Welcome to our February travel newsletter- a month holding Jess’s birthday, a festival, and an epic hike in the Mackenzie District.
Our monthly newsletter aims to share exciting updates with what we’ve been up to, any travel stories and the best pictures we’ve taken this month. Hopefully this can inspire you to fuel your own wanderlust. We also love writing these for our family!
Let’s get going with February.
In This Issue
- February in a Nutshell
- Where has February Taken Us
- Travel Tales: Our Favourite Moment
- Upcoming Adventures:
- What’s on our horizon
Good morning/afternoon/evening for wherever you are in the world,
As always, we hope this newsletter finds you well
As another month ends, it’s time to recap our month and see what we’ve been getting up to in February. Spoiler: its a whirlwind!
February has been a short but sweet month, full of quite a range of different events for us.
We started February bright and early (literally) as we had alarms set for 5am to do the Ben Ōhau and Greta Stream Track, which is the highest point in the area that we are currently living in.
We were on the track for 7am and at the top by just before 9am. The scenery was magical! We had views of the bright blue of Lake Pukaki and its canal, the snow peaked Southern Alps snaking off into the distance, and the rest of the Mackenzie Basin which is a flat expanse of land.
The rest of the track took about 4 hours as it was a long meander down the other side of the peak, we were surrounded by dry tussocks and kept spotting baby lizards running out of the path. The weather treated us well on this hike. Although, lessons were learnt, Jess needs to apply suncream to both sides of her legs, not just the front…
We have settled into our new jobs here and have utilised the time we have in this beautiful location. We’ve paddle boarded on the glacial lake (Lake Ōhau, pronounced ‘Or Hoe’ – although everyone calls it ‘Oh How’ as that is how it has been marketed as that for the past 30 years!), watched the sun set over the mountains with a bottle of wine and rushed out to snap a picture of the incredible fiery sunrise before work. We love living in places like this as it is such a unique way of life.
The other big event this month is Jess’s birthday!
We didnt have a big one like previous years but we did have a bit of a lie in (which is around 08:30 these days, crazy for hospitality workers!), got some breakfast and then popped into the nearest town called Twizel. Here, we had a quick mooch around the shops, picked up some picnic bits and a beer and went and sat next to one of the smaller lakes near to where we live, Lake Middleton.
Now for the sad bit. On the 24th of February we attended the funeral of our friend and colleague Tim. We met and worked together at The Church Brew Pub in Christchurch. After his passing in December it was so nice to be able to say goodbye at a beautiful memorial at Diamond Harbour. He was too young to be taken, rest easy you legend.
On our drive back to Christchurch, we spontaneously bought tickets to New Zealand’s biggest day festival, Electric Avenue. This only happened because the final release tickets popped up on Instagram. We saw some of the cool kiwi/Aussie bands live that we have been listening to throughout our time in New Zealand! Six60, L.A.B and Lime Cordial were all there.
Upon arriving back in Ōhau we took our car to get checked out and sad to say she needs some pretty hefty work done. So we’re going to be doing slightly less large trips until it gets fixed which fingers crossed will be in March!
It’s a pleasure to have you, our readers, join us on a journey across the world! We love staying in touch with family, meeting new people, and sharing our story one month at a time.
Enjoy the rest of the newsletter 😊
Where February Has Taken Us
This month have been mostly in one place due to our jobs. However, that doesn’t mean we don’t go and do interesting activities.
We’ve spent time in a couple of places in New Zealand:
- Lake Ōhau
- Twizel
- Christchurch
We’ve also visited new places and done some cool hikes.
We have written a few articles on these places which you can click on below!
The Ben Ōhau hike and Greta Track should be an...
Read More
You’ve just landed in Christchurch and dropped your bags at...
Read More
We work in Christchurch hospitality; we get asked so much...
Read MoreWe have spent a lot of time working on our blog this month too. For those looking to follow in our footsteps and secure live in jobs in New Zealand, we are writing up all of our tips and tricks in a series of articles! You can find the first couple below:
Job interviews can be tough and nerve wracking in any...
Read More
Introduction Live in jobs in New Zealand are an incredible...
Read MoreAnother useful tool that we are creating is
A Facebook group for those looking for live in jobs around this epic country. Join in and see what you find.
Travel Tales: Our Favourite Moments
Jess’s Birthday
How can celebrating a birthday not be a favourite moment?!
It all started off with Ben surprising Jess with a ring she had spotted and fallen in love with in Wānaka in January!
This was seriously the best surprise ever, Jess had been dreaming about this ring most days (unbeknownst to Ben) and regretted nothing more than not just buying it on the day.
You can’t even imagine how excited and shocked she was to see that Ben had emailed and identified the ring to get it shipped to our live in job from a tiny little shorefront independent store over 2 hours and a mountain range away!
We then had a picnic sat on the edge of Lake Middleton, surrounded by trees and hills with small fish jumping out of the water every few minutes and the hard stony ground underneath us (although Jess brought a blanket). We could see the Glenmary Glacier in the distance far away, and then the grey, slightly snowy peaked mountains that make up the Ōhau Snow Fields and the Southern Alps in the background; we couldn’t have picked a better spot to sit for some food, a beer and chat as a couple for Jess’s Birthday. It was beautiful.
Hiking Ben Ōhau and Greta Stream
From the moment Ben laid eyes on the highest point in all the land, it was a must do activity. 17km, 1500m elevation and 7 hours of walking, we had a wonderful day. We took sandwiches and sat at the peak to eat them for breakfast. We sat on some stones and looked out across the Mackenzie Basin, but it was icy cold as the alpine wind was battering our bare hands!
We both love hiking because, as well as the stunning scenery that we admire, we have the most productive conversations about life, our travel plans, our relationship, and everything in between!
We have written an article with everything you need to know about the Ben Ōhau and Great Stream hike, give it a read if you are looking to do it yourself or want to see some more of the epic pictures that we took along the way!
Electric Avenue
Such a spontaneous activity, we loved attending this day festival and seeing Six60 and L.A.B live. There we so many fun outfits, epic stages and amazing sounds all day long. We bumped into a few people we know which was amazing!
Tim’s Memorial at Diamond Harbour Cemetary
I can hear you saying “why is this in a favourite moment?”. Well, it was celebrating the life of such an amazing individual, and the experience was so pure. Neither of us had attended a funeral outside of the UK together before, so experiencing the beauty of a memorial here in New Zealand was special.
We all gathered outside in the cemetery which had stunning grassy hills and beautiful views, chatting to our ex-work colleagues and friends from The Church.
Tim will forever be in our hearts, and we cannot wait to go to Canada and experience Vancouver which was one of Tim’s favourite places.
Travelling to and from Christchurch
The journey from Lake Ōhau to Christchurch takes you past some impressive scenery. A few of the famous lakes on the South Island, Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo, which we stopped at both to take some pictures. Burke Pass offers some incredible views too, as the undulating road snakes its way through the mountains towards the east coast.
Upcoming Adventures: What’s on our horizon
Our travelling life is constantly changing as we are always trying to do exciting things.
We have a friend coming to visit us in the first week of march, so we will do a hike with her- we could visit Mount Cook as we are close? Who knows.
We are looking to try and figure out the plan for the rest of the year. We know we want to do a road trip of the North Island, so we are slowly starting the plan for this- things to do, places to visit, the budget we will need. Also figuring out what we want to be doing this winter.
Our days off in March will be spent exploring more of the local area- find out in the next issue of the newsletter!
Thank you for being part of our travel community. We hope to inspire your wanderlust and help you to take that leap of faith into living your best life.
Jess & Ben Travel
