By Lucy

My history of walking is long and complicated.

Just for giggles, we can go back to before I could walk. Most kids learn to crawl; I rolled. I’d lay on my side and roll around like I was rolling down a hill.

Usually firstborns take the longest to learn to walk and each kid in the subsequent birth order learns faster, trying to copy their siblings. Unfortunately, my brother was born with club foot, and spent the first 2 years of his life in casts, having repeated surgeries as the doctors tried to pull his tendons into a normal shape.

It wasn’t until my teens that walking really took off. I wasn’t allowed out for a lot of reasons, but walking the dog was a prescribed reason. I’d walk Millie, and later Siggie, for an hour or two, just zigzagging around town with no particular path in mind.

When I started hanging out with He Who Shall Not Be Named, we went for aimless walks as well. He wasn’t allowed at my house (for arguably good reasons), and he refused to hang out at his place. The town had a single Tim Hortons and basically nowhere else for teens to be, so we just walked.

I felt pretty good after my surgeries. It wasn’t until I was bedridden from chemo that my muscle tone suffered. I was so sick I was getting blood transfusions as a stop-gap to keep me alive, working out wasn’t possible.

And then COVID hit just as I finished treatment. A lot of survivorship programs were diverted to providing COVID treatment, so it wasn’t until a couple of years after the pandemic that I could get in to see a physical therapist.

I started walking again. It felt like a waste of time; I could barely walk for ten minutes before I was tired. Not out of breath, not cramping muscles, just fatigued. But I wanted to walk as a warm-up for my physical therapy, and I wanted to be able to walk around the block without feeling wiped.

I downloaded an app called “Zombies, Run!”. It’s ostensibly a game, but it’s less a game than it is a radio play. As you walk, the game tracks how far you’ve walked, and triggers the next section of the story as you go. For example, you might be “searching a pharmacy for supplies”, so it’s 2 km to the pharmacy, 1km while you “search”, and 2km back.

Most episodes are about 20-30 minutes long, but as I could barely walk 10 minutes, I was breaking them up into smaller sections. Slowly my tolerance crept up, until I could do the whole 30 minutes in one round. It took 6 months to get there.

Around the time I met Rich, I had to go get something that was maybe a ten minute car ride away, but an hour walk. What if I walked to get it? It would be a huge leap in how much I walked, but I had nowhere to be. If I got tired, I could rest; if it was really too much, I could always call a taxi.

I made the walk.

Soon, hour long walks were the norm. Then I went to Dryden. Then two hour walks were the norm, and I had exceeded the walkability of the area I lived in. I was bored of the scenery, and I wanted to challenge myself.

See, the problem was that it never felt easy. Before, I barely noted that a walk had taken 2 hours. Now, I could complete a 2 hour walk, but I felt tired, winded, sore afterwards. There was never a day where I woke up and felt well.

There was also the sad fact that walking is free, but gym memberships or work-out equipment cost money.

Part of what drew me to Thunder Bay was the abundance of free hikes. I hiked all the time and still haven’t done the same hike twice. My new friendship with Hanuman was also bolstered, as he liked hiking but lacked a car to get out of town. My hiking ability went up exponentially, until the Red Rock hike. Now, any hike shorter than 10 km or with less than a 200 meter elevation gain is easy.

Easy…. ish.

My shoes have worn out. I bought my last pair of Reikers several years ago and they lasted until Josh’s dog ate them, plus I used to drag my feet. These I bought in July and I’ve been walking so much that I’m not even sure they’ll survive until I can get them back to Thunder Bay for the cobbler to re-sole.

Sunday is cloudy, cool and drizzly, but I want to go for a hike. If anything, cloudy and cool are better for hikes than sunny and hot. I noticed, as we are directly opposite Glenorchy, a large gorge outside town that is obviously a hiking trail.

I didn’t want to drive. I give up trying to take the bike to a hiking trail, especially during peak tourist season. I packed up two sandwiches, two kiwis, my sunscreen and bug spray, and walked down to the edge of the parking lot to hitchhike. After all, I’m just going to Glenorchy, and most people checking out will be heading back to Queenstown; there’s no road out through the mountains.

A few people drove past me. Rude. Tourists! An electric car finally stopped, a middle-aged man. I hopped in. “Thanks! I’m just going to Glenorchy.”

“Oh.” He says, with a definite note of disappointment. “I’m going to Queenstown, I can drop you off on the way.”

My ride is a dentist visiting from Germany. “My Oma was from Baden.” I say. Actually, she wasn’t born and raised there, but she moved around a lot because of the war and just ended up being near the military base at Baden-Baden when Opa was stationed there. I can’t remember where she was born except that she was Bavarian.

“Why did you chose this part of New Zealand?”

Because it was the only place that had a job opening. “I was interested in the mountains.” I say vaguely.

“There’s mountains in Bavaria, you know.”

That’s true, where the Alps cut between Germany and Italy. How many times did I joke about that? Germany has a “Youth Mobility Visa” that would let me work in Germany, although I’ve often wondered if I could apply for German residency through Oma. Still, I bet I could crash with some of my German relatives for a bit. I wonder if Rolf is still alive. Dad seemed to think he passed away, but Rolf Keller is too common a name to find an obituary for.

This guy isn’t much for conversation. There’s a lot of awkward silence.

Finally he drops me off on the other side of Glenorchy.

This is the trail Nichola took the first time she left overnight. The original trail was for mining scheelite, and was designed for a horse and sledge to haul large chunks of rock down the mountain for processing. It’s maintained by a historical society, who have preserved some of the mining sites and equipment as a sort of living museum, which I love. It’s technically called the Mount Judah trail, but you never reach the peak of Mount Judah; it’s private owned.

There were signs all over the place warning you that the water contains high levels of arsenic, which cannot be boiled out.

The trail started going uphill immediately, although it was wide and compact and obviously used to hosting ATVs. I was right about it skirting the gorge for the Buckler Burn river. I felt pretty good, and the views were gorgeous. It started a light rain.

After about half an hour I made it to the Glenorchy Scheelite battery. Here, the large chunks of rocks were processed to separate the scheelite from the quartz.

Scheelite, also know as calcium tungstate, is a soft, creamy rock. It was mined extensively for both World Wars to process steel for armaments, but obviously after the war was over the price of scheelite collapsed. The mines were originally prospected for gold; gold and quartz often form together. Scheelite is relatively rare, or at least mines for it are.

The huts and processing equipment were in relatively good shape. They hadn’t really been designed to last a while, but considering they were abandoned about 70 years ago they could have been better preserved. They are the reason Glenorchy is here at all, although Maori have been using the lake as a “vacation” destination for hundreds of year. You can find lots of nephrite in the Dart river.

The sun came out for a bit, although from my vantage point I could watch the bands of rain coming down the Dart river into the valley, so it was short lived. After about 10 minutes I had climbed enough to reach the elevation of the lowest clouds, 700-800 meters. It’s funny how the clouds press themselves into a flat line, as if they came up to a pane of glass.

I assumed the station here was farming sheep, but it was not. I started running into goats, grazing by the side of the path.

After another 20 minutes, I walked to where one of the old mines was. It wasn’t much to look at; there’s the minecart tracks, the hole in the rock that I am not foolhardy enough to explore, and a hut that claimed to be the smith’s but was locked. Also a bunch of tailings.

After another few minutes of hiking, I found a spot where the trail splits. You can cross the Buckler Burn and go up Mount McIntosh, but it is not a day hike. There’s also lots of signs warning that the Buckler Burn can suddenly become impassible even on a clear, sunny day.

I noted that I had actually reached this spot faster than the sign had suggested. I was starting to get faster!

The sun was definitely out to stay at this point, and the mist cleared. I stopped to put on sunscreen, and eat one of my sandwiches.

Afterwards, I turned the corner and was into the valley between Mount Judah and Mount Alaska. It felt like I had entered the land before time again, not a sign of civilization. The road devolved from horse-cart track to goat trail, barely more than the grass tamped down by other tramps. There was still some historical equipment signposted here and there. I even found another mine, this one unsignposted and hidden behind some bushes.

Parts of the track were washed out here, and there was the occasional rockfall. I noticed all these little white flowers that reminded me of the Silent Princess from Breath of the Wild.

Now I was above the treeline. You could clearly see the huts and the outline of the trail across Mount Alaska and Mount McIntosh.

I was also starting to fatigue. At this point I was 2 and a half hours into the hike, at 1000 meters elevation (starting from roughly 300).

I stopped at a place called the Boozer hut, according to a plaque inside, so named for its builder’s drinking habits. It’s only a day use hut, preserved for history. I had another sandwich and a kiwi here.

I was sort of almost at the end. It wasn’t a lot of kilometers to complete the loop to the Heather Jock hut and start descending, but it was another 400 meter elevation gain at least.

But when I went back to the Bonnie Jean creek and crossed it to start ascending again, my legs started shaking. I was too tired. Best not to keep forcing myself.

I’d made the entire ascent without seeing a soul, but now I was running into people. I got passed by a couple of guys I hadn’t seen on the way up; they must have gone the other way ’round McIntosh. As I watched their backpacks bob in front of me, it occurred to me that I should have asked them for a ride. By the time I reached the parking lot, they were gone.

It didn’t even take me 2 hours to descend.

Now to get back to the lodge.

It was hot and sunny for hitchhiking, and few people were in the mood to stop. Most were probably just going to Glenorchy, although I was surprised by the amount of people going by. I watched the teal lake toss whitecaps. Walking across the mouth of the river to the lodge would only be 3 kilometers, versus the 30 kilometers around that the road takes. It follows an M shape; 10 km up one leg, then 10 km as it bends around Mount Alfred, and 10 km the other side.

One gentleman stopped, but was only going to Glenorchy. It occurred to me, after I sent him on his way, that I might have better luck trying to hitch a ride from the other side of Glenorchy.

After half an hour, a red Tesla came barreling down the road, veering from side to side like he was drunk. Behind him was a truck towing a boat, who stopped. There was unmistakably a Maori man in the drivers seat – the tattoos, the colour of his skin, his accent.

“Glad to stop for you, before that red car gave me road rage.” He said. “He was stopping in the middle of the damn road to take pictures. Where are you going?”

I told him. He frowned. “Well, I’ll take you as far as I can.”

Was I better off waiting? I hopped in the car. Even 10km off my walk was something.

“Shitty weather this week. Waste of my time. Why are you going to the end of the road, anyway? What’s there?”

“A hotel. I work there.” I gesture to the boat behind the truck. “There’s also a campsite with a boat launch. You might like it.”

“Where are you from?” He asked.

“Canada. Thunder Bay.”

“Oh yeah? There’s lot of indigenous people up there, isn’t there?”

Quelle surprise. Why does he know that? “Yes.” After a pause. “That’s part of why I moved there.” I cut myself off there. I wasn’t sure what else to say without sounding patronizing. “Do you know what this place was called in Maori? I can’t find it anywhere.”

“I used to know. I forgot.”

He pulled over where the road split to go up to Paradise (yes, it’s really called Paradise). “I’ll drop you off here. Be safe.”

“Yeah, thanks for taking me this far!”

I paused with my hand on the open door. Something flashed across his dark eyes, something I’d seen in the Vagabond’s in Dryden, some interest in me. Should I say something?

The moment passed. I closed the door and he drove away. Well, if he was really curious about me, he knew where to find me.

Time to start walking.

Cars were fewer here, but not 0. I stopped and stuck out my thumb every time I heard one, but no one stopped. I reach a bend in the road with a creek and heard another car. I turned around; it was a wee little electric smart car. I chuckled as I held my thumb out.

As it passed me, I realized it had company branding. Someone from the lodge had to be driving it!

It slowed and stopped 100 meters up the road. I jogged up to it.

“Damnit, Lucy.” James yelled out the open window, with a laugh. “You picked the worst spot on this road!”

“I didn’t pick it, I was walking and hitching!” I said with a huff, as I threw myself into the car. “Where were you?”

“Coming home from work.”

“You have a job?”

He laughed.

“I mean, I thought you just worked for your parents!”

“No, I have a real day job!”

We talked on the drive. James is actually really smart, although he strikes me as depressed. After we get back, he asks me for a hand with the stuff in the trunk. Toni walks by us.

“Hello, Queen Lucy!” She says brightly. I blink at her. “Oh, do you not like that name?”

“Where did you get it from?”

“It’s your Whatsapp name!”

Oh, is it? I forgot what I set that as, because you add people with phone numbers. “Ah, oops. No, it doesn’t bother me. Just surprised.”

After I’ve had dinner and are tapping away on my laptop, Toni comes in. “This fridge is a mess! I’m cleaning it. Who else has stuff in here?”

“Umm, me.” I say meekly.

“Can you point it out to me so I don’t accidentally throw it out?”

“I’ll just remove it.” I take my few things and put them on the far corner of the countertop.

After she’s done tidying, she comments, “There’s still Christmas leftovers in here.”

I’ve been doing my best to eat them, partially so I don’t have to cook or buy any groceries, and partly because I hate the idea of food being thrown out. But it’s hard to tell what’s for everyone and what isn’t sometimes.

“What if I made a platters of leftovers for everyone to finish off?” She asks me.

“I will eat some.” I say. I’m not really hungry, but I burned over 3000 calories on the hike again, so it won’t hurt.

In no time, she puts together a platter of pate, crackers, cashews, some leftover turkey and potatoes.

Me and Ti fight for the smoked salmon pate, which is the yummiest. The eggplant pate is alright. The one on the far side is yummy, but it also scratches some itch after the hike. “What’s this?”

“Liver pate.” Toni has some. “A little too much brandy, I think.”

There’s brandy in this? I can’t taste it. Still, I should eat more liver, lots of iron. “This is liver? What else is in it?” The yellow flake on top is solid fat, not cheese. Well, cheese is fat. Not milk solids!

“Just some garlic and onions.”

I can make delicious pate with just liver, onions, garlic and brandy? Score! “I should eat more of it. For the iron.” I muse.

“Oh, you have an iron deficiency too? Do you feel better when your iron is controlled?” She asks.

“My iron has never been in control.” Not since chemo. “They used to give me blood transfusions for it.”

Everyone blinks at me.

“I’m fine!” I insist. Fine as anyone I’m going to know for a month needs to know.

Nichola is finally back! As much as she disrupts my sleep, I miss her. She’s one of the few people who is genuinely nice to me.

I still dislike it here. I might have been lonely at the estate, but at least it was mostly by choice and I could go back to my hut and video call my friends. Here is like being back at high school; I’m surrounded by people making plans and hanging out… without me. No one is actively mean to me, but the fact that no one is trying to make plans is enough. I’d rather not have the option at all.

The ground is shrinking beneath my feet. That increase of 40 bucks in my car insurance killed all my careful budgeting. Additionally, the 31st, 1st and 2nd are statutory holidays in New Zealand, so my first pay won’t be in ’til the 3rd. I had to ask my friends for money to tide me over, and now most of the 600 I was expecting in early January is earmarked for paying people back. I might end my time here just barely breaking even.

What do I do? How far could I make it? Should I give up and sell the bike now? I could still hitch hike north…

I have to take the bike out for a drive on Monday. I haven’t taken it out since I got here, two whole weeks. I still haven’t really seen Glenorchy.

As I put on my gear to head out, my phone lights up. “Can anyone take some milk to the cafe in Glenorchy?”

I can take some milk. The other day Toni found a hiking backpack that someone left behind, but she gave it to Bianca. It would have been perfect for ferrying groceries on the bike. I walk down to the cafe here.

“Have you seen Sam today?” Toni asks.

“No, but I can take some milk.”

She gestures to a crate. Ok, not that much. I open my bag and she puts a couple 2L bottles into it. “Tell them you’re the forward guard!”

The bike starts easily. Maybe a couple of weeks to sit was good for it. Belatedly, I wonder if I could have strapped the crate to my passenger seat. Meh.

It’s a nice, sunny day, although once I leave the cover of the trees the wind coming down the Dart is cold, but not cutting. Yesterday’s light rain and the frequent use by cars has compacted the sandy road into something almost like pavement, although there are still a few sketchy bits. It takes me 20 minutes to get to pavement and be able to open the throttle, the weight of the milk hanging off my neck. Ahhh, flying again! With a delivery, like the military men of old.

I stop for gas at the only gas station in Glenorchy. The price of gas here is easily twice what it would be anywhere else… daylight robbery! Also, the cashier apparently has better things to do than her job, or she hates bikers. She makes eye contact but blatantly ignores me for several minutes while I wait to pay as she chats with someone in the back.

I wonder what would happen if I walked out? I really doubt there are cops any closer than Queenstown, and the bike is easy to hide.

To the cafe. Due to my two delays, Sam is there already with the crate of milk, making me less like the forward guard and more like an idiot. Oh well. I had to come here anyway.

I drop off the milk and head back to my bike, parked on the walkway. Nichola comes running out after me. “Hey Lucy, you came all this way, did you want a drink?”

Sure. A chai! There’s no seats left inside the cafe, so I sit out back, sheltered from the wind. Sam comes over with his own drink and a sandwich and we chat. I noticed, from the way he constantly calls which episode of House I am on, that he is what’s called a “super recognizer”, someone with an inborn ability to remember faces. It’s distinct from an eidetic memory; I took the super recognizer test and got only slightly above average.

I go for a walk around town. When I turn the corner to the front of the cafe, some tourists are taking pictures of my bike as if they have never seen a motorcycle before. Which is possible, and amusing. I stand next to the bike to sort out my helmet and pose a bit, cuz I am vain and melodramatic. If there’s going to be a bunch of tourists sharing around pics of my bike, I want to be in them.

There’s not much to see in Glenorchy. There is a scenic walk along the waterfront, but I wasn’t much for walks today.

That Maori man may not have known the name for the area, but there are still myths about the lake. It has a heartbeat; white people call it a seiche. I can’t find any notes for why, but every 27 minutes the water of the lake moves from one side to another, a variance of 10 centimeters. It’s noticeable to the naked eye; I noticed that the water starts backfilling in to the river, which creates waves and a sound like they’re rolling onto a beach. The Maori myth is that a giant’s body was burned here, leaving only its heart at the bottom of the lake, beating and causing the seiche.

There was a motorcycle parked at the lodge for two days, a large bike with big, off-roading wheels. I’m jealous of the whole kit and caboodle; they even have a tank bag. The guy is outside as I dismount, strapping his gear to the bike, so I wander over to chat. He’s just a Frenchie who rented the bike and expresses anxiety over using the dirt road, which makes me glance meaningfully at his tires. Mine are at least a third of the width of his. What is he worried about?

When I get back to the house, Ti has finished my puzzle.

In the evening, Ti does her New Years manifestation meditation thingy, which I wrote about. One thing I left out was that Kam offered to do tarot readings for everyone’s year, but when she got to me, she claimed she was too tired. And fair, she might have just been tired, but I felt like it was personal.

On Tuesday, we are all woken up early by an insane chicken. 6:30, to be precise. I had intentions of sleeping in to stay up ’til midnight, but the chicken won’t stop losing its mind and calling loudly. It even woke Nichola.

I make breakfast, then have an early lunch. It’s entirely possible I might be working 6 straight hours and not get a real break, so I need to make sure I won’t feel it.

At 9.56, I present myself at the kitchen. Toni is there. “Ah, Queen Lucy! You’re 4 minutes early!”

“Well, I’m German, so that means I’m 6 minutes late.”

Breakfast service ends at 10 and lunch doesn’t start ’til noon, so I am cleaning up the breakfast dishes. Then making cookies; the batter is pre-made, as Alex screwed up making the batter a few days ago and we had a whole batch of cookies that was unsellable, so they became snacks for the staff. All I have to do is portion out the cookies and put them in the industrial oven. Oven mitts are a luxury, but then I’m getting pretty used to burning myself here. Occupational hazard of working in a commercial kitchen. I’m surprised my hands aren’t cracked and bleeding from how often I wash them.

Toni is a bit of a micromanager. It makes me anxious. I much prefer the kitchen when it’s just John, he’s very easy going and makes things easy to understand. I also get myself on her bad side by accidentally throwing out her pot of tea, but in my defense, it’s not unusual for customers to send back a mostly full pot of tea.

“Have you seen Nanny McPhee?” He asks.

“Yes. Be-hive!” I still say that to myself whenever I see one.

“So you know the “when I’m needed, I’ll be there?”

“That kind of implies I am not wanted.” I say cheekily.

“No no, just that you are needed!”

I wonder about that. Obviously I am because I am employed here, or where they really suffering for good kitchen help before I got here? Why am I needed in particular?

“So, what kind of carpentry work do you do in Canada?”

“Ah, you know, some framing, some scaffolding. I have a scaffolding job when I go back.”

“Do they still do systems, or have they switched entirely to tube-and-clamp yet?”

I almost drop what I am carrying. “How do you now scaffolding?!”

“Spent a summer doing it in Britain, like you are doing here!”

We chat about scaffolding; the technique, the tradies, all the things you get used to on a job site. He drops his guard a bit more and starts swearing and telling crude jokes, which becomes especially funny when Toni sticks her head in and complains that she can hear it in the cafe.

John has a habit of saying “cool” where most of us would say “ok”.

One of the customers orders the most expensive thing on the menu; a fancy cheese sharing platter, 120$. They send back a third of it, so I box it up to be my lunch later. “If two of us ordered this to share, does our staff discount apply to both of us?” I ask John.

“Yes, of course!”

Hmm, so I could get Shirah and maybe someone else and we could treat ourselves.

I also enjoy working in the kitchen because there is constant food to be had. The crust of fresh bread that can’t be used for anything, what’s left inside a jam jar after it’s been emptied. John chuckles as I help myself to odds and ends, but doesn’t tell me I can’t or shouldn’t. I enjoy talking about food as much as I enjoy eating it, and John is delighted that I can keep up with the shop talk. I wonder if most helpers are ignorant about food, or worse, just plain not interested. I know Kam had never baked before she got here and discovered a love of baking, which is nice.

I borked the dishwasher. I know to rinse the food off dishes, but what I didn’t realize is that the commercial washer cycles the same tank of superheated water. Lunch nibbles are greasy, so the grease was building up and started being redistributed on the glasses. Of course, it was easy enough to fix, if slightly time-consuming; drain and clean the washer, heat it up, rinse the dishes again. I catch up in no time, but Toni still isn’t impressed. Sigh.

Around 2, I finally have time to take a lunch. I grab my box of customer leftovers. It’s hopping today; New Years Eve. I ask Dan if he can make me a chai, but half an hour goes by and he still hasn’t had time. Around 3, since the lunch menu is closed for dinner prep, John finally has time to sit down and Sam comes in, and I ask him to make me a chai instead. We all joke about it to Dan.

At 4, my shift is technically done, but I’m on standby for dinner. I ask if I am needed and the answer is an emphatic yes.

My legs are sore from dancing around the kitchen. I have a kiwi, then make myself shower and hop in the hot tub for ten minutes. Ten minutes is all I can stand before my low blood pressure makes the world spin. I have a bite to eat and head back to the kitchen; where did 2 hours go?

The kitchen is frantic when I get back. We’re over capacity for dinner and the dishes go flying out the door; even with Toni helping, we barely keep up. I discover it wasn’t just me borking the dishwasher; if we run it too frequently, it doesn’t have time to rewarm the water and it doesn’t clean properly.

At 8:30 there’s finally a lull, and Toni gives me a slice of the delicious chocolate rum torte and a glass of wine and tells me to take a break.

Usually we start winding down the bar between 8:30 and 9 so the front-of-house staff can start closing up for the night, but it’s New Years. A lot of people want to drink all night long and alcoholic drinks are the highest profit item in a restaurant. How late do we stay open in the pursuit of profit?

Around 10, the guests start wandering off and Toni pulls the plug. I sweep and mop the floor and take the compost out. It’s past 10:15 when I get back to the house. Ti posts in the group chat that they’re having a fire by the beach, but the beach is littered with fires. I walk down the dark path until I find ours. It’s a new moon for the new year; no natural light. Everyone is seated on a log facing the fire and the lake; there’s no room for me. Ti offers to make room, but I grab a spot between the fire and the lake, take my shoes and socks off, and stick my sore feet in the cold water. Ahhhhhhh.

They’re playing “2 truths and a lie”. What happened to good ol’ fashioned truth or dare? I debate staying until Nichola shows up, but I’ve spent more than 10 hours on my feet in the kitchen today and I’m still feeling sort of left out. I head out.

Before midnight, I’m in bed and asleep. Oh darn.

I’m sick, or I pushed myself too far, or something. My heart rate variability crashes overnight. I have Wednesday off, so I just flake around. For lunch I make loaded mashed potatoes, to use up the potatoes and cream before they spoil. I offer some to Nichola; she’s been pulling a lot of long shifts recently. I downloaded the “Couch to 5k” app and had intentions of going for a pedal bike ride and getting started on that, but I feel too worn out.

Kam pops up while I’m eating breakfast. “Happy New Year!” She says, with a big smile. What, is everyone feeling guilty cuz I obviously felt excluded last night? Spare me.

2 kids have shown up, the 17 year old daughters of a family friend. They have basically no idea what they are doing… they approach me and ask how to thaw out frozen sauce (leave it on the counter and let the law of thermodynamics work it out?). I hate babysitting, but I try to help them without being too sarcastic. I was them once.

“I didn’t learn how to cook ’til I was 21.” Nichola says reassuringly. “I failed home economics.”

“My ex-husband taught me how to cook.” I add.

“You had an ex-husband?” Nichola says with wonder. “You have lived a life.”

“I’m 29!” I exclaim.

“I’m 28!” She says back. “These are good mashed potatoes.”

Thank you.

On Thursday, I don’t work ’til the dinner shift. I need groceries; I’m out of eggs. I hop on the bike and head out before 8.

It’s a nice day for a ride; no clouds, no wind. Barely anyone on the road this early, although the sun hasn’t cleared the peaks and the road is still shrouded and covered in dew. It’s nice ride when the road is empty, possibly the nicest road for a Sunday ride I’ve every seen; nice and twisty, with no intersections, just the road between the lake and the cliffs. I cut the corners as closer and closer, drifting into the oncoming lane when I know it’s empty and I can. When I roll down the hills, I kick the bike up gears as it picks up speed from gravity, then twist the throttle hard at the bottom and rocket up the incline. I get a little air at the top and throw back my head, screaming at the top of my lungs. This is living! What will I do when I go back to Canada and have no motorcycle? Some days I fantasize about shipping the bike back to Canada and selling my car. But that’s silly.

Queenstown is hopping, like usual. I grab what I need and get out early, spending my last 50. I grab a small 300 ml bottle of milk; I want to make rice pudding.

I get back before noon. Nichola is in the kitchen. “You went to Queenstown and back already? I just got up ten minutes ago!”

“You’ve been working a lot, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

I’m getting low on rice. 1 kilo of rice lasts me 3 weeks and costs 2 dollars, duly noted. I have enough rice to make my rice pudding and my last rice dish and them I don’t know. Should I buy more rice? I’ve run out of ideas for what to do with it.

Rice pudding is fairly easy to make, if a slightly indolent process. It takes more than an hour, but it doesn’t require more than the occasional stir while it cooks down. You’re basically just making a custard in the pot. Store bought rice pudding is gross, like commercial chocolate; the milk is the expensive part, so it’s mostly water, sugar, some powdered milk and lots of emulsifiers to make it thick. Cooking it at home allows the milk to develop flavour, so you can use a lot less sugar, plus it’s super creamy. I use a quarter cup of the brown sugar I have to use up. I take the pot around and let everyone try a bite; they all love it. Hot and fresh is the best!

I have 2 bowls. Shortly before 4, I get a text asking if I want to come in early.

You bet I do.

I’m prepping sandwiches today, to go to the cafe in Glenorchy. It’s rote work; cut the bread, butter the bread, layer on toppings, wrap. Repeat.

Before we know it, it’s almost 6 and we haven’t started on the appetizers. Did John overestimate how fast I am, or did he lose track of time? Toni comes in to do the salads while he gets started on the mains, but the salads are all done before 6:05 and the guests are still just getting seated and ordering drinks. I think someone got nervous.

Dinner service is over by 7:30. It’s funny how some nights it’s fast, and some nights it’s slow, and it has nothing to do with how many guests there are but just how hungry everyone is. One guest pounded too many drinks, wandered off before dessert, and Bianca found her in the hot tub. Someone’s having a bad start to the new year.

John takes off with the sandwiches to Glenorchy, leaving me to close up. I ask Bianca for a cocktail; there is an absinthe one on the menu. She’s says no one likes it but that it’s fun to make and I get a staff discount, so why not. Ti has tried revising it, but she revised it wrong. She reduced the absinthe, but she should have reduced the creme de minthe because it smells like mint and tastes like mouthwash. It looks pretty though.

“You know, absinthe was banned for a long time. They thought the wormwood in it made it hallucinogenic.” I tell Bianca. It’s also been banned in parts of New Zealand as recently as 2008.

“I’ve seen Moulin Rouge.” Bianca replies.

5 hours today. By 9 I’ve cleaned up the kitchen, drained and washed the dishwasher. I clock out and sit with the servers while they close down the cafe; one of them puts on “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” as a joke.

I’m not firing up the dishwasher to wash my cocktail glass, so I rinse it out and leave it by the sink. The Green Fairy hits me hard; I don’t have the wherewithal to make myself anything to eat, so I just crawl into bed when I get back to the house. Maybe I should buy myself a bottle of absinthe and the fancy louche glass from Viski when I get home (yes I watch Greg).

Friday I don’t work until dinner service again. I flake around, make myself some Spanish rice, and try not to panic. Today is pay day. I check the app multiple times… what’s taking so long? Everything else is a robot, seems to me pay should be automatic.

Dinner service is exciting. There’s a team rowing from coast to coast, 12 guys. They’re stopping here overnight, plus wives and kids coming to visit, so they’ve booked out the entire lodge and cafe for dinner. Actually, we have 7 regular guests. Instead of trying to do 30 individual servings, John and Toni have planned a buffet dinner, although the kids still get burgers and fries cuz everyone has a mental image of kids as fussy eaters.

We serve dinner to the regular guests at 6. By 7, we’re wondering when the rowers will get here; they still need to check in and shower before dinner can be served, so we’re all stuck waiting around. By 7:30, they’ve been sighted and we leap into action.

After dinner is served, Toni grabs a glass of wine and says she’s going back to the house to sort out paychecks. Yay!

Kids are hilarious. And little monsters. There’s a door between the kitchen and the lounge for the lodge; presumably a relic of when the lodge was a private residence. Of course, all kids know is that it’s a door they can’t open and they really really want to, so they start beating and banging on it. They also run down to the river and jump in the mud.

The rowers loved dinner and stay up into the night drinking. I don’t get out of the kitchen ’til it’s going on 10, and we get back to the house just in time for a guest to call John and complain that the kids are out of control, which doesn’t surprise me. They were very loud.

I pop open my paycheck. My heart deflates.

So, the way they do it here is they “pay” you for the mandatory 3 hours, then they deduct accomodation from your pay. According to my paystub, they charge 53.14 a day for the pleasure of sharing an unheated cabin. So out of my supposed “gross” pay of $1,354.36, they deduct 850.24 for the cabin. Then $167.65 for taxes. Which just leaves me $336.47 from the two weeks I’ve been here.

That doesn’t seem right. They charge me even for days I don’t work? That means the extra days off they gave us for the holidays is just more money off my pay! That barely covers what I’ve paid for food! Something isn’t right.

Ugh, I’m too tired for this.

Tired or not, I can’t sleep for it. Nichola wakes me up when she goes to bed again and I can’t shut off my brain. And I’m too tired for math. I end up spending 3 hours on the couch in the main house, alternating between having a panic attack and watching TV to try and distract myself. When I finally do get back to sleep again, Nichola’s alarm wakes me up at 7:30.

I hate everything.

I wake to a pleasant surprise. Andrej sent me an extra 50 bucks to keep me going. After the disappointment of last night, it’s the kind of spontaneous cheer I needed.

Saturday is the first day I’ve been back on housekeeping for a week. I did not miss it. Ti missed having me, though, and she grabs me for the ecoscapes like always.

After I eat lunch, I feel sort of wired. I open the Couch to 5k app and go for my first jog. The road here is good for jogging, gravel notwithstanding. It’s straight and flat. The first jog is 10 minutes walk to warm up, then intervals of jogging for 15 seconds, then a 10 minutes cooldown walk. It’s not very exciting, but it’s a start.

At dinner service, John asks if I feel like doing some carpentry. There’s some odds and ends about the spa that need finishing, and since I got accidentally been booked off for 3 days, I’d like to make up those hours. He asks me to be at the cafe for 9 Sunday morning. Sounds good.

Saturday night is supposed to be southern lights. It’s also Alex’s last starwalk; he’s heading out Monday. But the lights won’t be out ’til after 11 and I’m not much of a night owl. I suggest they wake me up at 11 and head to bed early.

No one wakes me up for the lights, but Nichola sends me some pictures. They’re pretty. Maybe I should have set an alarm.

Time to start planning to move on, I guess.

Neon Trees… for when I want new 80’s music.