I spent Christmas and New Year here in Motueka whilst I was working on the cherry orchard and it was heaps of fun, on Christmas day me and another person in the accommodation hitchhiked to Kaiteriteri where I also met up with 2 people I met in Tauranga 5 months prior. It was my first attempt at hitchhiking and after walking out of the orchard driveway it was literally less than two minutes before we got picked up. We chilled out on the beach in the sun, chucked a ball around and swam in the sea. We had to keep reminding ourselves that it was christmas as we kept forgetting whilst we were relaxing in this paradise.

Afterwards we got a lift back with my friend, picked up our alcohol from the orchard and headed to rabbit island for drinks and a BBQ, the island closed at 8 and afterwards we went back to the farm my friend was working on and chilled out and drank until midnight, we then returned back to our accommodation. A very different Christmas to what I was used to back home but also a very good chilled out day with some awesome people.

On New Years Eve we worked till around 3pm and then clocked of for the day to prepare for the evening ahead of us. We drank and played drinking games in the accommodation till around 10:30 and then left for a Bush Doof (Rave Party) at the mouth of Motueka River. It was around 30 minutes walk down a small gravel road along the river that is flooded when the tide comes in, so you have to walk on the banks of the track which was pretty fun, we just had to avoid obstacles like tree trunks and small ditches full of water.

I was very drunk and had lots of time to pull out my dance moves, although a little slow going for me. The music was Techno/Trance. After we celebrated the New Year things took a turn for the worse.

I had invited a French couple I had met in Palmy to come and stay and party with us. All of a sudden he started shouting at the DJ and stopping the music, I dragged him away and it turns out his girlfriend was missing, we spent a few hours looking, me and another guy headed of back down the track to a campsite where others were staying.

We walked back along the banks and found that the tide had come in a lot more and we couldn’t get across one of the ditches as it was too wide, we ventured onto a dry part of the track, my friend found the path and shouted to come this way, I followed his voice and the light from his phone but ended up walking into the bush for a few minutes, in which another random person followed me, in my drunk mind I was an adventurer in the jungle, fighting my way through the trees and plants until I came out near my mate who then showed me the short path he had taken, a few laughs were had and then we continued to the campsite, it took us a while to get there and then back in our drunken states. But to much looking, there was no avail. We returned and then decided with the group we would go back and check at the accommodation.

Basically nobody knew where she was and we assumed the worse, either she’d been taken by somebody, she’d got too drunk and fallen in the river or a combination of the two, basically we had a lot of theories as to what had happened to her, most of them ending up in death. But with us all being pretty drunk we were all not taking it too seriously and occasionally laughing.

We started our return crossing the ditches; following the bank and then for some reason we went through the bush again. When we had walked for 10 minutes we had found that the guy was missing and hadn’t been following us but decided to carry on and see if she had returned on her own. We got to the room she was staying in, opened the door and turned on the light and… she was tucked up in bed totally out of it, a sigh of relief but also of annoyance, as she hadn’t told anybody. I later checked my phone I had left here to see missed calls and messages from her saying that she had gone home, so fair enough she did try to tell us, unfortunately I did not take my phone out with me.

Three of us returned to the rave to search for the guy who was a little drunk and rather angry, again we looked but could not find him as he had wandered off. We then returned to the accommodation as there was not much more that we could do. The next morning he had returned, I asked him where he had been and he said he was in town and trying to hitchhike back until the police picked him up and returned him to the orchard.

Still it was a good night and it was nice to celebrate the New Year with all the new people I have met whilst working on the cherry orchard.

On New Years Day I was a little worse for wear but not too hungover, I spent the morning relaxing and then later in the afternoon me and a few others ventured to Marahau beach and relaxed in the sun before it was hidden behind the clouds and then went for a swim in the bay. It was quite relaxing and I felt as though some of the toxins from the night before were released into the salty water.

“If your not losing friends, you’re not growing up”

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