Trials and Tribulations - why cant this be easy!

27th June 1am

We hopped on the bus at 7.25am and started our long bus journey. The only stops I remember the name of is Hamilton, only because it was a fairly built up commercial town. Rob went straight to sleep I wanted to take in some of the scenery however it was mainly city’s and residential areas for the initial part of the trip as we were getting out of the mainland and Auckland. Our breakfast stop was @ 9.25 in Hamilton, we walked around and Rob managed to buy a Vodaphone Sim, which was pretty cool. I ordered mine online at the airport thinking there wouldn’t be anywhere to buy one in Ohakune or on our way however there clearly was – how very silly of me. It would be nice to have one thing sorted. I didn’t have my luggage from the plane, I wasn’t sure if my bag arrived which I shipped so I was slightly on edge for sure. I remember the driving through the outback and observing the amount of greenery that existed that was around and the amount of farms and cows and sheep. This place was lush and green and full of natural beauty. I didn’t see many people at all. I have been feeling massively strange and apprehensive since I got here the fear of the unknown is getting to me for sure. We had a lunch in this very very strange town, I walked around it and thought to myself if Ohakune is going to be like this I am going to struggle. It was really scary, made me think why I go to these ridiculously random remote places when I travel when the safest bet is always the places where everyone goes. Apparantly the South Island is where it is at. Instead I am at the north. Can you tell my tension.
Having passed through that strange town we finally arrived in Ohakune, and it was heaving, I couldn’t believe how busy it was. We met up with another guy on the course, his name was Chris and he showed Rob to his accommodation and me to mine. I am living in the middle of the 2 main parts of Ohakune, toward the west is where are the nightlife bars and restaurants are and toward the east is where the day to day stuff is, supermarkets, snowboard shops, library, banks. My accommodation is pretty much hostel style. It is a tiny tiny room which I will be sharing with a friend of a friend called Tony and it has a bunk bed. I honestly don’t know with the amount of stuff we both have how its going to turn out so I might start fishing around on Monday for accommodation. Ill go to the estate agents, and look at the bulletin boards I need to open a bank account and hopefully some of my gear will arrive on Monday. Basically the clothes I shipped out have not arrived either so I am in the clothes I arrived in and pretty stressed out. I am really apprehensive because nothing is sorted yet and I need to get things done, arriving on a weekend isn’t conducive to doing that, especially on Mardi Gras weekend. Basically its a north island seasonal opening weekend this weekend so loads of people from the North Island are here, around 8000 on top of the usual population of Ohakune of 1500 people, I remember in the “strange” town we stopped in I was asked by a shopkeeper if we were here for the Mardi Gras weekend and I honestly thought he was taking the piss, but sure enough in Kune there was this going on.
I will be free to roam once the madness ends and the people are gone. There was a street party this evening however I was too tired to even think about going out. Some might say its one party I shouldn’t have missed but I just would not have enjoyed it with the way I am feeling.
When we arrived in Kune I walked to 101 Miro St only to find that Simon my landlord was not there, with no phone at all I walked back to town and used my phone card to call him. He kindly picked me up and showed me to my room. The accommodation is shared with a load of other back packers. There are a lot of youngsters here and its making me feel so uneasy just thinking, “I am too old for this back packing stuff, and I have gone beyond this point and appreciate and enjoy a different way of living”. I met a lot of the guys that live here, there is Fay from Newcastle who is travelling with her fella of 5 years Ian. I met Fay and she was helping to put me at ease, Chelsea from NZ who is 20 and has managed to convince me to teach her how to ride, Sarah from Scotland who appears to be here with her boyfriend. I met some other people but forgot their names. There are some guys from Chile here as well. Its cool meeting all these people but it makes me realise how different I am from everyone. They are all young carefree and travelling whereas I am still so geared. I am soo stressed out right now. I rememeber feeling the same the first stages of Canada so I am going to have to tough it out and hopefully things will come together. It was Chelsea’s 20th birthday yesterday! Jeez! It got me thinking about life on the breadline as a snowboard instructor and I am starting to question just by looking at the lifestyle whether its right for me at all. I feel way to old to be living in hostels teaching people to ride etc..etc..so its putting things into perspective already. Saying that I am jet lagged, unsettled, stressed about baggage and I havent even got on the mountain yet. So i suppose I should wait for that for sure, its just tough.
OHakune town, though houses less people it definitely is bigger than the town we had in Rossland and things are generally soo much more expensive. Snowboards are like super expensive and day 2 day drinks and groceries are uber expensive too. Its crazy how hard people have to work in bars and on the hill to live here, almost think to yourself is it really worth it. Thats what I am thinking about right now! Its scary I am thinking about leaving, but I did this exact same thing with Canada so I should be used to it and things should work out. It took about a good couple of weeks before life in Canada got good so I should just tough it out for a bit and see how it goes. I am repeating myself. I think its because it is on my mind a lot. I am really questioning this.
I met Rob Gordon my course conductor and he seems like a nice guy he drove me to the supermarket and I bought a load of food first shop of the season $100 NZD – hopefully that will be the cheapest things like salt, sugar, pepper, olive oil were all purchased.
I got back to the hostel after shopping and packed away my stuff it was about 6ish and I was soooo tired. I couldn’t be bothered to cook any food so just ate a pear for dinner, did a little socialising with the house mates and then just went to bed. I am up now and still sync’d in on UK time wide awake so I thought I would type up and update. Only unfortunate thing is that staying connected via internet is going to be very difficult. Oh well! Lets see how this all pans out. Still got the fear but I am handling it.

27th June 11am

As you can see got loads of time on my hands so just writing more and more on my blog until I get busy. Having met our course conductor Rob he said we would be having a staff induction this Tuesday so I would need to be up for that. Today is just a nothing day as things are shut and I cant sort anything out. Not ideal for someone who likes to get things sorted as much as I do. After finishing my blog last night I got up and a couple of housemates were up, there was Roo from Ireland and Chelsea from NZ, it was her birthday and she came in and joined in the chat, she was a little drunk from her fun night out - definately quite the character. I needed someone to just talked to last night so I spoke to Roo about how scared I was and he just said I cant let this feeling get the better of me. I was jet lagged blag blah blah. I got back to sleep at around 5am and got up at 10am. So I am geting there with the whole jet lag thing. Tonight should be easier as I will stay awake all day today where in the UK its night time. I am feeling a little less zombified today. Plan of attack today is to email the shipping company to see how long it will take for my clothes to get here, I got some good news about my plane baggage, that is arriving tomorrow afternoon! So I should have all my riding gear. But I am getting to the point of desperation about my clothes. I really need to get into something different. I can hold out a few more days but its raggo. I wanna explore the town and walk around, get to know the area and then I’ll look into the gym and join that for a couple of months. Not much else to update on other than I was pretty emo last night and I just need to tough it out for a bit. Once I get on the board I’ll know what this is all about.