I’m now in New Zealand, more specifically in the city center of Tauranga. I have been here for 15 days.
We (5 of us, all university-mates, 3 males and 2 females) started our journey from Malaysia, departed on 9th April 2008 and reached Auckland, New Zealand on 10th April 2008.
The first few days in Auckland, we were staying in YHA City Hostel in Auckland. It was my first time being a backpacker and staying with other people whose I do not know before and it was so exciting. Three (male) of us were staying in a 6 person mixed dorm and the other two females were staying in a 5 person female dorm. We have spent 4 days in Auckland city before we moved on to Tauranga (the place where we found jobs). We booked the rooms thru Internet in Malaysia before we depart from Malaysia. It costs us NZ20 per night per person.
Here are the photos taken in Auckland:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/szehau/sets/72157604699755206/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/szehau/sets/72157604717278666/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/szehau/sets/72157604717641012/
On 13th April (Sunday), we took buses (http://www.intercity.co.nz/) from Auckland city to Tauranga. You can save a lot on bus fare if you book online earlier (there are varieties of saver fare that give you better discount if you are sure about your journey and decide not to change/cancel the ticket).
In city center of Tauranga, we rented two rooms (NZ90 per person). It is a family house. They are from Malaysia too. Very lucky, the second day in Tauranga, we have already got a job. It is a packing job in a kiwi fruit factory. It takes about 20 minutes of walking distance from the house to a super market (Pak n Save).
Here are the photos taken in Tauranga:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/szehau/sets/72157604723287625/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/szehau/sets/72157604720080976/
The job is pretty tough job for man because you need to move the kiwi in boxes and make them a stack of 100 boxes. Each box contains around 10KG of kiwis. Averagely, you will need to move about 5 to 10 tons of kiwi each day per person. For woman, their jobs are to grade the kiwi, sort the kiwis into box and wrap the kiwi box.
Although the job is a bit tough at the beginning, you feel pains all over the body, but it is fun and people here are helpful and nice to us. After a few weeks here, we may move to another city in New Zealand but we still haven’t planned our next destination.
Oh ya, we have just bough a car today. It is a 1996’s Nissan Prairie. It costs us NZ2400 only. We can now go shopping and go for sightseeing anytime :)
That’s all for today’s update. See you.
