A plan for my last four months...

I’m currently in Wanaka, my favourite town in the country, and I just found out yesterday that I got a job at one of the ski hills here, which I’m really excited about.  Apparently they had over 1200 applicants for only 100 positions, so I’m feeling pretty proud to have gotten it.  From the end of June ‘til the end of August, I’ll be selling tickets and working the gates – nothing too revolutionary, but it should be fun cause I’ll be working with people from all over the world, and I get a free season’s pass and heaps of discounts around town.  Yay!

After that, I’ll only have about a week or two left on my working holiday visa (where have eight months gone???), which kind of sucks.  I’m torn, cause the uncertainty of what I was doing was both exhilarating and terrifying.  To have the rest of my official time here mapped out is kind of comforting, yet sad.

As for beyond September, I have some decisions to make.  I can get a tourist visa which will allow me stay here another three months, but I won’t be able to work, so any money I have left, will be drained away, especially since the Rugby World Cup is taking place in NZ during September and October, and as a result, hostels will likely balloon from about $25 a night to nearly $60 a night (yikes!). 

Or, I could head home for a few months where I could maybe work and make some money in preparation for school here in January.  But that means two winters in a row…not a fun prospect.

And then there’s the question of what to do with the car.  Gandalf has been good to me, but as I’ve mentioned before, he needs a new timing belt which will likely cost me $800-$1000, and really, I don’t really need a car anymore if I’m staying in one place for the foreseeable future.  My options are to either sell Gandalf cheap now, or fix him up  and sell him at a better price later (people reckon that before the World Cup lots of tourists will be in the market for cheap cars).

So many things to think about.

For now though, I have two weeks to kill before training starts for work, and I’d rather not spend them here.  So, I think I’ll head back up north to visit some of the old Blenheim crew – some of them are up in Tauranga on the North Island and others are still in Blenheim.  I’m going to leave Gandalf parked here in Wanaka and make my way by share rides and buses (cheaper and less stressful than driving a car in need of a new timing belt), and maybe even fly back (how extravagant of me!).