Hey, everyone! It was my first week back at work and while there was still a lot of activity, I didn’t manage to get out and hike. That’s okay – I’ve done A LOT lately… I think this week was meant to be about Grooving Back In.

Grooving Back In to Queenstown

The few days after returning from Rakiura/Stewart Island consisted of reuniting with everyone at the hostel & work.  “How was your trip?” After being asked the same question over and over, the answer becomes more concise.  “It was so nice.  I went back to the States for three weeks to see the solar eclipse with my family and then went to Rakiura (Stewart Island) for a week to try and see kiwi.”  That’s it in a nutshell.  A month gone by.  And yet, it wasn’t super quick.  The 8th will mark one month since the eclipse… and yet, it feels like it happened ages ago.  I talked to my nephew recently and he told me how he keeps forgetting it happened, but when he thinks of it, he remembers how cool it was.  It sure was!

On Sunday night, before I went back to work, Jasper, Yvonne, and I caught up and went to get Indian food.  It was nice to be reunited with them.  My buddies!

I was slightly dreading a return to work.  Not because I dislike my job or the people there, but just because I…  would rather NOT be working haha.  Although, it’s been fine and it was easy to jump back into it.  My boss and I were talking about how she is being urged by her supervisors to take a holiday, too.  She was thinking of either July or October.  I reminded her that my New Zealand visa expires in mid-October and I’d like to take some time to travel the country before I have to leave.  And so, in a gentle way, I broke the news that I’ll be leaving mid-September.  I had been a little anxious about it because I didn’t want to let her down but in a town as transient as Queenstown, I actually will have stuck around for quite a while.  She didn’t seem perturbed by my confession – maybe she was expecting me to leave earlier.  So, it seems July it is for her holiday.

As expected, there have been lots of changes at the hostel.  Many people have left and many more have joined.  Where I felt so comfortable and knew everyone before, now I feel a little lost again.  When meeting someone new, a guy asked me, “did you just get here?”  No, my sweet, summer child.  Haha.

However, some others I thought would be gone were still here. Like Katy!

Dinner with the Gals

On Friday, I met up with Emily, Emma, and Lauren. We went to the restaurant at Crowne Plaza (which is my employer’s competition, whoops!) and had a lovely dinner. We all shared appetizers and then had individual mains. The presentation was great and the food was, too! Emily and Emma have an upcoming vacation to the Cook Islands. I’ll be covering Emily at the hostel again during that time. And Lauren is going home to Scotland in June for five weeks. It was fun to talk about our vacations during the dinner. It’s easy to spend time with them. Above all, it was nice to hang out with the girls. We don’t often get together but afterwards, we decided we should do it once a month.

After dinner, we hung out in Emily’s room before going up to the kitchen for Nick’s birthday.  We had gotten there too late for cake… DAMN IT!  After some time in the kitchen, I was swayed into going out dancing.  We went to Ballarat which isn’t my favorite venue but it actually was a fun time.  Jasper, Yvonne, and I left to go dance elsewhere.  We went to Seek for a few minutes, then to Winnie’s.  Depending on the DJ, Winnie’s can be such a blast and it really was this evening.  Unfortunately, I was volunteering at the Kiwi Park the next morning, so we had to cut the night short (but we did go back to Seek before calling it).  However, we had plans to go out dancing the next night!

The above photos are screenshots of a video Jasper took of Yvonne and I dancing together. There were some moments where we were SO in sync – it was hilarious.

Kiwi Park

While I wasn’t sure if I wanted to commit to volunteer IMMEDIATELY upon my return… I’m happy that I did.  It was nice to reunite with the birds once again.  The duties of the day were:

-Kea feeding
-Gecko feeding
-Plant browse
-Kiwi feeding
-Metal detector

The kea feeding was cute for me because as I crouched down to hide their meal, one of the kea actually came up to me and nudged its head against my arm.  While surely it was just wanting food, I was touched that it interacted with me in such a way.  I thought, “maybe he remembers me and is welcoming me back?”  Maybe!

The plant browse was easy – just a matter of walking through the park and finding suitable plants to put in the gecko enclosure.

The gecko feeding was a little nervy for me because a) the mealworms freak me out and b) I had to remove some of the plants from their enclosures and I was afraid one of the geckos was going to jump on me LOL.  I think the geckos are so cool, though.  It took me longer than it should have to remove the plants and feed the geckos.  There is one gecko who has a bad rep for hissing and biting at people so I think as a result, I was more on edge this time.  There was also another gecko who was right at the entry of the enclosure.  He looked like he was going to jump right onto my face haha.  I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but I was taught to hold the mealworms with a pair of long tweezers and wave them in front of the geckos mouths until they bite onto the mealworms.  Afterwards, I wrote the volunteer coordinator and she told me I can just drop the mealworms in – the geckos will then have to “forage” for their food, which is fine.  That will probably be better for me haha. 

After the geckos, I was able to feed the kiwi which is always a treat… except, the kiwi were hiding in their burrows!  That’s okay.  Hopefully, next time they’ll be waiting for me.

The last objective of the day was to sift bags of leaves through a contraption that catches metal.  Kiwi apparently love eating metal but obviously that’s bad for their health.

A productive day!  

Becoming a Mechanic

Once I’d finished at Kiwi Park, I had plans to take care of Goldie – my beloved van.  While I had grand ambitions, my plans got slightly disrupted.  I originally was going to RepCo in Queenstown (near the Kiwi Park) to get coolant, windshield wiper fluid, and oil.  I wanted to top all of those things up and then also clean the windows and interior.  Unfortunately, Queenstown RepCo was closed and so I had to take the bus down to Frankton instead.  I would have driven, but I wanted my van to be cold since I heard that was the best time to be doing maintenance on it.  

After cluelessly stumbling through RepCo, I finally got what I needed with the help of an employee.  No coolant since I wasn’t sure what color coolant was already in there (and apparently that’s important).  Why didn’t I check before going to RepCo?  Don’t ask me.

Finally, I made it to Goldie.  I called my brother up on FaceTime so he could help me out.  I’m so clueless, I literally didn’t even know how to open the latch under the hood of my van lol.  I’m grateful Mike was able to help me through this maintenance-y stuff.  It’s important to know and now I feel I know Goldie a little better.

Windshield fluid was super easy.  Oil was less so.  Mike and I were both unclear on the oil-status because the dipstick wasn’t providing us with the best results.  I have to go to the shop in a month or so anyway to get my Warrant of Fitness renewed, so I’ll just get an oil change then if it’s needed.

Late Night Out

Abby, Jasper, Yvonne, and I had plans for a LATE NIGHT OUT in the evening.  We got together around 10pm and, after meeting up with Rose and Emma, we began our big night.  We tried to get in to Sundeck but it was closed for a private function.  So… Rhino’s, it was!  The music wasn’t great so we quickly left and went to 1876 instead.  Not my vibe and after a while, we moved to World Bar.    World Bar was cute because Emily ended up being there.  Alexis and Eugene joined too… (and later, Courtney).  From there, the music got better and the night got more fun.  We migrated to Winnie’s where I remained the remainder of the time.

I was wearing this shirt my dad gave me that he wore in the 80s and I must have gotten 3 compliments throughout the night (“You look SO COOL!”) – one of the girls was even hitting on me haha.  At Winnie’s, another girl was trying to rub up on me – and the same girl later made out with one of our friends LOL.

After dancing my heart out, I decided I was feeling congested/sick and wanted to go home to rest.  I pulled an Irish Goodbye so the others wouldn’t be tempted to call it an early night as well.  After two hash browns and a veggie spring roll, I was off to bed.

Dawson’s Creek

While I had planned to go to Arrowtown to see the finale of the supposedly beautiful changing leaves, I instead spent my Sunday recovering in bed.  I seemed to be in the midst of a cold and was determined to rest up instead of pushing myself further.  I was a little bummed to be missing the Arrowtown leaves, but as my parents suggested – my body must be telling me to slow down.  NOTED, body!

I stayed in bed all day watching Dawson’s Creek.  I’ve finished Season Three and I just can’t believe how unlikable Dawson is.  Love the other characters, though!

Miscellaneous

During my week back in Queenstown, I discovered there was a bit of a Visa kerfuffle in relation to New Zealand work visas moving forward.  On 7^th April, some news passed where people with work visas would only be able to receive one additional year in the country – which is unfortunate, because a few months back, there was talk that they would be able to have five years.  A lot of my coworkers are anxious and preoccupied with this new information.  While they were hoping to one day get permanent residency, it now seems they are going to have to come up with a Plan B… which sucks!  It is frustrating that countries make it so difficult for visitors to live there permanently.  If we want to come and work, and if the employer wants to sponsor us – let us stay here!  So many New Zealanders leave the country to go elsewhere, anyway. There is plenty of work available.

My hiking shoes have been deteriorating at a very fast rate.  I purchased them just before coming to Aotearoa so I decided to reach out to Merrell.  These were my first pair of shoes by them and I’ve always heard rave reviews, how they lasted forever, etc.  Not the case for me!  Merrell ended up being awesome and sending me a new pair of waterproof hiking shoes valued at $339.  I only bought mine for $70 at REI!  Thanks, Merrell!  Very pleased by their customer service – especially after having some terrible customer service experiences lately.

One evening, there seemed to be strong auroral activity so I went to go have a look.  While my camera picked up a faint orange-y pink along the horizon, the activity waned and I couldn’t see anything with my eyes.  While I was sleeping, the activity got so strong that people reported seeing color with the naked eye.  Activity has been very intense lately, so I’m hoping I’ll get a good show one of these evenings!  It has been since December 1^st that I’ve seen an impressive aurora.

One of my colleagues came into the lunch room one day and said, “Does anyone want one of these water bottles?  One has a kangaroo, the other has a kiwi.”  They were such cute bottles and I thought it would make a nice souvenir for myself, so I said I wanted the kiwi.  Well, turns out the bottle has a kiwi on one side, a kangaroo on the other.  The perfect memento for living in both Australia and Aotearoa!  Very sleek for a water bottle, too.

Art of the Week

This drawing is available on my RedBubble site as well, if anyone is interested!  Titled “Red Light Kiwi” in honor of the red light I was required to use when searching for the national bird of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Reflections

I got a lot of rest last night and am feeling much better today.  I don’t have much planned this week.  Jasper gets a free night’s stay at the hotel as a perk of his work anniversary and he’s taking me along with – so we’ll do that this Saturday which should be fun.  We get discounted dinner and breakfast – yahoo!

Otherwise, I think my next big trip will be to Oamaru.  It’s about three hours away (as seems to be the distance to get to anything cool) but the main draw is that it is home to a colony of yellow-eyed penguins… the rarest penguin in the world!  I am thinking of going in the beginning of June, when I have a three day weekend.

Overnight-ing in my van will be a little trickier now that the weather is getting colder and the nights get dark so early.  I will probably have to slow down on overnight trips for the most part – but I’ll still make an effort to go on an adventure somewhere every weekend!

Until next time – sending you all my love. xx