Moving to the country...



Going to eat a lot of peaches.

Well kumara at least. I have snagged a job at the Kaipara Lifestyler newspaper in Dargaville, Kumara capital of New Zealand – and well, I guess, the world.


Even people from Dargaville are asking – why? Why make a move from Auckland where I have a close network of friends as well as my family to Dargaville – population 5,000 and friend count, 0. At this point, I’m not sure of the answer but I figure the tag line on this blog is, “have an adventure, they are amazing” so I might as well live up to that.

It’s my first “real” job and it’s been a bit tough so far, I’m not going to lie. My friends tell me that this 40 plus hour a week stuff is “real life” – gosh take me back to travelling the world and working in coffee shops or doing a masters and working in a pub part time. Actually scratch the masters part - has to be better than doing the masters.

The stories that I’m doing are a bit different than the investigative journalism that I was doing while studying... A theatre group visited a local primary school, the National Bank is putting on a raffle for Daffidol Day and new businesses are opening in Wellsford. The quantity of these stories however are a challenge. The expectation is three stories a day and cramming it into an eight hours means that there is limited time to research stories, interview the right people and write. I bet I’ll end up researching them in my spare time just so the day isn’t so stressful. I can see how journalists occasionally get facts wrong and instead of condemning them to journalistic hell, I now sympathise with them (not that I want to be one of them).

Still, I think it’s a good place to learn how to be a ‘real journalist’ because my masters didn’t really teach me how to churn out good stories on a regular basis. I’ve got to just run with it like some cliché about making the most of any opportunity that comes along. At the moment I’m staying with family friends but I’m getting the feeling that I’m overstaying my welcome a wee bit. So moving on out – everyone that I ring about a place asks if I’m moving up with my partner – nope, “it’s just me,” I say. Cue awkward pause where I pretend they are admiring me for being really brave instead of the more likely option where they are yelling an internal, “WHY!” in their heads. Probably they’re just cursing that they can’t charge an extra 100 on rent. So once again, I’m packing my well used backpack with messages from friends all over the world on it and heading some place new. The new is always scary but it is always coupled with a more positive adjective - exciting.        

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