| In 1998 I visited New Zealand with a "working
holiday" type of visa. Besides sounding quite silly I found that
this visa was totally unnecessary due to the large availability of low-paying
jobs in undesirable conditions that were open to foreign nationals.
In Auckland, I found jobs as both a kitchen hand in a trendy cafe on Ponsonby
Road and a security guard at a hotel in downtown. The cafe had a
kitchen staff of immigrants from 6 continents, with working conditions
far from ideal. The security job was a bit of a joke since my primary
duties involved trying to keep prostitutes, gangs, and homeless people
from the streets out of the building. While working the morning shift,
I didn't have much to do with the security issues involving the pub on
the 10th floor, although I often had to return IDs and credit cards to
people who lost these the night before. I wasn't the most effective
at my job since I was always smiling and didn't really have the urge to
manipulate people more unfortunate than myself through coercion and force.
After deciding to finish the working portion of the excurtion,
I was set on travelling about the country primarily in order to see and
experience as much of the backcountry as possible. It should be noted,
however, that this was the Austral winter, so that the words cold, wet,
and dark do quite a lot to describe the conditions in the bush. At this
point in my life I was not as well suited to backcountry travel, both in
terms of gear and experience, so some of these trips seemed to take on
a much more serious aspect. The Great Barrier Island lies across
the Waitemata Bay from Auckland, and I was debating |
North Island
