Not in a bad way, just in a back-at-work, finding a place to live, last week of semester at school kinda way and I haven’t been posting as frequently as I’d like to have been.
The road trip was a wonderful adventure, beginning in Christchurch (the South Island of New Zealand) winding up through the Marlborough wine region, sleeping in a renovated wine barrel cabin, then onwards to sunny Picton where we admired the gorgeous Marlborough sounds and crossed to the North Island by the way of the InterIslander ferry.
Rural New Zealand is beautiful, and possibly exactly how you’d expect. We explored rolling Hobbiton-esque hillside, took a boat ride through the magnificent Waitomo glow worm caves, drove past ‘Mount Doom’, admired the otherworldly bubbling mudpools and steaming geysers of Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland, and stayed in a luxurious treehouse chalet in the Coromandel coast.
As we settle into a new apartment here in Auckland, and as my semester comes to a close for the year, I will soon have a lot more time to dedicate to personal projects, writing, and blogging.
October Gratitude
This month has seen the #100daysofgratitude project well underway, and at the time of writing this I am up to day 36. Each day I stop to reflect upon one (or sometimes many) things that I am grateful for.
This listing is not comprehensive, but rather some of my favourite gratitude moments from October.
✨ Thankful for blue skies, daffodil blossoms and the fragrance of budding daphne, the anticipation of fresh spring green salads to come, the promise of warmer weather, farmers markets, an abundance of locally produced breads, meats and produce;
✨ Harbour views and the sound of seagulls in the morning
✨ Finally getting my head around algorithm design, and remembering that there’s still so many fascinating and wondrous things in the world to explore with our minds
✨ So grateful to be here, in my homeland of New Zealand. It’s been an accidental year here for sure – and the quick visit home has been anything but fleeting! Throughout this year it’s been impossible to forget how lucky we are here in our safe, beautiful little paradise with all the locals owns, minimal virus, and excellent leadership.
✨ I’m so inspired every day by our prime minister #jacindaardern and the choices she has made for our country. And thankful to see her reelected for another term. I hadn’t expected to call New Zealand my homemade for any of 2020, but if it had to be somewhere, I feel immensely grateful & lucky it’s here.
✨ I’m so thankful right now for the opportunity to be a student – I didn’t appreciate education this much when I was younger, but I do now. Even though it feels like a constant game of catch up to try and complete a Science degree while also working full time (can you believe I’m also working on a book, maintaining my blog and travelling too? I don’t know when I even find time to sleep!)
October Reading List
This month amidst the moving, driving, and study I made my way through four books. All fiction, a couple of light romance, and two from authors who’s other books I have loved (Maarten J Troost and Fredrik Bakman) yet in both cases, this time around, I wasn’t quite so enamoured with.
- Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu by Maarten J Troost.
- Anxious People by Fredrik Bakman
- 99 Percent Mine by Sally Thorne
- The Hating Game by Sally Thorne
Latest Updates to the Blog
My frequent publishing plan has gone out the window for October, and prior to this update my most recent post was made on the last day of September (A to Z of Visiting Aoteroa)
So it’s been a slow month! Hoping to pick up the pace over the coming months.
Featured in:
- I was Featured as an expert on Lonely Planet’s Best Boots for Winter Travel
Collaborated on:
- Provided my take on the beautiful beach town of Puerto Escondido in Tofo Traveller’s 21 Best Places to go in Mexico