Day 42 (Monday Oct 1) – The first day of October saw me pack up all my belongings into Tuatoru and leave Mosgiel, NZ, heading northwest to Queenstown, NZ. One of the best surprises with Tuatoru is that my portable Bluetooth speaker fit perfectly below the radio. There were no aux-in ports on the radio, but this way I could still listen to my playlists and podcasts while I drove. I would also find out that the empty box above the heating/fan control was a perfect place to put my smartphone and charging cable.
On my way out of town, I stopped by The Topiary Cafe. I can’t believe I didn’t discover this place sooner, as it had beautiful grounds and views (it is part of a larger nursery and garden center) as well as a mini-golf course. I enjoyed a latte and cheese scone while journaling, recording my last impressions of GigCity, and preparing for Queenstown and the launch of my podcast!
Getting back in the car, I took a few selfies as I was in a very good mood. I can totally see this trinity of photos being turned into some kind of meme joke. Any readers want to take that challenge on?
The drive up to Queenstown took 4 hours, as I took a slightly more scenic route that would bring me up from the south of Lake Wakatipu . I had fun listening to music as well as a podcast recommendation from Chris Lockman (a former college friend). I’ll be listening to several more episodes of that podcast before I give it an official recommendation page, but stay tuned! On the way to Queenstown, I discovered the Hunny Shop and got to taste some local honey.
After about 3 hours, I hit the southern edge of Lake Wakatipu. Shaped like a lightning bolt, it is the third largest lake in New Zealand. Queenstown is nestled on its shores about halfway up the bolt shape.
As I stopped to take a picture at “Devil’s Staircase”, I actually got a Facetime call (which doesn’t happen very often). It was my friend Meagan Powers. She had said she would call me on this weekend, and since it was still Sunday in the States when she called, she was true to her word! It was wonderful to catch up with her and fill her in on my adventures as well as my intent to make My Story into a podcast.
Arriving in Queenstown around 3:30 pm, my first mission was to find my Homebase for the month. I had booked a bed in a house that normally hosts people on work/travel visas. Mostly international travelers, they spend 3-6 months working before doing traveling around New Zealand. As the month of October is the transition period between the winter and summer seasons, there were several beds open, which is why they allowed me to book a bed for the month. My bed actually turned out to be right next to some Styrofoam that was screwed into the wall. It was also in a room with 2 other beds, although one was currently empty. The bathroom and kitchen areas were decent, and I would be sharing with 6 other people in the house currently. The property manager also told me to never leave the back door open, as the goats would get inside and starting eating things! Queenstown was going to be an unusual place to live…
Once I got settled in, I went to explore downtown Queenstown, which is on 5 blocks long and 6 six blocks wide. It is full of adventure companies offering all kinds of experiences – flights, swings, bungy jumps, dirt bike rentals, gondola rides, jet boats, rafting, cruises, and scenic tours just to name a few. They also have all types of shopping, restaurants, and bars. I snapped a couple of pictures on the lake edge as night started to fall.
Sleeping in my new room that night, I would discover the squeak of the Styrofoam as I tossed and turned from my roommate snoring. I realized that this wouldn’t be a place I could stay, at least not in that bed…
Day 43 (Tuesday Oct 2)
After a very fitful night sleeping and then being woken up by the birds, I left my room around 6:30am, intending to walk to Starbucks and try to find a different place to stay. I also contacted the property manager, Chloe, later in the morning to see if she had another other beds/rooms available, preferably a single so I wouldn’t have to deal with snoring roommates.
Being outside and walking around Queenstown lifted my spirits, though, as every way I turned, I was presented with a new mountain vista. It was simply stunning! Here’s a video that I recorded that morning.
For the month of October I had 3 main goals, as I do for every city I spend a month in.
- Find a church to attend each week, preferably the same one to establish a sense of Christian community
- Find a scuba dive opportunity (if possible)
- Learn a new skill or have a new experience
For Queenstown, the new experience opportunities (mentioned above) were numerous, so I would decide on that in the coming days.
After spending some time at Starbucks, I figured out I would need to drive to Frankton (15 minutes away) to find a headset to record my podcast. On the way back to my car, I saw the gondola track and snapped a trinity that I saw in the firehouse windows at the bottom of the gondola hill.
While in Frankton, Chloe contacted me back and said she had a private single room in Frankton that I could view later that afternoon. Yay!
I also talked with one of the tech guys at The Warehouse and he recommended a specific headset that he had used when he recorded his own podcast a couple of years earlier. It was the Microsoft LifeChat LX 3000 headset, and it cost $60.00 NZD. I picked one up and then headed back to Homebase to try it out.
I spent a few hours testing it as well as googling tutorials on how to create a podcast using GarageBand. I also met our goat neighbors when I went outside to stretch my legs.
Chloe contacted me again and told me about a different single room available in Queenstown. She said that I would need to rent that room instead – the property owner in Frankton wanted a longer-term renter. Staying in Queenstown would be better for me, as being in Frankton meant I would need to ride my bike into Queenstown every day. So, I said I would take a look at it and we agreed to meet at 4:45pm.
The new single room was basically a walk-in closet with a twin bed and a curtain for a door, but it still was better than my current situation (not pictured below as Daniel was still living in it until Saturday). It would cost an additional $30 / week ($210 vs $180 p/w), but I felt that was worth it to have my own space. I also liked the new house better (a few additional people but 2 showers and toilets) and so I moved into the main bedroom in front of the single room walk-in closet and occupied one of the bunk beds for the next 5 days.
Next I went to the grocery store, which was only a couple blocks away, and got some food for snacks and meals. Each person in the house was allotted one shelf in the pantry and one shelf in the fridge. 1 set of dishes and sheets/blankets was also provided (included in the cost of the weekly rent). Here’s what I got, about $50 NZD worth of food.
That night, I met Jay from Grindr as well as several of his roommates, Adam, Kurt, and Abbie. The craziest thing is that I found a book at their place for Logan’s Run. Years earlier, it was a movie recommendation by my sister-in-law Kendra when I was with Tracy. Tracy and I tried to watch it but couldn’t get past the first 15 minutes due to how cheesy it seemed.
I actually read the entire book in the next 24 hours. While I can’t really recommend it, I was amazed to find that it mentioned my hometown of Billings, MT. And what I appreciated most about the book was actually the preface that was entitled, “TO ALL THE WILD FRIENDS WE GREW UP WITH”. In its lists, I had lots of childhood memories of stories that I had read and heard, and of course I noticed several trinities.
That night, I wrote up my final week in GigCity and posted it.
Days 44 & 45 (Wednesday Oct 3 & Thursday Oct 4) –
The next two days I actually didn’t do much in the way of exploring Queenstown. I was getting used to my house, as well as doing lots of journaling, reading, preparing for my podcast, and trying to establish daily routines of self-care (eating out less, getting enough water, exercise, stretching, etc). Here are some realizations I had over these two days.
In the bathroom of my house, I discovered that some people didn’t know how to use toilets…
In the living room of my house, I noticed a painting. It was another rainbow of sorts!
Also, one of the more interesting experiences of living in Queenstown is that you can look-up into the sky and see other sites besides amazing mountains.
I photographed/took a video of the village green…
I found a trinity at one of the pubs
I got to see a wall signed by all the occupants of Jay’s house over the past several months/years. A word of warning, there is profanity and sexual imagery on this wall. But, as an image and as a window into the thoughts and minds of itinerant travelers (mostly in their 20s), it is fascinating.
I also finished the playlist cover for S&B 3 (part of the Shake-ups and Breakups series of playlists).
Thursday afternoon, Jay tried to teach me to crochet. I say tried, because I just couldn’t get the hang of it. But I had wanted to learn how to knit all summer while living with my brother and sister-in-law ([edit] Kendra knows how to knit, while Johnathan used to know how to crochet), so I decided that my new experience for October would be to learn how to knit. Jay knows of a crocheting/knitting circle that meets in Arrowtown (the next town over after Frankton). They meet Tuesday nights, so we decided we would go to one of those together sometime this month.
Learning to knit fits with embracing my feminine side this month, as reflected in the ReInvented playlist songs and image (see the image in the My Playlists section). It will also give me another thing to do with my hands so I don’t chew my fingernails. I can use it while I listen to podcasts from my recommendation list!
I ended these two days of getting organized and enjoying life by treating myself to some ice cream on my way back to Homebase Thursday night.
Day 46 (Friday Oct 5) – Another big day of adventure! I was going to hike the Gondola hill (Bob’s Peak). The Gondola is actually the steepest cable-car lift in the Southern Hemisphere and ascends 450 meters. But, I wasn’t going to pay for the gondola…I was going to get some exercise and hike to the top. I recorded a video and then explored the cemetery at the base of the hill. You can see another para-glider high up in the sky in the first cemetery picture.
On the hike up to the top, I saw a zip-line platform and realized another thing you could do was zip-line down Bob’s Peak. I also saw a nice resting spot, a chair carved out of a tree trunk. At this point, I thought I was close to the top, but I would soon realize I was only about 1/3 of the way there.
Eventually, I got some impressive views about halfway up Bob’s Peak.
It took me a little over an hour to reach the top. Here’s the video/picture proof!
In the visitor center at the top, they had a trinity of exhibits made out of colored beans. They were quite beautiful and I just wish I could have gotten them without the glare of glass and lights, but the images below let you see what I experienced.
The visitor center also had a gift shop where I bought a new water bottle. I had previously lost my purple HydroFlask by forgetting it somewhere around town on Thursday. I beat myself up about it for a while on Thursday night (which is why I also got myself the ice cream). You see, I had also lost 3 water bottles between April and August before I took my trip.
Ultimately, I’m pretty sure I left it at Starbucks, and the fact that it wasn’t turned in means that somebody took it. If they needed a water bottle that badly, then I was okay with losing it. I found another bottle for $24 NZD in the gift shop and bought it (pictured below). I wanted to make sure I was getting enough water, and it was cheap enough for me (since that’s only $16 USD or so).
I got a few more pictures on the outdoor viewing deck, including two reflections in the windows that also gave the view. I’m getting good at getting reflection images! I also took a short video of the view and the end of the luge track.
I stayed at the top for over an hour, writing some blog posts, journaling, enjoying the view and a steak pie. They are really starting to grow on me!
I opened up a new section of my blog at this point. It is called My Playlists. It’s a repository for the playlists I create during my adventures in the US and now in New Zealand and Australia.
Next, I hiked back down Bob’s Peak (it only took me 30 minutes) and went to the public library for a little bit to read Andy Eastman’s recommendation. I don’t have a library card, so I can’t check it out, but hopefully I’ll be able to finish it while I’m here in Queenstown. The library, just like the rest of Queenstown, was rather cute, and even had a nice bridge over the stream that runs through town (the same stream seen in the village green pictures and video earlier in this post).
I also saw some inventive yard decorations in a house close to Homebase.
That evening, I hung around Homebase and rested.
Day 47 (Saturday Oct 6) – The big day! I could move in to my new room this afternoon. Saturday morning I got a haircut and then hung out at Starbucks to read, blog, and journal. I also encountered yet ANOTHER rainbow on my way to the barber. This one was a rainbow crosswalk.
I got back to the house by early afternoon and proceeded to move into my third (and hopefully final) room in Queenstown. I first wiped out the cabinets and vacuumed the floor and then moved my stuff over. It doesn’t look like much, but at least it was my own personal space. And once I got unpacked, I felt much better. This was actually the first time during this trip that I could unpack my entire suitcase!
I was very happy to be settled into my new room, and I was looking forward to going out for the first time in Queenstown. Jay, Adam, and Abbie had said they would be going out and I planned to join them. But, they had actually partied pretty hard Friday night, and so none of them were feeling very excited to go out again. I hung out at their place for a couple of hours, but I was back at Homebase by 9:30pm and asleep by 10pm. While it was disappointing, I knew I could go out again some other time.
Day 48 (Sunday Oct 7) – 3:30am, I’m awoken by a group of drunk housemates still partying outside (right outside my window). I go out, tell them to be quiet, and try to go back to bed.
4:00am – they are STILL partying, so I go out again and threaten to call the police for noise violations if they don’t quiet down. That did the trick and I was able to get a few more hours of sleep. At least I had gone to bed early.
7:00am – I got myself ready to go to church. I would be attending City Impact church in Frankton.
They had a beautiful building, impressive artwork on the walls, and it was a good service. Definitely Pentecostal, as there were a lot of vocal attendees who would chime in with, “Yes” “C’mon” and “Praise God”. But it felt very positive and worshipful to me. During the service, they also handed out a devotional journal to new attendees that explained their beliefs.
Communion was nifty because they gave out single serving communion cups that had the wafer on the top. Super easy to distribute in baskets!
The devotional book also had an interesting quote that tied back to Miracle Sunday. On that day, I received a quote about how to change your mind/thinking. But in the devotional book I received, there was another quote that was the opposite.
We don’t think ourselves into a new way of living, we live ourselves into a new way of thinking.
You don’t change your life by changing your life, you change your life by changing your mind.
But the thing is, how do you change your mind, especially habits or habitual ways of thinking? I believe the pastor of the church would say by prayer and just positive thinking, but I firmly believe that the better way forward is to change your life which will change your thinking. When you change your life, you commit to living your life differently (getting up to exercise, substituting nicotine gum for a cigarette, etc). And by making changes in your life, you can realize the positive benefits which should also change your mind and your thinking about the entire issue.
After the service I hit up the bathroom and chuckled as God showed me that this church was tied to Homebase!
It was the same Zebra painting that was in my living room at Homebase. And so, in that instant, I decided that this would be my church for the month. I had wanted to find a church to attend for the 4 weeks I lived in a city, and I had failed to find that in Dunedin (even though I had great experiences at the various churches I attended).
I know I read into things a lot, and I see signs and confirmations where others would just see random occurrences and coincidence. But, so far, my journey has felt more compelling and more fulfilling because of these types of situations. And when they happen, I’m realizing I should pay attention.
I stayed for the coffee after the service and met several people in the church, and I also got Pastor Tom’s mobile number, as I wanted to set-up a meeting with him to talk about his church’s views on Homosexuality. I sent him a text and waited to hear back. I then grabbed some lunch at McDonalds (I needed something quick and easy!)
Next, I needed to record the first two episodes of my podcast, as I had mapped out the dates to produce the episodes so that I would end on January 1, 2019. I drove around for a bit to find a place where I could park Tuatoru in the shade with a view. Then I spent over 4 hours recording and editing a total of 16 minutes of audio. It’s definitely a learning process, and I’m hoping future episodes don’t take as much time. But ultimately, this is ANOTHER new experience. I now have 2 for this month – learning to knit and learning how to produce a podcast. I’m tempted to add a third, but we will see..
I recorded a before and after video of this afternoon as I figured it was a momentous event (my first ever podcast episodes).
That evening, I did the final prep work on the podcast episodes as well as built out the blog posts and then released everything around 10pm, posting to Instagram and Facebook. The first step in releasing My Story to a wider audience had been completed. I’m very proud of this achievement, and I truly feel this is what God wants me to do with some of my time here in New Zealand.
By the end of this day, I was completely exhausted. But in writing this blog post and reflecting back over my first week in Queenstown, it was incredible. I met lots of new people, made some new friends, experienced beautiful hikes, found a church and had tons of fun.
Oh yea, I also scheduled my scuba dive for the month. I’m going to scuba dive Milford Sound on Friday October 12th. It will be a unique ocean dive because it also gets lots of freshwater rain and rivers feed into the sound.
“At 265 metres deep, most of the sound’s water is salty, but the top 10 metres or so is actually fresh water. It comes from the seven to nine metres of rainfall that the area gets every year, emptied into the sound via its many rivers and waterfalls. On its way, this runoff picks up tannins from plants and soil that stain the fresh water the colour of tea. It’s still completely clean and natural, but it blocks much of the sunlight to the lower salty layer.”
Stay tuned for more adventures! And for getting to the end of this post…yup, that’s right…you get a new song. This is the song for October 7th on my ReInvented playlist for October 2018. I got it from my friend Ian, the Doctor in Auckland who also teaches Les Mills Bodyjam (I’m wearing his Les Mills shirt in the pictures of my hike up Bob’s Peak). I love the lyrics, because God has truly brought me out of the darkness and despair that I felt in January of this year, and I’ve been brought into the light, the light of God’s love!
The music video is also a beautiful video about forgiveness, and there is a trinity of triangles at the beginning of the video!