Hello and welcome to/back to our monthly newsletter,
April has absolutely flown by and autumn is well and truly upon us here in Central Otago. The leaves are falling from the trees more and more with each passing day as the shades of yellow and orange scatter all over the roads. The mornings are crisp and we’re starting to have some frosts overnight but the days are still so sunny and beautiful.
We’ve settled into our jobs at the famous haunted hotel in Saint Bathans and have had an absolute blast here so far.
We realised pretty quickly how lucky we are to live and work in what truly is a stunning part of the country. The best part of it all though is the kitten we have somewhat inherited called Vulcan (or Sir Vulcan Tom Cat to be exact)!
On the travelly side of things we’ve spent a lot of time just exploring the local area and finding out about the history of it all. Where we work there isn’t a huge number of staff so we only get one day off together a week. But all that means is we actually head out and about on our days off rather than sitting in the apartment.
Saint Bathans
We can’t do a destination spotlight without mentioning where we currently live! This gold rush town was formerly called Dunstan Creek and with a grand population of 9 (currently 4 of those people being staff at the pub) it is one of- if not the smallest village in New Zealand.
This old gold mining town is famous for two things. Firstly, its Blue Lake that was formed when miners were forced to abandon sluicing for gold there. And secondly, the haunted pub called the Vulcan Hotel, which we currently work at. It’s haunted by the ghost of a female called Rosie who was a lady of the night back in the old rush days who was murdered for her gold. She really does play some tricks on you, nothing scary but certainly bizarre. Just one of the weird things Jess has experienced personally was a can of gin and tonic RTD falling from the shelf, three feet from where she was stood and landing perfectly upright on the floor with no dents or breakages. She has been known to lock doors, move things around and walk up and down the corridors at night so if you wanted to find out for yourself its defo worth the journey but also you can take our word for it ;).
Naseby
Another township that was established during the goldrush of the 1860s. Located not far from where we are, we explored this little place on one of our days off. Naseby is considerably bigger than St. Bathans and is home to some pretty cool places.
We stopped into Black forest café for some food and had a wander around a place called Stardust Gallery Before heading to the museum. The museum is full of artefacts and portraits of people from Naseby in the 1800’s and just across the road is a building holding more of the larger artefacts like family wagons and mining tools.
FACT: We didn’t realise that New Zealand only adopted the New Zealand Dollar in 1967- everything in one of these little museums was priced in Great British Pounds and we were initially so confused! It makes sense when you think about it, but still.
Travel Tales: Our Favourite Moments
We have had some really wholesome moment this month.
The Cat
Definitely one of the best things to happen on our travel journey. We moved into our apartment space at the back of the pub and on our first day were walking into work and get stopped by two of the members of staff who ask us if we like cats.
Of course, the immediate answer was “YES, we love them” to which they replied debriefing us on the history of a little stray who turned up at the pub at 5 weeks old and has now become a bit of a team bonding pub cat. He was about 4/5 months old at this point and the person who was letting the cat stay in his van was leaving and with the winter months coming up everyone hoped we would be willing to have the cat with us.
It was the easiest answer for us. So now 4 weeks on he’s been neutered, vaccinated and officially named Sir Vulcan Tom Cat or “Chit Chat” when he’s being mischievous. We have the cat living with us full time, he comes home between 18:30 and 19:30 every night and sleeps in the apartment with us and he is literally the most adorable thing in the world.
Not what we expected when we came travelling!
Manaaki Media: Meeting Dane & Jordan
We popped into the pub like we do most days to steal a glass for a drink and saw these two chaps chatting away on the other side of the bar about a project they were making so naturally we stuck around and got chatting. Turns out they are a project called Manaaki Media who want to set about shaping a new world through story telling and gathering.
Fast forward 30 mins and were all sat by the pool table having a drink and making an impromptu podcast/video chatting all things travel, couple and hospitality work related. It was an awesome experience and the guys (Dane & Jordan) were super knowledgeable, funny, caring and great to chat to!
It was a real privilege to meet these guys and hopefully at some point In the future (if it’s decent enough) well be able to share our Manaaki Media session with you all.
But for the mean time this is their YouTube account and you can see what they’re all about for yourself!
The pictures in this section are all taken by Dane and Jordan from Manaaki Media.
Boring SEO & Website Achievements
This month we’ve hit some big numbers in terms of impressions of 11.8k this month alone taking our total to 27k in the last year! (Or 24.2k in the last 3 months… Imagine that graph.)
So we’ve been doing a lot of tweaking of existing articles and re-doing our gallery page to make it more user friendly.
However, we have posted an article for those trying to find accommodation on the queen charlotte track, which has been one of the queries a lot on our page so if you wanted to know the answer to that question check it out below…
Upcoming Adventures
The next few months see us living and working in Saint Bathans. But there are so many interesting and exciting things to see and do in the local area.
We plan on taking a trip to a local whiskey distillery, Lammermoor, and trying some central Otago whiskey.
Saint Bathans is 2000ft above sea level and is famous for its thick snow- we can’ wait to see this beautiful, quaint little village covered in snow.
What would you like to see in our monthly newsletters? Let us know in the comments!
If its more cat content and real time stories your after then check out our Instagram @jessandbentravel