Burger

So yesterday we awoke at 7am and in a super-efficient manner tidied our room, checked all was packed and headed out for muffinage. Shock! The bakery was closed, it was so early! So we went to the 24hr store and got some snacks for the bus trip, then returned to the bakery at 8am and grabbed hot chocolates and muffins. Yum. After enjoying this last vestige of civilisation, we checked out of our hostel and trumped up the hill in enough weight to portray training commandoes convincingly.
We boarded the bus is a frenzy of labelling and registering and settled in for the journey. The lowpoint of this was that, for the entire seven hour trip, I felt so queasy I submerged into a dozy heap in the corner of my seat. The highpoint was that Alex managed to both find and download a full copy of Zoo Tycoon onto our laptop so we can have our own zoos. A second high point was the lunch stop. The coach came to a holt outside Dino's Diner, near Taupo and magically my appetite returned the moment I was once again on land unconnected to wheels. I had what is quite possibly the best vege burger I have ever eaten, which is bizarre as the New Zealanders are not so kindly disposed towards vegetarianism.
We finally arrived in Hastings at about 5pm, and reloaded ourselves in the manner of pack animals in order to walk the 3 kms to the campsite.
Hastings appears 'nice' - white picket fences and gardens full of delicious smelling flowers, little white postboxes shaped like Alpine chalets and an evening humidity that was not unpleasant. We arrived at the campsite, bathed in evening sunshine and bedecked with glittery Christmas decorations. The tent was duly set up and proved to be big enough for the both of us and all our stuff, which is qutie the achievement for a canvas structure. Once set up, we had dinner (lack of saucepan and other edible food led us to eat the snacks bought that morning for the bus ride...lucky that) and then went to the TV lounge to charge the laptop and fire off emails off our superior employability now that we are right in the thick of the action, so to speak. Once it was dark, we retired to bed, tricky without a torch (mine broke early on in the trip) and tried to sleep, amazed at our situation which we had not even imagined two days ago.

The night passed, eventually. Without something spongy to sleep on, the ground is rather rock hard. We had such difficulty getting the pegs into the ground yesterday it was not unexpected, but still. Alex's sleeping bag was rather thin as well, so he ended up getting too cold to sleep and spendng the early hours of the morning building his zoo on the pc. We were both woken up abruptly this morning when some rabid Kiwi's obsessed with rugby started a loud conversation about the match of the day next to our tent. Grr.
We have partaken of our remaining food (cookies!) for breakfast, and are recharging the pc and answering emails, in the search for employment.
We walked back into Hastings in order to forage for food and came away full from the superb scrambled eggs and toast, as well as carrot cake. We also secured a brand new shiny saucepan and flipper-thing to cook our food in, and enough cereal bars to sustain us through many a working lunch. We are now fully prepared. We even have a bag of water, food and suitable clothes waiting in the tent, just on the offchance that someone calls at 5am with the promise of work and transport in the next 10 minutes. We'll be ready!!!

If, by chance, reading this is a vineyard owner or orchard contractor, then we are here in Hawke's Bay, we have a tent, we'll get a car if necessary, we have work visas, IRD's and NZ bank accounts, we'll work full time, 6 days a week, we are both eager and good workers and we can start immediately!