Upon getting back to Auckland we embarked on the next part
of our journey - trying to acquire jobs,
a more time consuming task than we predicted! As this was (and still is to some
degree) the time of year that many working holiday tourists turn up in search
of warmer weather, we moved from hostel to hostel fairly frequently. Our
favourites by far were Haka and Oaklands Lodge. Haka is a newly decorated building and looked more like a hotel, with lovely spacious and brightly painted rooms,
including a tv! The only downside was the location; situated on K-Road meant
coping with the noise of neighbouring karaoke bars at 2am on a Monday morning
and the heavy drills working on rebuilding the road next door. And we were most
put out when another patron stole some food left in the communal fridge, even
if it was only celery! We met a lot more lovely people at Oaklands and it was nice
having travel chats whilst making dinner or watching a movie. The other
hostels may have offered us free pancakes on Fridays and a separate shed like
building all to ourselves in their garden but they were also filled with
pretentious no t-shirt-wearing-even-in-the-kitchen-idiots and the rooms and
bathrooms weren’t as clean or as spacious. Next door to Oaklands we spotted a cat
which we nicknamed after we noticed a strong resemblance to a certain someone
with a notorious past – can you guess who?!
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| 'Hitler' cat! |
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| Haka room |
Our door keys for Haka Lodge came complete with a keyring
for a one dollar off drinks voucher at the local and so we paid a couple of
visits to the Thirsty Dog pub, good for people watching in a slightly unsavoury
area! On a Tuesday they have a poetry night, which, if I can use the word the
hostess kept repeating all night, was ‘choice’! A couple of older men at the
beginning of the night were good, including a guy called Michael Morrissey (who has a book published, 'Memory Gene Pool') but we were all shaken awake towards the end
by a semi drunk middle aged guy who started his poem off by shouting ‘UNHOLY!
UNHOLY!’ And then proceeded to rant about the dismal state of the world… The
hostess seemed a bit lost for words when she came back on to the set but said that she
still likes to think there’s some hope left for humanity! I really enjoyed how down to earth Sophie Proctor's poems were and she was the guest poet for the night. Will and I particularly enjoyed her rapping Salt-N-Pepa and when she talked about how she loved that more women are getting into this male dominated part of the music industry now. One of the audience members suggested Roger McGough to a younger performer as a good poet to research, so I'm going to too!
We took full advantage of the free wi-fi at Haka, (yes free!) searching
for ads and agencies and applying for jobs directly but otherwise we trekked
down to the local libraries. Our weekdays comprised of looking for employment
whilst our weekends were filled with long walks up hills and over beaches,
exploring more of Auckland. I looked like I was going to secure some sort of
job when an email I sent spontaneously to a shop/café/party venue was
successful and I was invited to have a casual chat with the owner and then a
trial day and oh what a trial it was! I spent the day before practicing my face
painting skills or rather remembering how to face paint and roped in Will to practice
on. Being quite a girly shop I mostly practised girly designs like princesses
with stars, flowers and swirls, a mistake I was all too soon to realise.
It was
close to Halloween and two boys had come in asking for ghost designs. Ghosts.
The professional face painter girl said she would do one and I could do the
other, which I thought was the best idea so that I could just copy hers… But -
the owner was watching me. And the boy kept moving his face. And I hadn’t
practised any boyish designs. And my hand was shaking. A ghost, he wanted a
ghost- the pressure oh the pressure! Did I mention I hadn’t practised any
boyish designs?! Let’s just say the result was horrendous, the owner told the
dad he didn’t have to pay (even though he praised the attempt in a falsely
optimistic voice) and the experience will haunt me forever, literally, no pun
intended! I was a little surprised when the owner wanted me to stay for the
afternoon and take part in a pirate themed party but the arts and crafts swayed
me as something I knew I could do so on went the stripy leggings and hat. After
much ‘Yo Ho-ing’ I was asked again to do some face painting –but this time for
girls, hooray!! And where was the owner – oh she’d gone out! And the designs
were actually good and the children were pleased, why couldn’t she have seen
this part of the day?! So I had mixed emotions of the day as I left but felt
tired after doing rather a few rounds of washing up and floor sweeping. And to
top it all off the owner didn’t call me back, not even to say ‘you were
rubbish; we don’t want you any more’! I emailed her and got a big fat nothing
back - what a bint!!
So rather disappointedly I went back to the internet search.
Auckland hosted an Art Week at the end of October, which I
tried to incorporate into my explorations of the city, whilst Will was off
having interviews at various employment agencies. I had a chat with the artist of these paintings, Brad Williams, at the Exhibitions Gallery in Newmarket. His paintings were created in layers, made from found images of women,
which later evolved into their own individual characters, with very striking
features and eyes that grab your attention.
I was interested in the way Ben Pearce made his small
sculptures, which made me think of film sets or tiny planets or asteroids,
definitely organic and growing. I just missed his talk about his practice but
gathered the main gist that he was working from his own drawings and trying to
make them 3 dimensional.
I really liked this huge piece of collaged work by James Robinson which
covered nearly an entire wall, probably because it reminded me of work I used
to do during a-level (obviously this was a bit more refined though!)I love the colours and patterns that come through. Makes me think of all those posters that get partly ripped and re-pasted over each other on billboards.
I stepped outside and saw these two women from FLOX re-painting a
mural outside the Gordon Harris art shop. Then when I got home, I even saw them on the news! I
liked the jungle designs and the many layers of different line thicknesses.
I didn’t realise this piece on Iggy Pop by PJ Patterson was made entirely of
dots until I got up close.
Brendan Gorky’s red colouring in this painting held my
attention, as well as the staring eyes and the river seemingly flowing right
through them and was a bit disappointed that I missed his solo exhibition.
These prints by Michele Bryant were at The Poi Room shop and gallery. The have a retro vibe and I like that the images
are paired with text too.
I found this huge street art piece on my walk along Upper Queen Street back from work
one day, after seeing the photographs in the OD gallery on K-Road.The work was painted by Owen Dippie.
I’m not really a sporty person, not even to watch it and
Will is mad about football rather than anything else but we both felt we should
make the effort to get up at 4am to watch the Rugby World Cup between Australia
and New Zealand. We had decided to support NZ not only because it’s where we
are currently living but because after England suffered such an embarrassing
defeat we bumped into some Aussies who rather rudely pointed out how rubbish we
were and when Will mentioned our much better cricket scores they got even ruder
and quite personal with their sun burn insults! Well, I only wished we had
bumped into them after this game!! It was a great atmosphere and a special
occasion, especially because this was the second time in a row NZ had won. We
even saw a middle-aged man next to us shed a few tears! If all the games were
like this one I could easily watch them all but I highly doubt they could all
provide such tension and elation…
I felt sorry for the Chef who was slaving away in the kitchen making everyone breakfast!
We’ve been trying to visit as many different places as
possible, on those days we’ve allowed ourselves free from having to look for
work. We thought we’d walk to Mission Bay along Tamaki Drive as it’s supposed
to be one of the best beaches in Auckland. There were many headlands that we
kept thinking, ‘it’ll be around the next one, the next’ and we just kept on
going, slowly moving past all the shops and pubs where we thought we might be
able to sit down and get a drink from. Around 2 hours (!) later we arrived and
we had a great view so well worth it!
We ventured further up to Achilles Hill for another great view of the sea (look at that beautiful tropical colour!) and then continued down a path that led down to the sea. Will was just taking a paddle and I looked round to see a couple of men sunbathing. I had to take a double look to make sure I was correct the first time - and yes, they were naked!! I let Will know and we hurried away! My first Nudist Beach!
We are staying very close to Mount Eden so have walked up it
a couple of times now. It’s not a very long walk but it is very steep and at
one embarrassing point I had to crawl up, fearing I would lose my balance and
fall backwards! We were greeted at the top by many selfie-stick waving tourists
and a small sun-dial looking sculpture which informed us we were 11395 miles away
from London…
Huge crater in the middle and probably my favourite view of the city
One Tree Hill has a great view too but took much longer to
get up as the path is curved around the whole hill and only gradually increases
going up. We passed lots of sheep and cows grazing as Cornwall Park, where One Tree Hill sits is still a working farm, and also some rather
enormous trees with roots almost bigger than me! There was a tree at the top of
the hill (hence it’s name) which had been planted by a Pakeha (non-Maori) leader John
Campbell but Maori activits cut it down and it’s predecessor so the remains
were completely removed. However, there have been recent talks to plant another
again in the Winter of 2016, with plans to have a ring of protective trees surrounding the main one
so that eventually it can flourish on it’s own.
Devonport was described to us in both our guidebooks as a
charming town with lots of old fashioned buildings and a great big hill
overlooking the ocean and some islands. Well the latter part was true. But the
town walk was rather a disappointment, mostly just passing ‘houses of interest’
because some famous families used to live there. I tried fish and chips or
‘fush n chups’ here for the first time and again I have to say I was
disappointed! The fish was tasty but not that large, it didn’t come open
wrapped so we had to make sure we were sitting down somewhere before we
unwrapped it all properly. The chippy didn’t have vinegar or ketchup on the
counter for you to add yourself, they were only selling large bottles of
ketchup but who wants to pay $6 for a whole tub when you only want a few
squeezes?! And they even made you pay for a fork!! I was outraged! When we
visited Mission Bay another time we encountered the same dissatisfaction :( The ferry was a fun
way to get there but not sure we’ll be back any time soon!
On the subject of food a small note about the chocolate here
– it’s amazing! The bars come in huge sizes Whittaker's have a whole 50g more than Dairy Milk, so a little dangerous! But it’s so
creamy and they are lots of exciting flavours like Hokey Pokey. They do have different Dairy Milk flavours though, such as Jaffa which have orange flavoured smarties inside the chocolate. Will
introduced me to the Australian biscuits Tim Tams which have a thick layer of
chocolate coating the crunch; the white choc are my fav!
In order to get a job as a Nanny I knew I needed to get a
First Aid certificate as mine from the UK had run out so booked in a course
with St John’s. The woman was really good and made up funny scenarios (but also
rather scary if they came true!) about having a ‘pooey baby’ in one arm whilst
chasing after a toddler when your other 5 year old breaks their leg – WHAT DO
YOU DO?!!!! I also didn’t like performing CPR on the tiny baby mannequin; it
felt too real but then I had to get properly stuck in when another participant
noticed my pained expression and starting laughing and pointing!
Our work search was beginning to tire us out, especially
Will who had received good feedback from the agencies but no suitable jobs had
become available as of yet. I emailed an educational agency and within a week
got my first placement as a relief pre-school worker. They tend to call you up
either the night before or on the morning and ask whether you want to work at
such and such a place and off you go for a 4 or 8 hour shift to the given
address. So lots of Google searching and drawing maps…
Don't they look oh so happy?!
The bus system in Auckland can be quite confusing so I repeatedly went into the Britomart Transport Centre asking for help!
(Oh yeah, not sure if I mentioned but I have reverted back
to my old medieval ways and have been forced to use this small un-smart phone,
which has no camera and certainly no Internet. Stupidly I didn’t unblock my
iPhone before I came out and there has been a ‘No Network’ message ever since.
It’s only been good for taking photos as of late.)
Anyway, back to work, I started off with only a few 4 hour
shifts at various centres but have recently been put to work at one place for 8
hours a day, 5 days a week – feels like having a full time job again!
This website is good for last minute babysitting jobs when you need some extra cash - but you've got to be quick! The jobs can be listed and accepted in seconds!
I have had a few wobbly moments where I start to doubt
myself and why I in particular have decided to fly all this way to work more
hours and for less money than in London, minus all my friends and family too.
By the time I had finished work all the shops were closed, (no Bluewater or
Stratford on the doorstep here! Even the Westfield centre closes at 6pm!) And
because I have less wages we were doing less at the weekends as things tend
to be quite expensive, especially food and wine! Although the pre-schools could
be fun, I was getting no special responsibilities –just playing, or supervising
I should say for 8 hours a day, every day; boring was an understatement! Also
dreading going into work I tended to buy a huge chocolate twist pastry and eat
that just before going in, as if the doughy sweetness was comforting me in some
way…
But Will has been such a great support and told me that
everyone has dips when they move abroad and things would get better. I’ve seen
how much the move has meant to him and how much more relaxed and care-free he
is now and I know we have made the right decision and that all this hard work
will pay off in the end.
Have I mentioned that Will found work!! Yay! He is currently
working on a contract project with a Trust firm inside the Ferry Building and really loves it. The
people are so friendly and chilled out, even the bosses and his work Christmas
party was on a boat! His invite said ‘remember to bring sunblock and a hat’ - so strange for this time of year. He really
deserves to enjoy this after all the stress and silly pressures that the
corporate life of London used to bring him.
Will gave up his secret santa present of Magic Mike for this...
18th November came around super quickly and that
meant time for a certain someone to turn the grand old age of 28! I had
remembered Will saying he might get himself an All Blacks’ rugby shirt after
watching the final but I also remember that he was quite drunk when he said it
– I’m glad I made the choice to buy it for him, it looks good and he seems to
like it!
We kept it quite casual, as we both had work and he said it didn’t
really feel like his birthday because he hadn’t received any messages or cards
(apart from mine obvs!) as to everyone else it was the day after and also
because the weather was so mild and light, even warm some would say! We had
burgers at Slim and Lucky’s in Mount Eden village and drinks in Molten bar :)
The weather is really starting to warm up here nicely! Sorry to all back in the UK! We’ve
had to think about putting suncream on everyday and can plan to do more outdoorsy
activities as it’s less likely to be raining or cloudy. One of our favourite
places to drink in the sun is The Lumsden pub in Newmarket, with nice wine and
good tables outside with tasty potato wedges!
Last weekend after saving for a few weeks we went to Rangitoto Island and I felt like we
were back to donning our explorers’ hats! The ferry took half an hour and gave
us a great view of the conical shape of the volcano that is so familiar to all
Aucklanders. We came to small bach (or beach hut style holiday home for those
from the UK) which had been decked out with old fashioned furniture from the
time when people actually lived on the island. They aren’t allowed to any more as it has been made into a pest-free scenic reserve so it’s great there’s this one left intact.
The water around Auckland is so clear and differs between such a
beautiful tropical turquoise colour and a darker blue. We noticed some black
rocks at the foot of the volcano where the lava must have cooled where it met
the sea.
The plants were really interesting to look at, like we were out
in the bush somewhere exotic and we even caught sight of this little insect
shell husk – I researched it when I got home and I think it must be the cicada. There were patches of vegetation and then spaces that reminded us of Mount Doom
from LOTR, which were called ‘Lava Fields’ with broken up pieces of fragile
looking but very hard volcanic rock. There were information signs that told
us how life had started forming on the island, with algae being the first to
creep in the cracks and gaps of the rocks. Then came
bigger plants from the algae and birds who dropped seeds of trees and also
those that got washed ashore from the mainland or neighbouring Motupitu.It was so interesting to think that although the place could look bare and barren, life was actually growing all around. The
360 degree view from the top was simply spectacular.
