Ah shit, my last post was Nov 24th? I kind of knew this would happen; that I would settle into the day-to-day of Wanaka and forget about blogging. Not that things haven’t been happening, but work was been pure mania and the weekends have been full of adulting and socials, so I kind of let things slide a bit. But! Since the next two days of my life will consist of airports and airplanes, I figured I’d take this time to catch up a bit.

So, let’s see, where did we leave off? No, I’m seriously asking because the internet in the Auckland Airport is ridiculously slow and it’s taking forever for me to access my last posts. However, if I remember correctly, the Wanaka Beer Fest was on Dec 1st, therefore, that would be about where I should pick things up. Okay, here we go.

Summer has officially arrived in Wanaka. And although the weather is still patchy (reminiscent of home actually) most days, it’s pretty beautiful and warm. Wanaka Beer Fest was on Dec 1st and although the event was sold out, I managed to snag some tickets from a girl at work.

I’ve been to a lot of beerfests before. Mostly because one of my best friends (shout-out to Ann Marie) was the producer of a couple of BC fests for years. Those fests usually involved upwards of thirty breweries – which is great, but being a creature of habit, I usually find one or two that I like and then stick with those for the rest of the day.

Wanaka’s fest had about fourteen breweries, all from the South Island. This made it waaay simpler for me to try a bit of each and then pick a couple favourites. Honestly though, I ended up spending most of my tokens at this adorable beer-cocktail caravan. They were AMAZING and it was so hot; it felt more like a cocktail kind of day.

Overall, it was pretty fun, but man, it’s hard to keep track of how much you’re drinking when the cups are so small. Got a pretty good burn on my back too. After the fest, Alice and I stumbled into town to try to find the rest of our group and somewhere along the way, we got stuck in a field that had barbed wire encircling the perimeter. We reached a point where we had to jump the wire to get out, so I shimmied up on of the wooden posts and hopped over unscathed. Alice was not so lucky. Five minutes after the post jump we realized that her hamstring was bleeding where part of the wire had cut her clean. She was fine and it was more hilarious than anything else.

I eventually went home at the ungodly hour of 8pm (but that’s the beauty of day-drinking). Alice and everyone else kept going until 4am, I think. Their stamina is wild. I just don’t have that anymore, maybe I depleted it in my first season in Whistler.

The following week and weekend were suuuper chill. I knew that my last weekend in Wanaka was going to be full-on. Friday, Dec 14th was the Mons staff party (we were going camping at Lake Hawea) and then the Saturday was Alice’s birthday (90’s theme), so I was kind of just mentally preparing myself for that.

However, before I get to all of that, I’ll tell you about my first NZ hike! For work, I was tasked with taking out a couple of our activewear tees and going out for a classic NZ hike to write about in an editiorial for Mons! So, I recruited my two housemates, Millie and Colm to come along. Colm is an amazing photographer, so I got him to be in charge of the shoot, while we all slogged up the hill.

The thing about hiking in NZ is that there’s no trees on the mountains. So you can almost always see your endpoint. And this is both a blessing and curse. At first, it doesn’t actually look like it’s that far away and you think, “huh, this will be easy.”

It is not.

It’s torturous because even when you think you’ve put in some work, you look up and it doesn’t seem like you’ve moved at all. Plus, a lot of the trails are basically straight up. It’s not like in BC where you criss-cross the mountains for a bit – no, these kind of hikes are the type where you gain 1100 metres of elevation in an hour and a half of walking. Its unheard of.

About halfway up, I was totally ready to be done. I’ll never understand why people like hiking. I mean, the actual act of hiking. I love getting to the top. But the hiking itself sucks.

That being said, as much as I gripe, there is literally nothing better than a beer and snack at the top of a mountain. And that’s exactly what we did. About 100m from the top, the light morphed into this gorgeous gold that splashed across the valley below us and we made a mad dash to try and catch some photos while we had that warm glow.

After these shots were taken, we scrambled to the top and got the most amazing view. Seriously, these photos are gorgeous, but even they don’t do it justice. It made the haul up totally worth it. So we ate M&Ms and popcorn and drank some beer while we watched the sun go down.

After the sun finally set, we threw on our jackets and headlamps and hiked down. It was a little sketchy at times, especially trying to spot the markers that dotted the hill, marking the path. But luckily, Colm had this giant flashlight, so everytime we got a little lost, we would just scan the hillside with the flashlight and find the next marker.

Afterwards, we all just tried to keep our eyes open as we drove home, dodging bunnies along the road on the way. I was sore for days afterward, my calves were entirely unaccustomed to that kind of abuse.

That Friday was the staff party. We all left work at noon and drove out to Lake Hawea. Hamish gave a speech, we had some lunch and then we spent the afternoon boating and playing on the grass. I even went waterskiing for the first time in forever! I got up on the first go, which I was totally shocked by and had a couple good turns before my back was killing me. It’s so funny how easily I used to waterski all the time and the first time I did it in three years, I was dying after only a few minutes. I guess it’s just the muscles that you don’t get to use?

You could definitely tell that a lot of the Mons crew grew up close to lakes. Everyone was good at either waterskiing or wakeboarding; some on a crazy level of expert. It was humbling – here I was thinking I’d be the only one able to slalom ski, when in fact, I was just one of many. And a lot had a good idea of what they were doing.

That night, we had a BBQ for dinner and then everyone kind of fanned out. Some were over by the fire, others were under the Mons tent drinking at the picnic tables, some were down by the water. A lot of the 20-somethings kind of went off on their own and I felt a little left out. There is definitely a clique at Mons and although everyone is really nice, I don’t feel entirely in yet. I’m sure it takes time and although I did have a lot of fun at the party, there was a clear divide. Which was fine, I hung out with the 30-something group, which is the group I was largely a part of in Whistler.

I snuggled into my tent pretty early that night and then woke up at 3am with awful stomach pains and had to make a mad dash to the bathroom to hurl. Which is odd, because I wasn’t really drunk when I went to bed. However, I found out on Monday, that half the office had gotten sick over the weekend and some didn’t even make it into work on Monday. The catering company for the party actually had to come in and file a report because food poisoning was suspected. But apparently they had served the same platters to a wedding on the same evening and no one had got sick. So the mystery is still there. Who knows?

The Saturday after staff party was Alice’s birthday party. I spent the day doing some adulting then headed over to her friend’s Eve’s house for the party. A lot of the people I already knew were there so it was a really good time. I left as everyone was starting to get a little out of control, just because I wasn’t really feeling a rowdy night again.

And then that brings us to this past week. The last day of my bike clinic was this week. I had taken the five week course when I first got to Wanaka and then there a possibility to extend it for another two weeks to learn jump skills. So I did. And man, I’m really happy about it. I’ve never felt this confident jumping my bike before. Usually, I just kind of let the jump take me wherever it goes, but I finally figured out the compression factor and how to control a jump. It feels great and I almost can’t wait to get back to keep practicing.

And here I am now. Headed home. I’m sitting in the Auckland Airport, mentally preparing for my 12-hour flight to LA. I really hate flying, I always feel closer to death up there. I know that sounds funny, but I really do.

So, wish me luck getting home. I have four more flights and 36 hours before I’m in Halifax, so it’s a haul. But hopefully, I’ll see some of you soon.