While everyone is enjoying Christmas holidays, I got most out of my two days off last week. A random Wednesday and Thursday but when you work in hospitality, that’s your weekend. Christmas holidays are busy times at the cafe so dust yourself off, get some rest and be ready for the madness to go down.
That’s exactly what I didn’t do on my weekend. Instead of catching up on sleep, I decided to go on a trip to Rotorua to meet up with a lovely friend, try mountain biking for the first time in my life, explore the Redwood Forest, hike Rainbow Mountain, ignore the early morning cold by dipping in hot springs and go on three different dates in three different towns. Because: why not!
I can talk about the dates later (or not), but the main thing here was to face my fear of losing control and go mountain biking in the beautiful woods surrounding Rotorua. It was a joke. Biking uphill has never been my strength so I walked my bike up the hill. I know. Great start. Then the downhill part: I had no idea it was so scary to fly down curvy tracks! So most of the time I was braking until my fingers turned purple, hopping off the bike and jogging down the tracks holding the bike as my faster running partner.
At the bottom of the hill I laughed as I politely declined another lap. I’ll just stick to road biking for now. To wash off the sweat I drove to the beautiful Blue Lake and as I dived in, I was back in Canada. With her gorgeous lakes, lush green forests and mountains I had the feeling I travelled to another country, far away from the beach bum life I’m living at Mount Maunganui.
On the road trip back home to Papamoa Beach, I was driving right into the sunset with George Michael singing his cheesy ballads and I slowly but surely fell in love with this magical country I can call my home for one entire sweet year.