Update of massiveness
So much has happened since my last post that I don’t know where to begin. My circumstances have changed. My outlook on life has changed. Hell, I’ve changed.
These changes have all been changes for the better, even though it might not seem like it to some people.
Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? The place I ended up WWOOFing at was Rongo Backpackers in Karamea. Karamea is the northernmost town on the West Coast of the South Island – the last stop before the wilderness, if you will. My time at Rongo was the most amazing time of my life without a shadow of a doubt. My work there was mainly changing beds, cleaning, gardening, taking bookings, showing guests around, keeping the fire going – but on top of that there was so much more. They run a radio station out of what used to be the old ambulance shed (Rongo, before being a backpackers’ hostel, was a maternity hospital) and I had plenty of opportunities to play radio shows. Sometimes I and the other volunteers (Rongolians, to give us our proper title) would have DJ parties where we’d each play a song in turn, often aided by the wonder of alcohol. As well as that there were plenty of opportunities to carry out creative projects of our own design. The owner, Paul, is an amazing and inspirational man and allows volunteers to use anything they can find lying around the premises to make anything they like. There’s so much room for creative expression at Rongo which is why there’s such a beautiful energy to it. Being in such a creatively nurturing environment is one of the things that makes Rongo such a unique and incredible place.
There’s such a sense of belonging and community there. I felt welcome from the moment I arrived and anybody who knows me well can vouch for the fact that I get very anxious about new people and places. I felt none of my usual anxiety at Rongo, perhaps aided by the large amount of teamwork involved in running the place. On top of that, there were themed meals, potluck dinners, plenty of drunken times and a large portion of time spent in the kitchen to help keep me busy and mix with people. I met so many amazing people while I was there; people from all over the world who shared their travel stories with me and people with whom I bonded only to have to say heartbreaking goodbyes to them soon after. I will never forget these people – they helped to make Rongo the amazing experience it was for me and without them I’d never have realised the things I’ve come to realise about myself. There is no experience I’ve ever had that has had so much impact on me as a person. I found a part of myself at Rongo that I never knew existed; a part I never would have found if it weren’t for the amazing stroke of luck that led to me being taken on there as a WWOOFer. I’m stronger, more independent and more at peace with myself than I ever could have imagined.
Since leaving Rongo in mid-November with the intention of meeting Andrew in Wellington, I’ve been on an adventure to Hokitika with Sam, a boy I met at Rongo who was staying there as a guestomer. Sam lives in Wellington so I decided to get a lift with him so I didn’t have to mission round on buses for days on end. The reason for our visit to Hokitika was to buy some pounamu (greenstone) for Sam’s Oma, who is a carver. After purchasing some stone we then drove through the Lewis Pass, camped there for a night and then drove to Kaikoura which has been one of my favourite parts of New Zealand so far.
It was at this point that I ended my relationship with Andrew. I’m not going to go into reasons here because those of you who are going to know will already know by now and I don’t think it’s right to air these things in such a public way. It’s our business, after all.
The day after Kaikoura, Sam and I caught the ferry from Picton to Wellington where we stayed for a week in Sam’s house. I had an introduction to the city in the form of a Ninja-themed party, a few bars, some ace restaurants (not to mention that creepy Thai place!), a drunken night of frizbee and sandbag shot put and a lot of lazing about watching TV. I also went for a short shopping excursion but found that my time in Karamea has left me unable to deal with large groups of people or built-up areas what with it being so remote so I got bored pretty quickly! Wellington is a cool place but it’s going to take me a while to get used to city life again.
After Wellington we drove up to Hawke’s Bay where we stayed with a friend of Sam’s for a week. While we were there we went swimming in a river, swimming off Ocean Beach, checked out the Maraetotara Dam, went for an ace Thai meal, explored Napier, caught up with friends of Sam’s and generally enjoyed the beautiful Hawke’s Bay weather. I was also introduced to Deepak Chopra in the form of one of his lectures on DVD. It’s really interesting stuff – especially his ideas on duality.
We left Hawke’s Bay for Auckland after that and stayed with Sam’s dad and stepmum for a few days. In that time I bought some new clothes (thanksfully – I was sick of wearing rags!), caught up with my cousin Bronwen who lives there with her boyfriend, Fred, and went to Bethells Beach for a swim. That beach is amazing; black sand, huge waves and the sun was beating down on us. Thankfully there was a nice breeze so it wasn’t too hot to play frizbee. My attempts at swimming were thwarted by an incredibly strong current and my desire to live.
We’re now in Whangerai staying with Sam’s Oma and Opa. Whangerai is in Northland; pretty high up on the North Island and as such has a beautiful climate. I say this while it’s raining outside, of course, but it’s still very warm and after days of being too hot it’s quite a relief to have some rain to cool you down. We were going to check out the beach today but that may have to wait until tomorrow now.
I’ll leave you with a few photos of my time at Rongo. The rest of my photos can be found on my Flickr account.
Taylor and I - Halloween at Rongo
Sanae, Sam and I
Taylor and Paul on lamb docking day
Me and Taylor doing a radio show
The night Sam ended his week-long detox (a.k.a. Teh Retox)
More retox
Filed under: General | 1 Comment
Tags: adventuring, auckland, changes, family, introspection, karamea, life, north island, photos, rongo, south island, wellington
WWOOFing – Getting started
My WWOOF brochure arrived on Friday so I’ve been busy going through the listings and highlighting the ones that appeal to me. There are over a thousand places to stay throughout New Zealand but they only have limited space at each. Ideally I’d like somewhere on the South Island to begin with, and I want to work with animals at least a little bit if at all possible. I’ve e-mailed a few places already including two llama/alpaca farms and a place that grows organic veggies to use in their pizzeria and restaurant. It’s not just veggie growing; they also train you up to make pizzas and teach you about hospitality which I think would be invaluable if I want to get a proper job over here at some point. There are also some places which specialise in aquaculture (collecting mussels, paua etc) which I think would be really interesting but a lot of those are pretty remote and I need to be somewhere where I can get access to the internet, even if it involves a walk to the nearest town. I’d go mental without a way of keeping in touch with people.
It’s a glorious day today. There are lots of people down by the lake having a swim and I’d be one of those people if I actually had something to go swimming in. I’ve lost almost three stone since I last bought swimming gear so my old tankini is too big on me to stay on in the water. I haven’t seen anywhere in Wanaka that sells swimming stuff which is odd considering how much of a touristy, watersports-loving town it is. There is, however, a good chance that I’ve just overlooked things like that whilst in my usual unobservant state.
In other news I’ve finally had my hair cut and have taken to backcombing the shorter layers on top. I blame this on my long-developing fascination with the goddess that is Siouxsie Sioux, who I believe is one of the single most incredible and inspiring women ever to have existed. The one thing that worries me is that I’m going to end up looking like a 22 year-old emo and be associated with shitty bands like My Chemical Romance. On the other hand, most of the kids that backcomb their hair nowadays have no idea of the goth culture that spawned this type of hairstyle in the first place and just do it because every other bugger is doing it.
I’ll get down off my high horse now for fear of sounding like a miserable old hag!
The rest of my day is going to involve reading my book, training my pet up on WoW, obsessively checking my inbox for replies from the organic farms I’ve applied to and hopefully speaking to Andrew if he has time to come online before he goes to his second NZ job expo. I missed him this morning because my alarm decided to be a pain in the arse and not go off when I asked it to. Sometimes I swear that technology just doesn’t want us to keep in touch. Between his failing hard drive, my shitty internet connection and my phone’s malfunctioning alarm it’s getting pretty hard to have any sort of lengthy time together online. Bah!
Filed under: Day to day | 5 Comments
Tags: andoo, beauty, planning, wwoof
Plans to make plans
The last week has been somewhat unproductive. Ella has been off on one of her random free-spirited adventures since Sunday and I’ve been dossing around the house helping with some of the housework and formatting Tom’s computer back to its former glory. I say glory – it’s actually a five year-old Dell. Enough said.
Last Thursday we went to Mint Bar in central Wanaka to see a reggae/dub/beatboxing act called Olmecha Supreme. Not a lot of the actual gig was witnessed as we had to make a flying visit to Albert Town halfway through the evening to rescue two of Ella’s friends who were stranded by Clutha River; their car battery had died while they were pulled up right by the river so we had to push the car up the bank before jump-starting it. The bits of the gig we did see were very good. The only bad part about the evening was how expensive drinks are around here, and the amount of cigarettes I smoked. I’ve only had three today, and two yesterday, so I’m doing quite well at cutting back.
My plans to travel the country have finally started moving along. I’ve signed up with an organisation called WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) which allows me to browse through a catalogue of host families who will feed and accommodate me in exchange for labour on their land. You can basically pick whichever farm suits you (there are hundreds all over the country) then give them a ring and ask if you can stay with them for a bit. In addition to this I’m going to purchase a prepay bus pass which will allow me to go anywhere in the country as long as I keep within the amount of hours’ worth of travel time I pay for. This will allow me to call a host family from where I am now, arrange to visit, bus to their area and work with them for a few weeks. When my time with them is nearly up, all I need to do is find another host family and bus over to them! My plan is to work my way up both the North and South Islands until I make it to Auckland – by which time Andrew will hopefully have made it over here.
In short: everything is falling into place! All I need to do is wait for my welcome pack to arrive and that should be here any day now. I’m so excited I could burst!
Tomorrow I’m going to hike up Mt. Iron with my aunt and then do some shopping. I’m also going to cook dinner which makes me a bit nervous because I’ve never really cooked for anyone but my mum and sister before. I’m sure it’ll be fine, though. I’m going to make my usual no-skill chicken, spinach and pasta bake I think, unless I have an epiphany before then and think of something incredible as an alternative. Chicken and pasta bake it is, then.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time making pointless things out of polymer clay this week. Ella and I spent two hours making a miniature feast consisting of a beef roast, a plate of sushi, an ice cream sundae, a glass of orange juice and various other delicacies. Unfortunately our guestimate conversion from Celcius to Farenheit resulted in the oven being twice as hot as it needed to be. The gory scene that followed ten minutes later involved a lot of melted clay, a ruined oven tin and a faceful of fumes. Needless to say, we were rather upset. I had another go at recreating some of the things I made on Monday and this time managed not to incinerate everything.
A tiny hotdog, at the request of Chrissy & Mike
Lollipop
There are other, prettier things, but I’m not going to post them here because one of them is a present for a certain Andrew I know. 🙂
Filed under: Day to day | 3 Comments
Tags: activities, creativity, photos, planning, polymer clay, wwoof
What goes up must come down…
…and my first experience of skiing was certainly no exception to this rule!
I went up Treble Cone on Sunday morning after a night of cold-induced sleeplessness with my aunt who works as a nurse at the resort. I initially considered backing out because of how tired I was, but then I decided that if I did that I’d spend the rest of the day kicking myself for not bothering to go when I knew it was the right thing to do.
There’s not an awful lot to say about the experience really, apart from the fact that I think I need a lot more practice. I spent the majority of my two hour beginners’ course sliding down the second easiest slope on my arse and elbows – much to my instructor’s horror. Credit to the guy though: he was incredibly patient with me. I sucked and he didn’t hoof me off the side of the mountain in exasperation so he obviously has the patience of a saint.
At one point I lost control of the skis and went careering into one of the metal barriers next to the lifts. I hit it with such force that I knocked the barrier over, got my skis tangled in it and ended up slumped over it on my stomach with a crowd of people laughing at me. It’s a good thing I’ve never been one for taking myself too seriously. Oh dear!
Despite my skillful display of clumsiness and ineptitude the experience was a lot of fun. I did manage to ski in a straight line, it was just the turning I had problems with. Unfortunately for me the turning aspect of skiing is rather important if you want to stay on the piste and alive. Moving that quickly across snow is a very odd experience to begin with but I can see why people become addicted to it now that I’ve tried it. Needless to say I’ve been rather sore as a result of my many wipeouts. I’ve been almost unable to move my arms for the last two days because I’ve been aching that much and I’ve managed to do something horrible to one of my toenails as well (but that was the ski boot rather than my falls – or so I’d like to think).
After my morning of skiing I was completely exhausted so got a lift back into Wanaka from two kind people who had to leave the ski resort due to one of them sustaining an ankle injury. They were very friendly and told me lots of things about the area as they drove me back into town. This is what I love about Kiwis: they can never do enough for you.
I suppose I should include some photos as proof of my trip to the top of Treble Cone. Fortunately there were none taken of me embarrassing myself. Maybe next time. 😉
The "Nice 'N Easy" slope. This is where I did most of my falling.
An unsuspecting snowboarder
View from the Treble Cone resort
On the way down
On the way down
Filed under: photos, sports | 4 Comments
Tags: new zealand, otago, photos, public humiliation, skiing, south island, sports, treble cone
Wanaka, here I am!
So, finally, my first post from New Zealand!
I’ve been in the country for just over two weeks now. It’s taken me a long time to get round to posting on here for several reasons; the main reason being that I’ve only just sorted myself out to the point where I feel like I’m slipping into some kind of routine as far as the time difference goes. I didn’t think I was affected at all by jetlag to begin with; I went out with my cousin, Ella, on my second evening here for some drinks. I was fine, perfectly energetic, not lethargic at all. I seemed to be ok for a few days (the fact that I forced myself to sleep for 11 hours in a Christchurch motel after my connecting flight to Queenstown was cancelled may or may not have played a part in this) but after that I could feel myself becoming gradually less energetic with each day that passed. Because of this lapse in energy I’ve been taking it easy for the most part. I’ve been exploring, and even went to a rave (we’ll leave out the part where I drank too much wine and – long story short – slept through the entire thing) so it’s not as if I’ve just been lazing around the whole time. I think I’m starting to finally regain my normal energy levels now which can only be good news.
I suppose the best way to start off would be a very short geography lesson so anybody who reads this has some idea of where I am and what I’m talking about. At the moment I’m staying in Wanaka with my aunt and two of my wonderful cousins. Wanaka is a relatively small but very popular town which sits on the edge of the aptly named Lake Wanaka. It’s situated near the bottom end of the South Island, in the Otago region.
Allow me to demonstrate using the magic that is Google Maps (hint: it’s the big red marker):
Wanaka sits right next to the Treble Cone and Cardrona mountain ranges and as such is hugely popular with skiers and snowboarders. It gets incredibly busy in the summer months – something I have yet to experience – but is relatively quiet at the moment because it’s coming up to the end of the ski/snowboard season.
This is by far the most spectacular place I’ve visited in my life. It’s so grand in scale that it’s difficult to even comprehend. You can’t look into the distance without seeing snow-capped mountains, or a beautiful lake, or a clear sky full of stars, or anything else that can be classified at mind-blowingly beautiful. Seeing it first-hand I can understand why my aunt decided not to go back to the UK after she’d visited some twenty-odd years ago.
I’ve uploaded all the photos I’ve taken so far onto Flickr but I’ll post some of my favourites here for your delectation.
Clutha River from the footpath
Clutha River inlet
Eely Point
Mount Cook with an awkward tourist in the foreground. 😉
Amazingly cool camper van on the shore of Lake Wanaka
Filed under: General, geography lessons, photos | 2 Comments
Tags: otago, photos, south island, wanaka
Exactly two weeks since my last post and I’ve barely accomplished anything. This is partially down to my inherent inability to motivate myself to do anything that doesn’t immediately produce fun/pleasurable results and partially down to the fact that Nationwide’s online registration service is a piece of crap that tells you you’ll be receiving the necessary paperwork in five working days then doesn’t send you anything at all.
I’m grudgingly looking at quotes for travel insurance and the cheapest I can find is £175 for the year which includes an unnecessary premium of £60 just so I can be covered for a bit of skiing/snowboarding here and there. I think I’ll get that paid for tomorrow during my lunch break.
I’ve now been into the local branch of Nationwide and opened an account before their very eyes. I should have the details of my new account either today or tomorrow. Failing that I might scream. I really need this bank account to be sorted as soon as possible so I can get my finances in order once and for all. There are thirteen days until I leave so it’s getting a bit close now.
There has been no further movement towards a decision on what exactly I’m going to pack and I don’t expect there will be until at least a couple of days before my flight.
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been trying to see as much of my friends as possible. While it’s difficult to motivate myself to do this when I’ve been working full-time I know that if I shut myself away and spend all my time sleeping I’ll kick myself when the time to leave finally arrives. More than that, I’ve been cramming as much time with Andrew in as I possibly can. I know he’s doing everything in his power to join me out there but even so I’ll miss him terribly. There are so many ‘what if..?’ scenarios running around my head and they’re driving me towards insanity, or certainly towards a hefty bout of mania.
I’m having a small party in our field this weekend and I’ve invited quite a few people. My cousins, Ceniz and Cem, and my auntie Kate are also visiting for the weekend to say their goodbyes. I’m really looking forward to it – seeing them, that is, and not the goodbyes – and will hopefully have lots of photos to post here afterwards.
Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Tags: frustration, goodbyes, preparation
To do
Things I still need to do before I leave:
- Buy travel insurance for the year
- Complete my tax rebate form
- Pay for my years’ supply of contact lenses
- Transfer my funds into a new bank account and close my current one
- Cancel my phone contract
- Finish my friends & family scrapbook to take with me
I genuinely have no idea how I’m going to get all this done in three weeks given my track record for procrastination. Some of these things can’t be done until I get paid on Monday as I have less than no money at the moment.
Cancelling my phone contract might be a lot of hassle as it doesn’t expire until January but I can’t afford the £40 a month without a steady income. That and I won’t be using my current SIM card in New Zealand because it costs about £2 per minute or something ridiculous like that to make calls on my current contract.
I suppose I’ll phone O2 tomorrow and see what they can do for me.
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Tags: preparation
Beginnings
…and so begins my account of the soon-to-be newest chapter of my life.
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Bekki's Travel Log 