The Grapes of Wrath

"It was supposed to be a pleasant working holiday in wine country, but for this traveller, it turned into a nightmare."

If my last couple of days were a cheap paperback, that's what it would say on the back of the book. I thought I had a plan for winter; go to Blenheim, get a job pruning in the vineyards, make a fistfull of cash. Yeah, right. It turns out the vinyards are paying "contract" rates, meaning that they pay you by the plant instead of the hour. 40 cents for each plant you prune to be specific. I busted my ass, eight hours a day, for two days for a whopping $40 (before taxes). So basically a hard days work (and it is quite hard) was earning me enough money to buy one bottle of the local Pinot Noir, if I didn't buy food, and I prefer Shiraz. Minimum wage in New Zealand is $9.50 an hour; I was making about $3 an hour.

But enough about the crap pay (the pay was the problem, I didn't mind the work), let me tell you about where I'm staying. Ahh, the Blenheim Motor Camp. It's basically a ghetto campgroud. It cost me next to nothing to park Zelda here for a week, hence my decision. It's mostly frusturated vineyard workers here at the moment, some living in tents, come living in the cabins. This place is NEXT to the railroad tracks. About every 90 minutes a train comes roaring through, shaking Zelda from side to side as I sleep. There's a few characters staying here. My favorite is the the conspiracy theorist from Fiji. Every chance he gets he'll talk to me about Area 51, time travel, life on Mars, ect. He's given up on pruning too.

But don't worry about me. You can't travel around the world without a few things going wrong. And besides, next week, I'm going to see the Master himself, Nick Cave in Wellington. Ah, my beautiful world.

PHOTO: My evil plans for the motorcamp have been foiled. Drat!