29 January 2011
151 Km – Hey Hey Lucy Drive On
We are sitting in a junk yard. Or, some might call it the Marahau Beach Camp. Sadly, the closest thing to a beach at this motor park is the sand bucket our neighbor to one side is using for his cigarette butts. We’re hoping our neighbor on the other side will take note of it, for she is sitting in the sun with her glass of House Red fluffing her wet hair and chain-smoking. Very attractive.
New Zealand, New Zealand. You have some of the most amazing scenery we have ever seen, the kind that makes Gina start planning our next trip here even though we’re still here, have been here for two months, and still have a month to go. You also have some fantastic camping grounds, from the clean simplicity of the DOC at Mt. Cook to the classy kitchen blocks at Queenstown and Franz Josef. But I must say, New Zealand, there’s a bit of sprucing up that could be done at some of your motor parks. For example, here we sit, literally one block from the outstandingly scenic turquoise bay at the start of the Abel Tasman Track, and all we’re looking at, besides our pack-a-day neighbors, is a wooden fence and a $34 hole in our wallet. It’s a bit tragic, really. Certainly a downer in our experience here, for those moments where we let it in, those moments like the Now where I’m staring at it. But also in the Now, I’m being told by a certain Someone to stop focusing on it, so I will.
Instead, lets focus on our word of the day – actually, it was yesterday, a whole day behind the Now, but I didn’t discuss it in yesterday’s blog, so let’s pretend it’s not the word of yesterday and instead the word of today – which is “undulating”. This is a new word for Gina and we are very proud of her for taking it on. Undulating can be used to describe many things, and mostly we’ve been using it to describe the trails we’ve been tramping and the roads we’ve been driving. But it also applies to our emotions, the peaks and valleys we’re experiencing out here on the road. Yesterday (that we’re pretending is today) was one of those emotionally undulating days. A day of feeling disconnected from friends and family, of uncertainty over past actions (Did we make the best choices? Would it have been better to just stay put?) and future options (Where should we go? What should we do? How will we do it?). Truth be told, these kind of undulating moments can be really difficult and sometimes bring us down, even though they may seem like (and in all practicality, are) high class problems and of the kind not rooted in the Now. I guess that’s how it goes when you step outside your comfort zone. But as a wise friend once told me, you can stand to be a little uncomfortable. And I don’t think she was just referring to sleeping in a tent.