Work and play

We've just finished our Saturday morning shift (9-11; we'll do another 2 hours from 4-6), and have been discussing where we'll go for an outing this afternoon. The walk up the Falls track is beautiful, with a great swimming spot, but it's quite windy today, not so good for a swim. I'm keen to check out Lake Tikitapu (Blue Lake), but maybe we'll save that for better swimming weather too.. and there's the Redwoods walk just out of Rotorua. Anyway before we decide, a quick post, cos it's been a while...

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

The three pics above are at the Waitangi Soda Springs, by Lake Rotoma.

Justy jumps in at our local swimming spot, the lake outlet / source of the Kaituna. (The bridge in the background is the one I walk across on my way to work.)