Rayne Bradley (left) with her mother Chelsea. Photo: Susan Murray/RNZ
On 18 October, 2021 an early morning alarm went off and 17-year-old Rayne Bradley chucked on her uniform and started her final term at Taumarunui High School.
She had no idea what she was going to do with her life when the year was over, but she did know she wasn't going to leave the small isolated King Country town for the big smoke.
"I really didn't want to go away. I didn't want to study. I was so against going away," she says.
She loved growing up in Taumarunui. All her family were around her, and everywhere she went, there was always someone she knew.
After all, no one in her larger family had ever left the town for tertiary study.
But then.
"I was just thinking - do I really want this to be my life?"
Rayne was working at the Taumarunui RSA and the school pool part-time. She didn't really like doing anything apart from school, work and home but she also realised that maybe she wanted more from her life than that.
"I just thought if I do something at least I'd have something under my name. I wanted to try something new."
So quietly, without telling her parents, Rayne started looking at possible courses in Hamilton.
She chose the NZ School of Tourism because "it was the shortest course. It was two years. Everything else was five years, or four years. I can't stay away that long, even two years is so long," she says.
Country Life is telling Rayne's story to shed some light on the urban-rural divide and how people cope moving between town and country. Country Life will be checking in with Rayne from time to time as she experiences the shift from small rural town to a hostel in the city.
For Rayne, moving to Hamilton was a huge undertaking. Rayne had never had a night out of town, away from her family, alone. She barely coped with staying down the road without her family.
"I get so homesick."
We met the day her family were leaving her at the Taurima Hostel and when the pull to hop back in the car and head for Taumarunui was huge.
Life was looking scary, but she didn't, and couldn't, jump in the car.
So she kept saying to herself 'you can do it'.
The first week passed and Rayne went home for the Saturday night. Come Sunday in the hostel again, she spent the entire night crying.
"I asked Mum 'can you come and pick me up please?' but she wouldn't pick me up. No one would," she laughs.
Rayne says being in the classes was okay, in fact it was great. She loved learning and meeting classmates. It was being alone at the hostel without familiar faces that did her in.
"And then I thought about everything. What am I going to do at home? Nothing. I'm the only one out of my friends that's left. I don't want to be gone for a week and then move home ..." she drifts off.
Roll forward to week four and the hostel is much easier. She's comfortable there. She doesn't get homesick anymore and while she still does go home each weekend, she doesn't feel as if she has to.
Making more friends did help, but she says it was changing her mindset that had the biggest impact.
"I thought 'you're doing something now, get over yourself, put your big girl shoes on, you can do this'."
Rayne's advice for others is clear.
"Take whatever opportunities come to you, you have to grow up someday so just get it over and done with. Take the big step. You're going to be scared but it's all right, it's going to get easier. Yea."
Rayne Bradley, a role model and young woman living out her school motto Kia Manawanui.
