Yes, I know I said I would write two posts in a week like two weeks ago. However, I’ve had a little critter problem in my house and it’s been occupying my life. So, I was too busy not getting sleep to write my second blog post. That said, apologies to my loyal readers (hi Mom and Dad).

So let’s go alllll the way back to Easter.

April 19th – 22nd

Wow a month ago? Shit, I’m slacking. Anyway, Vic’s friend Roland was visiting for the week and he stayed with us over Easter. A word about Roland – he’s literally one of my favourite people I’ve met here. He’s just this endless source of positivity. He’s also crazy smart and will hit you with these random mind-blowing facts. He asks insightful questions, like “what was your favourite part of your day?” (as opposed to “how was your day” – I liked this because instead of just answering with the generic “fine”, you actually had to think about what you did during your day and what you liked best). Anyway, Roland can stay.

Easter was verrrry low-key. The weather wasn’t awesome, so while we were supposed to go explore the West Coast, the rain shut that plan down. So instead, we hung around Wanaka for the weekend. It was glorious. We had a mimosas and a big Easter brunch with a couple friends and then on Easter Sunday we drove out to Mount Aspiring National Park and hiked up to Rob Roy’s Glacier.

Hooooooly. I think I found a new place in NZ that rivals Mount Cook.

April 26th – 28th

The weekend after that, Victoria went away with one of her other buddies, so I stayed in town and had a weekend to myself. It did give me an opportunity to hit up Skyline Bike Park for the last time before it closed for the winter though.

It was kind of sad – I’m a bit undecided if I’m going to stay here after winter, so the thought of this being my last time riding Skyline kind of left me feeling like I should’ve ridden there more, like I didn’t get enough to ride everything I wanted to. It’s things like this that make me think about staying a little longer here.

 

May 3rd – 5th

Vic had more friends in town this weekend – this time it was her buddy Seth and his friend from home. Seth, Vic and Troy all grew up together in Colorado. Six years ago, Seth was in an accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down, so now he’s in a wheelchair. That said, he’s a pretty incredible person. He works as an engineer for a military company and is crazy smart – he brought his own drone that he built himself. He’s also into the same nerd shit that I am, so we hit it off talking all things Game of Thrones.

Seth, Troy, Vic, Alanna and I decided to head to Ohau to visit Mike who was staying at his cottage there with a few friends from uni (remember Vic and I went there on our first adventure together way back in January). I hadn’t seen Mike since our weekend in Dunedin, so I was stoked to get to go to the cabin again.

It was such an amazing weekend spent chilling at the cabin, having huge group meals and exploring Mount Cook with Seth and everyone.

May 7th

The last day I’ll cover in this entry was Troy’s goodbye bonfire. Because Americans can only stay a year in NZ, Troy had to head home on May 9th. But Vic wanted to do one last bonfire for him. So Lottie, Puckey, Vic and I drove out to the lake early and started a fire. While there, Puckey drove his truck into the lake a little (it’s a big 4×4) and we sat on the hood and drank beer while watching the sun go down. It was the most at peace I’d been in a while and after a little chatter, we all quieted down and watched the stars come out in silence. It was really beautiful.

Soon, Troy, Seth and his Dad showed up and the fire got into full swing. Troy did one last poi show for us (where he spins the fire on the chains) and we all sat around the fire until it burned out.

On the way home, Puckey wanted to do some mudding in his truck, so we drove off to an area of farmland that had a huge mud pit in it. It was a total blast until we got stuck in a puddle so deep that water started to seep in under the doors. I definitely thought that we were in it for the night, but after one last slow 4wd low push, we miraculously were able to back out of the swamp and get out of there. It was such a high driving home, only because I think we were all fully convinced we were going to have to spend the night out there.

Well, that’s it for the last month. This last weekend I had was one for the books as well, but I’m waiting on photos from Vic to write that blog, so you’ll probably get another entry this week… or not, who even knows. I’ll see ya when I see ya.

• JB

Okay, let me pre-empt this by saying for what feels like the hundredth time – yes, I know, I’m slacking with the blog posts.

HOWEVER. I am planning to grace you all with not one, but TWO blog posts this week. This one; dedicated to Rachel’s visit (which just occurred to me was a month ago) and the other dedicated to Easter/the last two weeks. So hold on to your hats people, because there’s a whole lot of Jessie coming your way.

Alright, wine poured. M&Ms within arms reach and fire going. Let’s run this baby down from the top.

Rachel arrived at 9pm in Queenstown on April 2nd, where I picked her up and we drove over the Crown Range home. It’s funny how you forget the things that were once off-putting about New Zealand, and they just become the norm. But with Rachel visiting and pointing them out again, I started to remember how strange this whole place felt to me when I first got here.

For example, the Crown Range is the ‘highway’ that connects Queenstown and Wanaka. But it’s quite narrow and very winding – it feels rural even though it’s a state highway. In the dark, it’s even more disconcerting. Rachel remarked at one point that she felt like she was on a Disney World ride because the road was so winding and dark.

 

April 3rd & 4th, Wanaka & Queenstown

The next morning (Wednesday), I went to work, so Rachel hung out around Wanaka for the day. The following day, we headed for our first stop – Queenstown. It wasn’t a great day weather-wise, so we mostly just wandered around, did some shopping and had some lunch. Rachel remarked at this point that she liked Queenstown the best so far (unsurprising since it was the first place we went…), but I think that has something to do with the city-vibe it holds over Wanaka, which is more small-town.

 

April 5th, Te Anau

On Friday, we headed to Te Anau, which is a tiny lake town that lies an hour outside of Milford Sound. I had yet to visit Milford, but it’s one of those places that you have to go if you’re visiting New Zealand.

Because it’s a protected area, there’s not a lot of accommodation at the Sound itself, so many people stay in Te Anau and then drive there.

We arrived at Te Anau late, checked into our hostel then went to find some food. We settled at this cool restaurant that looked like a little house – but on the inside was cleared for dining. It smelled like the Lodge in there, so it really felt home-y. It also had a bunch of Lord of the Rings paraphernalia in a corner and we found out that the cast had dined there nearly every night when they were shooting in the area.

 

April 6th, Milford Sound

The next morning, we woke up around 6am to drive to Mildford Sound for our cruise through the Sound. It was waay too dark on the way there to see anything, so we would save the driving views for the way back.

Milford Sound might be one of the most gorgeous places in New Zealand. I felt the Jurassic Park theme song should’ve been playing the whole time. It’s a giant Sound with towering rocks that rise straight out of its waters. There’s a ton of waterfalls falling from each of the cliffs and it all feel very moody.

The cruise drove through the Sound and out to the ocean where we turned around and went back up the Sound along the opposite banks. On the way back, we were against the wind and Rachel and I were literally getting blown down the upper deck.

Once we got back to the docks, we quickly ran to the car because we were both frozen to the bone. After a few minutes spent warming up, we started up the car and began heading back to Te Anau.

The thing is, when we drove in, it was so dark that we couldn’t see anything. So we totally missed all the beautiful scenery of the Fiordlands. And it was crazy beautiful – almost better than the cruise itself. There’s so many huge glaciers that you can see as you drive down the highway. At one point, you even have to drive through a mountain – which was sketchy-as and made us both feel super claustrophobic. It wasn’t like a nice concrete tunnel – it was literally the inside of a mountain, cave water drippings and all.

We stayed one more night in Te Anau and then headed back to Wanaka on Sunday.

 

April 8th, Mount Cook

On Monday, we headed off to my favourite place in NZ – Mount Cook. And we caught it on an absolutely GLORIOUS day, so I was super stoked that Rachel got the full effect. The only downside was that I did get a speeding ticket on the way there, which was a bit of a dampener (shout-out for Mom for dealing with my meltdown). But otherwise, it was really cool to show Rach one of the places I’ve come to love the most here.

 

April 9th, Wanaka rest day

On the Tuesday, we hung around Wanaka. I showed Rachel a bit of the town, as well as the “Wanaka Tree” on the lake. The next day we were flying to the North Island to explore some beach towns, so we kind of wanted a rest day before that.

 

April 10th, Auckland and the drive to Paihia

On Wednesday, we headed over to Queenstown to catch flights to Auckland. Unfortunately, we had to book separate flights because there wasn’t room for two on Rachel’s earlier flight. She actually nearly missed it due to our poor planning. She didn’t end up having time to check her bag and had to run through security to get there, so I took it on my flight instead. In hindsight, probably good that we were on separate flights, otherwise we both would’ve been screwed.

Because Rachel got to Auckland first, she went ahead and picked up our rental car before coming back to the airport to get me. Then, it was time to get our priorities in order.

After a quick trip to donut heaven, we headed North to Paihia. Honestly, I can’t even remember how we decided to go there, it just kind of came up and was decided on. But I’m really happy we did. Paihia is in the famous Bay of Islands and man, it is gorgeous there. It’s this beautiful little oceanside town with cool alleyways and great restaurants. Our hostel was also really cool, and definitely the best that we stayed in the whole trip.

We popped into this restaurant on the waterfront for dinner and ended up going back there twice more because it was so good. The front patio extended over the water and at night it was so beautiful with all the fairy lights and the sound of the ocean.

 

April 11th, Paihia glow worm caves

The next day, it was raining so we nixed the idea of cruising the Bay of Islands and decided to leave that until the next day. Instead, our hostel recommended we go check out the glow worm caves down the road, so off we went.

I don’t have very many photos of this because you’re not allowed to take pictures in the cave. But I’ll just explain. The caves are on a Maori farm and the tours are run by the family who live there. The caves are sacred to them, as they used to bury their dead there. Creepy, I know. But so cool because the caves also have all kind of Maori history tied to them.

Our guide was a young Maori guy who had the most Kiwi accent I’ve ever heard. Rachel could not stop cracking up. But he was really funny and made what might’ve been a boring tour, really entertaining.

We were given lanterns and our guide led us through the caves. As we got deeper in, he stopped us and told us to turn off the lanterns. It was completely pitch dark and all you could hear was the stream running next to us. But then when we looked up, it was like the Milky Way. The glow worms were SO bright and it genuinely looked like stars. It was the coolest thing. Our guide told us that the glow worms situate themselves on the cave ceiling in a mirror formation of the stream below – because where there’s water, there’s flies and that’s what the glow worms catch and eat.

We stopped a few more times to look at the glow worms before heading back out into the light. It was definitely one of my favourite experiences of the North Island and it was really cool to learn more about the Maori culture as well.

From there, we headed back into town and had a drink and some food before going back to our hostel to chill out for a bit. We both had a nap, I kicked Rachel’s ass at chess and then we made a big pasta for dinner before calling it a night.

 

April 12th, Bay of Island cruise

The next morning, we went on a cruise to the Bay of the Islands. It actually started out so nice and sunny, and while we were on the boat, we were actually able to catch some rays.

But once we got to our destination – a secluded little island with a beach and a cafe – it got FREEZING. The sun immediately disappeared and the wind picked up and it was torture. Rachel was intent on “tanning” and stayed out on the lawn reading her book. But I was dying inside. And because the North Island is generally pretty warm, they had no blankets. And I was in shorts and a tee shirt. So I worked with what we had.

After the boat came back and got us, we returned to Paihia. We then drove seven hours back through Auckland and headed east to the Coromandel Peninsula. We got in super late, checked in to our hostel, went and had the BIGGEST mussels I’ve ever seen for dinner and then tucked in.

 

April 13th, Cathedral Cove, Hot Water Beach & Auckland

The next morning, we had a lot on our plate because it was our last day. First up, Cathedral Cove.

Cathedral Cove is crazy beautiful. It’s this little cove with towering sandstone cliffs on either side and giant tunnel at one end. There’s also these really cool rock formations just off the beach.

If I were a betting woman, I’d say Rachel liked Cathedral Cove the best. She was really stoked to lay on a beach the whole trip and finally we found this really incredible place to do it. And while I’m not usually one for sitting still, it was really nice to just have some downtime in the sun.

After lunch at a local brewery, we drove to our next location – Hot Water Beach. Hot Water Beach is famous for its geothermal activity and when the tide goes out, there’s a section on the beach where people dig holes for makeshift hot tubs. We were pretty stoked to go and try it out, but because we had to be back in Auckland at a certain time, we would have to go dig before the tide was completely out.

The problem with this was that we would start to dig our hole, but then the waves would come and crash into our walls, flooding the hole with sand and filling it again. It was super frustrating. Finally, we were able to get a little bit of a hole going, but by then, there were probably a hundred people in this one little plot of beach and it was hella crowded. Not very relaxing. We had a laugh digging though, so we packed up shop and gifted our hole to another group who had just shown up.

After our hole-digging fiasco, we headed to Auckland for our final night of the trip. We decided to treat ourselves to a fancy dinner out before heading back to the hostel and calling it a night. The next morning, I was up bright and early at 6am to catch my flight back to Wanaka and Rachel would stay in Auckland for the next two days.

It was a real blast to have Rachel in New Zealand and it was nice taste of home. I also enjoyed seeing parts of NZ that I hadn’t had the chance to travel to yet.

However, I think that most important thing I walked away with was a better understanding of  how different Rachel and I are. I mean, I’ve always known that we have different interests and hobbies, but we’ve definitely diverged in life in terms of who we are as people. And I’m not going to lie, we don’t always get along. In fact, we sometimes drive each other crazy. But I think we’ve come a long way from getting in fights and holding grudges (as young siblings often do). I think now that we’re adults, we’re both much better at understanding each other’s differences and working within those confines to compromise. It was really interesting discovering this dynamic road-tripping and I think we both had an awesome time because of it.

Maturity, look at that.

Well, my glass of wine is empty and my M&Ms are almost gone. That was a marathon, thanks for sticking with me peeps and I’ll be back later in the week with more to share.

• JB

 

That title was just for you Maze.

As per usual, I’m coming off of a whirlwind few weeks here in NZ. The whole summer at Mons has been building up to Crankworx Rotorua and I definitely understand why. Here’s a crash course in what the last few weeks has looked like.

March 8th – 10th 

The weekend before Crankworx, I stuck around Wanaka and did some local adventures. On Friday night, Vic called me and said to be ready in twenty minutes because we were going to secret location. Twenty minutes later, she rolls up with a few other friends we’ve made, in their 4x4s and we were off.

We drove down to Glendhu with beers and sticks for fire-making. The boys were in a mood to offroad so we drove through the river to the river bed in the centre of it and set up our fire. From there, we spent all night hanging out, drinking beers and laughing a lot. Afterwards, the boys did donuts in their trucks while I tried not to think about the rollover risk.

The next day, Vic invited me to join her and Puckey climbing at Hospital Flats (which is not as scary as it sounds and also not flat).

This would be my second outdoor climbing experience. My first time, we started on a couple of 18s and I had noo hope of even getting halfway up. But this time around, we started out on some 16s and I was determined to get to the top.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but climbing outside is a whole different ballgame than its indoor counterpart. On the one hand, you get the freedom to move wherever you like, unbound by the path of coloured rocks laid out for you. On the other, that means that the path to the top isn’t always clear – and neither are the holds. You can put your hand on a rock that you think is a good grip, but it ends up being slippy or too small to really get a hold on.

This was a total mental game for me. I got stuck on a couple of problems and told myself, “get past this bit, then you can give up and go down” But every time I got past one, I wanted to keep pushing forward. Suddenly, I found myself at the top.

After repelling back down, I was on a total high. And that high only continued as we went and got tacos at Amigos. ‘Twas a good Saturday.

Crankworx, March 15th – 25th

Alright, this is it. The event that the whole summer had culminated in. I had been looking forward to Crankworx Rotorua basically since I took the job at Mons. Crankworx Whistler is my favourite ten days of the whole summer, and I was excited to see how the New Zealand edition of the event played out.

The core team of six from Mons all flew up North together on the Friday. My manager, Sarah, had a meeting that morning, so I got a ride to the airport with the boys. During that hour, the term “boys trip + Jessie” was coined and lived on for the rest of the trip.

Getting to the airport, we had about an hour to kill, so we got breakfast and coffee while we waited for Sarah to catch up. Our first layover was in Christchurch, so I wasn’t too scared to land there. (Christchurch is in the middle of field and is not scary for landing).

When we got to Christchurch, everyone was pretty hungry, but there was nowhere to eat inside the terminal. So we went outside to the check-in area to get some food. I was a little annoyed at this because I didn’t want to go through the process of security again. But as we got our food and made our way back to our gate, I was surprised to not have to go through a security checkpoint once. When I asked why our bags weren’t getting checked, Watty (our pop-up sales guy), simply said “oh there’s no security for domestic flights in NZ.” I was blown away. How could that be?! Watty shrugged and said “It’s New Zealand, nothing bad ever happens here.”

Our flight from Christchurch to Rotorua took off at 1:40. Two minutes later, the shootings started.

We didn’t hear about it until we got off the flight an hour later. At the time, they were saying ten people had been killed. But as the day went on, the number climbed.

Someone told me that 50 people getting shot in NZ is akin to 5000 people getting shot in one sitting in the US. It just doesn’t happen here. I would compare the country-wide reaction to that of 9/11 – it was total shutdown. Airports and schools on lockdown. Public events canceled for weeks afterward. Years from now, people will probably talk about where they were when they heard the news.

In a weird way, it was comforting. Living so close to the States, you get used to hearing about shootings and then watching the world move on. Nothing changes. Here, change was immediate.

It was a bit of a dark cloud over the week, as most of our team were Kiwi. We continued to tune in to the news and hear updates as we rode in the team van to the grounds everyday.

Crankworx kept us busy and distracted us. As everyone had warned me, Rotorua was definitely different to Whistler. In Rotorua, vendors can sell things, so last year’s bike stock is craaazy cheap. And everything is on the grounds at Skyline, so it truly feels like a festival. Whistler, things are quite spread out.

We spent the first weekend setting up and then took one day off before the start of the festival to ride the Redwoods. The Redwoods are the closest thing to Squamish riding that I’ve experienced here yet. It was sooo much fun and it was HUGE. We could’ve spent a week there and not ridden it all.

The week was blur of selling in the tent, working in the media room and being at the events. For the first time, I truly felt like I was part of the team at Mons – not just that we were all coworkers, but that we were all friends as well. Guess living and working together for ten days has that kind of bonding effect.

I also got to see a lot of Whistler people who were town to compete. It was amazing seeing them again, but it did make me a bit homesick. Not as bad as post-Christmas, but just a tinge.

The week ended and I was beat. It was a total blast, but I definitely needed a couple days to recover after it. Coming back to the office was a little weird, but I feel like that sense of friendship is still there.

A selection of photos from the trip… To explain some of them would require you understanding our state of exhaustion and sleep-deprivation. Just go with it.

 

March 29th – 31st

This was arguably the best weekend I’ve had since I’ve been here. And it almost didn’t happen.

Vic told me about a surf trip she was planning in the Catlins for the weekend after I got back from Rotorua. Her friend Joey was in town and she wanted to get a crew together to go. I was hesitant because I knew Rachel was coming in a week and I wanted to save my money.

But then it came to light that we were getting a cabin loan from a coworker of one of the guys who were coming. So now we had free accommodation. But I woke up on Friday morning and had no motivation. I texted Vic saying I was thinking of bailing out when suddenly I had this surge of a “fuck it, let’s do it” attitude. I changed my mind, packed my bag and went to work, then left for the South right after.

By the time I rolled up, it was dark and I couldn’t see where we were. We got into the cabin and made some oven pizza for dinner. No sooner had we finished eating then the power went out. The neighbours assured us it would be back on in a few hours and in the meantime, we entertained ourselves.

The next morning we woke up and the power was back on. Plus I finally got to see where we were and it was right. on. the. ocean. Like we could walk out on the front lawn and the water was right there. It was amazing.

We spent the morning taking turns surfing. The swell was perfect for learning and you could jump over the waves in the crash zone, so it took a huge fear factor out of it. There were seals and dolphins in the water with us as well!

After that, we hung out at the cabin for the afternoon chilling hard and reading. It was honestly the best way to unwind post-Crankworx.

That evening, we drove half a kilometre down the road and watched the sunset over the peninsula. We brought some beer and champagne with us as well and just sat peacefully for forty-five minutes as the day ended.

After the sunset we discovered that Billy’s van had got a flat so the boys got to work fixing it. I casually mentioned that I had never changed a flat and suddenly it became a teaching moment.

After fixing the tire, we went back to the house and had a beach bonfire where Troy showed us how to poi. Poi is a Maori tradition where they light the end of these chains on fire and do acrobatics with them. Troy is really amazing at it and put on a killer show, then tried to teach the rest of us how to do it. It didn’t go as well.

After a couple of beers, someone mentioned that we should skinny-dip in the ocean. The idea caught on like a forest fire in dry season and soon Victoria was saying that she’d only do it if I did. The boys were relentless and eventually we were all stripping and running headlong into the ocean, laughing so hard I thought I was going to pee.

Of course, it was pitch-dark, so none of us could see a thing. Therefore, it was fairly safe from a discretion point-of-view. But once in the ocean, both Vic and I realized that theoretically, we were all going to come out of the water at some point and the light from the house would make things.. er, not so discreet. Both of us jumped up suddenly and sprinted out of the water, laughing insanely as we got back to the beach, grabbed our clothes and took off for the house. I swear I’ve never laughed so hard. We got in to the warmth of the house, hopped in the bathroom and showered off while the boys made their way out of the water. Exhausted, we eventually all calmed down from the high of spontaneity mixed with cold water and went to sleep.

The next morning we woke up to a killer sunrise. Vic went in for one last surf before we all teamed up to clean the house. Afterward, we all posed for one last photo of the gang before clamouring into the cars and leaving our little slice of weekend paradise.

The high from this weekend continued throughout the week and even now as I type about it, I can’t help but giggle to myself. It’s funny how six strangers can come together and have such an amazing time together. That immediate human connection is something that will always touch me the most.

Rachel has now arrived in New Zealand and we’ve begun our own adventures. I’m going to write a separate whole blog post for those, so stay tuned.

Oh, by the way, today mark six months since I landed in NZ. Crazy right? Thanks to everyone who’s still reading this blog (and stuck with me in real-life, despite the rollercoaster ride it’s been).

• JB

Oh hey there! Can I just say how AMAZING it is to have a Saturday with nothing to do?! I feel so free and alive – and not just because I got to SLEEP IN (unheard of).

Yeah, okay, woe is me there’s so much awesome shit to do that I don’t get to sleep in. But honestly, it was so nice yesterday to know that I had absolutely nothing to do today. Freedom.

Alright, so let’s jump right into the last two weekends here.

Weekend numero uno: Feb 15th – 17th

Ever since I rode Skyline Queenstown waaay back in November, I’ve been dying to go and ride more of QT. And with the recent purchase of my beloved Brendan (and after finally recouping the funds it took to buy him), we headed on over to Coronet Peak in Arrowtown to ride Rude Rock.

The original plan was to shuttle up to Rude Rock and ride a few laps. Sweet, no pedalling. But after we dropped off the first car at the bottom and drove to the base, we discovered that you can pedal up to the very top of the ski hill and then do an extra long lap down from there. Which is great… but also, pedalling. Ugh.

It was a slog for sure, about forty-five minutes worth of pedalling. And Lachy and Charlotte were hauling ass – both are pretty fast on the climbs. So yeah, I definitely earned this view at the top.

After this, we headed down. Holy shit, I think Rude Rock might be my favourite trail ever. It was just the right amount of tech, flow and features. Definitely going to have to get back there ASAP.

The next day, Vic invited me to go out with her and some friends on a buddy’s ski boat. This is the same guy who owned the motorcycles from my last post. Vic’s sister Jamie was visiting so she joined as well. We spent the sunny day cruising around Ruby Island, wake-surfing (which I did not partake in, given my history of wake-surfing. Shout-out to the worst coach ever) and drinking champagne.

 

Weekend numero duo: Feb 22nd – 24th

Vic and Jamie invited me to down to the south coast with them to explore the Catlins and visit Dunedin. At first, I was really hesitant to go. As I mentioned before, money has been a bit of a stress since I bought Brendan. But as Mazy pointed out, what was the purpose of buying him? To get out of Wanaka. So after work on Friday, I headed down to meet the girls in the Catlins.

At first, I wasn’t really looking forward to three and a half hours of driving by myself. But the cool thing about NZ is that driving around is never boring. There’s always so many beautiful things to see and the single lane roads twist and curve through the mountain ranges, keeping you alert and interested. And because I drove down in the evening, I got some really gorgeous golden hour views, plus when I finally got to the coast, driving next to the ocean was really amazing.

Vic had booked this cute little cabin on a holiday campground. When I arrived, the girls were having dinner and had ordered a bunch of food for all of us. We had a few drinks and then went out to the lookout to try and catch some light for photos. Unfortunately, we missed the best time, but Vic was still able to capture a couple gems.

After, we headed back to the cabin to cozy in with wine and dice games while it rained outside. It was honestly the most content I’ve been in a while.

The next day, we woke up in our own time and had breakfast before making our way down to the road to the Cathedral Caves in the rain. Jamie had forgotten her rain jacket and my hand-me-down from Rachel had long-since lost its waterproof coating, so we both donned plastic ponchos from the campground gift shop. Such tourists.

The walk down to the caves through the jungle was really beautiful and quiet. Vic joked that it felt like we were in Jurassic Park.

The tide was out at the beach and although it was raining, it was a really nice walk. When we got to the caves, I couldn’t believe how big they were. We turned on the flashlights on our phones and went in, trying to find out how far back it went before it got too dark for even the flashlights. We then weaved our way through and popped out the other side.

The really cool thing about this whole weekend was that we didn’t have a plan. We knew where we were staying each night, but other than that, the road was ours and we basically just followed the map to wherever we wanted to go next.

After the caves, we stopped in at what we thought was just a cafe called Gypsy Gallery. What we didn’t realize was that it was a sort of museum, with all these toys and games and oddities. The whole place was like an “I Spy” book. Everywhere you looked there was something hidden or some clever joke.

After the gallery, we headed to Nugget Point, hoping to see some sea lions or sharks. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see any of those, but the rain clouds did break and we finally got some sun. Which really brought out the colours of the point. These photos look insane, but they’re actually pretty unedited. The below were shot by Victoria.

After Nugget Point, we went and had some lunch at a beachside bar and then laid out on the sand for a bit. Jamie collected some shells for her kids (she has four!) and then we went on to Dunedin.

So I’d say that Dunedin is like the Halifax of NZ. It’s a huge university town and it’s O-Week here (Orientation Week, because they start school in February instead of September). Jamie really wanted to have a big night out, so Vic and I were definitely mentally preparing ourselves to be surrounded by 18-year-olds.

We got checked in at the hotel and then headed to the Octagon – which sounds a lot more intense than it is. Basically it’s an octagon in the middle of the town centre with all kinds of bars and restaurants around the outside. We settled on this cool restaurant with one of the most amazing menus I’ve seen – I had the hardest time deciding what to get. After chatting with our waiter, we found out that the restaurant turned into a club after dinner service and he said we should come back to avoid the university students because they charge a cover for anyone who looks really young – bit discriminate, but who cares!

In the meantime, we went to an Irish pub and had some Guinness and then moved on to a little corner cocktail bar. While at the cocktail bar, we ran into two American guys from Utah who were travelling around NZ filming a bike movie. They were pretty rad and we ended up spending the whole night with them. Eventually the five of us went back to the original restaurant and spent the whole night dancing. It was such a fun night and I woke up hangover-less the next day. Win.

That morning, we went and met Mike, Vic’s friend from Ohau (I talked about him in my last post) and went out for a coffee on the waterfront. Dunedin reminded me a lot of Halifax actually. Lots of old buildings and cobblestone walks right on the ocean. I really liked it.

After coffee with Mike, we headed down to Sandfly Bay to finally see some sea lions. The sand on this beach was incredible, it felt like walking on icing sugar. And we saw sea lions!

After Sandfly Bay, the rain started to move in again, so we had lunch back in Dunedin and then made our way home.

The weekend was really incredible and although I put a serious dent in my credit card, it was totally worth it. And now I’m just going to buckle down and lay low until Crankworx Rotorua in two weeks.

Which reminds me…

I got to go out this week and help shoot the series of films we’re making in the lead-up to Crankworx. We shot at Skyline and Dream Track – which are the largest public bike jumps in the world. The Mons riders seriously have a death wish because these jumps are massive. I can’t wait to see how the edits turn out and I’m pretty stoked to be getting out in the field with content production – even if I was just assisting on the second camera.

• JB

Ugh, this is a lame blog title. But it’s 9pm on a Sunday and I don’t have the creative capacity to think of something more original, so you get what you get. (Mazy, if you have any “Live at Five”-esque title suggestions, send ’em my way)

In the three weeks since my last post (yes, I know, I’m getting worse in terms of frequency) it’s been pretty, ahem, balls to the wall. At Mons we’re beginning the launch of our absolutely bea-u-tiful Winter 2019 collection (we go by NZ summers and winters) and the weekends have been packed full of activities. I’ve started this thing where I have to get a good sweat on once a day – be it at the gym, hiking, bike riding, running or climbing. And I’m on a three-week streak right now. My goal is to keep it going until March 15th when we leave for Crankworx Rotorua.

Okay enough, chit-chat. Let’s get down to the last three weeks. I had to consult the photos in my phone for this one because all the weekends started to get jumbled in my head, but I think I nailed it down. I digress.

Weekend #1 (Jan 25th – 27th)

Friday was spent at Cardies as per usual. After riding the park for a few laps, we called it because it was soo cold in the alpine and drove back into town to get some tacos. Bikes and tacos is becoming my new favourite pairing.

Earlier in the week, I had met an American chick named Victoria who’s originally from Colorado, but has spent the last eight months roadtripping around NZ. She’s since decided to settle in Wanaka and became a Mons ambassador in the process. So we went out for a drink to get acquainted and discovered that we have a lot in common. Both really into the outdoors, both into skiing. Our off-season sports differ; she prefers climbing, while I like two wheels, but we figured we could teach each other.

As our first big adventure, we decided to take on Grandview Mountain that Saturday. Having both done our share of NZ hikes, we were expecting this one to follow the same pattern up straight-uphill-torture. However, we were pleasantly surprised. Thanks to some switchbacks, this hike was actually really lovely. Just hard enough that we got a sweat on, but not so hard that we were wishing our legs didn’t exist. Plus, the scenery was killer. It seriously looked like the Lord of the Rings. Oh, and we met some friends along the way.

On Sunday, I mostly just chilled out. Went for a run by the river, which is my new favourite thing because you get crazy hot and then jump in the water and it’s heavenly.

Weekend #2 (Feb 1st – 3rd)

The following weekend, Victoria and I went to Lake Ohau, which is about an hour and a half from Wanaka. It was soo great to roadtrip and finally get Brendan out on the asphalt. We arrived to the lake and met Victoria’s friend Mike, who’s living in his family’s cottage for the summer. The cottage reminded me a lot of what the Wentworth cottage used to look like – exposed wood walls, skis hanging above doors – that whole cabin vibe.

We went down to the lake to have a barbeque and watch the sunset. As usual we were not disappointed.

Originally our plan was to sleep on the beach in our tents, but the night air started to get a little chilly, so we crashed in Mike’s cabin and woke up the next morning to him making us breakfast – eggs, bacon, toast and coffee. I really like Mike.

From there, we set out to Mount Cook Aoraki National Park. Mount Cook is the highest mountain in NZ and it’s about 30 minutes from Lake Ohau. Mike came along as well.

Driving into the park was amazing. Mount Cook is almost sitting on the horizon in front of the road and we got lucky with a clear day. It only got more beautiful as we got closer.

The water outside the park is also glacier-fed so the water is this incredible tropical blue. I’d show you photos, but it honestly doesn’t do it justice.

We started out visiting Tasman Glacier, about a 20 minute hike into the park. While really cool, it was also sad to be there. There are signs all over the place marking where the glacier used to extend to; in the last twenty years, it’s receded kilometres. It’s scary how real climate change is.

Next we drove back around the mountain to hike to get a view of Mount Cook. If we had had time, we would’ve taken the Hooker Valley Track, a 3-hour hike that gets you to the base of the Mount Cook. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time, so we went around the other side on a shorter track. We still got some amazing views of the mountain and the other glaciers though.

Mount Cook is officially one of my favourite places in the world. And I decided that day that I wanted to go back immediately, which I did the following weekend. More on that in minute.

Victoria and I have decided that once a week we’re going to have a climb night – whether it’s outside or in the local gym. I’m still slowly accumulating climbing gear. After I bought my car, I was reeeally hurting for cash for a while, so I haven’t been able to afford climbing shoes yet, but I’ve got a harness and I’m hoping by next week I’ll be able to get shoes and stop using the smelly rentals at the gym.

The good news is, I’m really starting to love it. Last week, I made it up an 18 without falling. Which is so cool, because when I started a month ago, I couldn’t make it up a 15 without falling several times (grades go up by one here, so 15, 16, 17, 18. And they go as high as into the 30s. So I have a long way to go, but small victories).

Last Thursday, Lachy arrived in Wanaka which was both nice and a little weird. Nice because it’s great to have a close friend from home here. Weird because, well ex-boyfriend. But we’ve been hanging out and I think things are going to be just fine. We were friends before dating and we’ve always been friends since.

Weekend #3 (Feb 8th – 10th)

This past weekend, Lach and I drove to Christchurch to pick up his skis and bike that had been shipped there from Canada. We stayed in this really cool pod hotel overnight and then took our time back the next day and checked out some sights.

We tried to get back to Mount Cook, but it ended up being a bit of a flop. The idea was to finally do the Hooker Valley Track and get up close, but when we got there, there was a thick cloud cover over the range. We decided it wouldn’t be worth it to hike for 3 hours if we couldn’t even see anything and resolved to come back another day. However, I did manage to capture these really moody photos of the glacier. I’m actually really proud of this photo.

After Mount Cook, we stopped at the Clay Ciffs, which Lachy swears were in the Lord of the Rings movies somewhere, but we couldn’t figure it out. Anyone? Anyone?

Since getting to NZ, I’ve been determined to get a portrait shot of sheep, but they continue to elude me. I thought I finally had the perfect shot as we passed a field after the Clay Cliffs, but as soon as I got out of the car, they all turned around.

And then that brings me to today. Parentals, maybe stop reading here.

Victoria called me this morning and asked if I wanted to join her and few friends on a motorcycle mission to Cardrona (about 25 km down the road) to get lunch. After a lotttt of hesitation and a bit of peer pressure from Rachel, I said yes. And even though I was a little nervous about being on the back of someone’s Harley (that wasn’t Dads), I’m really glad I did. It was soo fun and the perfect day for it. Plus we had a whole gang. It was awesome.

When the guys found out that I could also drive a motorcycle, they offered to let me drive one of their bikes back, but I’ve literally never driven anything bigger than my little 250 and I don’t think the first time I try should be on someone’s massive Harley. I was perfectly content to ride shotgun again, but I won’t lie, I did breathe a slight sigh of relief when we got back into Wanaka. I have control issues.

Right after the biking, I went biking – pedal biking that is. Lach and I went up into Sticky for a few laps and then went for tacos (this bike & tacos thing is official). I also got a little practice on some jumps which was great because that’s one of the skills I’m really trying to get better at.

And now here we are. Sunday evening. Back into the gym tomorrow and back to work. I think it’s going to be a big week, not sure why or how yet. I just have this feeling. Will let you all know how it goes. Bye-bye for now.

• JB

Strap in everyone, you’re in for an emotional rollercoaster of a blog post.

Not that I’m emotional now, but it’s just been a very high emotion three (four?) weeks since I last wrote. Some of you are already very aware of this – for that, thanks for hanging in there as I thrust mental breakdown after mental breakdown upon you.

Going home was amazing. And although the journey back was pure hell (five flights in two days will NEVER happen again), it was well worth it. I got to see my good friend Kailen in Vancouver during my nine hour layover and then getting home to see Rachel, Mom and Mazy at the airport was just the biggest relief in the world. And by some miracle, my bag made it through five airports along the way, praise the Lord.

At some point during Christmas, we realized it had been five years since all four siblings were home for the holidays, which is wild. It felt very much like a homecoming and it was so comfortable. I missed family dinners and sleeping in my old bed and seeing the famjam (not to mention homemade meals, shout-out to the parentals).

I did find myself having a lot of the same conversations, but I suppose that comes with the territory of having moved across the world; people are curious as to how it’s going. And I found myself lying a bit – “it’s good, I love it, I’m where I’m meant to be, blah blah blah.”

Truth is, I think I was trying to convince myself more than anyone else. Because in the back of my mind, I still wasn’t really sure how it was going. Was I happy? Did I love it? Am I where I’m supposed to be? These tiny questions kept nagging at my mind, but I tried to pay them no heed. Instead, I allowed myself to fall into the holidays and enjoy being home and relaxing.

When the ten days at home came to close, I was devastated. I felt like I hadn’t had enough time with everyone, particularly the parents. It became overwhelmingly clear that I didn’t know the next time I would see them and that realization crushed me. Because, when I first arrived in NZ, I always had the Christmas holidays in the back of my mind, “it’s not a big deal that I’m moving across the world, because I’ll be back in two and half months.” That phrase became a kind of security blanket, and now the security blanket was gone.

However, I left Halifax, flew into Whistler and again, those nagging thoughts evaporated. I was so excited to see my friends and go out to the bars that I know and get to ski.

And Whistler was amazing. I stayed overnight with a bunch of different people, got to do NYE and see a ton of faces, Sushi Vill with the GLC crew, the works. And I began to dread the thought of coming back to NZ. Because at the time, I was existing in a Whistler vacation world, where I didn’t worry about money, or work the next day, or any of the mundane day-to-day nuances that used to plague me when I lived there. It was idealistic. Which would be problematic.

The night before I left to come back to NZ, I got punched with a terrible flu. I hurled all night long and the next morning, woke up to 30cm of snow on the ground. So in the midst of the drama of having to book a bus to get down to the airport and still being horribly sick, I didn’t really have time to think about being sad. Again, the feelings got pushed to the side.

And as I made my way across the world again, all I could focus on was how many hours I had to wait before I took my next hit of my Tylenol/Advil/Gravol cocktail of drugs.

So when I finally got home and cozy in my bed in NZ, I passed out.

And woke up the next morning bawling. And then I did that everyday for five days.

I’ve never been that homesick in my life. I’m not sure if it was because it was partnered with jetlag and my lingering flu, but holy shit, it was debilitating. I didn’t want to get out of bed, I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to work. I would get to the office and have to go to the bathroom to cry. And I couldn’t even pinpoint why.

Did I miss Whistler? Yes, but not in the way that I wanted to move back. Did I miss Halifax? The town, no. But the comfort of home, yes. Did I miss my family? Hell. yes.

And I think the constant distraction and the putting-off-facing-my-dread finally came crashing down.

Now, I’m being quite honest here. Part of me wants to delete the whole bit about me crying at work. But, I’m not writing this to emphasize my sadness, or call attention to the drama or even to get attention. I really need to write this down for myself. I need to remember how awful this was and how badly I wanted to pull the plug on Mons, NZ, everything – and go home. I was looking up flights, I was setting deadlines for when I could finally make the decision to leave. If not for several key people telling me to give it more of a chance, I would’ve up and left that week. I need to remember all this.

Because I got through it. And it all got so much better and by the following Monday, I was feeling amazing again; feeling like being here brought with it so much possibility.

And don’t ask me how it switched. It happened almost in an instant.

Earlier in the week, one of the girls at work, Lottie, had invited me to go ride Cardrona Bike Park that Friday after work. And by the time Friday rolled around, I had no motivation to go ride bikes (that’s how sad I was). But I dragged myself out, telling myself that it would be a distraction. And then I had the most amazing evening.

Cardrona was awesome. It was a different kind of riding than I had previously experienced. The mountain was a lot more exposed and the trails were very rocky and alpine-like. But it was so fun. We met up with a group of other chicks riding and just had this cool little girl gang of riders. After the lifts stopped spinning, we all went for beer and pizza. And that was it, of all sudden, I was back into it again.

The next day, Saturday, Lottie invited me along for a float down the Clutha River with her and few others. We managed to wrangle a stand-up paddleboard for me (that I spent most of the time sitting down on) and off we went. The Clutha is a big, wide river, but is pretty mellow for most of the three hours that we were on it. There were small rapids along the way, but all perfectly manageable. We also had to keep an eye out for motorboats and those river jetboats along the way. But mostly, we were by ourselves, leisurely floating, sipping beer, eating chips and listening to music. It was heavenly. It really reminded me of when we used to float down the river at the Lodge too.

There was a moment when we were floating, where I just realized that everything was going to be okay. And in that moment, I was just so content and at peace for the first time in days, that I wanted to cry of happiness. (Spoiler alert: I cry a lot).

As we reached the part of the river that we had dropped off our second car, we found a little swimming hole and stopped to play for a bit. Seriously, is this heavenly or what?

Then Sunday came along. My friend from the GLC, Erin, had virtually introduced me to her friend Evelyn before Christmas and Ev and I had gone out for a beer before I left to go home. So when I got back, I reached out to her to see if she wanted to meet up again. On Sunday, the plan was to go outdoor rock climbing, but then it was so rainy that we couldn’t, so instead we went to the indoor wall here in Wanaka.

Holy shit. I’m hooked. It was so much fun. It’s such a work-out, both mentally and physically and there’s such a high when you “solve the problem” ie. get to the top of the wall. I got home and immediately started a hunt for secondhand gear.

The next week at work, I was back with a vengeance. Suddenly, I wanted to be there so desperately. I wanted to throw myself into every project and really start to understand how the business worked. It was good to feel like my old motivated self again. I also started going for runs in the evenings and getting out trail riding. I almost felt bipolar – how did I go from being so miserable to loving life again?

In an effort to truly embrace that I’m here for a while, I started car hunting. And after a couple of duds, I finally found my winner. Meet Brendan.

He’s an adorable little station wagon that I can fit my bike into the back of and hopefully get up and down to Cardrona (the road is hell). Either way, he’s opened up a world of freedom for me and I’m so excited to now begin exploring NZ.

So that brings us to this weekend. On Friday, Lottie and I went back to Cardrona for the TGIF evening sessions and I bought a season pass (guess I’m all in). We met up with a few others that I had met once or twice and it was great to actually get to know people. Pizza and beer followed of course. I think these sessions on Fridays are going to become a thing.

Yesterday, it was so rainy and awful, but I often find that when I’m feeling uncomfortable in a place, it helps to nest. And because I’m a freak, my favourite way of nesting is going on a huge organization spree. So I re-organized our laundry room, all of our storage closets (x3), the spare bedroom (which was basically a dumping ground for all of our activity shit), my bedroom and the living room. And then I vacuumed. Sometimes OCD comes in handy.

Finally, today. Evelyn invited me along with a crew of people who were going climbing at Hospital Flats, an area for rock climbing about twenty minutes outside of town. I wasn’t nervous before we got there, but when we finally got to the wall and set up shop, it all got real. The fact that you’re literally climbing a wall, in the middle of nowhere with only the other person and your equipment keeping you from certain death. Whoa. It was wild. But I had bought a harness earlier that day, and at that point, I figured I was committed. None of the below photos are of me climbing – it’s Ev and her boyfriend. But just to give you an idea of what we were doing…

Those photos are about forty feet in the air by the way. It’s hard to tell because I zoomed in to take them.

I didn’t make it near as far up as they did. It was really windy and it kind of freaked me out. I’d say the highest I got up was about twenty feet. But I’m hooked for sure. And I’m determined to get better.

Afterwards, we all went over to one the crew’s place for some tea. Climbers get a notorious rep for being hippies and in some cases, I would agree. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Climbing with everyone today was so awesome because it was very social. There’s no feeling of competition and no one makes you feel like you have to do anything. It’s a very relaxing environment to learn in, which seems ironic, given the high consequence of getting something wrong. But I never felt belittled or stupid and no one tries to be a hotshot. It was very cool. I’m hoping to get out again with Ev and some of the girls this week.

And that was my last two weeks. You might get what I mean now by that bit about it being a rollercoaster of emotion. And yes, I still miss everyone back home dearly. But I’ve kind of sunk into a place where I’m able to acknowledge those feelings are there and then continue to move on with my day and do things that make me happy. It feels good. And it feels good knowing that I didn’t let that homesickness drive me to making what would’ve been one of the worst decisions of my life; to go home.

Thank you to everyone still reading (I know it’s a long one) and thank you especially to everyone that put with my constant sobbing calls and reached out via text. It meant more than you know just to have that comfort and that bit of pushing, when all I wanted to do was give up. I’m glad I didn’t.

• JB

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.

When Dad and Mazy first took us to Whistler when I was 12, Dad wanted us to sit down every night and write in our journals about the day that we had had. At the time, I really hated it. We were having so much fun on the mountains and roaming around in the village in the evening, that I didn’t want to stop and do something that felt a lot like homework. At some point, maybe Dad got wrapped up in the trip too because the journal-writing started to lax. I kept mine up for the longest, but even then I think I only had four days chronicled? I think Luke used his to draw pictures mostly.

Looking back on it now, I really regret it. I know I was only 12, but now my first real memories of Whistler are when I went back again when I was 16. And then, to my knowledge, I became obsessed with living there. But it would’ve been so cool to have the retrospect of what 12 year old me thought of it.

That’s what keeps popping up in my head when I’m reluctant to blog. I kept a blog while I was on exchange in Denmark, but it was only five months and there was something always happening – it was more like an extended trip than a living situation. I tried to keep a blog when I first got to Whistler, but what was supposed to be six month stint morphed into four years and well, life happens. It’s not always fun to blog about daily happenings, so I fell out of it there too. Somehow it’s always Whistler that I forget to write about when it’s happening.

Two weeks ago I visited Skyline Bike Park and it was literally my best day ever on my bike. We went on a Sunday and got back late, so my plan was to write about it on the Monday. But I’ve never been so exhausted in my life than I was on the Monday. So writing got pushed back. Then, last weekend was another whirlwind. Then, it was my birthday. And now we’re here. So, yeah I missed a bit of time. But, I’m determined to keep this up, so let’s start from the top.

Two Saturdays ago, some of the Mons coworkers were planning on going to Skyline the following day. I’ve never ridden any bike park other than Whistler, so I was pretty stoked to see what was on offer here in NZ. Thanks to some birthday money from Mom and Billy, I was even able to buy a new downhill helmet and goggles! (I had to leave mine back in Whistler because they wouldn’t fit in my bag).

The next day, Sunday, we got an early start and headed off. It was me, Mitchy and Sam. We were also going to meet up with some members of the Dirt Town Queens, which is all-chicks riding group in Queenstown. We got some coffee and then were on our way.

We met up with Charlotte, one of the girls, and she stuck with us the whole day. Honestly, I could not have been more thankful for her. I was by far the slowest in the group and she hung back and let me follow her into different features so I could get the hang of them. It’s always easier to tackle something scary when you’re following someone else’s line into it. Which is great, because Skyline went waaaay beyond my expectations. It was really steep and a lot of the stuff we were doing teetered on my edge of capability. But it felt so good to get down every lap and it was such a high. Plus gondi laps – no climbing and I’m a happy camper.

We stopped for lunch and then switched over to our pedalling gear. We were going to ride up the gondi to the top of the park and then pedal into the mountains behind it. Charlotte’s boyfriend Callum was joining as well to shoot some photos.

Before I go on, get a load of this view from the top of the Skyline gondola…

So we headed up pedalling into the mountains. I’m quickly finding out that all the riders here are powerhouses. I was down off my bike and walking about halfway up. Everyone else took their turns walking too, but I was totally hitting a wall. Usually, the whole morning’s worth of riding that we did in the park is the most riding that I’ll do in an entire day. Same with the pedalling in the afternoon. So it was a lot for me. But it’s something to strive for; to be fit enough to have big days like that more often and recover more quickly.

Again, it might be tough, but the views make it worthwhile…

We got to the top, had a water break and then started the down. Which was long and had varied terrain and was so. much. fun. Beeched As was the trail name; it winds down the side of the mountain and crosses over creeks. It was full of rooty sections, tiny rockrolls and all kinds of fun features. It was so great.

At the end of the day, I was beat – both muscle and bruise-wise. But man, what an amazing day.

Life at work is going pretty great too. I’m getting to write a lot more of our content which is so cool. In fact, I wrote my first editorial for Mons, if you want to read it, link is below. Just make sure that your country is set to Australia or NZ. > https://brand.monsroyale.com/nz/how-merino-wool-works-on-a-bike/

The following weekend, Alice’s friend Hami had invited us to join him and few others in Queenstown for a comedy show. We got into town pretty early so that we could have dinner and then bar hop for a bit before the show.

Going out in Queenstown reminds me the most of Whistler. There’s so many people from all over the world and a million different bars. My personal favourite was one that felt like a greenhouse on the inside – it had white shuttered walls and hanging plants everywhere. Then outside, they had painted the patio ground all these pretty pastel colours. It was so neat.

After that, we headed to the comedy show. It was being held in the casino in a room just off the main floor. One comic was from Australia and the other was from NZ and most of their material consisted of making fun of Aussies. Which, having spent four years in Aussie-overrun Whistler, I can get on board with. It was super funny.

After the show, we headed into the casino where I turned $5 into $50! Woot! That doesn’t beat Hami though, who won $430 on $90 playing roulette.

On the way to Queenstown, I had mentioned to Alice and Hami that I had never tried lamb before. So as a birthday eve treat on Sunday, they made me a roast lamb dinner. Holy shit. I’ve been missing out. It was killer.

And then that brings us to this week! Monday was my birthday and this is something that I’ve been incredibly nervous for. I was worried that I wouldn’t have any friends to celebrate with. Which is dumb, I know. But still, it’s sad having no one on your birthday.

But I got into work and my coworkers had all coordinated and dressed in Canadian Tuxedos and plaid shirts. They also brought in maple donuts for me and one of the guys put together a playlist that consisted of Celine Dion, Justin Bieber and Nickelback. It was hilarious and I was really touched.

Later that night, Alice invited a bunch of people over to the house and we had a BBQ. Millie and Hami both made me cakes (so now I’m obese) and a couple of the girls brought some wine and chocolates too. I really couldn’t be more thankful for everyone I’ve met so far. A lot of these people have only known me for six weeks and for them to come and spend my birthday with me meant so much.

And that about wraps up the last two weeks. It’s Saturday again today and I’m trying to avoid Black Friday online shopping by going to the gym and running errands. It’s kind of working. JK, I’ve already bought stuff – but they’re mostly Christmas gifts, so that’s allowed right?

PS. It snowed again here this week. So crazy. But it does make for beautiful mountains.

• JB

Holyyyy, it’s been two weeks since I wrote last. Sorry about that. Last weekend I was feeling super unmotivated to write, so I kind of let it slide. Apologies.

I realized this past Friday was my one-month anniversary of landing in Wanaka, which is crazy. Time flies when you constantly ask yourself, “what the hell am I doing here again?”

In truth, it’s been a pretty good month. I’m definitely feeling more settled at work and I’m beginning to meet more people. It’s starting to feel a little more like home here.

So let’s roll back to last weekend. Once again, I had zero plans, which was a great thing. Both Saturday and Sunday were perfect riding weather, so I went out for some solo laps on Saturday evening and then got up early on Sunday to join Phoebe and her friend Sophie for a few. Sophie is much more on my level of riding than Phoebe is, which is nice because sometimes I feel like I slow Phoebe down.

The girls were talking about an enduro race that’s happening in December in Dunedin and how they both want to go. I’ve never done an enduro race before, but I do have enough self-awareness to know that my climbing skills leave something to be desired. But Sophie assured me that if she can race five stages, then so can I. At the moment, I’m considering it. I think I’m going to go with Phoebe to Dunedin on Nov. 18th for a “fun-duro” which covers a lot of the same ground as the December race, so that will be my first trial.

On Monday, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my first Mons allowance had arrived. Each new season, Mons employees get an allowance to spend on clothing and my shipment came in! So now I actually look like I work for the company.

Summer seems a long way off here lately. It keeps snowing in the mountains and it’s freezing in the valleys, so my new merino-wear could not have come soon enough.

Speaking of Mons, for the first time last week I started to get a little frustrated at work. I’ve been feeling like I’m on training wheels a bit and I think, in an effort to not overwhelm me, I haven’t been given that many responsibilities right off the bat. So on Wednesday, I was a little bored and feeling unhelpful to the rest of the team. Weirdly, I didn’t want to call attention to this, so I didn’t know how to ask for more tasks.

I finally got over myself long enough to ask my coworker Ed if he needs any help writing content and he tasked me with writing some blog content. Which is awesome. It feels so good to get creative at work and use a humorous tone; it was something that I always disliked at Tourism Whistler – the lack of creative freedom. I also got some Photoshop duties put on my plate as well, so I’m pretty stoked on that.

This weekend has been pretty fun. On Friday, the weather was hell so Alice and I decided to go to a movie. The theatre here is SO cool. It’s set up like a regular movie theatre with tiered seating, except the seats are couches. There’s also old school cars set up that you can sit in.

They also do an intermission halfway through the movie where you get to go out and have FRESH BAKED COOKIES.

The next morning, Alice and I met up with some of her friends at a cafe and had brunch. Brunch is a little different here, it consists of mostly just having coffee and a baked good. I’m more one for a huge brunch with every breakfast food imaginable, but this will do.

I then headed to the gym to burn off the past 12 hour cookie/croissant eating extravaganza. I’ve really, really been trying to be good about going to the gym, but I’ve been in a bit of a motivation funk lately. It’s like my body was ready to hunker down for the winter in Canada and embrace hibernation eating and now I’m like, nope the quest for a summer bod is eternal. Plus when I go, I look like this,

Anyway, it’s a good thing I did because Saturday night was a big one. Millie, one of my other housemates, has been deadset all week on going out. So, that’s what we did. After some sangria pre-drinks at our house, we headed out to Cork for a craft beer tap takeover. We were all going round-for-round and somewhere along the way, things escalated and we ended up at Water Bar, which is kind of a club. Unfortunately (or fortunately? Up for debate), Millie literally would not allow my glass to be empty and I feel like every time I turned around a new beer was in my hand. It was a super fun night, but needless to say, today has been painful. So painful, in fact, that Alice ordered these at 11am this morning…

I really, really love how lawless everyone becomes when hangovers strike. Dominoes for breakfast? Why the hell not. It 100% helped though and now I’m up and moving again, getting ready for the coming week. If someone can explain to me the science behind greasy food curing hangovers, I’m all ears.

This week is gearing up to be a fun one – I’ve started riding in Phoebe’s girls group on Thursday nights and I already love all the girls in that group! I met another Canadian chick who might come with Phoebe and I to the fun-duro, so I’m pretty stoked on that.

I’m also riding in a women’s clinic on Tuesday nights starting this week with the Mons girls! I think it’s more a skills clinic than a trail-riding session, but it’s pretty rare that I actually take the time to try to work meticulously on skills, so I think it’ll be super helpful to be in a coaching setting.

Alright, well that’s all for now, I have to go and do some adulting.

• JB

Okay, I’m just going to preface this whole post by saying that this entry is basically my food diary from the past weekend. I’m not ashamed, because it was all delicious and you will all be very jealous. However, please know that horrible, painful gym time is in my future. I regret nothing.

So I found out at about 4:36pm on Friday that this weekend is a long weekend in NZ and that I would have Monday off. At the time, I was actually kind of dreading it. The weekends have been the loneliest time here because I’ve gone from always having a plan with friends, to wondering what the hell I’m going to do to fill my time.

And that sounds sad and pathetic, but it actually hasn’t been so bad. I’ve been sleeping in until 11am, taking my time with breakfast and puttering around the house. I’ve also become kind of a regular at this little cafe called the Big Fig – I’ll go in for a couple of hours and spend time working on my laptop until the guilt from wifi thievery overcomes me, then I’ll move along.

But this weekend actually turned out to be awesome, thanks in part to my housemate, Alice. (Oh yeah, they say housemate here, not roommate. The distinction being that a roommate literally shares a room with you and a housemate shares the house). I digress.

Alice has been a complete godsend during this whole move. Much like Karin was to me in Whistler, Alice has introduced me to all her friends and invited me along on a lot of outings – so much so that I’m beginning to wonder if I’m a bother to her. But she never makes me feel unwanted or awkward or weird. I’m really going to have to find a good way to thank her.

On Thursday night, Alice had set me up with her friend Phoebe to go on a trail ride. First off, Phoebe is an amazing rider. Like, will probably compete professionally. But she was such a great riding buddy because she went at a solid pace and was so nice to show me around and explain where we were in relation to town. We also had some great chats and I didn’t realize how bad my legs were aching until the next morning when I got out of bed and was hobbling around like I was eighty years old. So I’m definitely hoping to get out with her again soon – it’s so beneficial to bike with people who are much better than me.

Moving along, I was stoked when I got home on Friday to find that I had an Amazon package. Seriously, Amazon is becoming my new favourite thing over here and although the shipping costs are murderous, the stuff I’ve been getting has all been great.

Anyway this particular package had new bedding in it! I’ve had my current bedding for about two years and after I stuffed it into a bike box (it’s white by the way, and it was alongside my greasy bike) it was definitely well past time to get some new stuff.

Mazy always used to joke that the guest room at Dad’s house was called the “Walmart Room” because everything in there was bought almost exclusively at Walmart. Well, after getting my new bedding, Alice and I did a trip on Saturday to Queenstown to go to K-Mart. It just opened there and on this side of the world, it’s akin to an Ikea coming to town (just to put it in perspective for you, Mom).

So, move over Walmart Room, because I now present to you… THE K-MART ROOM.

After visiting K-Mart, Alice and I went into Queenstown town centre and for a hot minute, I was worried. Because Queenstown is awesome.

It reminds me of a weird mix of Halifax and Whistler. It’s similar to Halifax in that it has a boardwalk along the lakeside (which is a tidal lake by the way – I’ve never heard of that). It also has the old stone buildings and cobblestone alleyways.

However, it’s very much like Whistler because it’s super tourist-y. There were so many people wandering the streets and crowding. I didn’t hear one person speak in a Kiwi accent. Similarly, it’s shockingly occasional to run into a Canadian in Whistler.

I really loved it there though, it felt like a real tiny city with lots of shops and brands that I recognized. And while I know that living there would’ve just been like living in another Whistler and probably would’ve inhibited me from truly experiencing the “real” New Zealand, I couldn’t help but wonder if I would’ve liked it better there.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Wanaka. But sometimes it does feel very small and quiet.

While I mulled over these thoughts, we stopped at taco shack down by the water and got what was probably the best fish taco I’ve ever had.

We then wandered the alleyways of Queenstown, popping into different stores and galleries before slowly making our way back to the car.

On the way home, I continued to think about my inner Queenstown vs. Wanaka battle. And I began to realize that I don’t need to pick one. I am deadset on buying a car and I realized that I need to not limit myself in NZ like I did in Whistler.

I’ll explain. When I lived in Whistler, I was deep in the “bubble”. I didn’t want to be anywhere else, because I figured I was already in the best place on earth. So I didn’t explore. I never visited Vancouver Island, I didn’t get to Haida Gwaii, I barely visited any of the interior resorts. And as a result, I sometimes feel that I robbed myself of a true West Coast experience. And while I know that I’ll be back on the West Coast, I have no intention of repeating that mistake here in NZ. Hence, the car. And while I can hear Dad’s voice in the back of my head droning on about how “a car is the worst investment you could ever make”. It’s not about the car per se this time around, it’s about the freedom.

Anyway, after we got back from Queenstown, some of Alice’s friends came round (came round = came over) and we had some wine on the back patio and watched the dogs play (a daschund and a french bulldog – you can imagine how I lost my shit).

The next day, Sunday, I was honestly relieved that I wouldn’t have to work on Monday. I had barely gotten any “adulting” done and I was hoping get to the lake – it’s now feeling like summer here; it’s 20 degrees everyday.

Luckily, Alice and her friend Rachel were headed down to the lake, so I tagged along. But first, ice cream.

We then hopped in the car and drove to Lake Hawea, which is about twenty minutes from Wanaka. It’s a much quieter lake with a lot of wakeboard boats moored along the beach. We sat on the sand and tanned, occasionally entertaining the idea of getting in the water, but ultimately being deterred by the frigid temperature.

I really wish my iPhone photos did this lake justice, because it was so beautiful. The water was this turquoise colour and the mountains in the background just made it look heavenly. I keep forgetting to take my camera on these outings and even when I do, it’s more of nuisance because it’s so big. I’m really eyeing a Sony A7 because it’s small and it’ll fit my lenses, but it’s on the wishlist along with my car. It’ll come.

When we decided that we had baked in the sun for long enough, we got back in the car and went to get fish and chips. Being that the Kiwis and Aussies are historic transplants of the English, they have a passion for their fish and chips. We stopped at this cool little roadside vendor and ordered the “Fish of the Day” special, which happened to be elephant fish on this day. I had no idea what that was, but it tasted pretty good. The meal was served in a paper bag – the “proper” way to eat fish and chips, I’m told. I thought it was awesome. We took our paper bags down to the riverside and ate at a picnic table while watching mountain bikers pedal across the ridgeline above us. Real life.

And that brings us to today. Holiday Monday. I slept in again today until 11am and then got up, cleaned and vacuumed my room and did some laundry. Then came down to Big Fig to start writing this post. I’m back at work again tomorrow for Week 3. Whew, time flies.

Alright, so that’s the rundown of my week. I’m thinking I’m going to try to do these little updates once a week on the weekends, because the work days just seem too busy to keep up. But that’s kind of a good thing, right?

• JB