On the Move

I love Wanaka, I really do. Even when you seem to sink into a little routine and seemingly day to day normality you walk around a corner and WOW! Look at that view! Even today on my walk back from the shop I crossed the road and half way across just had to stop and stare at the sight at the end of the street. The 2 rows of seemingly normal shops coming to an end giving way to trees and snow capped mountains. The sun shining on the peaks and the view is just breathtaking, the only issue that is now it has come to a (hopefully temporary) end.

As amazing as Wanaka is, it is a terrible place to find a job and after 3 weeks being here I still haven’t found anything in the area at all. The issue is that Wanaka and Queenstown are the 2 biggest ski resort areas in New Zealand with people coming from all over the road to be here and stay for the winter season. Wanaka therefore has loads of people all in holiday mode and not many jobs to support the ones that need to make money. Since the majority of the population here are either on holiday or just hear for a season then there are not many jobs about and the ones that are around tend to be in the hospitality industries, working in bars or hotels etc. Having spent the last 11 years working in IT I seem to fall a bit flat when it comes to this as a have zero experience which has made finding a job in Wanaka near impossible. Whenever a job in a bar comes up 50 people have already applied and have experience to hit the ground running so it looks like maybe Wanaka isn’t going to be the place for me.

It isn’t all doom and gloom though as things are looking up a little. To get around the issue of not having somewhere to work properly I rented some office space at a local collaborative work centre to get some stuff done and it worked out really well for it. It ended up costing less than I was paying for coffee each day and had 24/7 access and unlimited internet so exactly what you need when looking for a job. From there I have managed to apply for a boatload of jobs in Dunedin and Christchurch and even used the meeting rooms onsite to speak have some Skype interviews with some recruitment agencies so it cant be all that bad.

And so now it is time that I look at making a move. Nothing more is going to happen with a job in Wanaka so I need to suck it up and move on. I have a much better chance of getting a job in Dunedin or Christchurch and in both cases they also have really decent pay too which would give me the money to get out and see some of the country on the weekends too so I cant really complain about that.

Tomorrow I catch a coach to Dunedin where I will be based from for about another week and the I think I will head up to Christchuch and make it up from there. Not sure what my plan is or where I will end up living but I am sure that the adventure will be worth while.