Kick in the Pants

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” – Jack Kerouac

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about New Zealand in the past 3+ months, it’s that there are many places that just have this incredible, inexpiable ability to suck you in and make you never want to leave. Marahau is one of those places.

Originally when I came through Marahau, I was only supposed to spend two days of my trip there with the Stray bus. Those two days were all I needed to be hooked – by the next stop, I was already wishing that I had hopped off and stayed longer. For the following two weeks of trying to figure out where I wanted to settle down and work for a bit, my mind kept drifting back to the laid-back, middle-of-nowhere, relaxing beach community.  When I finally decided to try to make it work and ended up getting both a woofing job and paid job there that allowed to me realistically come back, I literally started tearing up from happiness in the lobby of my hostel in Queenstown (Lisa can vouch for this).

I can’t explain what it was. It’s not a place that I ever would have expected that I’d be happy staying in for as long as I did. As I’m sitting here typing this, I’m two days shy of six weeks in what I’m lovingly referring to as ‘New Zealand’s paradise.’ If you had told me a year ago – heck, even two months ago – that I’d be perfectly content in a place where the nearest, well, ANYTHING is over a half an hour drive away, I’d have told you that you were crazy. I’ve always considered myself to be more of a ‘city’ girl. I like being around people and being able to grab a coffee when I want and having things to do and to be able to go get groceries whenever I feel like it, not just when I can find a rare ride in to town. But something about Marahau sucked me in. It got me.

The hostel where I spent the past 6 weeks woofing has been absolutely great. It’s an open-concept hostel/campground, with dorm rooms and cabins and campsites, two kitchen blocks, a movie room, a trampoline, and tons of open space. Every morning, I’d take my breakfast out to one of the picnic tables overlooking the ocean and the mountains while sitting in the sun drinking my coffee. How does it get any better than that? In my total 6 weeks there, I believe it rained 4 times. Mostly at night – I think it only truly rained during the day once during my first week. The work itself was alright – I mean, scrubbing toilets and cleaning kitchens that backpackers use isn’t a super desirable job to have – but the team that I worked with absolutely made it. My fellow woofers turned into my mini-family, and many tearful goodbyes were had as people came and left.

I also happened upon a paid job – pretty good judging that there’s only maybe half a dozen places in Marahau where there’s any work at all, never mind someone that is hiring – that I absolutely loved. Again, if you would have told me a year ago that I’d love working at what was essentially a pimped-out gourmet burger food truck, I’d have probably thought you were insane, but my co-workers were absolutely great and the customers we served made it incredible. We had quite a lot of tourists come through, which was really neat as we got to meet and hear stories from people from all over the world and from many different backgrounds and walks of life.

Now, I know what you’re thinking – if it’s all so wonderful, why leave? I know, I’ve been asking myself that a lot over the past week too. It was always in my plan to leave within a week or two after my paid job ended (the pimped-out burger food truck closes for the winter season). Now that the time is here though, I’ve been feeling really sad and hesitant to leave. I’ve settled down into my own little routine, I have a good little group of friends, and it’s the closest to a ‘home’ that I’ve had since leaving my own nearly four months ago. I kept on saying to my fellow woofers that I needed a kick in the pants to get me going, to get me to move on and explore more of the beauty that New Zealand has to offer. That kick in the pants arrived on Tuesday in a little beige rental car, and it’s names were James and Matt.

James and Matt are two brothers who I met when I first started my trip with Stray a couple of months ago. They hopped off our bus partway through the North Island, but our paths have crossed a couple times since then. Firstly, in Kaikoura for our friend Rosie’s birthday, and in Marahau last week. They were on their way back up North, and decided to stop off for a night to catch up. I ended being able to line up a day off for when they visited which allowed me to join them on a day-long road trip adventure around the northwest coast of the South Island. I realized as the car was driving over the Marahau hill that it was my first time more than 30 minutes away from Marahau since I had arrived there 6 weeks ago, which is a little more than insane!

Our day was absolutely great. We drove over some insane winding roads, traveled through the little town of Takaka, stopped at Te Waikoropupu springs which has some of the clearest water ever measured (it was absolutely incredible how far down you could see!), drove out on a rather sketchy gravel road for what seemed like forever just so the boys could put a foot on the Heaphy track, and thanks to my ‘convincing’ (re:guilt tripping) made it all the way out to Wharariki Beach which was absolutely breathtaking. It was seriously one of my favourite places that I’ve seen so far in New Zealand. There’s a twenty minute walk from the car park (where there were peacocks that would come right up to you!) to the beach that literally looked like you were walking down a path in the Shire. That led you to the sand dunes which led on to the beach, where there’s massive rock formations coming straight up out of the sand and the sea. Oh, and there’s baby seal pups that play literally 10 feet in front of you. It’s basically magical.

On top of being a wonderful, adventurous day that finally got me away from my Barn Bubble, I realized as I was running back along the beach jumping down the sand dunes that I had officially experienced the kick in the pants that I needed. As great as my time in Marahau had been and as much as I loved it and was comfortable there, there is SO much more to see even just a day’s drive away, never mind throughout the rest of this beautiful country!

So, four days after my “kick in the pants” day, here I sit – my final night in Marahau.

Tonight after dinner, myself and the fellow woofers went out to catch the tail end of a meteor shower that’s been passing through over the past few days, and just staring up at the incredible starry sky (one of the advantages to living away from any form of civilization is that the stars are amazing. You could honestly see the milky way every single night. It was just breathtaking) with these people who’ve been my little family over the past six weeks was the perfect way to end my time here.

Peacock friend in the car park!

Our short stroll through the Shire!

Heading over the sand dunes at to the beach!

One of my last night’s in my ‘backyard’ in Marahau