1st - 28th April 2014
My last month in Franz Josef and what a rollercoaster it has been but it wasn't quite over yet. Although the numbers of backpackers and tourists had significantly dropped there were still the Easter holidays to come and that meant a very busy restaurant.
Before that though I had completely forgotten how quite the bar can get. It was right back to how it was when I arrived in September. Not every night, there were still some big bus loads coming through but a lot of nights were just empty. I was trying to remember what I used to do when it was like this. Then it came back to me, drink!
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| Harriot showing her skills |
There were a few nights out in my final weeks like this night in Blue Ice where Harriot tried to poll dance. I just stuck to the Wii bowling competition!
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| Room with a view |
I had settled in to my room at the staff house on Kamahi Cresent. It was a much better house and full of people which was nice but a bit further away from town. Now it would take me 6-7 minutes to get to the shop rather than just 2. I am aware I sound ridiculous but when you get used to living in such a small place this seems like a lot further!
When the Easter holidays kicked in it is full on again. Only during restaurant hours but we were really busy now that we had a few less staff to cope with it. On the buses front it was steady and when AJ Hackett came up for one last Hori Bungy it was a big night.
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| Darren and Motors do the bungy |
This time, for the demo run, it was Darren's turn with one of the best stray drivers, Motors. I finished first so I was able to get drunk with everyone after. Unfortunately I wasn't in the right frame of mind and made a bit of a tit of myself seeking arguments where the wasn't an argument to be had. Fail!
Now for a quick look outside of Franz Josef with the story of Cyclone Ita.
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| A bit wet |
The place a first worked when leaving home, the Lions Den Hotel in Far North Queensland, was hit head-on by category 4 cyclone. It was a category 5 but it weakened quickly as it neared land which is a very good thing given how much damage it caused. From the picture above you can see that the little creek out the back of the campground has swelled immensely. It must be 10 or 15 metres up for its normal level. Thats metres, not feet!
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| My bedroom was on the right |
Thankfully nobody was hurt up there as everyone took refuge in a storm shelter. I got these pictures of facebook a few days later and was shocked at the damage there. I stayed in the donga above for two and half months but now it has a tree on it! By the looks of it fallen trees and a bit of flood damage was the only real issues. The bar building was largely ok. Unfortunately the famous cannon ball tree came down too which is a shame.
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| Fallen Cannonball Tree |
A few more days later and there were pictures of everyone helping get the Den back on its feet and it was open again. Everything was back to normal and that was that, or so I thought. When I set off driving to Hokitika to finally get my Duty Managers certificate I did not know that, after battering the Queensland coast, cyclone Ita had tracked south over to New Zealand and was set to slam into the West Coast.
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| Trees everywhere! |
It was obviously no longer a cyclone but there had been very little talk about it, unlike ex-tropical cyclone Lusi last month where everyone knew it was coming, this came out of the blue. Sure, it was windy when I set off and when I got stuck behind a fallen power line I probably should have turned back but naivety and because I really wanted to get to this meeting i carried on.
I had done my LCQ course in December and I'd been fighting to get my Duty Managers Certificate processed every since. I finally had got my interview arranged and this was the only day I could do it before I left town so I ploughed on. I was past half way when I thought this is getting dangerous. There was a man waving traffic around a campervan that was on its side and he got blown across the road infront of me. He couldn't physically stand up against the wind.
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| Hate to be in that camper! |
A little further up the road I got stuck behind another fallen tree that the police and service crews hadn't got to yet. I sat there for a minute whilst the car was rocking thinking whether or not I should get out and attempt to move it when I heard this massive crunch from the trees next to me and I immediately bolted on to the grass and around the tree on the road. Nothing else came down but I wasn't going to hang about! I gripped the steering wheel to stop from being blown off the road and concentrated hard the rest of way.
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| Behind a fallen tree |
I got to Hoki and did my interview which is the last stage in obtaining my Duty Managers Certificate which I am hoping is being processed now and I should get it soon. I then took the decision to head back south if I could as I had absolutely nothing with me and didn't fancy sleeping the car. I didn't get very far. The road was closed and Ihad to head back to Hoki.
All the beds in town were taken by people in the same spot as me so I was pretty lucky when I bumped in to Toddy, the Kiwi Experience driver, who told me that he had some no-shows and that he wouldn't be needing all the beds he'd booked. They were also stuck in Hoki. I met the manager of Jade Backpackers who Toddy was talking to and he was happy to sell me one of the spare beds at a discounted rate to which was a bonus!
The Kiwi bus doesn't normally stop in Hoki so they were all stuck for something to do too. One of the louder ones organised a quiz so I joined in that. I was the only one staying at the hostel that wasn't on the Kiwi bus. They were all questions straight out of heat magazine or something similar so I didn't do very well.
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| Trees that were on the road |
The next day the road was slowly opening up as they cleared it of trees and debris and I was able to get all the way back to Franz Josef. It was then that I could see the extend of the damage the storm had caused. The whole way down the coast there were trees down everywhere. In the fields and at the side of road that had been cleared away. There was debris all over the road. There was one patch were literally a small forest was on its side. It must have been 100+ trees in this one spot that 90% had been blown over.
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| Fallen power line |
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| Truck and trailer on its side |
The further south I went the more damage there seemed to be. When I got to Whataroa, the next town along from Franz Josef, I saw that almost every building in town had some form of damage. From a few houses with a few panels missing to one where the whole roof had completely gone! It was really shocking to see and when I got to Franz it was just as bad. Thankfully no structural damage but there were trees everywhere.
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| Drunk lamppost |
My battery ran out on my phone so I went back with my camera a bit later. The trees in the picture below were all over the road when I first got back but they'd been cleared away. I went to work to see the damage there and Oscar told me some scary stories.
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| Crap everywhere |
He told me how they were quickly trying to rearrange the campsite as trees were falling down around them until it became too dangerous and evacuated the campsite completely and I'm not surprised. There were trees everywhere and big ones too. How no one was hurt is a miracle. The biggest tree in the park came down narrowly missing one of the lodges.
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| More fallen trees |
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| This tree is massive! |
There was no rain with this storm, only wind that did all the damage. The west coast isn't really a windy place so the trees don't have any resilience to it which is why I'm guessing there were so many that came down.
I grabbed a cold shower as there was still no power and then Tara, Darren. Raili, Carmen and I went down to Okarito and found even more damage.
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| The reason there's no power |
The was quite high surf after the storm so we took some pictures down at the beach and headed back to town.
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| Okarito Beach |
There was no power. The night before the bar had stayed open by torch and candlelight and even cooked food by candle light but it wasn't possible to do that a second night. There was no extractor fan in the kitchen so it wasn't safe to cook in there and that meant we couldn't open the bar. Even if we could the pumps for the beer don't work without power and neither does the postmix so the only things we would be able to serve were straight shots or bottles of warm beer.
No power also meant no hot water, no laptops, no phones and even if your phone did still have battery left there was no signal because the tower was out.
It was a very strange afternoon. I wandered into town as there was little else to do and found every local doing the same thing. I was chatting to people I would normally only ever see in the bar. Everyone was just wandering around unsure what to do. Full of Beans had a $10 all you can eat buffet to get rid of all the meat that was defrosting and all the cakes that were going warm.
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| Foodidge |
I'm not sure what the occasion was, I think it was just a why not sort of thing as her sister was in town, but Georgie had organised a meal at Scenic which she invited me to. They were one of the few places in town that had a generator so it was either sit at home in the dark or go to 5 course meal with all you can drink.
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| looking smart |
It was a really good meal with some really fancy food. It was all you can drink wine but I managed to persuade them to give me beer instead. I don't do wine! They were bringing out a course about once an hour so there was a lot of drink consumed. The night ended with champagne and shots with Georgie corking a bottle with a knife!
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| Georgie showing off her skills |
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| Flaming shots |
We headed back in to town which was eerily dark and quite except for Eighty Eight and as it was past midnight on Good Friday we were allowed to go in without buying food. That's one of the strange laws in New Zealand. On certain days of the year you can only serve people staying in your accommodation or if people are eating with the alcohol.
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| Party time |
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| Look at the lights - amazing |
We were pretty much the only people in there which was pretty cool. It was also nice to hear music. I know it had only been like 24 hours but I felt deprived! We had a couple of afters at staff house at the YHA which is where most of the group stay and then I wandered home by the moonlight.
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| Candle party |
When I woke up there was still no power so we were faced with another day of nothing much to do. Me and Carmen started doing a jigsaw. I haven't done a jigsaw in years! We got bored of that and went and met up with Tara and Darren where we came up with the idea of a Franz Josef Monopoly. I think it started as a joke but as there was nothing else to do we thought why the hell not just do it. And make it into a drinking game, why not! So we went to Monsoon for some supplies and sat in the courtyard and began to make the best version of monopoly ever made!
It was as we were sat in the courtyard about 5pm that I suddenly realised the heaters had come on. That's good I thought, I was getting chilly. Oh wait, the powers back! There was a collective groan. We had assumed, as it was already late in the day, that the power would be back on and nobody would be working that evening. We had already arranged a drinking game! But no, the power was back and that meant the bar was going to open.
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| Made by yours truly |
Not to rub salt in the wound but it was my day off anyway so I went home and put my life on charge. Three days without Facebook, nightmare! Then I thought I would finish the game so that when all the hosts finished work at 10ish we could still play. It took me about two hours to do but when it was finished it was awesome. The chance cards were things like "You caught Chlamydia of a backpacker, finish your drink and pay your hospital fees!"
Tara and Darren bailed but me, Raili and Carmen gave it a test run and it worked well. I won, obviously.
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| Power Cut! |
The next day was another interesting one. It was back to work for me and there were a lot of issues to deal with! Because it was Easter weekend there were no deliveries to replace the stock that we lost and that meant we ran out of everything and I mean everything. It came to the point where we only had pizzas and then we even ran out of them. We closed the kitchen early and I expected a backlash but everyone was understanding. It had been a rough weekend. Then about 10pm the power went out again!
I didn't get to experience it last time as I was in Hokitika so it was a bit of a novelty for me serving in the dark and the silence but as Sarah pointed out it gets old quick. It was only off for half hour and then everything went back to normal again. All in all it was a very eventful few days!
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| Vicky's Ski Run |
Truly and end of era now as it was Vicky's turn to leave and she'd been there forever! She was the one who checked me in when I arrived on the Kiwi Experience bus. She was determined to get out of her ski run so we surprised her by making her do it really early when she was checking a bus in. She had a bit of an audience but did well. She went out for a meal with the reception lot before coming back to monsoon for her leaving party.
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| Dirty dancing anyone |
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| Alex cruising |
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| Oscar trying to show off before falling backwards |
This was the night where I truly realised what I'd be leaving behind the following week. Everyone was in a good mood and having a good time. When "Wagon Wheel" came on, the Franz Josef theme tune, everyone stood in a massive circle and sang along. This often happens when this song comes on. I remember the first time it came on and having never heard it before in my life I felt quite out of place. Now, looking around at the 20 or so people in this circle, knowing all the names and being friends with at least half of them I realise that Franz Josef has been a really good place to be and I will miss it a lot.
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| Bye Vicky! |
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| Mashed! |
A week and half later and it was my leaving party. It was finally time for me to leave after working for 7 and a half months. I made a thing one night when I was bored and stuck it in reception.
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| Montage! |
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| Me with my ladies! |
I went to King Tiger for one last Butter Chicken with Garlic Naan that I
got every time I went there. The we went to Monsoon to do my ski run. I'd seen so many people do this over the summer and now it was finally my turn and it was disgusting. Mine was particularly nasty. A ski run normally has three shots in a row and a jager bomb. Mine had an extra shot of the strongest shot we do and my jager bomb had champagne in it instead of red bull which Sarah knows I find absolutely disgusting! It went down though and I washed it down with one last strawpedo. Problem was it might have gone down but it all came back up again a couple of hours later!
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| Nasty Ski Run |
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| Winning the last Strawpedo! |
I was a mess. It seemed like everyone else in the bar was sober and I was mashed. After puking my guts up out the front I stumbled back inside and leaned on a table which I fell off bringing the table crashing down on my foot. Even in my drunken state it bloody hurt! I threw up on Darren's car and then he took me home in it. It was sort of a good night!
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| Group Pic! |
The next morning Darren gave me and fat foot a lift to the bus stop. I wasn't really that hungover having been in bed at 1am but my foot was a mess and a couldn't walk on it at all. Darren gave me a garlic loaf that James had kept for me and I happily munched on that whilst reflecting on my time in Franz Josef.
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| Goodbye Franz |
I spent more time here then anywhere else on my travels and probably felt more settled there anywhere else. It was really nice to be able to walk down the street and bump into a whole bunch of people that you know and if you wanted to go out for a drink there would always be people in the bar you could drink with. It was strange to see the town go from completely quite to stupidly busy and back again.
I think its very unlikely that I'll ever work in a place with such stunning surroundings either. I never got sick of looking up at the mountains on a clear day. Like it was meant to be, the first major snowfall of the year had made the mountains look just how they did when I first arrived. I really enjoyed my time here overall. I made some fantastic friends and had some amazing times.
But it was the right time to leave and I was ready to seek a new adventure!
