NZ: Goodbye, Wellington

There comes a time where every traveller realises they have been away from home for over six month (six months and a day, when I am writing this).

There also comes a time where it is time to move on.

I have lived and breathed in the charming city of Wellington for the past four months of my stay in New Zealand.

It is only now that I realise just how much I have actually done in Wellington.

I have made friends. I have said goodbye to friends. Then I have welcomed new ones.

I have searched for jobs, and I have searched even more jobs. Then I found a job. Then I quit the job.

I even spent Halloween, Christmas and New Years in Wellington.

I am going to miss this city. Not only that, but I’m going to miss my second family.

Tomorrow, I depart on the ferry to Picton. My plans for the South Island have all been changed due to some very annoying happenings in terms of jobs offered.

My original plan was to pick up my Stray bus tour when I reach the South Island, and travel around for two weeks on it before settling down to find work.

However, this has changed. First, I must outline what happened with the jobs to start with.

Okay, so I applied for numerous jobs. Mostly vineyard work, but also housekeeping and a few sales jobs.

I heard back from quite a few of them, most telling me they’re not looking to hire anybody at this moment in time. Others said yes initially, before turning around and saying no. The bluntest of these was a very short email saying “no vehicle, no work”… a tad cold but never mind.

I also got offered, very quickly, a sales job in Christchurch. It was, all in all, exactly the same job as I had in Wellington, yet involved selling insurance instead of energy. However, a perk of the job was that it was base wage and commission on top. This did spike my interest.

Yet then I found out that the office was actually a forty minute drive outside of Christchurch, and would’ve involved a two hour bus journey to get there… so that fell through as well.

However, I can finally safely say that I have found work.

As of the 6^th March, I will at a working hostel, where I will be working on a vineyard. There was talk of me staying in a tent for the duration of my stay, but luckily that didn’t happen as a room became available…

I’m actually very excited to start this job, as I have wanted to work on a vineyard since I got to New Zealand. I’m just hoping that the stories about working hostels don’t apply to the one I’m going to. I’ve heard too many stories of people being ripped off and not getting paid/not being allowed to leave… but still, life is a gamble. The owner seemed friendly on the phone so that’s a positive start!

After I’ve spent a month at the hostel/vineyard, then I will continue my bus tour around the South Island. If I have worked it out correctly, I will finish my bus tour on the 21^st April, allowing me three days to get down to Christchurch for my flight to Australia!

After Australia (plans are all still very up in the air about what I’ll do whilst there), I will aim to go back to Wellington for about a month, where my friend from England shall join me and we can go do all the nerdy Lord of the Rings things together (again, for me). My hope is to get a housekeeping job at Trek Global upon my return in May as well.

So there are my plans at the moment which will undoubtedly change before long. But plans they are, and they shall stay like that for now.

I feel quite sad to leave Wellington, as it is a truly beautiful city that I have easily learnt to love. However, it is definitely time to move on. I still have all the South Island to explore.

I write this post as I stare out of the window of the library at the waterfront of Wellington. I can see places I have visited, which are places I shall never forget.

This ends my Wellington saga. Below, I shall post some of my favourite pictures of memories from Wellington (including a lot of selfies…).

NZ: New Years, Farewells, and Bookings

So, welcome to 2015! May it bring you eternal happiness and so on and blah blah blah.

Truth be told, being the pessimist I am, this year does not feel any different. The only difference is that I am actually in New Zealand for about half of the year, which is quite an exciting thought! But either way, I never get it when people say “2015 will be different”. Well of course it’s going to be different, else it wouldn’t be new now would it?

Despite being my usual negative self, I actually did have a very enjoyable New Years. Once again, I got drunk. Now, do not blame me, I’m pretty sure that most people in the world got drunk at New Years.

We also ended up going to the waterfront to watch the fireworks. Now, there is a very funny/painful story involved with these fireworks that I shall tell you after I have described. Sadly, these fireworks were a lot worse than those on Bonfire Night. For one thing, they literally lasted about ten seconds, and secondly there were no exciting ones – just the typical, expected ones. Having said that, the buildings were all lit up with pretty patterns, and in the background when we arrived they were playing the Jurassic Park soundtrack (don’t ask me why or even why this was cool, it just was).

Now, onto the story. There is a Brazilian who lives in our hostel. He, as apparently is tradition in Brazil around New Years, bought a bunch of flowers. The objective of these flowers is that when the clock strikes for the New Year, you throw the flowers into the water. A strange tradition if you ask me… but then again, the big tradition for New Years is to go around and kiss everybody… which is possibly even stranger.

Fernando (the Brazilian) gave out the flowers to people, so that they could throw them into the water. So, when the clock struck twelve, we all threw our flowers into the water. Our friend Joe (English, with an utterly fantastic beard) may have been slightly drunk. What happened when he threw his flower? Well, he managed to throw it into a girl’s phone that she was holding up to film the fireworks, and guess what? The phone (and the flower) went tumbling into the water. Safe to say, she was angry. Extremely angry. So Joe, being the upstanding English gentleman he is, said a very hasty “sorry” and ran away, leaving our Scottish friend to deal with the brunt of the abuse. I’m going to admit, I moved away slightly as well.

What happened after the fireworks was to be expected: we went clubbing. Oddly enough, on New Year’s Eve, all the clubs/bars were closed. But then as soon as it turned New Year’s Day, a few of them opened. So literally almost the entirety of Wellington went to these few bars. It was heaving. And crazy. And absolutely awesome.

Safe to say, that is the last time I’m going to drink for quite a while. Not that I felt bad the next day, I just feel like my liver needs a rest. Plus I start work on the 5^th, and really need to catch up on my sleep. That about concludes my New Years’ experience.

Now comes the upsetting part of the post. On the 2^nd, it was time to bid farewell to one of our hostel family. One of the Swedish girls, Frida, was leaving, to go to Australia. This was upsetting on a number of levels. Firstly, she was a Housekeeper, so therefore was always around and had a great habit of waking people up in the morning to clean their rooms (all the housekeepers are secretly evil, I swear).

But possibly the thing that we all found most upsetting was the fact that it is entirely possible that we shall never see her again. This was thing: I have never particularly been a very emotional person. For example, when I left home, I don’t remember feeling very upset. Perhaps this could be put down to the fact that I was perhaps slightly bored of home and really wanted to explore the world. But truth be told, I think it can mostly be put down to the fact that I knew I’d see everyone again.

Fridaaaaaa.

Obviously I am missing people. But, in the back of my mind, I know that I will see them again. However, when people leave our hostel family, I am acutely aware that this could possibly be the last time I ever see them. So Frida is the first of many who are leaving our family. In three days, the other Swedish, Andrea, leaves us. And so on. Soon our numbers shall dwindle, and we will be forced to find new people to join our hostel family. Which is not a nice thought.

I’m going to move onto something more cheery now: further travel plans.

Unfortunately, like I said, I am going back to work very soon. This has its ups and downs. For one thing, I actually have to work. But on the other hand, I will be earning money again. Plus, once again, I am getting slightly bored of being in the hostel so much. But still, only two more months of it! For I have finally booked my ferry, so that I can travel south and explore the South Island.

The ferry is booked for the 28^th February, and my tour bus is booked for the 1^st March. So, I’ll be spending one night in Picton (where the ferry port is) before I start to slowly traverse my way down the Island. The tour encompasses fifteen/sixteen days (I think) and takes me all around the South Island.

I believe I travel down to Queenstown via the East Coast, before going even further south down to Invercargill – which is the one of the southernmost cities in the whole world – before travelling back up the West Coast and to Picton. From there, I think I shall be getting off the tour bus and exploring the South Island on my own for a month or two, hopefully find somewhere to WWoof, before slowly working my way back up to Auckland where my friend from England shall be joining me!

So there you go – those are my vague plans. I also still need to change the date of my flight back to England, as it is still currently booked on my birthday (May 12^th) and I want to stay at least two months longer than that. Plus, flying on my birthday does not sound fun. Though, somebody did tell me that I would probably end up having a two day birthday, due to the time difference…