After I finished my travelling the West Coast I headed inland to Wanaka where I spent a few days before heading through to Queenstown. Both places are in the mountains and I will update you on my adventures in both these places as soon as I find the energy to write about them.

I pretty much came to the end of my savings whilst exploring Queenstown so I called up my previous boss from the Pack House and went back to Palmy to rebuild my savings. I was lucky in the fact that I made it back to Palmy and had started working when the dreaded Covid-19 struck the country and we proceeded straight away into lockdown. I was one of those essential workers, which was great because I wasn’t sat in the hostel bored for the 7 weeks we were sat in lockdown and I was working 6 days a week so there was little time to procrastinate.

The New Zealand government have reacted amazingly to the threats of the virus, locking down the country after 205 confirmed cases. On the 19th March they closed the borders to all non-New Zealand citizens and residents before setting in the level 4 lockdown on the 25th March. I think its not only thanks to the New Zealand government but as well to everybody who’s living here, pretty much everyone stuck to the level 4 restrictions which I think helped a great deal after looking at news articles from other countries not taking it as seriously as they should be, especially in the UK.

I am so thankful that I am in a country that has passed hits lockdown state and has only 1 active case of Covid-19 left, this however could change with the restrictions lifted or mutation within the virus. but I am now at the point where I have begun to travel again, which leaves me practically speechless as this country is amazing and I’m dreading that final day i will leave.

Ive sort of come up trumps with this virus as I was able to work during a time when a lot of people couldn’t even leave there homes. Pretty early into the lockdown the NZ government announced that anyone currently still in the country and with their visa ending between the 2nd of April and the 9th July would automatically receive an extension to there visa until the 25th September. I fell straight into this category with my visa ending on the 11th June. Lucky me!

“Don’t count the days, make the days count”

MUHAMMAD ALI