"Why does it always rain on me?"

Recovery day today; namely, a day spent doing all those things that need to be done but never seem to get done whilst one is travelling. The biggest item on that list: laundry. Of course, Murphy's Law says that the day I decide to do laundry is the day it decides to rain, and so it did, about 1 1/2 hours after I strung everything out on the line behind the hostel... I ended up paying $1 to run some of the really damp things through the dryer, and hung the rest up around the dorm room, much to the amusement of my dorm mates, who now have my socks and t-shirts dangling from their bunks. My suitcase and backpack are also suffering from another severe case of packing rot, where everything is jumbled up and disorganised, but I'll deal with that in two days or so when I am packing to leave Wanaka.

Impromptu Clothesline

I walked into town and bought some stain remover, and hit up the library for $2 discard books (copies of The Two Towers and The Return of the King... it seems only fitting to re-read them whilst one is here in New Zealand). I also bought a tube of waterproofing treatment for my hiking boots, which are definitely showing signs of wear and tear due to all the tramping around I am doing. The stain remover is for my coat; this afternoon I finally attacked the coal and oil stains on my green raincoat left (mainly) by Locie #428 at the Weka Pass Railway, which primed all over me on October 18th. While it will never look perfectly spotless again, I hope I can at least get it to a state where it's not readily evident that a steam train belched boiling water and coal fragments all over my unsuspecting form.

That essentially sums up the excitement of my day; hunched over my coat in the laundry room, a bottle of Shout stain remover in my hand, and my fingernails worn down by repeated scrubbing. However, it is nice to simply stay in one place for a few days; just to feel a little bit more relaxed and in control, not being herded from one location and activity to another. I even managed to create my profile on the WWOOFing website, and do a little research into WWOOFing locations on the West Coast for later on when I am done travelling.

Tomorrow Lewis, Rhys, and Dave are going for a hike up Roy's Peak Track, and have invited me to go with them, but I'm not sure because a) I want to go to a movie early tomorrow evening and I don't think we'd be back in time and b) I'm supposed to be using this time to recover from my cold, not subject myself to an 11km trek up a mountain. But then again, I can always go to a movie the night afterward, and hiking opportunities with buddies are not to be passed up (it gets lonely hiking alone). I'll make my decision tomorrow morning.

~Carolyn~