Kaikoura and future plans

I have been woofing at The Albatross Hostel in Kaikoura for about 10 days now. The hostel is a small place run by Ben and Katie, who moved here from Australia about 6 years ago. For a bed in a dorm I work between 2-3 hours a day, normally cleaning the rooms and kitchen but I have also done some bike maintenance, sanding walls and chopping wood. The hostel is really cool, there is free fair trade organic tea, coffee and hot chocolate in the kitchen, along with a baking box full of ingredients to do some baking (which is encouraged). There are a range of musical instruments (3 guitars, 2 ukelele, a piano, a sitar and a range of bongos) and an art corner with a range of materials and no TV! The walls of the lounge are covered with paintings done by guests, some of them are really good. At the beginning there was just Me and a German (again) girl woofing, but now there is also another English guy and a guy from Belfast.


So far I have met lots of English people as well as lots of Germans, some French, chinese, 2 Japanese, a Taiwanese and a Spanish girl . I even managed to hold a basic conversation in Japanese with the Japanese girls. One of the English guys that stayed here was from Nottingham and It turns out I had talked to his Dad on a few occasions at work. It is quite interesting meeting people from all over the world and they all have different reasons for being here. While I have been here I have done the peninsular walk again (see previous Kaikoura entry) as well as going to watch the baby seals 3 times, a lot of travellers don't have cars so I offer to drive to the baby seals for some petrol money, as it is quite hard to get to otherwise. There have been people staying here who can play the guitar and sing, so quite often there are impromptu jams in the lounge and today there is a girl from Leeds who is an amazing pianist and played some nice Beethoven. We also have a weekly meal that Ben and Katie cook for everybody staying in the hostel, which is fun and yesterday Ruairi (the Irish guy) and me made pumpkin soup and bread for everybody.

On a clear night the sky in NZ is amazing, it is a lot better then the northern hemisphere. I think it is because NZ is closer to the stars than the UK. On the next clear night I plan to walk over to the peninsular to do some stargazing.

Being here and meeting different people and listening to their travel stories had made me think about what I was doing here in New Zealand and my time here so far has been (mostly) amazing, I have seen lots of things, met lots of people and had lots of new experiences and my original plan was to spend the whole year in NZ, but i feel like i need to have more of an experiance and put myself further out of my comfort zone so I have decided to spend 5 weeks travelling in Southeast Asia and have booked a return flight from Christchurch to Kuala Lumpur on 14th August with a 2 day stopover in Sydney. I already have 2 nights booked in Kuala Lumpur followed by a train to Singapore and after spending 2 nights in Singapore I will then travel up through Malaysia into Thailand and then maybe into Cambodia and Vietnam if time (and money) permit then a train from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur to fly back on the 20th September. So I will be staying here in Kaikoura for the next few weeks until I fly out to KL.