From Seresin Estate to Te Mara

Thurs, Jan 12th
Today we had the opportunity to tag along with Scotty and his dog Blaze and drove down the windy roads of the Marlborough Sounds to Water Fall Bay. This is where Michael Seresin spends most of his time in New Zealand, when not bossing the workers around at the vineyard. It is a secluded 12 million dollar ocean front home that is usually accessed by boat from Picton. We took the truck because we had to transport four large natural gas tanks which will be used in the weeks to come to host classy dinners for NZ's richest. Michael built a little restaurant on his property to display the estate's wine, and since Blenheim, a town of 20,000, doesn't have much to offer rich blokes like Seresin. The restaurant is only used for five or six dinners a year, hosting up to 50 people, which get to sail into the bay. Scotty is the caretaker of the property and he spends most of his time out here by himself, so we were glad to accompany him and lend him a hand. He is a very kind, hard working man who has worked for Seresin for the past 12 years. Before he was offered this job he planted most of the pine timber forests in the area. He told us he would plant 1,000 trees per day on the "hills" of this region of NZ (keep in mind that these hills have to be pushing the limit before they become mountains). We spent the morning weedwacking and raking the grass driveway. Next we filled dips in the yard with top soil, moving wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of dirt around the yard. We finished up the hard day's work splitting wood and reorgainising wood piles. After work, Scotty took us out on the Nukutere, a 50 foot duo diesl engine yacht. Ian and I got to wear that captain's hat and drive the boat around the sounds, while sipping on a few beers which Scotty provided. We found a secluded bay and dove off the boat into the water. We didn't stay in too long since the water was cold, but it felt good after a long day of work. We didn't get back to our home until 8:00 at night and made sure to let everyone know that Scotty slaved us away all day. The truth is we did to a lot of work, but the boat ride made it all worthwhile.
Fri Jan 13th
Today we had of a change of pace and actually worked in the vineyard. We moved up wires which hold up the plants in an orderly fashion and plucked off stray vines with Aurelien, the 18 year old French intern who arrived yesterday. He doesn't speak much English, but he has moved into the Tatou House with us so we have been learning to communitcate via hand gestures. We spent the whole day moving the wires on the Pinot Noir grapes, and only got rained on a few times. Today was officially our last day working at Seresin Estate, so the crew was nice enough to give both of us bottles of wine. Ian chose the Momento Resling, while I went with the Chardonay. We said our goodbyes and left the vineyard, but we were still allowed to stay at the house through Sunday (there needed to be someone to entertain Frenchie). Rob and Meg left this afternoon to go to Chch, so Aurelien, Ian and I had the house to ourselves for the rest of the weekend. Frenchie and I cooked a mean spaghetti while Ian went for a run. We gave him 35 min before the food would be ready, and he made it back with five seconds to spare. After dinner I wanted to hit up the clubs of Blenheim since it was a Friday night, but we decided that biking the 15 km in the dark wouldn't be that fun, and it was stormy weather anyway. Word on the street is that there are a lot of "aggressive," "interesting," "fat," Blenheim girls who love American boys. I guess we'll have to save that experience for a later date.

Sat. Jan 14th
Today we got up early and headed with Scotty once again to the sounds. He had to make sure everything was tidied up before Michael arrived, but was willing to drop us off on the Queen Charlotte trail for a good ol' tramp on his way there. We tramped along for 3 hours and walked down to Waterfall Bay where we met Scotty and Blaze. Michael was asleep by the time we got there, so we were unable to meet him. Hiking through the forest reminded me of hiking through Jurassic Park. There were heaps of exotic trees to see and birds to listen too. This area had never been cleared for the pine industry, so it was interesting to see what the hills of NZ are supposed to look like. On our way back to Renwick we stopped at a small pub for a drink. Scotty likes to end his days with a beer, so we tagged along. Once back home we fired up the grill and cooked chicken legs. We also cooked up some potatoes and peppers in the oven, coated with Seresin olive oil and garlic cloves from the garlic that we picked earlier in the week. Since this was our last night at Tatou we decided to show Frenchie the river after dinner. We took him down there and watched the sunset over the mountains. We made sure that he knew it was his duty to show the next people our prime river spot, as he is going to be living at the Tatou house for another month.

Sun Jan 15th
Scotty is the man. He offered us a ride to Nelson, as he was making his way there anyway to pick up his daughter. Though hitch hiking is fun, it was really nice to have a friend give us a ride. We drove the 150 km with him and got dropped up by the beach in Nelson to spend our afternoon lounging around and watching people play volleyball. We arranged to get picked up here by our next host, and now we are moved into Te Mara. On the ride over Bob, our host, described the farm which he works for as a mess. I thought we were going to be working with a Maori community, but I guess it is just a group of people with a lot of money who fear the world ending. Their goal was to be completely sustainable, but as Bob described they just wasted a lot of money and didn't really accomplish anything. He has been here now for two months and has started repairing damage that had been done by the previous caretakers, and invisions his work taking another few years.  An example of some of the mess is that they planted apple trees, pine trees, willow trees, and fig trees all together. Sounds perfect, right? Another thing that he has been doing is pulling out thousands of dollars of drip irrigation that was installed improperly so it never worked. He said he has been working nonstop over the past two months, so the family might take a little break later this week. Maybe we'll be able to join them on their advernture, who knows? Until then we will be bailing hay for the next few days. Sounds like some hot work to me!

Thats enough about what I've been doing. Here's a little bit that I've learned over the past few weeks:
American words vs. Kiwi words
flip flops/jandles
pop/fizzy
hiking/tramping
gasoline/petrol
chips/crisps
college/uni
tons/heaps
cookie/biscuit
flashlight/torch
chickens/chooks
field/paddock
porch/verandah
exhuasted/buggard
very/bloody
grocery store/dairy
weird/bizzare
gas station/garage (pronounce gare-ege)
mountain/hill (not really, but they have some big hills)

More about NZ...
- Bird is pronounced as beard.
- There are almost 50 million sheep, but only 4 million people.
- Petrol is $2.19NZ per litre, so about $7US per gallon
- Tea breaks happen often, and they always ask if you want milk with your tea. Tea also follows most meals.
- People have asked if we are from Sweden, France, and Canada. I guess Americans aren't that easy to spot.
- We have seen a few trucks on the road with dead wild pigs straped to the beds. I saw one with 5 pigs. We have yet to see any wild pigs.
- Weet-Bix is NZ's and the All Black's (acccording to the box) cereal of chice. It is basically pressed cubes of wheat flakes that absorbs any amount of milk that you pour on it.
- KFC is unexpectedly the fastfood chain of choice for teenage kiwis to eat at. Scotty said when he was our age he'd travel 20km on his motor bike to go to a KFC. He also called it the Kid or Kiwi Fattening Company.
 

Taking the yacht for a cruise. We went across the sound to Picton, saw the ferry going to Wellington, went to a secluded bay to take a dip and then returned to Waterfall Bay.

The Queen Charlotte track. This was right about in the middle of the 3 hr hike.

Scotty showing Ian after our hike the rope that someone tied to the pier. Ian had to dive and untie it before the tide got too high and flipped the dinghy. (There's the Nukutere, the 50' yacht that we drove around the sounds the day before)

We bushwacked up to the waterfall at Waterfall Bay after tramping through Queen Charlotte. This was the lower of two falls.

Our last meal Sat night with Frenchie. We decided to grill chiken, half of the legs had bbq sauce and the other half with minced Seresin garlic in their olive oil.

We had to show Frenchie where the good chilling spots were at the river so he could show the next WWOOFers.