I arrived home on Christmas Eve and went straight into festive celebrations with Mum and the animals; Bard made the mistake of playing with the pompom on the little Christmas Elf outfit designed for small four-legged friends and soon found himself stuffed into it. After Christmas I had a Post-Christmas Christmas Party with friends, and then joined everyone again at another friend's house to see in the New Year. I then realised I had but a week to finish one half of the online TEFL course I had only half-completed prior to setting out on my walk and spent the first week of 2016 finishing off modules and spending three days tearing my hair out as I struggled with the final assignment. My first attempt was not accepted and I don't take failure well (one of my biggest faults!). Que thundercloud, broomstick and minions again, but I worked through it and finally managed to pass the course.
In mid-January I was invited to visit with Australian friends, a family over for the festive season who were staying at their batch near Lake Wanaka. I drove over for a few days, revelling in being able to drive once again, and through some of my favourite parts of the country. I'd visited last New Year and been disappointed not to catch a fish from the lake. Happily this year I caught two! I also shamelessly drilled Kiri (an ex-english-as-a-foreign-language teacher) for advice about how to go about doing this myself, should my interview for such a position (which I learned I had got while I was with them) prove successful. It was also great to catch up on news of some of my ex-colleagues from Australia; I have (mostly) such good memories of working with them all!
Back home I began helping my friend prep for her wedding, and also prepped for my interview, which was conducted via a whirlwind trip back up to Wellington. I was stoked to be able to have a better catch up with friends there, whilst also taking in the current exhibitions at Te Papa.
Back home once again, I had a follow-up appointment with the doctor which for one startling minute seemed it might have put a crimp in my plans to resume my walk in mid-February. Happily, walking would be allowed, but I would have to wear compression stockings for a while. Going to be hot!
Meanwhile wedding preparations had gathered momentum. I was thoroughly excited and honoured to be one of the bridesmaids, but was a bit anxious about how and when to help the bride. You'll have gathered that I'm not good at either a) keeping my opinions from my face or b) asking too much of people, but I tried my best not to be a bridesmaid-zilla, and to the bride's credit she only had one (and a half) bridezilla moments. It was only after the wedding I realised I'd been on some kind of alert the entire time should anything go wrong and we of the wedding party were called into immediate action. Happily everything went off without a hitch (except for the appropriate one) and a wonderful and unique ceremony was followed by an equally awesome reception, separated by three freezing hours of getting wedding photos taken. We soon warmed up again however, particularly once it came to the newlywed's first dance:
And so January and the first week of February passed in a bit of a blur, but all too soon I had only a couple of days left to get my self sorted and ready to jump back on the plane to make the journey back to Whanganui. Bidding farewell to everyone once again I flew to Wellington, bused to Whanganui and put myself up for rejoining-trail-eve at 42b College House Backpackers, where you can get a room to yourself for the remarkably low price of $35. The staff were super-friendly and eager to give me information about what to see and do in the area, but I'll admit to being focused on getting back on the TA. I dashed out to grab dinner from the nearest take-away and then returned to my room to rearranged my pack contents from flight configuration (everything stuffed inside it) to walking configuration (tent poles and walking poles on the outside, making enough room for a full hydration bladder inside). Any worries I might have had about whether I'd be too excited to sleep were quashed as I crashed-mid pack and fell into bed. The final packing up of gear would have to wait until morning!
So...back on Te Araroa! Que music..."Tell everyone I'm on my way! New friends and new places to see!..."
PS. Over the break I got an email from Taylor. Yup, his phone was toasted. Between that and the canoe excess the whole trip proved way more expensive than he ever anticipated (true of us both!). This understandably put an even greater damper on what he already saw as a disastrous adventure and I was sorry to hear that the TA was not redeemed in his eyes after he pushed on through to Wellington. He's now decided to abandon the walk and see the rest of New Zealand by car. I hope he gets to see the South Island and finds some part of it he enjoys!
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