Working at the Maitai - Part 2

In the last post, Andy wrote about all the projects he's been working on here at the Maitai. If you were able to follow along, congrats! (most of it goes over my head). In this post, I thought I would just share a bit about what I've been doing at the camp as well, over the past several weeks...

The main office at the camp

The last time I worked at the Maitai was for the Youth Festival held over New Years.  During that event, I was able to interact with a lot of locals (and learn a fair amount of their lingo in the process). This time, I get to meet and interact with backpackers and tourists from all over the world! This brings the language barrier to a whole new level, but that's a different story...

In any given night, we receive up to 120 backpackers staying at our camp from a number of different countries including: Canada, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Sweden, Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, England, Scotland, Latvia, France, Italy, Denmark, Ireland, Hungary, Slovenia, Israel, Australia, Argentina, and of course the U.S.!

My main responsibility is to book them in and enter them into our system. This includes getting to ask them what country they're from, which usually leads to an interesting discussion about what brought them here to New Zealand. As a result, I often get to hear a lot of cool stories. For example, one American couple I met is biking their way around the country. When I say “bike,” I mean bicycle, not motorcycle. Their plan is to travel through southeast Asia next, and eventually bike from Seattle down the west coast. Sweet as!

Another backpacker I met was a Canadian who had toured the North Island before, but returned to New Zealand to explore the South Island with his girlfriend. They had already done the fruit-picking thing and are now looking for more opportunities here in the Nelson region. This is pretty common among the backpackers that have come in. Many of them are here on working holiday like us, and looking for work in the area. Some have just arrived over the past few weeks and others have been traveling around for the past few months. My favorite part of my job is getting to hear their stories.

The front desk where I work

In addition to booking in backpackers and directing them to their sites, I also receive rent payments from the permanent residents, run the camp store, and answer a lot of questions (in person and on the phone).

On slow days, I get paid to surf the net and play with Carol's two dogs:

                                    Riley                                                                   Jess

Just kidding... sort of.

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Just for fun, here's a little demographics game for you:

*Note: This is not representative of the tourist population in New Zealand, but only of the campers we have received at the Maitai.

You would think that most of the backpackers that come to NZ are from England (their mother country) or nearby Australia. However, we have had a surprising majority (at least 30, if not 50 percent) from:

a.) France

b.) Germany

c.) Czech Republic

d.) Canada

If you guess correctly, we will mail you a special treat (it's made in Australia, but still... it's delicious!)

If you don't guess or you guess incorrectly, don't worry. If you are in the Seattle vicinity, you will probably get one anyway (I am hoping to bring a luggage full of this stuff home).