Savings hunters at the Christmas party

It started like a normal vacation day. The first hike to the viewpoint over Picton at 9 a.m. Once again we went up the mountain, because somehow all the viewpoints in the world have that in common. With exceptions.

But once you get to the top you have a wonderful view over the bay and can watch the ferry or cruise ship. Upon closer inspection, the latter turned out to be very progressive, not to mention sustainable, as it is obviously powered by wood. (see photo)

When the sun reached its highest point in the north at midday, because we are in the southern hemisphere, we were back at the starting point and continued the tour with a drive along the coast. You can stop after every bend and marvel at the landscape until your travel companion gets bored at some point. I didn't even get out and waited with the engine running until the necessary photos were taken. What was unfortunately not left out were the ceramic shops. There you can marvel at the products of desperate housewives who are realizing themselves. Mostly some dropouts from Europe who got stuck in NZ and are now earning extra money. With prices that would make every saver shudder. Although completely ugly and of dubious artistic value, a small ceramic kiwi was bought, which was in the lowest price segment at 12 euros.

And then the wine-growing region was on our route. I saw countless stops at all the wineries approaching the tour guide, driver and navigator (i.e. me). Luckily most of the wineries were already closed since it was after 4:30 p.m. But there was a large building complex where there were so many cars in front of it that we stopped. The store was completely full and even though we were dressed in hiking clothes, we didn't stand out among the Kiwis, who were generally dressed very relaxed. There was a large table set up with goodies and everyone seemed to be helping themselves. As a saver, you immediately notice when something is free and so I started very small with an olive that had rolled over on the table next to the bowl. The attempt was successful - no one took any notice of the olive or me. So stage 2: First collect information via small talk. So it turned out that we ended up at a winery's Christmas party. It became clear relatively quickly that this was a larger company because the people didn't all know each other and there were always new temporary workers being hired. Good for the bargain hunters, because we were able to unobtrusively help ourselves from the large table and have occasional small talk. In stage 3, the noble reserve could then be completely abandoned. The large plate was then filled. By now we already knew several people and when the request came at some point where we work in the company, we had already adapted our story perfectly and were able to name names. Then occasionally waving around and greeting previous conversation partners makes the camouflage perfect. So in stage 4 (exit strategy) we left the party quite inconspicuously the way we came and were never seen again.