wellington

i spent the last few months of my working holiday in wellington, the capital located on the southern part of the north island. it is known for giving birth to a lot of nz creativity, its small village like personality, the sometimes never ending wind and blanket man. i met up with kay and kate whom i met in auckland a few months earlier. i worked with kay as a housekeeper at base and i met kate at a gay bar and recognized her from base where she was always hanging out with friends and getting smashed in the bar downstairs haha. anyway, i arrived somewhere in july i think and in nz it's winter then. i stayed at base the first few nights which was the worst hostel so far and ended up staying with kay and kate in their small and smelly one room-ish apartment on vivian st, which was right in the centre and will from now on be named 'the squat'. i slept on the couch (which was a matrass) and renamed 'couch potato' haha. they were both working in one of wellingtons gentleman’s clubs, kay as a waitress and kate as the door girl, where i spent many evenings and met many interesting people, mostly strippers ;)
i spent the first few weeks looking for work, because i was pretty broke (as in about NZD3.60 in my pocket). i ended up swallowing my pride and asking my dad if he could lend me some money, because i was freaking out and somehow unable to get a job, anywhere! i wasn't the only one though, i met a lot of backpackers who actually weren't as lucky as me to have a supporting dad and had to cut their trip short to go back home. so i kept looking for work everywhere and exploring the city, meeting people, partying and hanging out in the squat. i found a room also in the centre where i stayed for six weeks. i shared the house with 6 others and after that ended up back in the squat. i still hadn't found a job and was starting to get so pissed off!! also me and linda broke up around that time and i went of my meds for a little bit and was just completely drained. i was really lucky to have kay and kate around and i finally found work at the YHA, which is a big chain of hostels located all around the world. i became a housekeeper and worked with kate's ex and her friend and some really cool people and had a fantastic time there. at the YHA unlike at most hostels you don't work for free accommodation, but you actually get paid and if you stay in the hostel you get a discount. i managed to get a single room to myself which was so so tiny, but at least it was all mine and all my crap fitted in it perfectly. the work was alright, the same as any other housekeeping job.
i didn't party as much as before, since i wanted to not be broke again so i mostly just hung out with friends in my spare time. kate and kay left with casey, an awesome canadian girl we met at the club, a few weeks before i was headed to singapore and on their goodbye party i hooked up with monique who is now my sort of girl :). we spent a lot of time together my last month or so and she drove me to auckland from wellington. it was really cool and the best road trip ever. she's amazing and i hope she'll come travel with me in oz.
so i'm back in singapore and heading to sydney in a few days to start my australian working holiday. i've left nz about two months ago (yes i'm really behind on blogging i know) and have been to malaysia for a long weekend and the philippines for a few weeks in the meantime. i'm such a lucky bastard! anyway, picture time:

some city shots:

the last one is the house i lived in on webb st, i know the weather looks amazing but this was only in the last month or so when winter finished

fun at the squat:

there are really good stories behind all of these photos ;) better told in person though haha

fun with the folks at YHA:

roadtrips with monz in her adorable blue convertible:

this was at castlepoint. it's only a few hours from wellington and we stopped over in masterton to chill out for a night :)

so that was our first roadtrip. the second one was from wellington to auckland with stops in taupo, rotorua and raglan where we met up with casey. mon was actually just driving me to the airport, because it was the end of my trip already, but since it's a 9 hour drive we just turned it into a roadtrip so i could actually see some of new zealand.

we stopped for a leg stretch at this gorgeous bay called pukerua bay. after a while we ended up in this town called foxton where i saw a sign saying 'de molen' which is duth for 'the windmill' so i thought, we have to go there! and there in the middle of new zealand: a traditional dutch windmill. it's the only windmill of its kind in new zealand and the world's most southern working wind flourmill. i have no idea why it's there though, but i was i little bit proud :) we left wellington kinda late (we were both pretty hungover haha)and when we drove to our first stop, lake taupo, it was getting dark already. on the way there you can see the gorgeous mount ruapehu in the distance, a popular ski destination. it's one of the world's most active volcanoes and the largest active volcano in new zealand. lake taupo is a giant lake created by a supervolcano approximately 26000 years ago. it is drained by the waikato river and the largest freshwater lake by surface area in oceania. in this pic right you can see mount ruapehu in the background. after taupo we drove to rotorua and stopped at the waikato river which is with a length of 425 km the longest river in new zealand. it start at mount ruapehu, empties in lake taupo, drains it creating huka falls and eventually emties in the tasman sea. the waikato river system is the most highly developed for electricity generation in new zealand. it supplies eight hydro-electric stations and provides cooling water for two geothermal and one thermal station. the eleven stations on waikato produce 65% of the north island's power and approximately 25% of new zealand's hydro power. this is 15% of new zealand's total power!

some on the road shots on our way to rotorua:

isn't new zealand just gorgeous, i spent most of the drive going oooh, aaah, look over there, look over there, is that a mountain? what about that one? no? that one over there? look sheep!! anyway, you get the point...

rotorua stinks. real bad. i do mean literally. the geothermal activity releases sulphur compounds in the air which makes the town smell like rotten eggs. but the reason why it's so popular are the thermal pools, mud bubbles and geysers. but we only had one day so we just spent it soaking in a thermal spa :) our last stop was raglan, a small beachside town, located 48 km west of hamilton. famous for it's surf locations and apparently jack johnson and ben harper both own a house there. but we had a small stop on our way to the airport for some fish&chips and a beer with our mate casey. we also drove to ngarunui beach, a black sand beach just a few minutes from town. of course because of my bad map interpretations we ended up going the wrong way but the view of raglan up there next to some farm was amazing (to the right here). we finally made it to the black sand beach and once the sun started shining it looked so beautiful:

and a few hours later i was saying goodbye to mon and on my way back to singapore. i can't believe how fast this year has gone by and how much it has changed me. i still have moments where i look back at my life and just feel incredibly happy that it has turned out the way it has and so grateful for all the support i've had :) i'm also very lucky to have met the people i have along the way, they have truly shaped my trip and i'll never forget that.