The Geography of Unhappiness

A few years ago I read this interesting and entertaining book called The Geography of Happiness.  The author, a journalist by trade, begged the question “what makes one place ‘happier’ than another?”  To research his oeuvre he visited a few of the countries that are recognized as being happiest places on Earth; Places where the population is, for the most part, and for most of the time, happy (how he must have suffered for his craft, eh?). He spent time in Bhutan, Thailand, Switzerland and Iceland – countries that obviously vary wildly in terms of climate, GDP, topography and culture, yet all report unusual levels of happiness.

In the end, what the author found was that each country attributed its general sense of wellbeing to internal forces within the people living there. To the mindsets they have adopted and perpetuated.  For example, Icelanders were happy since failure was not a shameful thing while Thais had an “ignorance is bliss” approach to life and didn’t think about, or sweat, the small stuff.

The reason I mention this book is that I’m currently living my own geography of unhappiness in crappy ol’ Middlemarch New Zealand.

I hate it here.  I hate the lack of a body of water. I hate the close-minded attitude of many of the people.  I hate how everyone seems to smoke. I hate the cavalier attitude I’ve seen towards dogs’ safety (sliding around in the back of pickup trucks like a barking toolbox).  I hate having to sidestep sheep dung while walking to town.  I hate not having a social life (I had thought I’d have some coworkers with whom to do things and hang out, but after a few people quit, I’m down to two coworkers, one who is 18 and the other who is 16).

I hate the lack of amenities and the difficulty in accessing….anything, really.  Middlemarch has barely anything to offer its inhabitants and visitors.  There’s our little over-priced store, another café that’s sometimes open, but often not, a pub/hotel that is pretty grungy and intimidating, a post office that’s open three hours a day and an unclean, unsupervised, unheated pool.  That’s it.  No garage, no hardware store, no pharmacy, no doctor, no hairdresser, no bank, no library, nothing.  I grew up in a place that I thought was small and remote, but this is a whole other isolated kettle of fish.  At least in Lafontaine you can go to the bank, get your hair cut, order a (delicious) pizza, go to the beach and have access to everything else you need within a 10-minute drive. Here, the nearest grocery store is a hair-raising 45-minute drive over some of the windiest, steepest roads I’ve seen on the South Island. 

And my job is killing my soul. Apart from the unkind work conditions (no breaks, lack of proper training, lack of communication from and with the bosses), there’s so much about my job that goes completely against my nature. I despise selling cigarettes and contributing to an unhealthy and addicted society.  I loath handing out plastic bags which will invariably end up in a landfill or floating in the ocean.  I abhor that the shop doesn’t recycle – every time I see someone tossing a bottle or can into the rubbish bin, I die a little.  I hate charging people 60% above the price they’d pay in a grocery store. Seriously, the mark up on products is 60%, which means that if the bosses go to the Countdown (a grocery chain) and buy a box of crackers for $2.99, they’ll turn around and sell it for $5.79. Robbery, I tell you.

And it’s not easy to get around without a car.  None of the big, affordable bus companies run through here, so I’ve had to use the overpriced shuttle services on occasion.  A one-hour trip from Dunedin to here costs me $35.  To put that in perspective, I took the bus from Wanaka to Christchurch in October, a seven-hour trip, for $40.  Despite the costs, whenever I get the chance, I take off.  I reckon I’ve spent close to $1000 on transportation over the past three months.  I consider it an investment into my mental and physical health.  Whenever I leave this place I almost immediately start to feel better, the reverse is true when I come back.  To whit, last week I was starting to get a cold, I had a day off and went to Wanaka for a quick visit, on the ride there, I started feeling much more alert, less achy and my sore throat and cough disappeared.  The day after I got back to Middlemarch, the cold returned with a vengeance and I’ve been a coughing, miserable mess.

This isn’t a life.  It’s purgatory.

Middlemarch has done what I had thought impossible: it’s seriously harmed my love affair with New Zealand. I’m meant to stay another three months, but we’ll see.

Working in Wanaka

Treble Cone has been open and operational for nearly three weeks now, though it feels like I’ve been working there much longer.  Well, I guess technically I have been under TC’s employment for nearly two months, but have only really been actually employed (as in used…and paid) since mid-July.

So what do my days look like?  Well, for one thing they start off pretty dark.

I wake up at 6:30 or so and walk in the dark to the meeting spot about 400m down the road from my place.  At about 7:05, a convoy of vans of the mini and mega variety pull up and I and the other staffers living in the area pile in.  We finish off “the loop” of pick up points, then make our way along the side of Lake Wanaka to the base of the mountain some 15 minutes away. From there, it’s another 7 km of zig-zagging narrow dirt road with dizzying drops on one side up to the TC base building.

I’m not going to lie; the first few times I made the climb I was frankly terrified.  It’s amazing what can become everyday and commonplace after a while.

This view, however, has not become either of those things:

It goes a long way to helping wake me up when I stumble out of the warm van into the cold, mountain winter air at 7:45.  You see, in town, the temperature usually sits in the high-single digits and even sometimes the low double-digits.  On the mountain however, where the base building sits at some 1200 metres above sea level, it’s considerably colder.

It’s not so bad on the days I work inside selling lift passes, lessons and rental gear – there I’m warm and protected from the elements. On the days I’m outside working the gates however, it’s less pleasant. For eight hours I stand in the cold armed with an iPad to make sure punters are making their way through our automatic gate OK, and to do crowd control.  It’s rather mind- and toe-numbing.  I’ve actually developed chilblains thanks to those shifts.  For the (lucky) uninitiated, chilblains are basically itchy, swollen, painful toe ulcers.  Yum!

At least on those days, I’m guaranteed a decent shift.  On ticketing days I often finish up at one or two in the afternoon, which usually means waiting around a few hours for staff transport down the mountain or hitchhiking down with some of the customers.

Naturally, on those days I can take advantage of the big snowy mountain and my free lift pass, but given that I’ve had exactly one lesson in my life some twenty years ago (man I’m old), and that the hills I’ve skied before were of the small, docile variety, I’m reluctant.

Treble Cone, you must understand, is a great mountain for the confident, skilled skier or boarder, but a daunting one for anyone learning.  It’s big.  It’s steep. Its only “green” run is narrow with hairpin turns and big drops running alongside it.  I overheard an instructor refer to it as the “beginner’s cliffs of doom.”  Charming.

I’ve been spending most of my time on the learners’ slope with the kids and the people who have never been on snow before.  Sigh.

But I’m happy to report that, thanks to the (uncharacteristically) patient tutelage of Dave, a ski instructor I’ve been seeing, I made it down the mountain without killing myself or even crying today! Huzzah!



Base building




Staff waiting for transport at the end of the day.





Dave by the lake.



Lake Wanaka at sunset

My main man, Scruff.

Finally! Snow on the mountains!

A full two and a half weeks after Treble Cone was set to open, we're still shut.

While at first the problem was a complete lack of snow, over the past few days we've been dumped on and there's a healthy 70cm of base on the mountain, 40cm of which fell in the past 24 hours.  This means that the road up the mountain was impassable this a.m. and there's an extreme risk of avalanche up there. 

So closed we remain.  Hopefully though, tomorrow will be better and we’ll be able to get up there and get working and skiing.

You'd think that having had so much time off would have inspired me to write tons.  Sadly, a lack of motivation and a surplus of lethargy kicked in and I've been woefully unproductive of late.

Here are a few pictures of some of the things I’ve been up to.

Snow as seen from town.

Went for a walk to a river by a sheep station near town.

Last week TC organized a walk to the Rob Roy Glacier which is an hour's drive and two hour hike from Wanaka.  There were 57 of us on the walk I believe.  Here's a suspended bridge along the track.

The Rob Roy Glacier -- at the bottom you can see an avalanche.  It was pretty cool.

This awesome fella is a kea, NZ's mountain parrot.  These guys are not shy and are super smart and curious.  They've been known to steal people's boots and bags and anything they can get their talons or beaks on.  There are even some that have learned how to open and close doors by watching people do it, and have locked trampers inside huts and outhouses for kicks. Cheeky buggers. 

My coworkers Aurora, Kirsten, Rick and me near the end of the track.

Pretty!

Sadly, I don't have any photos of my disastrous mountain biking expedition (Not only was I ridiculously slow, but I fell in some mud not 10 metres from the end of the track), the awesome banana cake I made last week, or of Scruff, the dog I've been taking on walks almost daily.

A plan for my last four months...

I’m currently in Wanaka, my favourite town in the country, and I just found out yesterday that I got a job at one of the ski hills here, which I’m really excited about.  Apparently they had over 1200 applicants for only 100 positions, so I’m feeling pretty proud to have gotten it.  From the end of June ‘til the end of August, I’ll be selling tickets and working the gates – nothing too revolutionary, but it should be fun cause I’ll be working with people from all over the world, and I get a free season’s pass and heaps of discounts around town.  Yay!

After that, I’ll only have about a week or two left on my working holiday visa (where have eight months gone???), which kind of sucks.  I’m torn, cause the uncertainty of what I was doing was both exhilarating and terrifying.  To have the rest of my official time here mapped out is kind of comforting, yet sad.

As for beyond September, I have some decisions to make.  I can get a tourist visa which will allow me stay here another three months, but I won’t be able to work, so any money I have left, will be drained away, especially since the Rugby World Cup is taking place in NZ during September and October, and as a result, hostels will likely balloon from about $25 a night to nearly $60 a night (yikes!). 

Or, I could head home for a few months where I could maybe work and make some money in preparation for school here in January.  But that means two winters in a row…not a fun prospect.

And then there’s the question of what to do with the car.  Gandalf has been good to me, but as I’ve mentioned before, he needs a new timing belt which will likely cost me $800-$1000, and really, I don’t really need a car anymore if I’m staying in one place for the foreseeable future.  My options are to either sell Gandalf cheap now, or fix him up  and sell him at a better price later (people reckon that before the World Cup lots of tourists will be in the market for cheap cars).

So many things to think about.

For now though, I have two weeks to kill before training starts for work, and I’d rather not spend them here.  So, I think I’ll head back up north to visit some of the old Blenheim crew – some of them are up in Tauranga on the North Island and others are still in Blenheim.  I’m going to leave Gandalf parked here in Wanaka and make my way by share rides and buses (cheaper and less stressful than driving a car in need of a new timing belt), and maybe even fly back (how extravagant of me!).

Leaving Blenheim behind -- Beginning my journey south

Well, I’ve finally done it.  I’ve left Blenheim. 

My saccharine post of two weeks ago said it all – it was a hard place to leave. 

I’m happy to report that the exodus from Koanui was not as widespread or as sudden as I had feared, and many people hung around longer than I had expected.  But today marked the end of an era; the last six members of the gang left, myself included.

I took a piece of Koanui with me though.  No, I didn’t make off with the Barbie mug or Barbie bedspread, as tempting as that was. 




Nothing makes you feel young again like sleeping in a bunkbed with a Barbie bedspread.

 I got something much nicer than that – a temporary travel mate!

The lovely Hannah has joined me on my journey south.  My plan is to slowly make my way down to Wanaka and hope to find work there. If not, I may have to head back up north, cause my funds aren’t going to stretch very far at this rate.  Petrol is now $2.20 a litre, and I have yet to replace my timing belt (which is estimated to cost me upwards of $900!).

At the moment we’re in a speck on the map called Punakaiki.  It’s on the rugged West Coast of the South Island known solely for the pancake rocks that decorate the beach.

Where I was to where I am.

Or so I’ve heard anyway.  We had a late start given that we went to visit the new Blenheim homestead of fellow former Koanuiites Laura, Ben, Kim and Nathan.  Then we got a bit lost, then the rain started to fall in earnest, which made for slow, rather treacherous driving.  In any case we made it and for the first time in two months I'm sleeping somewhere other than Koanui.

So, I’m in a time of transition once again, which, as always, is scary yet exciting. I’ll be sure to keep you posted.  In the meantime, enjoy a few photos from my last two weeks in Blenheim:





The toque (or beanie, as the say here) that I made.




Planes at the surprisingly impressive Omaka airshow. 

 



Me and Daphne, the owner of Papa Col's (formerly Papa Mac's) baked potatoe stand at the Omaka airshow.  They were delicious potatoes.  If you have a chance, I recommend the Super Spud.



Ben, Hannah and I high above Picton on the Hilltop track (same one I did back in November).

Fording the river at the end of the track -- it was much colder than last time.



Ben gets Zen.





Kim, Hannh and Nathan (a.k.a. Waffles) outside of the Villa Maria winery.




Villa Maria vines.




Kim, Waffles and Hannah enjoy some Pintot Noir at Villa Maria.  They had spent many a day picking the grapes that will go into this year's crop, so this was a special tasting, I'm sure.



Gandalf gives (Laura's) Bruce a boost.

The final Koanui ping pong match.

Rainbow near Blenheim.



Jyne and I packed many boxes of truffles (and ate many too) over the past month and a half. 





Chanelle, Jyne and I hard at work at Makana.




I usually did not look this demented while rolling truffles.



Feeling nostalgic about Blenheim and Koanui though I'm still here

There are so many wonderful things about travelling – visiting beautiful places, having new and exciting experiences, learning about other cultures, discovering foods you didn’t know existed (what the heck is a feijoa?) – but one of the best things has got to be the great people you meet. The worst part of travelling though, is that inevitably, you end up having to say goodbye to these people.

When I first arrived in Blenheim six (SIX!) weeks ago, and walked into Koanui Backpackers, I was underwhelmed.  Though kept very clean, its amenities are somewhat lackluster – the kitchen is a bit cramped and rather lacking in cooking implements, the toilets in the main building don’t have sinks in them, so you have to walk all the way back to your room to wash your hands, the couches are frayed and stained. Nothing major, but it’s hardly the Shangri-La. 

I was also afraid that I’d get annoyed with living with so many people – the thought of sharing a small space with the same folks for so long was frankly terrifying.  I seriously considered renting a room in a house or a flat after my first week.

Imagine my surprise when about four weeks ago I realized that I was having the time of my life here.  It honestly snuck up on me; One day after work rather than feeling like I was returning to a hostel full of random strangers that I vaguely knew, I was coming home to my Koanui “family” (as cheesy as that sounds).

I don’t think I’m alone in that sentiment either. I’ve heard others here say how they feel like this place has become home, that they wish it were the middle of March again and that we all had weeks together ahead of us. There’s even one Canadian dude who was meant to leave twice, but couldn’t bring himself to.

Alas, it’s the end of the grape harvest and everyone is starting to move on.  Everyone but me, that is. 

My contract at Makana goes until the 30^th, so I’m going to be sticking around here until at least the 1^st of May.  I’m glad for the work, but it’s going to be so difficult watching everyone I’ve gotten to know and like leave over the coming days. Yesterday the exodus began, and as (bad) luck would have it, it was the three first people I met here who took off – two for the North Island, and one for Canada (third time’s a charm, eh Mike?). It was emotional. I won’t lie; I cried a little when each of them left.

It’s embarrassing how nostalgic I’ve been since yesterday.  I find it incredibly sad that the new crop of people who will be arriving shortly for the pruning season won’t know why there’s a rubber snake in the TV lounge, or why there’s all this neon orange paint dotting various surfaces around the joint, or who this “Kim” of the “Kim Style Says” scribble on the fridge is. I’ll miss the ribbing between team Canada and everyone else (especially the Irish and the Southern Canadian). I’ll miss our yoga sessions which started as a trio but ballooned into a group of seven last week.  I’ll miss the BBQs, the games of Ring of Fire, and the easy conversations we had.

I’m dreading having to make daily decisions – it’s been so nice to not have to decide where to go, where to stay, or what to do every day – and having my conversations with others reduced to the standard “backpacker small talk” (where are you from? How long are you here? Where have to been? Etc.).  Ugh.

Oh well. It’s all part of the traveller’s life, and I just have to keep telling myself that there are many more wonderful experiences ahead of me, and wonderful people out there to meet.  Right?



Andrea, Aline, Inki and I on our way back from Nelson.




Playing with light in Pollard Park.  Kim, Nathan, me, Laura, Mike, Marten, Leah, Inki




The Monkeys -- Kim, Mike and Leah.




Room six: Andrea, Robbie, Aline and me.



James, Iss, Leah, Andrea and me.



Leah and Mike make smores in the lounge as Julian, Sinead and Joe look on.



Team Canada (Me, Leah and Mike) take on the Southern Canadian (American) Ben on the Snout Track in Picton.



USA, Ireland and Canada Unite -- Ben, Joe and Mike.





The "Neon Party" at the Loft -- Ben, me and Iss




Me, Hiroshi, Ben, James, Joe, Iss and Andrea

 Miss you guys already :(

Living and working in Blenheim, of all places

The rather sleepy and unremarkable town of Blenheim sits on the north-eastern corner of the South Island.  It’s close to the sea, but not close enough that you can see it.  It’s close to some big hills or small mountains (not sure where one distinction ends and the other begins), but not close enough that they dominate the landscape.  The town has decent amenities – a good-sized, if shabby, library, a selection of stores and restaurants of both the chain and independent varieties, a pool, a theatre, and a field in which to play and watch rugby – but little in the ways of charm. 

Sadly, so far this is the nicest spot I've found in town.

All in all, the town would be nothing to write home about (though, here I am doing just that) if it weren’t for the delicious wine that the fertile land around these parts produces.  The vineyards here stretch on for kilometres in all directions. Not only do these vineyards provide some picturesque landscapes, they also provide mucho temporary employment for the cash-strapped traveler.

Most of the hundreds of backpackers that are loitering around Blenheim this time of year are here for the harvest.  They’re either picking the grapes, loading said grapes onto tractors, or processing them at factories.  They work every day of the week, unless it’s raining, and even then they’re up before the sun waiting to get picked up by the contractor who will later decide whether they’re working or not that day. The shifts are long and tedious, generally running for 12 hours at a time.  I even know one unfortunate soul who logged in a 26-hour shift the other day(s).  How inhumane is that?

I was fortunate enough to stumble upon some less strenuous, and more interesting, work at the Makana Boutique Chocolate Factory.  I get two days off a week, and my shifts are 8.5 hours long, which means I’m making less money than I would on the vineyards, but I’m OK with that. I’d much rather have time off to enjoy life than money sitting in the bank. 

And I am enjoying myself.  At work I spend my time rolling truffles, hand-packing the fancy little boxes of chocolates they sell at $30 a pop, dipping shortbread into chocolate, and, of course, ensuring quality control by tasting everything in sight. 

And Oh. My. Goodness. Is it ever good.

We’ve got truffles of the vanilla, orange, cherry, lemon, pinot noir, champagne, Irish cream, and boysenberry varieties, to name a few.  We’ve got butter toffee coated with chocolate and sprinkled with macadamias or cranberries.  We have macadamia brittle, orange brittle, shortbread, biscotti, chocolate-dipped ginger and citrus peel, and, one of these days, I think we’re going to be making caramel corn (be still my heart).

That’s not to say that there aren’t some tasks that are less than fun – when you spend eight hours straight rolling truffles, it does do your head in a bit.  But I have a great group of co-workers who make the days go by quickly and enjoyably.  There are only four full-time employees in the kitchen, plus me and another backpacker, and two women who take turns manning the shop out front. 

One of the quirks about my job is that the kitchen is surrounded by glass that looks into the shop, so when customers come in (often by the busload as part of wine tours), they stand at the windows and watch us at work.  It’s unsettlingly like being in a zoo.  For the most part I ignore people, though when I do accidently make eye contact it’s a matter of smiling politely and trying to look like I know what I’m doing. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of myself at work, but dozens of people touring NZ sure do.

Here are a few pictures I found on Flickr that show my place of work or some of the things we produce

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/yannconz/4372302378/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/followourfootsteps/4259718359/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yannconz/4372302904/in/photostream/

I’ve been here in Blenheim three weeks and counting. Other than my visit home over Christmas, this is the most stable I’ve been since September.  It’s rather nice.

I drive by this pretty, dead tree every day on my way back from work.  I like it.

Cleaning up Wanaka -- well, a small part of it, anyway

It’s a great week to be in Wanaka.  The weather has been absolutely incredible and the weekend’s WanakaFest was a hoot.

I participated in a bunch of activities with a nice German girl I met at the hostel.  We got a little tipsy at the food and wine tent where we sampled some of the truly delicious local wine.  We watched the cardboard boat launch and the urban mountain bike race.  Most of all, we got a kick out of watching the “Perfect Woman” competition.  Before you judge me for backing a beauty pageant, hear me out.  This was like no pageant I’ve ever heard of before.  For one thing, it was sponsored by Tui, the kiwi equivalent of Molsons.

The 30 girls vying for the title completed traditional tasks such as cooking a meal and sewing a button on a shirt. They also had to do a number of less, oh, let’s say “girly” things, and that’s where things got fun.  They donned fireman gear and shot a target with a hose, they chopped wood, they drove a backhoe, they skinned dead rabbits with their bare hands, they opened beer bottles with various objects (belt buckles, lipstick, flipflops), they welded, they hammered, they scaled a 50-foot pole.  It was wild.

The long list of events the Tui's Perfect Woman contestants took part in.

The girls suit up for one of the competitions.

Competititors were aided up the climbing pole by Canada's own world champion speed climber.  This "Gingah Ninga" posesses not only three world records, but also a splendid name lifted straight out of a romance novel: Stirling Hart.

The rabbit skinning -- I'm glad I didn't see much of it.

Less wild is what I’ve been getting up to the past three days. I found myself an undemanding gig cleaning for two hours a day in exchange for accommodation. It’s OK.  It would be great, if the cleaning wasn’t so, how can I put this?  Intense.

The place in question is a former gym that was converted some time ago into a shared house.  I’m sure at one time it was a glorious place with its big lounge area, Japanese baths, stone showers (those are still pretty sweet, actually), big backyard and climbing walls. 

Buuuuuuut along the way it’s definitely lost its charm.  The owner is an Aussie who grew up in Japan and bought the place during her ski-racing days.  She only comes to town twice a year when the running of the place passes from one caretaker to the next.  I don’t know what the recent caretakers have been taking care of, but it certainly wasn’t this place.

It. Was. Disgusting.

The lounge, mid-clean.

The kitchen, pre clean

Soot, dirt, dead flies, grime, random socks, beer bottle caps, rolling papers: you name it, it was lying around. How do people live like this?

To give you a better idea of what I’m dealing with, it took me four hours just to clean the lounge, and cleaning the accumulated grime on the computer took a full ten minutes. This morning I started on the kitchen, and I think it’ll take two of us at least six hours to get that room up to liveable standards. Ew.

On the upside, it’s kind of rewarding to see the progress of this place going from pigsty to just dingy.  And I have a free room to myself (woohoo!) and free Internet (double woohoo!), so I figure I’m saving about $30 a day, which goes a long way. 

Another great thing is that by noon, I’m free to do what I wish, and the stunning vistas here are a great way to cleanse my visual pallet after staring at filth for a few hours each morning.

Mostly my afternoons have been spent sitting by the lake, enjoying the sunshine and a good book, watching the ducks and ducklings swim by, and marvelling at the scenery.

Yesterday, however, I was rather ambitious and set out on a marvellous hike along one of the nearby rivers and around one side of Lake Wanaka. At 16km, it was by far the furthest I’ve walked in a single session since I’ve been here.  I’m happy to report that it was mercifully flat, and other than the plentiful mountain bikers with whom I had to share the path, there was little to complain about.

By the river.

Would you look at the colour of that water?  Can you believe it?

Along the path.

I even managed not to get sunburned, despite the relentless rays.  Some of you may not know this, but NZ is the unlucky landmass that finds itself under the hole in the ozone layer.  The sun is very VERY harsh here. And with so much of the population being fair-skinned, and sunscreen exorbitantly priced, it’s no wonder skin cancer is such a problem here.  I myself had a mole removed after spending three summer months here two years ago.  I’m armed with lots of SPF 30, a wide-brimmed hat and a fierce determination not to burn (or wrinkle!) this time around. Still, I’m freckly as.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I’ll say a somewhat reluctant goodbye to Wanaka on Saturday, when I take off for Christchurch. That night I’m going to see the Black Seeds, a kiwi Dub band, in concert.  Check them out for yourselves. Should be good a good show.