I guess I never had a chance to write about The Store and what happened to Brian and I after we got to Blenheim. To make a long, unfortunate story short, the jobs we had planned on having in Blenheim fell through, without warning. When we arrived there for our "interview" on February 7th, we learned that we needed to make a new plan, fast. Brian found a two-day job to occupy him while I spent a full day running my resume around town, calling hostels, checking TradeMe (craigslist equivalent) for jobs, editing my resume, emailing it, writing cover letters, etc etc etc. That night, with Brian home, exhausted from 9.5 hours throwing boxes of wine around, and me feeling hopeless and dejected after a long day of failures, we came upon an unexpected interview. Clive, from The Store in a "town" called Kekerengu, offered us jobs at his restaurant. "The job is in a restaurant? On the Pacific coast? It's full time work and comes with free accommodation? We can start immediately? We're in," is pretty much how the conversation went. The next day, Brian worked his second and last day at the bottle factory, and that evening we drove down and moved into our new house, with Joe and Chloe, our English roommates. The situation seemed too good to be true!
The Store is absolutely beautiful. open-aired and spacious, artfully decorated, and situated smack dab in the middle of the Kaikoura coast, the setting is magnificent. Halfway between Blenheim and Kaikoura, our customers are primarily passing through on their gorgeous drive; there's literally nowhere else to stop for food and a toilet. Not only is it convenient, but it's the most beautiful convenience you could happen upon while driving along the coast. I'm used to more touristy/stop-over places with gross,overpriced sandwiches and instant coffee. This place is like a haven for the road-weary; you can sit an enjoy a fresh seafood platter and local sauvignon blanc while gazing at the wild shoreline.
That being said, life at The Store is not all sunshine and rainbows. Like most jobs, it kind of sucks, and once you see the innerworkings of the place, the magic sort of dies. After a few weeks of working there and getting used to things, becoming more comfortable and faster at my job, I've decided NOT to rant about everything that first bothered me about this place, mostly for any of my readers (this means you, Shelley Dalton) who might adore this place and actually go there (unlike the rest of you in the states who will most likely just see this place as I describe it). When you're not working at a restaurant you can just be enthralled by the magic of it and not have to be aware of the bad parts. I don't want to ruin it for anyone. AND, more importantly, a job is a job, and that's what we need right now. The food is fantastic (well, no vegan fare there so I'm just going off of other peoples' opinions, but I can tell), the setting is perfection, and the staff is awesome. I love my co-workers and getting to be at the beach every day (the full windows all around make me feel like I'm actually AT the beach, not on the other side of the wall). To stick with my promise not to rant, ALL I'm going to say is that the owners make the place significantly less pleasant. THE END. So Shelley, I hope I didn't ruin it for you, keep your love for that place alive, and please come visit us!
So, our luck seemed to have turned around. Full time job, big house, great roommates and co-workers, good opportunity to save money (nowhere to spend any!). And after a few weeks we had even started to get used to the job and stopped feeling so stressed out at work or overwhelmed with our schedules. So, since we were feeling much better, naturally something bad had to happen. Enter: car break-in. Well, I guess you can't call it a break-in if the door was left unlocked, because you feel as though you live in the middle of nowhere, in a notoriously friendly country. No more, New Zealand! You got us! We learned our lesson, the hard way (is there any other way?!), and now we know we can't leave things unlocked (and Brian won't be keeping his passport in the glove compartment anymore). So yeah, they took my sleeping bag, tent, backpack, hiking boots, sleeping pad, our cooking stove, and probably some other things that I won't realize are missing until we get back out into the wild. And Brian's passport- the icing on the cake. The passport wasn't even IN anything, a wallet, or a bag, or anything, they just did that to be an asshole. We are dealing with insurance right now but there is a 98% I won't get any of my stuff back, and Brian's passport isn't covered (for some unknown reason) under our insurance, so the trip to Auckland and the price of a replacement will have to come out of his own pocket. What a drag…. this dark cloud has been looming over our heads since Saturday morning, but we're starting to get over it a little now. Today is the exception, since in a few minutes we will be going to the police station to pester them for a police report that they are oh so hesitant to get done for us. I know Kiwi cops are probably so over backpackers (I'm sure most Kiwis are…) but seriously, is it not your job to do an incident report for a crime? Everytime we call the police about it they act like we are the biggest inconvenience to them, when all we want is a simple report to send to the insurance company. Today is a pain, but after I'm able to make a claim and send it off to the insurance co, we'll be done thinking about this for awhile. At least we're making money now and not spending much, so we will have a little bit to spend on all new camping gear when we move on from here… :/
I'm trying to balance out all mis-adventures we're having with all the adventures to help keep things in perspective. After we're done working in Kekerengu, we plan to spend a month or so traveling around more of the south island. Our roommates told us we might be able to do a "swim with the seals" tour in Kaikoura for free since we're employees at The Store, so we plan to take full advantage of that! So many more things to see and do while we're here. Here's to many more happy adventures to come, and the dark raincloud drifting away from its spot a few inches above our heads. :)
**if you want to see extensive pics of our life in Kekerengu, check my facebook page.**
home sweet home
inside The Store
Pacific Coast
always cooking these days
not a bad daily commute ;)
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