travel

The adventure one year on…

May 8, 2019 farms191 Comment

Last Thursday made it exactly one year since I headed off on my travels and I think I may have mentioned just a couple of times before but I could never have imagined this trip turning out the way it did, I could never have imagined being where I am today (sat in a coffee shop in a sweltering Hanoi) or being who I am today.

A year ago when I jetted off I thought I would be out in New Zealand for the ski season then spend a few months travelling before heading back home and that would be it adventure over. But that bubbled in to this great big adventure which leads me over to Asia for a few weeks before back to New Zealand for a second ski season and then who knows. The travel bug really got me good and for the first time I have no need or desire to return home or to stop travelling. I have a visa that means I can make money to support my continued travels and when that runs out then I can get a visa for another country and essentially just keep on going until I want to go home.

And the thing is I really don’t want to. I have fallen so in love on this journey, with this place, with people, with the person I can feel myself becoming.

I am infinitely happier. I’ve always, I like to think, been a pretty positive person, I always try to see the best of things and enjoy all the little moments of life. But here I’ve found myself enjoying all the little moments without having to try. I’ve laughed so much more. I have become less self conscious and more open and comfortable in my own skin.

I truly believe (brace yourselves it’s about to get deep) travelling heals the soul. I felt this on my first big trip inter railing around Europe five years ago. I had been miserable that year following my mums death, and as happy as I tried to be and as good as the good moments were, honestly the bad ones were horrific and dark and consuming. Post university, living back in my childhood home on my own, working in a cafe and drifting I made the decision to tick one of those big items of my bucket list and make one of my dreams a reality, and so I booked flights and inter rail tickets and ordered a backpack and planned a whole trip. A trip that I genuinely believe saved me. I had always enjoyed travelling but here I stepped into a whirlwind of different cities and cultures, I met the most interesting people, did things I’d only dreamed of, ate delicious food and drank dangerously strong drinks and was just so completely happy. And that was the start of the travel addiction for me. I hadn’t even finished the trip before I was planning the next one, South America, a trip actually still to be taken. I came back a happier person ready for the amazing moments I now believed were still to be had. I also came back more confident ready to follow another dream and move to London.

Following trips came at different stages in my life but were always always life changing. When I returned from Australia I came back with the guts to ask for a promotion. When I returned from five weeks in South East Asia it had not just given me the distance and perspective to see that I’d gotten stuck in a not great situation with work but also helped me to get over a pretty intense yet one sided summer romance. And this trip, well I don’t know what I’ll be or do when I go back, I still don’t know where this trip will end up taking me. But I do know it seems to have removed the last of the darkness that was hanging over me from my mums death.

To some extent I will always be the person I was, I will always love theatre and film, I will always have at least 3 books on the go at once, I will always sing badly and loudly to musical soundtracks in the car and I will always take my Roo toy with me on all my travels. I will probably always desperately want people to like me, I will fall in love far too easily and then not be able to actually speak any real feelings out loud and I will always offer a cup of tea when I cannot find the words to comfort someone. I will always have this urge to create something lasting and probably this amazing ability to keep on procrastinating.

But I do care less what people think, I am me and if they don’t like me well there’s not too much I can do about that. But I’m Kate fucking Farmer and that’s their loss.

I am also more comfortable on a physical level. I will always be in the immortal words of Bridget Jones “just a little bit fat” don’t get me wrong I do my exercise and eat my fruits and veg but I love food and alcohol and sleep too damn much, and that coupled with a slow metabolism doesn’t a skinny person make. But you know what I kinda like my curves, and I love my nose and it’s freckles and my weird colour changing eyes and my crazy curly hair. It came from my mum and my dad and my grandparents and all those I love, it’s me and I wouldn’t want to be anyone else.

And yes I am happier. I know what I love, I know what makes me happy, I may not know exactly what I want to do with my life but I know what I could do and for now that’s enough.

And above all I know how insanely lucky I am. Yes there may have been a rough patch or two, I may have lost my best friend and I may have floundered around a lot, but I am really living a pretty damn good life.

It shocks people when I tell them now how long I’ve been away, they always ask me if I miss home if I want to go back tell me they couldn’t do it. I will always tell people to travel, for me it is an indescribable joy and will change you completely. But everyone has a different story finds their happiness in different ways so if it’s travelling for you then go for it! If not then that’s fine too, just enjoy the one life you have and squeeze every drop of happiness from it.

Travelling saved me and it made me. So yes I may miss my home comforts sometimes but I’m going to keep enjoying this crazy ride cause there ain’t no life like it.

travel

A backpackers Christmas…

December 30, 2018December 30, 2018 farms19Leave a comment

Christmas Day was the first time I felt homesick since my first month in New Zealand, and it was definitely the first time this trip that I’d felt the urge to go home. Because, Christmas for me is really just about family.

Yes there were no presents or stockings to open, but I didn’t really need them especially not when my family had still been so generous as to send me money to my account. And yes there was no traditional Christmas dinner, but we had a pie lunch and snacks and chocolates aplenty. We spent the day as most people do lounging around, watching Christmas movies, playing games and eating junk. We had Christmas hats to wear and we listened to Christmas music. I’d still in the build up had the stress of getting presents for everyone back home, even if it was done over the internet, and I still had an advent calendar to open everyday (courtesy of my Gran being insanely organised and sending one over in September)! There was a whole lot of Christmas still around. But there is something especially lonely about a hostel Christmas, even when you’re not the only one and even when you’re with a friend.

Don’t get me wrong this was not my first rodeo, I spent a Christmas in Sydney three years ago, but then I had my sister and then boyfriend to stave off the homesickness. And at 19 I was in Canada doing a ski season but at that giddy age there was something exciting about being away from home with all your friends, cooking Christmas dinner together and having a proper white Christmas.

I guess now I appreciate my family a whole lot more. As you lose people, the ones you have become even more important, and I suppose Christmas is always that time when you think of them the most. And we really do have the best of Christmas’s, full of traditions and happiness and lots and lots of cheese. So to find myself on the other side of the world with no family (or cheese) around and a kickass hangover making everything feel worse, gave me a pretty hefty dollop of homesickness.

BUT I am on the other side of the world living out a dream, that a year ago I didn’t think I would. I am young and free and travelling the world and there are a whole lot of people not nearly so lucky so I guess I can take a Christmas away from home and a little bit of homesickness in return for that.

I suppose what I’m trying to say, after all the moaning, fellow backpackers is that it’s all just a part of the adventure. that despite the less than homely feel of the holidays spent in a hostel, there will be drinks and company aplenty if desired, and it is just one after all just one day. So we must suck up the homesickness, maybe Skype our families and eagerly anticipate the next day when Christmas will be over, the city alive again and the adventuring will continue.

travel

How to (or not to) camp your way around New Zealand…

December 15, 2018 farms193 Comments

With the season over at the ski slope and a few dollars in the bank it was time to leave the mountain behind and head off exploring New Zealand and the best way to do that? A roadie!

I successfully exploited the fact that my birthday was rolling around to convince my remaining friends in the country that they needed to accompany me to the first stop at least. And two days after the ski slopes closed on a bright, sunny spring morning with a car full to the brim of stuff and three of us somehow cramped in we set off on the longest most roundabout route to stop one; Raglan, via the forgotten highway and, of course to make it a proper road trip, Mcdonald’s for breakfast!

Top tip number one New Zealand roads are (like the weather) very variable and you will often find yourself on a gravel road as we did on our very first day. They are, however, also very stunning. And the Forgotten Highway is one of these stunners, it’s a beautiful, remote drive through rolling hills, forested gorges, mysterious tunnels and you can even get your passport stamped at the self-declared Republic of Whangamomona! It is everything I wanted New Zealand to be and that first day I really felt as though I’d stepped right into Lord of the Rings. Just brace yourself for a bit of a rough ride.

(An actual passport stamp from the Republic of Whangamomona’s passport office aka the pub)

Top tip number two springtime will still be a wee bit chilly so it may not be wise to down a load of beers go skinny dipping and jump into bed soaking wet. Our roadie (and my birthday celebrations) started true to form with a few drinks. After succeeding in putting up the tent for the first time the beer was cracked open and giddy on the high of freedom from our jobs and a new adventure we got “a little bit lairy!” And in the spirit of a new adventure I decided that it was the time to tick another item off the bucket list and take a dip in the, pardon my French, fucking freezing sea at midnight. As exhilarating and hilarious (we may have had to climb over the very tall locked gate to get back into the campsite and I am very not tall) as the experience was, once the excitement and the alcohol coat disappeared boy did we feel the cold. Just one word when you’re camping people, Layers! And lots of them.

Top tip number three get an air mattress that does not deflate. As well as dealing with the sudden shock of not being in a warm bed we also woke up to the realisation that we were sleeping on the floor, it turns out our air bed had a very well hidden hole in it. Within one night we had gone from a warm comfy bed to sleeping on the floor in the cold, and we had a whole six months of this to look forward to!

Top tip number four get used to the fact that complete cleanliness is not a thing. To be honest I always feel a little bit grubby. Camping by beaches, everything very quickly gets full of sand and even if the nights were cold to start with, the morning sun is hot especially the closer summer gets, and it gets sweaty fast (sorry gross I know). If it isn’t sunny it is raining and then, well then, everything is damp.

(It takes a little ingenuity to try and keep as dry as possible. And to make sure the coffee gets made!)

After our first four nights of camping topped off with 24 hours of rain, we’d had enough and convinced ourselves that economically it was better to get an air b&b during our time in Auckland and treat ourselves to some luxury. But alas when you’re on a backpacker’s budget Air b&bs are a one off luxury and despite a few days of living it up once our numbers dwindled we were back to the good old camping.

Top tip number five campsites come in all shapes and sizes. There are the more luxury holiday parks and there are the more wallet friendly DOC sites. The department of conservation campsites are cheap and varied, some have a wide range of facilities, some just have taps and drop toliets and some have nothing! But when they’re $10 a night and when you can go to sleep with views like these do you really care? Plus the lake makes for a pretty good bath in the morning and well, it’s all part of the adventure!

Top tip number six make sure your car is fully equipped. By this I mean it is probably a good idea to make sure you have a full puncture kit, some oil, water, perhaps even road side assistance. Because if by some chance you’re driving along a particularly bumpy gravel road and you get two flat tyres and then discover you have no tools to change the tyres anyway you can very quickly (or actually slowly) find your car on a tow truck and a hefty price to pay!

(My poor baby)

Top tip number seven if you don’t like the tent you can always sleep in the car. Just under one month into our travels and we were down to just the two of us and this meant we could set up the car and make it our home. It may be a little on the cosy side but as both of us are short we make it work. Bonus it saves time on setting up, all we need to do us pull up at our spot for the night, shift the bags into the front seat and settle in for the evening. Sure it may not be a fancy jucy camper but we’re on a budget. And let’s be honest the zombie repeller makes for a pretty cool home for the summer!

(Home, cat unfortunately not included)

Top tip number eight try and make a little bit of a plan. Yes it is awesome to just go where the wind takes you, to change plans and directions depending on what you fancy and who you meet but it is probably best to have rough idea of where you want to visit and what you want to do otherwise you can very easily find yourself aimlessly cruising down the coast, dodging the rain and wandering around townships spending your money on coffee and pointless purchases. And times like these will make you miss home and all its comforts and have you wondering what the hell you’re doing with your life BUT…

Top tip number nine roadies are fun! You may wind up soaked to the skin, burnt to the crisp, sweaty, dirty and with chronic back pain. You may sometimes get sick of the endless wandering, particularly when the weather is crap. You may run into troubles and you may end up in some weird ass places. But you will also end up in the most beautiful places, go on the most ridiculous adventures and have some of the best experiences of your life. Could there be a better way to see New Zealand? I don’t think so!

travel

A Ski Season in New Zealand’s North Island…

November 17, 2018 farms191 Comment

Hey all, sorry for the complete lack of posting the last few months, I’ve been busy living, working and playing at New Zealand’s largest ski area Mount Ruapehu. If you’ve ever done a ski season you’ll probably know how ridiculously intense, crazy and awesome it is. If you haven’t you should really fucking do one!

To be fair I went in with a little bit of trepidation to say the least. The day I arrived it was pissing down with rain as I, quite literally, drove through Mordor to the lodge in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere that was to be my home and I panicked. Big time. I really worried for those first couple of days what the hell I had got myself in to.

But although National Park is pretty tiny and Slalom Lodge, my home, was 5km outside, it turned out to be the best of places, full of crazy beautiful people and weird, weird happenings.

It took a week or so but as the lodge filled up for the season, the work kicked in and the snow came to the slopes I fell head over heels in love with the mountain.

Customer Services it turns out is not for the faint of heart. Three weeks into the job the crazy busy school holidays hit us and I found myself working all the hours, seeing very little of the snow or my skis and sobbing into my housemates shoulder after one too many beers at the stress of it all. Because, don’t ya know, everything and I mean everything is customer services fault, the busy queues, the ticket prices, the bad weather, the car parks being full… literally everything. Even without the mania of the school holidays there were some rough days to be had. Turoa, the ski field on the other side of the mountain lost their highest chairlift due to an avalanche and that bought a ton more customers to our side of the mountain and on busy days we were getting at least 2000 more customers than we were equipped to deal with. It became all hands on deck and after getting the 5.45am bus up the mountain, dealing with the epic queues and yelling guests for the first half of the day, I spent afternoons up at the schuss bar helping run food and make margaritas, and getting bought down the mountain by the cats after all the lifts had closed off to get the very last of the buses home.

Honestly work was chaotic. But we still had our fun. After one particularly hectic weekend the big bosses gathered us all after the slopes had closed and dished out beers. On another morning mid crazy school holidays we were all greeted off the bus at 6.30 am with breakfast burgers. We had staff appreciation every month which varied from beers and burgers to sledging on the beginner slopes, to night skiing, to full blown parties at Tussocks pub. We had our lows (and they got pretty damn low) but at the end of it all they just made the highs all the more sweeter and despite the chaos and frustration there were oh so many highs!

When we did get the days off it turned out that even though we seemingly lived in the middle of nowhere there is heaps to be doing. First and foremost there is of course the skiing, and with Mount Ruapehu having the best snow in years there was some epic fun to be had. Here you can “Ride the Maunga” and ski on an active volcano! Bonus there are two sides of the mountain to enjoy. Whakapapa, where I worked, which is obviously the best, has a wider range of runs and gullies whereas Turoa is amazingly wide and open and cruisey. Enough fun to satisfy any skier.

I was lucky enough to be living with some bloody lovely ski instructors who put up skiing with me and my rusty skills and one of whom was kind enough to even let me wangle myself a private ski lesson with him. As a result my skiing got to improve crazy amounts after a nearly five year gap off the skis. Even without the instructor friends, the mountain offered free group lessons to all staff which meant I got to spend a fun afternoon mostly on my ass attempting to learn snowboarding and eventually discovering that I am most definitely a skier!

Off the mountain there was, with a little help from the car, plenty to fill the closed mountain days (and the days when you just needed a break from the slopes) with. This area is packed full of adventures, there are glow worms, hikes, waterfalls, an alpaca farm, carrot town (or to give it’s real name Ohakune) which has a giant carrot and a carrot park that provided us with far more entertainment than was normal! There’s a pretty challenging golf course to be taken on in National Park village as well as a climbing wall that thoroughly defeated me and my lack of upper body strength!

For the nights, Schnapps it turns out is where it’s at, and tight ass Tuesday is the night to gather and drink and eat cheap ribs! And, as there always is with ski seasons, there was a fair few house parties to be attended.

Richard, the owner of our lodge turned out to be quite the legend and he threw us some pretty epic events, including but not limited to a seventies themed party with insane amounts of jelly shots and a snow jam where we literally had a ski jump off the roof of the lodge! As I sat one night around a banquet table full of roast dinner pissed off my face on whisky shots, cheering to Slalom lodge’s greatness and planned storming of National Park and surrounded by some of the loveliest (and craziest) people I’ve had the luck to call friends, I knew I got it pretty damn good.

By far the biggest downside of doing a ski season is the heartbreak when it all comes to an end. And true to form a whole heap of tears were shed as all the goodbyes were said. Because we really did get the best bunch of weirdos. A crazy whanau and a crazy season that despite all the emotional meltdowns I would do all over again in a heartbeat.

Seriously guys if you’re thinking of taking some time out, go do a ski season! You’ll learn some new skills, make some wonderful friends, have a whole heap of insane fun and maybe kill your liver a little in the process! And if you do decide to do a season, try New Zealand on for size trust me you won’t regret it!

travel

How to (ineffectively) prepare for a year away…

May 2, 2018May 2, 2018 farms19Leave a comment

It took me right up until the moment the plane lifted off into the air to believe that I was really jetting off to the other side of the world for a year. I was so wrapped up in getting everything moved out of my flat in time and drinking with all my friends whilst I still could, my brain didn’t really register what was going on. So in short very little preparation actually occurred. Which to be honest I think is probably the best way, it gave my brain very little opportunity to start panicking, meltdown and ultimately rethink my entire decision. Truthfully I think there is no particular way to prepare for a trip this big, everybody will have their own ways of getting ready, but let me give you a little insight into my, limited, preparations for my journeys to New Zealand.

Step one I arranged all the big ones before even telling anyone I was going, I booked my flights, sent off my visa application, applied for a job and arranged my first few nights of accommodation. At least with these done I could rest easy and not panic about arranging things last minute, also when people asked I could give them solid answers about my plans as opposed to having people look at me with an unnerving look of terror like my boss did when I told him my job hadn’t yet been confirmed. (It has since been so panic over.)

Step two with the big things pre-arranged I then kind of stopped planning. I still had a couple of arrangements to make such as confirming my job and arranging my long term accommodation but bar that I didn’t want to get too set into a plan, because guess what they tend to change, especially when travelling! So I know I’m dropping by Australia on the way, first Perth and then Tasmania, and I know I’m heading out to New Zealand to work a ski season in Mount Ruapehu but after that who knows. The ski season ends in October and I have a year long visa a whole country to explore, a passport crying for some stamps and an awful long way back home. I have a rough plan of what I want to do and where I want to go but I don’t want to set it in stone because that’s half the fun of travelling making things up as you go along and this is going to be an adventure.

Step three took the most time and stress of all… packing! I both simultaneously hate it and love it. Weirdly I really enjoy making detailed packing lists (I have a bit of a list fetish) and I love gradually purchasing items to take on my travels, but I hate cramming everything into a bag and I hate hate hate having to decide what to leave behind because there just isn’t room. Here’s the problem I’ve been backpacking before, spent a few months at a time trekking around various different continents, but I’ve ever been away for such a length of time. The other problem? I needed to pack for all seasons, I’m going to be enjoying some Australian sunshine first and hopefully later on some New Zealand sunshine but I am also going to be spending a few months in the snow, which means packing for all seasons and my god ski gear is bulky! So with my old backpack on the verge of falling to pieces I purchased a new one and set out to cram it full with all my shit, and let me assure you it is very much crammed full. I wouldn’t like to say I’ve over packed but I have most definitely over packed! It’s probably going to turn out that I will not wear any of these items at all I’ll probably end up living in the same one or two outfits and I have a sneaking suspicion that a fair amount of stuff is going to get thrown out along the way but you know always better to be prepared! Seriously though, if you have a couple of tops, some underwear, your toothbrush, bank card and passport you’re probably golden. Ok well maybe you need a couple of other bits but remember other countries have shops as well and I can absolutely guarantee you will find a h&m in any country you go to! I promise I’ll let you know successful/unsuccessful my packing has been at the end of my trip, I have a feeling it’ll err on the unsuccessful side, but who knows you might get some (what not to do) packing tips from me!

And the final step? Get excited! In between all the shopping, panicking, packing, farewell drinks and tears (trust me there were a few of those) there were these odd time out moments where I just sat and appreciated what I was about to experience. The only real preparation advice I can give you is to make sure you enjoy those giddy excited moments because trust me there is nothing quite like the fizzy, slightly nauseous, anticipation you get before embarking on an adventure!

travel

I bought a one way ticket to New Zealand…

April 23, 2018 farms19Leave a comment

Following on from a statement in an earlier post that I make rash decisions, this may be the biggest of them all.

I am moving by myself to the other side of the world with just a backpack (albeit a pretty large and pretty full one) with no return ticket and no real date of return. What crazy thought making process went through my head to get me into this position? Honestly I’m not so sure. A couple of months ago I was sat wondering what the hell I was doing with my life. My sister had just flown back out to Australia and I remained in London mindlessly working in a restaurant, living in a house share with one of the most annoying house mates of all time with a pretty non-existent love life. I knew that I needed a change, I was restless, my feet were itching for an adventure and I had a big old bucket list to be ticking off. If I’m going to be working in hospitality and attempting to write on the side then I can do that anywhere in the world I reasoned, so why not try something new. I love London and there’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll wind my way back but I’d gotten a little tired, everything felt a little stale. Perhaps it is my quarter life crisis. I looked around and saw my school friends settling down and having families or achieving their crazy dreams and I am nowhere close to where I thought I’d be ten years ago. And yes I know this is not necessarily a bad thing I don’t think I even want to be where my 16 year old self dreamed me all those years ago. But what I did need was a big kick up the ass to stop myself floundering around and wasting my life away on drunken tequila fuelled nights and Netflix binges in bed.

So after muddling through a few options my mind jumped to New Zealand, I’d always planned to return to New Zealand and spend more time there, I was planning to go visit my sister in Australia this year so that tied in, and after working a ski season in Canada on my gap year between high school and university I’d always vowed to work another one once finishing uni. And so with shockingly little research it was decided I was taking another gap year and moving my ass to New Zealand to freeze myself working on the ski slopes.

Fast forward a couple of months and I have my work visa, flights are booked, initial accommodation arranged, job interviews set up, I finished my final shift at work and moved all of my crap out of my London flat. I am flying out in a few days time and truth be told I’m little freaked out.

All my friends have repeatedly told me I’m crazy and I have serious guts but I’m not so sure I do. This is the biggest gamble I’ve ever taken. Maybe I’ll be lonely, miss my friends, miss my family, maybe I’ll hate New Zealand and the people I meet there, maybe I’ll break a leg my first day on the slopes, maybe I’ll be broke and miserable and on a plane home in a matter of months. Maybe some awful thing will happen and I’ll never make it home, believe me my mind has run through every possible terrible scenario, BUT, here’s the big one… maybe I’ll have the best goddamn time of my life! Who knows what will happen over the course of the next year, I just know that I will always regret the journeys I didn’t take far far more than the ones I did. So wish me luck and stay tuned for tales of my new adventure!