We've gone South! With our
official Wellington departure date the 15th of January, we skip out early for a
week's holiday within a holiday to celebrate the new year with a group of
friends. Some we knew from Wellington,
some began as strangers, but we all left as friends. We begin my making the scenic, winding drive
through Marborough Sounds to Titirangi Beach.3-2-1-Midnight!! We run naked down the beach under the brightest, fullest sky of stars. Bioluminencent sea critters glow in the shallows. I lie in the tall grass, sheltered by the wind streamlining off the water. Fireworks boom on the distant horizon and then behind me. We are screaming, laughing, running but my feet and legs I can barely feel, blissfully unaware of my own body. I'm floating matter washed up on the sandy beach of time. I am a shooting star. I am a bird's flight feather.
This unexpected side trip was a whirlwind of activities with some strangers that quickly became good friends. That's what happens when you pack 6 minimum, 12 maximum people in a campervan that smells like petrol, fetid fish bait, and body odor… When you sleep in a tent mansion together but somehow prefer to squeeze 6 onto one mattress… When you go boating, fishing, swimming, driving, climbing, jumping, dancing, jamming, cooking, cleaning, playing together for a week straight. Greg puts on a puppet show with cardboard cutouts he made to reenact the end of the world as told through Norse Mythology. We all play the characters, backlit by candle light on the tent wall, while he reads. Though slightly uncomfortable, 6 of us packed into a 3 seater van stuffed to the gills with camping supplies and gear enough for 12, those drives were some of my favorites times on the trip. Stopping to pee and everyone getting out to dance to ghetto gospel. Games, laughter, cuddles. Climbing was a while new world for me. The challenge for mind and body. The community surrounding and supporting it.
12-14 Jan
Stay at Jojo's and help auntie Trish with garden.
I love being woken up by the sun's first light and falling asleep to its last.
I love using the full moon as a reading lamp.
I love not knowing where I'll be sleeping tonight or tomorrow night.
I love not knowing.
If you don't know then it's harder to project and easier to live in the moment.
I love the sound of the waves and other camper's music.
I love driving in a swim suit and making unplanned jumps into crystal clear streams to wash off the sea salt from our last spontaneous swim.
I love the open road with no destination.
21 Jan
The Abel Tasman Coast TrackRight now I'm lying in bed in TinTin in a massive and crowded campground. All of the doors are open so I have to wear bug spray to keep the sandflys out. It's 9pm and still very light and warm. The sun only just now sank behind the hills. I'm camping in the Abel Tasman National Park, right near the start of the tramping track. There are people riding horses on the beach. There are people all around me cooking and eating and talking and laughing. I went into one of the camp kitchens to make dinner but it was so crowded I got nervous and left. Instead I made dinner back at the van on our camp stove and listened to my iPod. I guess I'm feeling pretty introverted right now. It's easier to be extroverted when someone you know is there with you. But Jamie is traveling down the west coast with her mom and sister now. I'm happy to be alone. Its a whole different buzz.
I walked down to the beach earlier today and there was this massive rock sticking out of the water and it was split perfectly in half like an apple. It's even called Split Apple Rock! I just sat there alone on the beach, kind of in this cave, listening to the water making this low frequency booming sound as it sloshed into a hidden subterranean cavern near the entrance, just staring at the split rock for ages. How did it split in half so perfectly like that? Lightening? Aliens? A massive hammer and spike? Anyway, it was cool. And right now I can hear people talking in so many different languages and I don't recognize most of them. People from every nook and cranny of the globe come to NZ to travel it seems.
22 Jan
Marahau to Anchorage Camp --> 12.5kmThe New Zealand sky seems like it never ends, even on a cloudy day. And the clouds, oh the clouds! The Maori name for NZ is Aotearoa, which means Land of the Long White Cloud. There must be so many levels of pressure and wind currents in the sky, because the shapes, textures, colors and layers of clouds are always shaping and reshaping. On so many occasions I have completely stopped what I've been doing to just stare at the clouds in wonder.
I made it to my first campsite along the track. A 12.5km tramp took me about 4 hours with a 30 pound pack. I like the walking part. It occupies my body which allows my mind to either happily wander or rest. Taking in the views, enjoying the journey with less of a determined destination in mind. Because once I've reached camp, once I've set up my tent, had a snack and wandered the beach, jumping in for a snorkel, I'm left to either find people to talk to, which isn't all that easy to do, or find something to occupy my lone mind with until dark. Reading, writing, napping, more beach wandering, watching the birds root through the leaves. Maybe even a little meditation.
The beaches all around the coast look like wet cornmeal. Golden sand beaches. The product of water and time eroding away the hard granite cliffs.
I used to not really care too much for the water. I'd jump in for a minute and yeah it was refreshing, but generally I could go without. Lately I'm in it every chance I get. And I stay in. Floating down crystal clear streams just a few hundred meters from the road. Snorkeling round a deep blue bay. I just really love the feeling of swimming. My body feels so happy and light afterwards and during.
23 Jan
Anchorage to Bark Bay Camp --> 8.5km low tide trackA nearly cloudless day, I walked the 8.5km low tide track to my next camp. The track wound around hillsides that slid drastically into the clear, deep blue see. At the start of the next leg I struck up a conversation with the girl who had been camping next to me last night. She's doing the tramp on her own as well because her boyfriend has to work. She's Portuguese but has living in London for the last 10 years. We chatted comfortably for a while and she set up her tent next to mine at the next site. I have a tramping buddy! I'm still taking time to be on my own, like taking a beach nap and later watching millions of little crabs scuttle around in the soggy estuary. The whole muddy area is pock-marked with little holes, in each of which hides a tiny crab. If you sit still for a few minutes they all emerge at once, the sun reflecting off their wet shells and it looks like a million shining diamonds. And if you look closely the whole area is teeming with them, each one looking like they're furiously at work on an invisible typewriter, searching for yummy edible bits in the sand.
24 Jan
Bark Bay to Awaroa Camp --> 13kmI don't know if it's that my "first day of school" shy jitters have worn off, or it it's that everyone is making the same journey so everyone begins to let lose and talk, or a combination of both, but I'm really loving this experience. Chatting comfortable with strangers, now friends, for all over the world. Comparing, contrasting, relating, politely disagreeing, exchanging tips and stories. And then there's still enough time for me to sit peacefully by the rising tide and read my book or write a bit. I just met Priscilla yesterday, but it already feels like we're old pals. So strange how that can happen. I walked 13.5km today. About 4 of it I was accompanied by a spry 16 year old boy who literally never stopped talking. But instead of being annoyed and trying to ditch him, I let him carry on and learned an awful lot about rugby and dairy farming. It felt like that's the difference between living in the moment and projecting about what I "should" be doing. Maybe I SHOULD just enjoy what's happening while it's happening. Within reason, of course.
Anyway, I went snorkeling for awhile in the fresh ocean water to sooth my achey muscles then took a freezing cold shower fresh water shower.
At this moment I feel so extremely happy and glad that I'm on this journey, even though I'm currently being eaten alive by sandflys.
(Awaroa to Totaranue = 6.5km & Totaranui to Whariwharangi = 10km)
What a day! I really pushed myself today, hiking about 17km descending down to golden beaches and ascending up through native bush for some Wow! views. The blisters on my toes are not thanking me, but I'm glad I did. I completed most the it alone, with Priscilla accompanying me for 6km until she turned off to join up with her boyfriend. I am so tired, satisfied and happy. Tomorrow is my last day on the track. It's honestly really hard to focus right now I'm just buzzing from the events of today and these last few days. Let me skip to my favorite experience.
Earlier I decided to hike an extra hour to this point where a seal colony was rumored to inhabit. As I rounded a curve I could hear them before I saw them. Squeaks and squeals and growls of all sorts. From the cliff's rock edge I spotted one, then two, then four little pups playing happily in a rock pool. From my lofty perch they looked more like shiny slugs then seals. So I ditched my pack and took a narrow, steep and only remotely sketchy path down to the lighthouse and rock outcropping below. I spotted a mother and pup sunning themselves about 50 meters away. Not wanting to disturb them and rather enjoying the sun and surf myself, I sat down and took it all in. The drastic, bare faced cliffs, the jade and sapphire waters, the sun on my face, all of it. Just then I heard an all to familiar noise. Like Marli when she gets a little too involved in tug-o-war. Playful but attention grabbing growls. I peeked down between two rocks and to my joy and amazement appeared four little writhing bodies. It was tiny seal pups playing in a rock pool! They didn't notice me for a while, but were so close I could have reached down and touched their little puppy noses! And so small and young! Must be less than a month old. There I sat, an undetected observer, witnessing the pure beauty. Frolicking seal babies, so happy to just be. No fears of sharks or orcas. Just playing with one another for the sake of being alive. How special these moments are to me. Even if these pups are spotted again by human eyes, there in that place, in that moment, they will always exist and be a completely singular, sacred experience that only I can share with myself forever. Their big, sparkly eyes and innocent exuberance free to live on in my memory as long as I keep it there.
I walked to the farthest end of the rocky point, gazed out into the vast distance where blue meets blue and said aloud and in my heart, Thank You.
Tonight I am so happy to be here alone. I have made friends (one girl living in Denver!), seen some extraordinary things and worn several holes in the only pair of socks I brought. With my fourth and final night now arrived I feel grateful, confident, proud, awestruck and that satisfying kind of exhaustion you get at the end of a goal accomplished. The camp is quiet, I am well fed on Uncle Ben's instant rice and a quiet inner peace that all is right in my life.
Sea Shuttle from Totarinui to Kaiteriteri
Shuttle Bus from Kaiteriteri to Marahau
I heard the rain start early, just as they predicted. A light pitter patter, sporadic and non threatening. I packed up camp early anyhow, hoping to beat it before the heavy drops soaked my tent. I managed to hike 1 of the 11km before the down pour and nearly gale force winds struck. And 7 of that 11km was STRAIGHT up hill. I was alone for miles, having snuck out of camp before most had risen. I stopped every 20 meters or so to catch my breath on the never ending, muddy and unrelentingly steep slope and yell, FUCK THIS! Finally at the top, the views were rumored to be spectacular. Awe inspiring and breath taking, ra-ra-ra. I couldn't see past the shrubs to my immediate left as the fog and mist were so thick. And every time I looked up from my feet I got a face full of horizontal rain. So soaked to the bone and so sweaty from the steep climb, I was wet through and through. My fingers were pruney and my shoes squished with every step. By the time I reached the beach where my water taxi would come to deliver me back to TinTin I was so exhausted and in a twilight sort of daze. It was hard to communicate my thoughts out loud. Other trampers on various stages of their journey huddled under the awning of the camp toilets. All of us silently bonded over the ordeal. Finally after two hours of waiting in the rain my water taxi arrived. This was far from the end of my adventure, however. Three meter high swells brought the boat up into the air and then crashing with a violent thud into the sea. Passengers and crew alike held on for dear life while our fearless captain propelled us through the mighty wrath of Poseidon.
Needless to say, I did not feel well. So mentally and physically exhausted from my journey, but so nauseous and distraught from the turbulent sea, I was in a rare state. Miraculously I didn't lose my cookies and by the time we reached the track's starting point the sun was peaking out and the sea was beginning to recede into a lulling rock.
There and back again, my journey was over. 5 days, 4 nights, 60km travelled. I did it!
The previous words written may appear as complaints, but I meant them only to be accurate descriptions. I enjoyed every moment of my time spent on the track be it lonely, exciting, beautiful, friendly, challenging, etc. Each of these moment are uniquely mine to grow and learn from and enjoy. I feel these past 5 days taught me many things and made me a more confident individual. I accomplished something worth celebrating and I wouldn't change a thing.
Now here I am, fried seafood and beer in hand at the closest
cafe. Sore, tired, and blissed out on
life.
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