I left my parents in Kaikoura and did the most amazing tramp (hike) of my life. It was a 3-day/40km tramp which passed through vibrant coloured forests, dark bare Lord of the Rings-esque forests, open farm hills, beaches, streams, tangly branched forest, waist-high damp grass, waterfalls and flowerbeds. At the end of each day there was a little farmhouse where we (me and 5 other trampers) stayed for the night. All very cozy places, and really friendly hosts. I was hiking with five others: A mom, son from Oregon, a couple from Australia and a German. On the first day I tramped with shoes on but 30 minutes in I already felt like I was getting blisters so I took my shoes off and went barefoot. 10 seconds later I sliced my foot on a rock and if my shoes weren't so hard to put back on I probably would have but I'm glad I didn't because the rest of the tramp was fine and I didn't cut my feet anymore. It was actually pretty nice walking barefoot.
I got really familiar with the texture of sheep dung though. It was EVERYWHERE on the sheep trails up on the hillsides. There was no way of avoiding it.
Day two was rough because the first couple hours of the tramp was along a beach and as amazing as it sounds (and was) my sliced foot was getting killed walking on it. Stefan caught up to me and he had a first aid kit and patched me up a bit. The Australian couple caught up during this time too and they both had their two cents on what I should do to take care of it. Everyone had their own doctors advice. Up to this point I had tramped alone but we walked along along the beach together for a bit and it was nice to have some company. Abstract plant life, tangled forests followed after the beach, and then out of the forest into gorgeous hills with sheep grazing in the sun. I went the wrong way at this point because the paths weren`t always so easy to decipher.
When I reached the second hut I had a bunch of Oma and gramma cookies and they were all really tasty. There was a a cool poster at the hut that had the article below on it and I thought it was really cool to read. I don't agree with all of it but I think there's a lot of good points on it.
RULES ON LIVING MORE WISELY by Neil Rosenthal
You will receive a body - you may hate it or you might like it, but it will be yours the entire period this time around.
You will need lessons. You are enrolled in a full lifetime informal school called Life. Each day you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant or stupid.
There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error; experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much of the process as the experiment that eventually "works."
A lesson is repeated until learned Presented in various forms till you have learned it.
Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lesson. If you are alive, tere are lessons to be learned.
Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.
What you make of your life is up to you.
The only heaven and hell we can really be sure of is whether we are living in heaven or in hell while we are alive.
While you're alive, make sure you are living.
"There" is no better than "here". When your "there" has become "hereto", you will simply obtain another "there" that will look better than "here".
Your answers lie inside you. Look, listen, trust.
The last day of the tramp featured lots of sheep. At one point I was following one big sheep and two smaller ones for ten minutes. They would see me and then run for awhile. They'd then stop, turn around and watch me approaching them and then they'd run off again. Their eyes said "stop following us" and mine responded with "this is the walking track for humans who are trying as much as possible to avoid your droppings!"
The young sheep would follow the running big leader-sheep so close they would be tripping over his heels. They looked very afraid. They'd drop a lot of kinder surprises after running. They eventually went off onto a smaller path and I was no longer following them. I thought about following them up the path to the point where they would have been cornered and they'd have to jump off the side of the cliff to avoid me any longer... but I thought I'd scared them enough.
From Kaikoura I hitched down to Christchurch. I wasn't a fan of the city just because I wasn't used to seeing that amount of advertising and consumerism again. I hitched down to Timaru for New Years. That ended up being an interesting experience. I stayed in a backpackers place where only 5 others were staying. I told the owner I wanted a quieter spot for New Years and he gave me a whole building to myself. At 11:30 he came to my door and told me there were fireworks on the balcony and that the others wanted to meet me. I went up and they were all doing shots and drinking multiple beers but they were all respectful and mostly still with it at that point. One of the ladies had Coke Zero so when they took their shots I'd sip some Coke, it was pretty funny. The fireworks were actually pretty impressive for a smallish place like Timaru. I left after a bit of celebrating the new decade and had a good sleep in a huge bed. I woke up feeling like I had the last few days: empty and unsatisfied with traveling, joyless and ready to see people I knew again.
I traveled the next few days just going places for the sake of going places. Every new destination I reached I felt like I needed to leave already. I saw lots but it wasn't fun and it felt like I was traveling with the devil. It was like a heavy ghost was pressing down on my every thought and action. Finally I settled down and spent three days in silence in the middle of a forest in a small town called Waikouaiti. It was close to a vacated beach and I thought it was going to be a great place to swim for a few days. Turns out the beach is empty because the weather is always windy and cold and the waves were really discouraging. Too big! The time in Waikouaiti was very helpful though. I read lots of Scripture and it was a good time to feel close to God with no other distractions. I played my harmonica in the tent a bit too, and the chirping birds accompanied me for a bit. I loved tenting, but finding my tent after leaving the forest for a bit was always an adventure. I imagined it was what trying to find Narnia was like. I'd have to lose myself in the forest before finding the tent. I never got back to my tent the same way. And once I found my tent it was like finding the portal into Narnia, it was an accomplishment. By the third day the trees started talking to me and that's when I knew I had to get out again. The forest was really freaky. At times the ground would rustle and I would think someone was approaching and knowing no one else was around I could have been murdered and no one would have known... yeah, I probably will never do that again. At one point I was approached in my tent... I was told to come out and there he was: a police officer. I was paranoid the whole time that I was tenting in a place which was off limits and that I'd be told to leave or get a fine or something. Turns out the police officer just wanted to know if I had a kayak because he suspected someone stole it. That was a sigh of relief.
So after my big day of hitch hiking from the southeast to the northwest I headed up to Karamea and that was a good peaceful time again. However, the loneliness by this point was absolutely driving me mad but I was able to get into contact with some Capers and so I headed down to Westport to meet them. It was the rainiest day of my life when I hitched down to Westport. I found a hostel and dried off and had my first shower in a long time. I was in bed by 7pm waiting for the next day when I'd meet up with them. At around 9pm I heard a familiar voice checking in... It was Bryan, Amber and Kelsey! I ran out of my dorm and hugged the heck out of them from behind. I was ecstatic. So much joy that I had been lacking for a couple of weeks alone.
For the last week I had a perfect time sharing traveling experiences with friends. We worked our way down the west coast and camped in our two small tents wherever we could for free: on the beach, beside the highway, in our pastor's backyard, behind caravans in camping gounds... cheap traveling.
We had to pay 6 bucks each in Franz-Josef where we had to camp in a campground and we were devestated at that.
Because we did lots of traveling in the car (over 3000km by the end) we made up our own entertainment in the car. We'd have to talk in lisps, in New King James lingo, like a robot, etc. and where our clothes inside out and backwards and crazy things like that. We visited Shantytown which reminded me a lot of being in Canada. It was an old fashioned town where we visited the old jailhouse, took a trainride and saw vintage stuff. Kelsey even panned for gold and got some.
Milford Sound was incredible. Although there were tons of sandflies. And we touched snow! We were all very happy about that. We played in the snow for awhile, sliding down little channels and running around barefoot and feeling like we'd get frost-bitten feet. We slept in beds and had showers for the last two days of our travels because of connections in various parts of New Zealand. Met lots of cool people - even one person who could have passed as a real life hobbit.
It's great being back in school again. Over the last three weeks we really learned to appreciate how awesome it is to know we'll get three meals a day, a guarunteed place to sleep (especially a place with a bed) and showers. It was good seeing the whole Capernwray crew again too and hearing about what they were up to the last month as well. Fun and challenging times are ahead, but it is all very exciting.
Well, there it is - in one big shot - everything that's gone on this past month! Hopefully all of you had a restful and enjoyable Christmas holiday and New Year and I'll see you all again this year, hey?
