A summer spent in New Zealand pt.2

By Maja Peach, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Hello! I have decided to centre this blog around the rest of my summer experiences during my Nov-March break in New Zealand. In my last blog I wrote about my first workaway and roadtrip around the South Island. This blog will pick up from Christmas Eve where I started my solo adventures and began another workaway on my own.

December 24 – January 14

On Christmas Eve, I headed off to start a workaway on my own. I was keen for some independent travelling during my long summer to have some new experiences and meet some new people. The place I found was a rather spiritual, yoga, mindfulness place on the west coast of Auckland near Karekare. I was given my own room in a small house with some other volunteers. We had our own kitchen and a big, beautiful garden to sunbathe and play games in. There were often around ten volunteers, most of us staying around 2-3 weeks which was such a lovely environment to be in. We worked 3 days a week – usually garden work or cleaning. The other 4 days we would spend exploring, swimming in the nearby waterfall, going to the beach and playing lots of games and music. Everyone became very close, all of us from different countries with different stories to share and it felt like we made a little family. I was also able to progress my yoga as another volunteer, and very good friend, was a yoga instructor from France and she would hold yoga sessions for us in the temple. It was a strange and magical time to spend Christmas with a group of strangers but there was something so wonderful about everyone coming together, sharing food and stories. It was an amazing three weeks of my summer and I feel I have made friends for life from it.

January 14 – 31

After my workaway, I decided to join two of my best friends from Auckland in Australia and travel up the East Coast. We started in Sydney and then headed up to the Sunshine Coast staying in Noosa, Rainbow Beach, K’gari, Hervey Bay, Maryborough and then back to Maroochydore to fly back to Auckland. We had an amazing time basking in the blazing heat and getting our tan on. Our experience on K’gari was particularly incredible and moving. We booked a 4×4 tour which is a common way to travel around K’gari (a small island just off the Sunshine Coast), but we really lucked out with our tour guide who was a lovely man who had grown up around the island with the First Nations peoples and very connected to the island. He shared beautiful stories in every place he showed us and emphasised how important it was to connect to the land. We swam in a beautiful fresh water creek, the champagne pools, learnt how to throw boomerangs, and star gazed every night. It was one of the highlights of my summer and I would highly recommend to go to K’gari if you find yourself around the Sunshine Coast – and book with Drop Bears K’gari Adventures!

January 31 – February 28

After we got back from Australia, my friend and I stayed with her family friends in Auckland as we couldn’t move into our accommodation yet. We had a lovely time staying with them and experiencing living in Auckland not as a student for a bit.

My parents also arrived in New Zealand in early February for some of their own travels. It was wonderful to reunite with them and show them around my new home city. They headed off on a South Island trip of their own and then I joined them in mid-Feb for a North Island road trip. We travelled through Napier, seeing the annual Art-Deco festival and the whole town transformed into the 1930s; stayed by the lake in Taupo, where we swam every day; hiked the Tongariro crossing, a really fun walk despite not making it all the way to due to dangerous weather conditions; and headed up to Rotorua where we saw the beautiful multicoloured waters and bubbling mud. Our final stop before Auckland was the Coromandel where we spent a few days relaxing by the beautiful beach and swimming in the sea. They spent their last few days back in Auckland so I took them to Piha beach to see the marvellous west coast sunset. It was such a lovely end to the summer to see them and for them to experience New Zealand.

Well that wraps up my summer in one hefty blog post – I appreciate it if you’ve made it this far! All in all I had a great summer travelling around New Zealand and embarking on so many different adventures. It feels as though you can travel this country endlessly as the stunning scenery is all over.

Thanks for reading, stay tuned for the next blog!