No rest for the wicked!

Hey, hello there. Its good to see me, isn’t it. No need to respond, that was rethorical! [*]  I haven’t updated my blog in a really long time (two weeks :O ) and I think it is high time to do that now. These two weeks have gone by so fast, I didn’t even really notice it. Those who do not know yet, I have relocated myself and now live in a whole different place I was living before.

Anyways.

At the moment, I am living in a place called National Park. If you are doing google search, my friends, then add maybe “village” in the end there, since search term “national park” will yield many many different national parks in the world, but there is only one National Park. It is a little township very near to Tongariro national park (which is the oldest National Parks in New Zealand and according to wiki, it was 4th national park ever created in the world). National Park is the highest township in New Zealand, in 825 meters above the sea level. Of course, this height dwarfs compared to the view of the mountains I can see from the window in here. Tongariro National Park is just a bit outside the village and it has few high active volcanoes in there like Mount Ruapehu, Mount Ngauruhoe (which was used as Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings) and Mount Tongariro plus lots of awesome vegetation and alpine vistas.

National Park village is mainly getting all of its earnings from tourism. In the summertime, one can do Tongariro Alpine Crossing in here (which is a day long walk around the Tongariro and Ngauruhoe mountains. During the winters, Tuora and Whakapapa skifields will open their doors to skiing addicts, so National Park houses many many of the toursists that come by here.

So what am I doing here? Fancy you asked…

For now I am kind of like a housekeeper, hostel maid in Howard’s Mountain Lodge. It is a small lodge with lots of clients around the world. What am I doing here? I am basically cleaning, washing and doing everything that is needed to be done around the Lodge. It’s quite a physical job, but I like it thus far. The coworkers I have here are pretty awesome too. I am living in the premises and it is equally as challenging as it is awesome.  Soon my first week will be over and we will see what happens then, but hopefully I can stay here for longer.

It took me quite a while to arrive here. Since I do not have a car yet, I came here by bus. Not recommended if one has motion sickness. Those mountain roads are a death trap for that kind of thing. But as far on being here? I love it. I had a moment today when I was doing up a house on the other side of the road and it really brightens your day when you walk on a street where in one end you can see “mount doom” in the far background and just over the houses you can see Mount Ruapehu. It’s a magnificent sight and one that I love really much at the  moment.

I don’t know if I posted much on facebook but, I was quite busy even before moving here. I went and spent a weekend in my friend’s place in seaside city called Tauranga. I had lovely time with my friend Louise who picked me up from Hamilton and drove me through Te Awamutu and Kaimai range to Omanawa falls  (which was very awesome by the way). I didn’t go into the “secret falls” since we couldn’t damn find the hidden passage to there. And to hear about it now, it would have been quite dangerous as well. Oh well, maybe some other time.  Tauranga, by the way, is very beautiful city. I loved the oceanside and the Mount Maungani. Unfortunately we didn’t go up the mountain, but the sight of it was very pretty. In Tauranga we basically just enjoyed the food, the city and the many fandoms we were following. It’s always good to spend time with a fellow fangirl! 🙂

Before my Tauranga escapade, Danielle had a ticket to Australia vs. New Zealand cricket game and I decided to take part of it. Main reason was mostly because Danielle,  I know, is a fan of the game and she really enjoyed it. And it’s a game which is an intergal part of New Zealand culture, I wanted to take part of it. The game was long and at first I didn’t really understand anything but after 8 hours of watching I picked up some pointers. I may know now a thing or two about the game!

Other than that, I haven’t had too many adventures. And the reason for this is simple: I don’t have a car yet. I almost bought one, but I didn’t. I do have money at the moment, but as soon as I am buying a car, the money will go POOF! So yeah. No adventures until I have worked here for some time to get some balance to my bank card and then we will see how it goes with the adventuring.

I do have plans for some short trips but I will do them some time in the future. So, I hope I can keep you posted if anything changes, my location or my mental state.

It was nice to sit down again and do a blog. I hope I will do another one soon.