Our days in New Zealand are numbered and it will be a bittersweet ending. We will be arriving in Austin on August 28th after 9 months of traveling through this little country. Most of the time we honestly didn’t think that we would make it this long. Not only were we homesick, missed family, friends, Yellowstone, dogs, our house, but things were just down right not always easy over here. In fact for the most part, very little went as planned and hardly anything went right the first time. By late May we were just planning on coming up to the North Island and making our way to the Auckland airport to fly home from there, which would have cut our trip almost 3 months short. Luckily we found this little town of Turangi, found an amazing backpackers to watch over, Tony got his dream job tying flies at a New Zealand fly shop, and I finally had my own indoor plumbing.
The past 6 weeks we have finally just had time to relax and enjoy the slower paced life of New Zealand. Maybe our overly ambitious American attitudes just had to be somewhat crushed in order for us to fully appreciate the traveling life style. We worked ourselves almost non stop in the sheering sheds, just so we could finish exploring the South Island, and then worked ourselves to the max again in Blenheim, just so we could save up more traveling money. Since we came up North, our daily routine is pretty simple. We get up eat breakfast, some days I go to a local motel and do housekeeping work for 2 hours, Tony fishes, we come back around noon and clean the backpacker’s for an hour or 2, then he goes to the fly shop, and I would work on a web design for another motel in town. I would walk to the grocery store, we cook dinner, bake bread, and just take it easy. This lifestyle certainly does not pay well, but at least we make enough money to pay for food and petrol, and the work exchange means we don’t have any rent, so at least the money we had saved isn’t being spent. I really enjoyed my housekeeping job, the people you work for can make all the difference. Who else gets tea and freshly baked treats at work? I will really miss the NZ lifestyle! In a way we wish we had found this all earlier, but maybe it could not have been fully appreciated if we hadn’t had the rest of the experiences.
Tony and I have done more than we ever thought was possible. Tony would never work for free (aka was NOT going to do a work exchange) doesn’t like sharing kitchen utensils, and hates eating off glass plates, all of which are a part of his daily life now. I had grand expectations of coming to New Zealand finding a job as a temp receptionist, sales associate at a gift shop, or work in a café and getting our own apartment. No, those ambitions were too high and there were simply some life lessons that had to be learned. Sometimes a good old fashion humbling situation is what a person needs in order to really appreciate the little things in life. I think it is important for everyone to have simplicity at some point in their days. Right now I have my own bathroom, my toothbrush can stay on a shelf, Tony can fish everyday, and there are beautiful things to see everywhere, what else do we really need? The downside to all this humbling is that if you thought either of us were cheap and stingy before this trip, you should see us now. Being cheap has allowed us to save the money to have some amazing experiences like camping around the South Island, seeing tourist attractions, and going to Australia. However being cheap has also kept us from doing a lot as well, but we wouldn’t have lasted this long financially if we had done everything we wanted to do. Now every dollar we spend seems like a monumental decision, except for chocolate, we can usually splurge on that one (as long as it is on sale.)
The worst part of leaving a long trip like this is thinking about all the “shoulda, coulda, woulda’s” that follow the last desperate moments of site seeing. We never took a jet boat ride, climbed a peak, took a helicopter ride, saw a rugby game, or took the train ride across the South Island. However I can’t even begin to list all the things that we have seen and done. These past few days Tony and I have kind of been staring into space and procrastinating on things that need to be done, and without having to say much, we know what’s on each other’s mind…leaving. There is the mixed emotion of sadness from leaving this experience, and the excitement of seeing family and friends and all the new adventurous to come. But right now we have to just finish up this trip first, which unfortunately isn’t all fun and games.
What is worse than selling your car? Having to sell you car with a deadline of leaving in less than a week. We are having to cut our time short in Turangi due to lack of online interest into our really awesome mid 90’s mini van. Our plan is to go to Auckland and try to sell the car at the Sunday car fair we purchased it from 9 months ago, and otherwise we are not really sure what to do, it just must sell! On Sunday we will then rent a car and drive to the East coast of the North Island to stay with our friend Menis for a few days until we fly out. Today was a beautiful sunny warm day and I spent the whole day looking up car rentals, making phone calls to their version of the IRS, and filling out a tax form by hand. Does anyone remember those, the ones with charts and calculating tax brackets? Well when you leave NZ mid tax season that is the only way one can be filled out, not the blast from the past I wanted to experience, but at least they are all done! Meanwhile Tony grilled hamburgers and made fresh bread and bread buns, so I guess even the “paperwork” days in NZ aren’t really too bad.
