the journey home

from day 29 (20/03/2016) onwards I’ve been making my slow wat home, trying out different transport on the way to see how it fits. I had an excellent restorative time in dunedin with Mike and Ali, including my first spectation of a fencing (terrifying but pretty cool!) up in an attic of an old building. it made me wonder how many other interesting things go on in the attics all around us, all the time?!

dunedin also has some amazing graffiti…

… a fantastic university library that was bustling but somehow still very peaceful …

… some beautiful landscapes nearby such as the silver peaks …

… and is a great place to have 15+ hour sleeps!
next was a car journey up the east coast to christchurch, and despite it being very picturesque and that I’ve always enjoyed driving, I was surprised how bored I got driving. sitting enclosed in the cockpit of the car I felt very disconnected from my surroundings: I couldn’t feel the chill or the warmth of the air, couldn’t smell the countryside or sea air, didn’t have the challenge of an uphill, nor the freedom of flying on the downhills, couldn’t hear the birdsong, no longer felt inclined to stop to investigate random things I passed, and couldn’t wave and bellow “good morning!” to smiling locals. in fact, everyone I passed no longer smiled!
I did stop at the moeraki boulders though – rocks that have grown in the coastal soils in a similar way to pearls, and then roll out onto the beach as the soil erodes.

I also stopped to check out the extravagant castle at riverstone built on a whim of a dairy farmer’s wife (feeling less concerned about the “hard-done-by” dairy farmers these days!)…

… and rushed over to help this motorcyclist slumped over their bike, and then felt quite silly.

arriving in christchurch reminded me of what the guy who set up the Hinewai reserve on akaroa said : “a car infested swamp!” and he’s dead-right. way too many vehicles for the roads and eat too few signposts to guide the unwitting – I think I made about 612 circuits through the city before reaching my destination, a lot of the time trapped in a one way system while I wished I has my bike so I could get off and walk to where I wanted to go!
again, there are some wonderful murals in chch, some super old buildings worth keeping and some very inappropriate old buildings that should probably be just removed … contentious?!

in chch I got to catch up with my excellent friends Kate, Carl, Maia, Sophia and Ariana, before heading north to Picton on the scenic railway. the highlights included going through a town called Nonoti (so named as a local official was asked to name it but humbly said “no; not I!” and they took him literally!), a pod of dolphin doing backflips off the coast as we came into kaikoura, and an open-air carriage that reminded me of third class train travel in India – magic!  and now onto the Bluebridge ferry, to test the difference from the inter-islander. nearly home!  hf