finished Tim Lars and me started our kayaking-tour.

our view

behind me the islands

Tim Lars paddling

just beautiful

Our first destination was Appletree Bay. That is a nice lonely beach, where we spent half of our day,  tanned and went swimming. 🙂 After lunch ( self-prepared sandwiches) we paddled to the nearest island hoping to see some seals, but unfortunately didn’t see any. 🙁 Then we just enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the sea and all the small islands around us in the Abel-Tasman Nationalpark. 🙂

our kayak lonely on the beach

me paddling

After having returned to Mahanau beach (from where we had started) we continued our trip to Nelson. We could possibly stay there at Luke’s, a friend of mine, whom I  had met in the meditation course). 🙂