On the South Island

Upon arriving on the South Island, our car demanded attention right away. It was rattling and smelling like hot oil (or something similar), so we tried to find an open workshop. However, Picton (the town where we arrived on the South Island) was not very big and the available workshops were closed, so we decided to head to the slightly larger town of Blenheim (about a 40-minute drive away).

There, we found an open workshop the next day. Our car had issues with the brake calipers, a part of the serpentine belt, and it was also leaking oil from a hole. Only the brake calipers needed to be repaired (which cost us $200), the mechanics said we could ignore the other issues.

The oil leak was the most beautiful thing the mechanic had ever seen, and even if small fires start under our car during the drive due to the burning oil, it's not a big deal. And the part of the serpentine belt was not completely broken yet (if it does break completely, we'll stop, but it doesn't have to come to that).

Since we wanted to find a job, we checked into a hostel where they provide a list of employer contacts. Of course, we immediately called all the numbers on the list, but unfortunately, with no success. Fortunately, we still managed to find a job the next day. A guy who was looking for workers came to the campground, and luckily, our neighbor Flo woke us up so that we could start working with the guy right after waking up. The job was picking leaves in a vineyard. Unfortunately, this job was only for 2 days, so we were unemployed again.

And since it was the weekend, we couldn't really look for work. So, we had no choice but to go to the beach.

On Monday, we were lucky again. We heard from an informant where we could find work. The job we had was not the best (9 hours in the vineyard under the scorching sun, mean bosses, physically exhausting), but money is money. We worked at this job for another 1.5 weeks before moving on to Nelson.