big south trip: day 4

Day 4
Invercargill to Arrowtown

15008 kms from New York

Ann-Kristin's car, bought for $450 at a backpacker car market last year, has served us well in all but one respect: it lacks a working heater. This hasn't been an issue for her in Christchurch, where the temperature rarely dips below freezing even at night, but as we've headed into higher altitudes and more southerly latitudes, this has defect has become more noticeable. Our travels today took us down to the southernmost town in the South Island, Bluff, where the ferries depart to cross the Foveaux Strait to Stewart Island, NZ's third (and by far the smallest) island. We would have loved to include Stewart Island in our itinerary, but the cost of the ferry crossing wasn't nearly in the budget, and we really didn't have time for it either. What we did have time for was some delicious blue cod at a fish and chips shop, eaten with the standard massive portion of fries. One of the measurements used here is a pottle, the exact volume of which I have yet to quantify (I think it's really just synonymous with a portion) but it seems horrifyingly generous. We took the obligatory picture at the signpost to match the one that Bryan and I took in front of the signpost at Cape Reinga in the far north last August, when we thought there was a remote chance that we'd hike all the way down here. Though that didn't even come close to happening, it feels like I've completed something by coming here.

Driving into Queenstown at dusk. Lovely.

We spent a couple of hours bumming around Phil's favorite spots in Invercargill (plus a stop in the southernmost Starbucks in the world, which I would consider a must-see attraction) before heading up Hwy 6 towards Queenstown, a town that I hate in the summer for its throngs of partying tourists and, I've now discovered, despise in the winter when even more of the offensive aforementioned tourists flock there with ski and snowboard gear hanging over their shoulders. I acknowledge that I'm also a tourist, but that doesn't make me like overcrowded, overpriced commercial areas that are ruining the most beautifully set town in the country. It's really awful. We only passed through there because we wanted to take the inland route back home and it was on the way. Thankfully, in a moment of wisdom, we made the excellent decision to stay in the charming historic town of Arrowtown, 20 minutes from Queenstown itself. It's quiet, the hostel is small and warm, and we still benefit from a dazzling location in the midst of mountains that look like they've been topped with powdered sugar. We'll drive back into Queenstown tomorrow for the ritual Fergburger and then get the h-e-double hockey sticks out of there.

-Rachel

and the verdict is...

We received an e-mail this morning from INZ, a day after submitting another pile of letters and signatures and our certificate of marriage. Here's what it said:

Hi Bryan,

Thanks for your letter. I am pleased to let you know that we have approved you and your wife's work permits and your passports are now ready to collect from our office.

We have not yet finalised your Variation of Conditions application as we have had to conduct a Labour Market Test to determine whether or not there are any New Zealanders or residents in the labour force able to undertake work offered to you by Subway. This is part of our policy.

Once we receive the results of the test, we will be in touch.

Great news, eh? We're guessing it's unlikely that Bryan will continue to be able to work at Subway (or in any part-time job outside of the church), but he's hardly heartbroken about that :) I now have a work permit that allows me to work in any job for any employer, so I can begin looking for jobs and hopefully become the breadwinner for a while.

The other good news is that since our permits and visas have been approved until 20 August 2011 (a period of two years from the date that we first entered the country), we are now eligible to receive healthcare in New Zealand. No more travel insurance! We'd have preferred permits for three years, but since our police checks have still not arrived, they can't grant us anything longer. Unfortunately, this means we'll likely be going through the same process again next year, though at least now we have the documents together.

So it's official - start planning your visits!

-Rachel

big south trip: day 3

Day 3
Dunedin to Invercargill

Our lovely lunch spot near Nugget Point

Instead of taking our tour of the Cadbury Chocolate Factory on a Sunday, when the factory would be closed and would offer only an abbreviated version of the tour, we opted to leave Dunedin slightly later than planned and scheduled our visit for 9 am this morning, a Monday. Neither of us had gotten much sleep the night before, having spent a good portion of the night trying to muffle the monstrous, reverberating snores emanating from the man in the corner bed. He was older than the typical hostel-dweller, perhaps mid-fifties, and had already been much more talkative than we had the energy for in the afternoon and evening. How distressing it was to find that we were allowed no moments of silence even at night! But we did not allow this to distract us from our chocolate mission, and soon perked up as our bags filled with free samples of chocolate fish (chocolate covered marshmallow fish - our British friend Simon assumed these to be actual fish when he first arrived in NZ), jaffas (like orange-flavored M&Ms), Pinkys (marshmallow, caramel, chocolate), and the like. I enjoyed the tour more this time than when I first took it in December with Bryan, when some of the rooms were devoid of all machinery, the company being in the process of a production transition that resulted in some Kiwi favorites now being made in one of the Australian factories, which (as you can imagine) was much lamented by the public.

Ann-Kristin on the short walk to Jack's Blowhole

So we left Dunners (local nickname for Dunedin - not sure if I can get away with saying it that way...) shortly before lunchtime and began following the Southern Scenic Route through the Catlins, a slightly longer but reportedly much more interesting route down to Invers (not sure if I can get away with that either). We stopped at many of the key sights, which meant lots of gravel roads and excruciatingly slow progress, but there were some lovely moments. The drive was nice enough, but I can't really say that I've seen anything in the Catlins that I hadn't already seen up in Northland last winter, and this time I felt a bit guilty because I didn't have to work for any of the pretty shots - I just rolled up in the parking lot and pulled out my camera. It was less satisfying than long days of hiking to reach some isolated, rarely-photographed spot.

Purakanui Falls

Our streak of beautiful, almost spring-like weather ended as we drove into the perpetual cloud of gloom that seems to hover over the southernmost city in NZ, Invercargill, so we drove the final hour on gravel roads in darkness and the rain. Fortunately, we had a cozy home and a hot dinner awaiting us, courtesy of the parents of our friend Dave. Our evening was spent spraying and sniffing dozens of French perfumes, samples from their pharmacy, from which they generously allowed us to select 2 or 3 favorites to bring home. Fell asleep with a hot water bottle at my feet and the rain pounding on the windows. Welcome to Invercargill.

-Rachel

big south trip: day 2

Day 2

Dunedin

Because we are amazingly awesome and very self-disciplined, we got up on the second day of our trip and headed down the hill to go to church. It probably helped that we were a little bit familiar with SouthLife Church already, it being one of the ACTS Churches associated with our church in Christchurch, and we'd planned to meet Phil there as well. Being located on the campus of the University of Otago, the oldest university in New Zealand, the church has an energetic student feel, and we were lucky to be there to hear a special speaker, the university pastor from Planetshakers Church in Melbourne (which we visited during our Australia trip in May). Both of us were glad to have gone to church, though the rest of our day quickly slipped away afterwards, along with the lazy winter sun.

The highlight of our day was a beautiful drive along well-named Hilltop Road on the Otago Peninsula, which juts out into the sea from its western boundary in Dunedin, where we had hoped to see some yellow-eyed penguins on the march up from the sea in mid-afternoon. Or maybe they're marching down to the sea - I'm not really sure. Anyway, as you can guess, we didn't spot any, but we certainly put in some strenuous exercise time during the steep and sandy descent and, later, ascent. Though it's winter, there are still plenty of other tourists around, so our hopes for a quiet day in a more remote area were quickly dashed when we saw the half-dozen cars already parked when we pulled up in Sandfly Bay.

We returned to our hostel for a bit of a rest, as we had also squeezed a very interesting trip to the Otago Settlers Museum into our afternoon, before satisfying our dinnertime hunger at Velvet Burger at the recommendation of a friend. The cajun chicken burger was delicious, if a bit small, and it seemed like the kind of moody little place that it would be cool to be seen in :)

Thought I'd try a personal makeover when I spotted this cardboard cutout as part of a 60s exhibit at the Settlers Museum. Is it a good look for me?

-Rachel

Pictures:

1) Sandfly Bay

2) Our spacious, light-filled room at Hogwartz (with Ann in the foreground)

a short story of terrible irony

this is a short story of terrible irony, short because i'm typing with my left hand only.

spilled salad dressing in the church kitchen during a family pizza night. subsequently slipped on said dressing. injured right arm. not eligible (yet) for govt-sponsored healthcare (hopefully will be in a few weeks if our permits are approved). because of govt-sponsored healthcare, churches don't carry liability insurance for such accidents. no worries, that's why we bought travel insurance. oops - looks like it expired...yesterday. is that not terrible irony?

don't worry, because the arm's okay (just a small fracture near the elbow, no need for a cast or anything), and emergency care was unbelievably cheap (x-rays: US$24!). i just hope you'll laugh along with me :)

-rachel

big south trip: day 1

Day 1: Christchurch to Dunedin

How wonderful it feels to be travelling again! This experience is notably different from our nomadic lifestyle from Aug-Jan for a few reasons:
1) I'm travelling not with my boy, but with our German friend, Ann-Kristin, who's been in Chch and at City Church just about as long as we have. She's also here on a work-holiday visa, and this is a bit of a last hurrah for her before she returns to Berlin in September. We packed the car with lots of chocolate and enjoyed hours of boy talk, which was not standard when Bryan was my travelling buddy :)
2) We have a home to return to! It's a completely different mindset when you know that you have a place of your own and a community of friends at the end of your journey. This evening, when we were asked at the hostel where we were from, both of us immediately answered "Christchurch", though undoubtedly the person asking expected to hear "Germany" and "America".
3) We're travelling by car, not on foot or by bus, as with all but 5 days of our earlier wandering. Having a car (it's Ann's, and has no heating - this will figure centrally in later updates) means that we can take detours and stop in every small town and stay in hostels that aren't within walking distance of a bus stop. It's glorious.

We took our time heading south, as a friend of ours (who's not known to be a particularly early riser), Phil, happened to be travelling the same route, and we'd hoped to meet up with him for lunch if he could catch up with us. We stopped to buy cheap 1 kg bags of broken cookies from the CookieTime factory, paused again in Timaru to record in daylight our late-night trip of last week, and crossed the railroad tracks to sit high on the rocks overlooking the ocean in Oamaru before discovering that Phil had not received some of our texts and had already passed us by. In the end we just met up for dinner in Dunedin at a crappy (but within budget) Chinese restaurant, one of many Asian eateries squeezed in shoulder-to-shoulder in this university city.

One of the highlights of the day was our short walk along the beach and barefoot across a frigid stream (remember, it's the heart of winter here) to reach the photogenic Moeraki boulders, as round as bowling balls and clustered oddly along this 50m stretch of coast.

Our hostel, Hogwartz, is one of the nicer hostels we've stayed in to date, through (as with most everything in Dunedin) it's perched atop a steep hill, where our car is squeezed along the side of a skinny one-way street with the handbrake fully engaged.

-Rachel

Pictures:
1) the seashore at Caroline Bay, in Timaru
2) a building made of local Oamaru white stone
3) Moeraki boulders

visa/permit update

Here's a brief update on the visa for those of you who have been wondering:

While I was gone this week, Bryan received a letter from Immigration New Zealand (INZ) and has been in contact with them over the phone sorting out further documentation that we need to submit. The letter states that it appears that Bryan is ineligible for a work permit (and, as I'm applying solely as his partner, I would therefore be ineligible as well) because the denomination that City Church belongs to is not listed as an approved religious movement. This is because the denomination recently changed their name from Apostolic Churches to Acts Churches, so while Apostolic Churches is on the list, Acts Churches isn't yet. Should be a minor issue, but I'm kicking myself for not recognizing and addressing this potential hangup earlier. Sounds like it's easily sorted out with a formal letter.

We also have yet to credibly prove to the government that we are in a genuine and stable relationship, which is not essential to Bryan's permit but is essential to mine. I'm picking up a package from FedEx today that I believe to be our certificate of marriage, which will help our case, but we also need to submit photos and dated letters in both of our names.

Overall, though we have yet to receive our police checks, we feel very hopeful about our prospects, as the communication we've received from INZ does not suggest any insurmountable reasons why we'd be declined for a visa. It would be nice to be able to apply for jobs and buy a car and decorate our home with the knowledge that we'll be around for a while...otherwise, it's T-minus 21 days until we have to leave New Zealand.

-Rachel