Kiwifruit orchard work and volcano climbing

After a good conversation how we should save the world we have decided that we don't publish any more "propaganda" here in our blog (JBB: we'll see about that...). Its perfectly OK to be serious, but the main thing in our OE isn't that. (OE=overseas experience. It's common among Kiwis to do OE.)

Yeah, back to normal life without any concern how the world is struggling with tough economical times and how the human behavior affects the climate change.. Life with full of adventures, even the past working period with pool parties, barbecues, new mates and much more.. Difficult mathematical formula says that this equation provide us an answer: Good times.

Juliano and Pagaloa our work supervisors.

After a farm job that did not end so well (where is the irony) I started working in a kiwifruit orchard. Kiwifruits grow as vines similar to grapevine and before they are ready to sent to markets all over the world (including Finland) there is all sorts of things to do. Including canopy training (leaders training), pruning and girdling (tree barking). Quite easy to learn and very common among travelers, because the work is seasonal and doesn't provide locals work around the year.

As any work of this kind, it's not about the work but the workmates and of course the boss. I was lucky and our boss Graig was great. He invited us to spend evenings in his house, buying the beers and the barbecue food.. Just to get us to enjoy ourselves and do better work! Our work group consisted of Brazilian, German (basically you can find Germans everywhere you go) and British workers. Most of my time I spent with the Brazilians. They were quite funny and now I can speak some Portuguese - all the unnecessary words which you can't use in public. I also participated in Brazilian parties and now I know what Brazilian barbeque means - lots of fat and salt!

Marcus our Brazilian chef.

Pictures from the kiwifruit orchard and the Brazilian barbeque are available by CLICKING HERE.

But now back to the adventure part.. After we left lovely Mt Maunganui behind on Saturday 24th January we headed to the west coast to a city called New Plymouth. The city wasn't anything special, but it lies at the foot of the very impressive volcano Mt Taranaki! The summit of the volcano is 2518 m above sea level, and of course our plan was to conquer it.

Sunset from New Plymouth. Mt Taranaki on the left.

On Sunday we woke up early and went about it with gusto despite of the misfortunes of the previous night: we had forgotten that the kitchens in some hostels close for the night, so when we intended to make some pasta for supper we discovered that it wasn't possible any more... We had to settle for JBB's favorite food instead (who can guess what?)

The summit walk starts in North Egmont half an hour's drive from New Plymouth. North Egmont lies at an altitude of 940 m, so there is almost 1,6 km to climb to the peak of Mt Taranaki. The trek may only be 13 km in length (return), but real climbing is involved, not just walking along stairs (like the Tongariro Crossing in general). The summit climb turned out to be considerably harder than the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, however, the views were not as spectacular in spite of the fabulous weather favouring us once again. (Not to say that there was anything to complain about the views; they were remarkable in their own ways, just not as good as in the Tongariro National Park.)

This was the easiest part of the climbing.

The feeling of achievement at the summit (and once we got down to our car again) was incredible. Never had we attempted and succeeded in anything like it. All guide books we've read say you need to be "very fit" for the climb and that it usually takes 6-8 hours in the summer. We finished in 6 hours and 15 minutes (including breaks), which we are quite satisfied with. But oh-my-god our legs and feet were killing us at the end, the rest of the day, the next day, and the day after :)

We did it!

Next time we have to aim for something even higher and more challenging... And if you want to enjoy our trip more, there is as usual MORE PICTURES available...