Grape expectations!

Sat in my favourite café in Jersey, I’m about as far removed from grape picking as I can get. And yet, every now and then I catch myself grinning at one of the memories or events of the last couple of weeks. What a great experience!

A ‘motley crew of randoms’ is the easiest way to describe us. There was west country Charlie aka ‘Chopper’, Ben, Triso, Tone, Laura, Paul, Vicky, Josef, Harmen and the obligatory ‘weird’ Will. Add in the French team of ‘Arthur beard’ (as in ‘half a beard’), Bruno, Uncle Knob Head (middle-aged, letchy butcher), Lesbos and Bruce (as in Willis), and we were about diverse as you can get. Mixed in with hard work and more wine than you can imagine, we had ourselves a good recipe for great times.

The grape picking itself was arduous, backbreaking stuff (at least for the first few days) interspersed by song and jovial vulgarities. ‘9’s’ out in the field (a veritable feast of wine, meat, cheese and bread) were a great morning pick up. This was followed by wine stops every hour or so and a three course lunch (with wine!) so we were usually grape picking half cut making it an altogether more pleasant experience J

Everyone had their own techniques when it came to actually picking the grapes. Paul took on the ‘1,2 miss-a-few’ technique, Charlie was all about speed, everyone looked out for the shortest rows with the fewest grapes, whilst Ben always landed the longest rows with the most grapes (that was his excuse for lagging behind anyway!)

At the farm we were housed in dorms: a small 4-bed ‘girl’ dorm and a larger dorm for the lads. At first, we ‘the girls’ thought we had the better of the two dorms. That was until 11pm on our first night when we had our first ‘enlightening’ introduction to the French team. 

We’d just settled to go to sleep (in preparation for the 6am wake-up call) when our peace and tranquility was rather rudely disturbed by the arrival of the ‘boys next door’ – a bunch of middle-aged men who’d been out for a couple of drinks at the  local bistro and were residing in the room next to us.

Half an hour of belching and farting ensued, made worse when we laughed and they realized they had an audience on the other side of the paper-thin walls. And so it continued. This was our affectionate wake-up call every morning.

Key highlights of grape picking:

-       Will-isms – “did your past boyfriends ever hit you?” (random question when asking Laura about her upbringing), “how do you say ’obviously’ in French with a really sarcastic undertone?” (his second question to me after ‘What’s the word for bucket?”) 

-       The blackbird song (sung at full pelt in the middle of the vineyard)

Where be it blackbird to?

I know where he be,

He be up yon wurzel tree, and I be after he!


Now I sees he, and he sees I,


Bugger'd if I don't get 'en


Wit a girt big stick I'll knock 'im down,
Blackbird I'll 'ave he!


La la la la la la
La la la la la la


'Ow's 'e, Fadder?
[Audience Answer] Alright!

-       Robojob (as performed by Charlie…don’t ask!)

-       Pocket Sausage (sausage stored in pockets after 9’s for a mid-morning snack)

-       Cupboard Clothes (old clothes found in a cupboard in the boys’ dorm which were worn out in the field to great comic effect J )

In four days we all (bar ‘weird’ Will) became very close. Unfortunately, our grape picking experience came to an abrupt end just when we’d finally got over the back ache from bending over all da. At the end of the third day we were told by Jean-Pierre that there was only one more day left of grape picking. The rains had arrived so he’d hired more people than usual to get the grapes picked before they rotted. We were left in a bit of a pickle as we’d all booked tickets for the following week. The agency we’d used were useless and offered us no help at all. Charlie, Vicky and Paul managed to get a lift from a friend, Josef and Harmen headed back to Holland, Will….who knows, and Ben, Triso, Tone, Laura and I decided to head to Paris to try and change our tickets. And so our next adventure began…

A farmer called Jean-Pierre

Armed with just a phone number and my backpack, I arrived at the small train station of Belleville Sur Saone. I’d been told by the ‘grape picking’ agency to call ‘Jean-Pierre’ when I arrived. Well, as is the usual case when travelling, nothing ever goes quite as planned. The number didn’t work, it was getting dark and I had absolutely no idea how far the farm was from the station. I decided to sit it out and see if he would turn up of his own accord.

10 minutes later a pickup truck rocked up and out jumped a farmer type. A guy stood next to me asked in French whether he was Jean-Pierre, to which the farmer replied yes. ‘Great’ I thought, ‘Sorted!’

I introduced myself but the farmer drew a blank. My heart sank thinking bureaucracy had gone wrong somewhere along the line. Consulting my little black book I asked whether he was Jean-Pierre ‘Desmolle’. The confusion vanished. He explained that he was a different Jean-Pierre but that Jean-Pierre Desmolle was his neighbour and asked if I wanted a lift. I didn’t have to be asked twice...I couldn't believe my luck!

Chucking my rucksack into the back of the pickup, I thanked the God  of travel who was looking down on me once again!

The first few faltering steps to global travel...

I'd managed to pack my life into 3 boxes and a reasonably sized backpack. I'd done the paperwork and booked the flights. I'd finished work after a long three-month notice period. All I had to do now was get in the air and head to Jersey for the first stop on my RTW trip.

Easier said than done it appears. The train was on time, security at Gatwick was relatively stress free (although why they need to x-ray flip-flops is still beyond me) and I'd made it to the departure gate in very good time. All was well and good. Until we'd taxied out to the runway that is.

The nose of the plane was virtually touching the runway when we came to an abrupt stop. 30 seconds later and we were surrounded by 4x4s with flashing lights. Fortunately, they weren't police cars or the anti-terror squad but a bunch of engineers who'd been dragged away from their morning bacon butties and tea to get to the bottom of why the steering had failed on the plane.

15 minutes later they were non the wiser so we were towed back to a stand. 30 minutes later and they'd worked out what the problem was and were on the hunt for a replacement part. As you'd expect, said spare part was currently 'out of stock' on the airfield.

Plan B came into force: how to move 150 people from one plane to the plane next to it...a distance of about 15 metres. Easy...you'd think! But then there's airport security to contend with. The Captain's initial idea was for us to leave the plane, enter the departure lounge and walk across to the next gate to board the new plane. A good idea...until the security boffins pointed out that it was an international departure lounge and we, as domestic passengers, weren't allowed to mix with them.

Plan B.2. The Captain arranges a bus to pick us up and transport us 15m to the next plane. It first had to remove 3 business passengers who were likely to miss important meetings in Jersey. They were put on any available plane that was heading that way. It then returned to transport half the crew so that they could start setting up the new plane, and then shuttled between our plane and the new plane to transfer us and the remaining crew.

Then there was the catering issue: apparently for 'security reasons' it's not possible to merely transfer the trolley from one plane to the next so you have to order a whole new trolley of drinks and nibbles for the new plane. Bearing in mind it's a 30minute flight it was an awful lot of fuss for a dodgy cuppa and a packet of weird nutty things crammed with E numbers and preservatives.

Three hours and one slightly nerve wracking flight later and I finally arrived home in Jersey to commence my trip.

Globe trotting!

So here is the first post of my global travelling extravaganza. The plan for the trip is as follows:

14th September: 10 days on a vinyard near Macon in France grape picking

3rd October: fly to Nairobi then travel down through East Africa as far as Jo'burg

1st December: fly down to Cape Town then spend 10 days in South Africa

12th December: fly to Auckland New Zealand. I'll be travelling around the north island for a month spending Christmas with my fella's family and New Year with my friend Vicky

8th January: fly to Hong Kong and spend a couple of days visiting the city

11th January: fly to Kuala Lumpur and spend a day having a look round

13th January: fly to Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu, India. From here I travel to the south coast and then up the west cost as far as Goa. Here, I plan to spend a relaxing few days before flying up to Delhi to travel around Rajasthan

27th February: travel to Nepal. There i'll spend 21 days walking the Annapurna Circuit and completing Everest Base Camp

24th April: meet my parents in Kathmandu to travel to Tibet for 16days

10th May: fly to Bangkok and travel around Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia with my fella

Early July: fly to Sydney to put down my rucksack and find work as a copywriter once again!

kayaking in the 4th wettest place on earth

After a night spent in Kaikoura it was up early for the drive down to Lake Tekapo in central south isalnd. The drive was (as is usual in NZ) surprisingly simple and laid back. If acting as the map reader the instructions are usually 'drive 200km on this road then turn right'!

We arrived at Lake Tekapo around 5pm and put up the tent. We had it down to an art form and had both tent and airbed up within half an hour. The town of Tekapo is uber tiny so we had a quick drink at a bar then headed back for an early night in the tent. The following day we drove down to Manapouri. A long drive but no less stunning than the previous few days. One of the amazing things about NZ is how the scenery changes constantly. From the relatively dry flat land around where Tim's parents live we experienced stunning coastal roads to moutainous roads spotted with beautiful clear blue lakes to hilly almost rainforest-like flora.

We stopped by in Queenstown for lunch and had a look round. In the winter this is one of NZ's main ski resorts. It certainly had the alpine feel although there was no snow on the slopes. Definitly a place to return during the ski season.

We arrived in Manapouri in the pouring rain. As in torrential pouring rain. We decided that maybe putting a tent up was not the best idea so we asked if there were any dorm beds available. Thankfully there were which meant we could dump our stuff, head to the only cafe in town to pick up a hot choc and then return to cook dinner in the kitchen. We were wacked after our drive and had to get up early the following morning so we headed to bed early.

The following morning we were at Fijordland Adventure Kayaks at 7.30am with coffee in hand. nine of us were gathered on a coach and driven just down the road to Pearl Harbour. Here we boarded a boat for a 20 minute trip across Lake Manapouri. It was still raining. In fact it was pouring. We arrived at a small bay where we were layered up with micropore fleece, wetsuit, cap and paddle jacket then we picked up a coach to cross over a high pass to a small bay on the edge of Doubtful sound. Here we were layered up with a 'skirt' and full waterproof. We climbed on board a boat and were carefully negotiated onto kayaks.

Despite the rain the kayak trip was awe-inspiring. Dificult to describe in words in fact. I have never seen such beautiful scenery and would recommend everyone to pay a vist. The fijords are absolutely stunning. high rock formations jut out of the water covered in lush rainforest-esque forna with waterfalls cascading off the top of them. No postcard could do the view or experience justice. We spent four hours kayaking and Vix and I were frequently lost for words. Just amazing!!!!!

In the evening we headed 20km up from Manapouri to Te Anau for a dinner of pizza and a drive through torrential rain back to the campsite. no wonder this place is the fouth wettest place on earth!

Kaikoura - got the T-shirt

We woke up at six and left the Hickman's at 6.30am to drive to Kaikoura. We arrived at Dolphin Encounter for our first adventure of the day - a swim with wild dolphins. We got kitted out in wetsuits and were given a mask, snorkel and fins to take on the boat with us. A short bus ride to the pier and we hopped on a small boat to take us out to the dolphins. Within 15 minutes we'd found a pod of 200 odd Dusky dolphins, got our masks and fins on and were sat on the edge of the boat waiting for the sound of the horn. A short blast and we jumped into the water where we were surrounded by literally hundreds of dolphins swimming around us in interest. What's great is that they are completely wild and not led into temptation by tasty morsals. If they choose to stick around it's completely their choice. We had three swims with them in total and it was completely awe-inspiring. They were swimming all around you just centimetres away. Spectacular!!!!

In the afternoon we headed out on a second tour to go whale watching. This was an equally exciting experience. We saw three sperm whales, loads more dusky dolphins and some local fur seals. It was a fabulous day all round.

In the evening we headed to the campsite (with pool and spa I might add) and sussed out how to put up our tent and pump up the airbed before treating ourselves to a session in the pool and hot tub.

In the evening we headed out into the small town for a feed of crayfish (delicious) and the nightlife (or lack thereof as it turned out). We found a bar with a guy singing with a guitar then found a livelier pub where we met an American called Pepe who'd just come back from setting up oil pipes in Antarctica. A quiet evening but enjoyable all the same.

The rather long scenic route...

After a day in Wellington and an early evening, Vix and I were up at the crack of dawn to catch the Interislander to Picton on the south island. The trip is spectacular as you travel through the Marborough Sounds. Luscious hills covered in trees and firns drop down to the water's edge with only tiny pockets of habitation.

At Picton - a relatively unspectacular small town - we picked up our shiney, new, red Toyota Corolla. Vix took the wheel to begin with and we headed into Picton to pick up some essential supplies: a pump for the airbed, snacks and plastic bowls. We then decided to go the 'scenic route' to Blenheim via Port Underwood.

The scenic route turned out to be a beautiful, windy, well Tarmaced road - well for the first few miles anyway. Then we ended up on an unsurfaced hell hole of a road that lasted about 20 miles. Nevertheless, we did get to see some fantastic little bays and developed only mild back problems from driving on shale for miles on end.

Once in Blenheim we headed to Annie's cafe for a bite to eat before hitting the wineries. We visited Cloudy Bay and Wairau River vinyards and tasted a few local Savs and Pinot Noirs. We picked up a couple of great bottles from Wairau then headed - albeit rather nevously on my part - to Tim's parents' farm about half an hour south of Blenheim.

Mary and Ossie were extremely welcoming and both Vicky and I felt at home instantly. Ossie gave us a tour of the farm in his car and we saw Jet (the sheepdog) in action as she rustled a few sheep off the railway line and back into their paddock. we also met John (one of Tim's older brother) trying to sort out a 'flattie' on his van and then back at the house we met Paul (Tim's younger brother), Nadine, Ashley and Matthew (the most recent member of the Hickman clan at 8 weeks' old). The evening was spent with the family and with Ruth and Gordon (some other friends of Tim who'd coincidentally arrived on the same day as us). It was really great to get an insight into a completely different aspect of Tim's life and somehow it made me feel like i'd suddenly got to know him so much better. In fact, seeing the photos of him as a child just made me realise just what a great guy he is and how lucky I am to be able to call him mine (for now at least).