Wanaka : My first week

February 06, 2018

Wanaka : My first week

I ended up having to stay in Queenstown (Qt) on my first night as Wanaka the hostels were sold out and I didn’t fancy camping (or rather I didn’t fancy pitching my tent in the dark after Driving for 5 hours). The hostel I stayed at was really nice though and very private. The bunks were all private wee pods and it was only a 5 min walk from town. Will definitely have to remember this place.

It also had a nice artwork showing the Māori flag in the entrance.

On my way back up the road from QT I picked up some hitch hikers and took them to Wanaka. They were really good chat, and good company for the short one hour drive.

The first thing I did upon arrival was head to the library to finish updating my CV and I printed a bunch off. The first place I went into was a camera shop and I left there not only with an interview but also a trial run for the following day. I am now questioning how much I know about cameras......haha...but I think my degree in the subject should be ok?! Hsha I also dropped a cv into the cinema, a place that I had effectively been offered a job at 3 months ago, and they were still super keen to have me come work for them so now I have two potential jobs and still nowhere to stay... hmm (Also after printing 10 CVs I only needed 2...?! Typical!)

I had some nice lunch to celebrate my return to Wanaka.

On Tuesday I had a trial morning at the camera shop...which quickly turned into my first official day of work there! Woohoo! Very thankful to have managed to get a job one week into looking and 2 days after moving to Wanaka...still nowhere to live but that will be fine, between my trusty tent and hostels and Ross’s floor I’m sorted for now.

I worked the rest of the week till Friday, 10-5:30, which was a LOT of new info to take in , but both Steve and Jess were very helpful and patient and I even got to wear a cool ‘I’m new but learning fast’ badge hahaha so did also keep informing people That I did have a degree in photography a a good few years retail experience so that I did in fact know what I was talking about, and just ‘new’ to this work place. Haha

After a busy week I still had nowhere to stay other than moving between the campsite out at Albert town and the floor at the Minaret ridge house (both which are really nice in their own way but I really wanted to get my own space)

On Friday night I stayed at minaret again and Tom and I met up with Ian to play frisbee golf. Yes that’s a real sport. And Yes its very difficult, but also strangely addictive! I think I’ll be playing this some more now that I’m based in Wanaka.

Since I get the weekends off, I headed off to Glenorchy again for a wee camping trip (also since I still hadn’t got a place - I did look at a room on Friday afternoon though and it looks like I’ll be able to move in next Wednesday) Yay! anyway this weekend I was still in my tent (and it was still 38 degrees + outside. I was really suffering!! But Glenorchy was beautiful and I made a return trip with a working phone/camera to Paradise (aka the real life Middle Earth!!) phone pics below but camera pics to follow.

The views ere pretty sweet!

What washing on the move looks like.

On Sunday I walked part of the Routeburn Track. I had planned to walk up Mt Albert but signs said that the track was damaged in the last storm so I didn’t want to risk it. It was also very hot already (at 9am) and I didn’t fancy a big hot up-hill climb. Routeburn was a great walk and although it was also hot, sweaty and muggy, the track was mostly covered by Bush so I thoroughly enjoyed my power walk through the Forests of Middle Earth which had some stunning views onto the Misty Mountains! (And only LOTR fans will appreciate those references) haha