I've been out working most weekdays – yep, two weeks after arriving in the Bay of Plenty, and two months after leaving ECan, I'm working a fulltime paid job again – and with an hour each way commute! It's just until Christmas, dispatching orders and organising the warehouse at The Wooden Toy Box, owned by our friends Nina & Pete. The warehouse is in the Mount, about 50km away from Okere Falls, where we now live, also until Christmas.
Our home is Lake Rotoiti Holiday Park, where Justy, Luka & Connor work for 4-5 hours each day (so do I, on my days off from TWTB), helping out around the camp and working in the kitchen (Jan & Kev, the camp managers, have a contract to provide hot lunches & dinners for a drilling crew of 15 who are working nearby)... which means that we are all eating very well too!
So, JL&C work at camp for our board and keep, I head out & earn us some dosh. I have to leave at 6.30 to catch the Twin City Express, which drops me back here again about 12 hours later. The early start is fine – at least it's light when I get up at half-five – the ride to work is pleasant & gives me time to write or read (Nina lent me Bill Bryson's Short History – been on my list for ages, and the first book I've picked up since we started doing up the house, a month before we left Chch!)
The walk from the camp to the Okere Falls Store, where I catch the bus, is stunning – up a bush clad dead end road for half a k, then down a short track and across a bridge over the Rotoiti outlet / source of the Kaituna River. [Here's a Google Map of it, if it's turned out OK.] The walk at the other end isn't so great – the factory is in the industrial part of Mt Maunganui – but the driver in the morning drops me at the end of the road I work on, so that's cool.
It's good to be adding to our savings – we haven't depleted them too much in the month & a bit that we've been away, but we never know when we might need to use the money, despite our adventure's focus on volunteer / exchange work to see us through... I'll post some thoughts about the financial sustainability of what we're doing, and other such things, later on.
For now, here's a few photos from last week for you to enjoy while we head out to find some more lovely places & take more photos!
Love to you all.. Paul
Luka & Connor outside our cottage