After putting off my work decision for a little bit too long, I finally drove down to Alexandra in search of some work at an orchard. It is a pretty busy time for the orchards right now, so I didn't have much trouble finding work. I had planned on doing work as a cherry picker, but it turns out, they needed more help in the packhouse instead.

Faced with the decision of what to do next after leaving Nelson, I decided to postpone my fruit picking career and head down to Nelson Lakes National Park to do some tramping on the Travers-Sabine circuit.

For the past few weeks, I've been hanging out in Nelson and Motueka. This area is the sunniest area of New Zealand, which I've definitely been enjoying! It's starting to feel like summer here now, so I've been swimming in the ocean lately, instead of just looking at it. I've had a really good time these last couple weeks.

I feel pretty behind in keeping this travel blog up to date! There is quite a bit to tell, as I haven't done a good update in almost a month.

I have been quite the slacker in keeping up with this blog lately, I know. Trying to catch up on some sleep from the past week, after volunteering at the adventure race. I'll write more about that later, but if anyone is interested in checking out their website, you can look it up at www.southerntraverse.com. I definitely thought it was a great experience, had a lot of fun, and learned quite a bit during that week.

I got my credit card bill a few days ago, and have realized that soon it will be time to head down the path of many other new zealand travellers, and get some work picking fruit. I think i'll head to the Queenstown area again at the end of December for cherry picking season. Hopefully, I will turn out to be a good picker. How hard could cherry picking be?

Got to run, I'll catch up on more later. Still having a great time here in new zealand. the weather has been warming up, time for another summer!

After getting some bad news about the condition of my car from the mechanics at Midas (it needed a bunch of work on it's brakes, which, as you can guess, wasn't very cheap), I decided I needed something to cheer me up a little bit. Chocolate seems to work quite often, so I made my way over to the Cadbury Factory.

Well, after one more night in Queenstown, I drove to Invercargill and Bluff, which is almost as far south as you can go in the South Island. There really wasn't a lot going on in Invercargill, although I think I had just missed out on their country music festival! Bummer! There also wasn't much going on in Bluff either, to be honest, although I did learn that I was exactly 15,008 kilometers from New York, but only just over 4,000 kilometers from the South Pole.

After hanging out in Wanaka for 3 or 4 days, I continued my drive south to Queenstown. While there, I met up with Sandra, who used to work with my twin sister Jaime in Colorado. Sandra is in New Zealand to hopefully find full time work, but in the meantime, she was happy to make a few trips around the Queenstown area with me. It really is a beautiful area with plenty of outdoor recreational opportunities, so it was great to meet up with someone to do a little exploring.

Well, in the past week I departed Christchurch and headed out on the open road. So far (knock on wood), my car is running fine, although I've only had it for just over a week-it better still be running! Still no name for her yet, I"m waiting for some inspiration.

I arrived in Christchurch a few days ago, and my first order of business was to buy a car. I will hopefully be in this country for about 7 months, and I know I will be able to get around so much better with my own mode of transportation. So, the search began.