The driving force of our trip has definitely been impulse; proceeding with the best possible decision the moment it’s presented; not thinking about the future or spending unnecessary energy on the ‘what if’ but focusing on the ‘what now?’. In keeping with that theme, we bought our return tickets to Toronto on a whim, simply because it felt like it was time. Four and a half months has flown by, yet that time is deceptively full with innumerable memories.
Looking back, we can agree that both of us knew very very little setting out. Our eager feet took us overseas but our psyche’s were definitely on the not-well-traveled sides. As april rolled around, Ovie and I have noticed significant changes at the very foundation of our respective characters.
Our basic philosophies about life, and learning, and growing, have been changed forever. And that was the ultimate goal of this adventure when we conjured up the idea in summer 2014.
Because why do we visit the unknown? Why do people naturally stray from what’s visible, apparent, and familiar in favour of that vast nebula of the unknown?
Easy. To see what’s there. And when Ovie or I reflect on our trip, when we revisit moments on the road that we have already forgotten, and bring up small jokes or episodes, they are already treated with a surprised “oh, ya!.”
The journey was far from finished, though. The journey is always far from finished.
The moment we booked our flights out of Auckland, from then it was an epic journey of busses, hitching rides, ticket, boats, sleeping in busses, sleeping in airports, sleeping in planes, not sleeping at all. We’ve had more ‘ticket confirmations’ in the last week than we care to ever have again.
But as I said to Ovie “this is the grunt work of travel. When you get tired of this, just think about Fiordland or Mount Maunganui, and disappear in that memory.”
Because memory is like the currency of life. And we’re always investing.
During our final hours in Auckland, we managed to meet our good friend Louis Cassels, the only Kiwi we’d known before our travels there. How poetically suiting, we thought, that the last Kiwi we say goodbye to is the first Kiwi we ever met. Like all Kiwis, Louis was a fantastic host for the brief time we were with him. And just like all Kiwis, he managed to make his hospitality genuine and good-natured; not a bit forced or obligatory. It was a prefect way to say goodbye to a great nation of great people.
Because we bought cheap flights home, we’re looking at multiple 10-hour-plus layovers. One ten hour in Australia and a 60 hour in Honolulu. At least there in countries with decent weather.
We endure our ten hour layover in the sydney airport. Of course we pick a day where the city is cast over in clouds and rain threatens at any moment. No bother, we’re on to Honolulu in no time.
After we do the droning airplane routine of check in and security, we decide to taste some potent Australian wine. Three glasses in and we’ve already forgotten which gate we depart from. So I head up to the tv screen to check our flight details.
I spot us. Flight JQ3 Sydney to Honolulu. Departing out of gate cancelled.
“Hm?”
Cancelled.
“Hey Ove. Our flight’s cancelled.” He furrows his eyebrows and approaches from the bar, glances at the screen and does a very casual palms-up shrug. He’s perfectly nonchalant: “well, that’s too bad.” You’ve never seen a cancelled flight passenger more zen than him.
The rest of the passengers, though, not so much.
One overweight middle aged dude with slicked back greasy black hair a la Dracula and complete with a robin’s egg blue polo leads the charge of irate families who now stand one day short a vacation, “this is a joke!” he screams as he scampers off (from then on he was known as “big blue” to Ovie and I).
“Ya, this is a joke!” another muscle-toting yuppie screams.
“This is a joke” says some third guy, a little more timid. We swear he was threatened by his girlfriend to say something so he just did the old echo technique. Smart play: safety in numbers.
So we're herded like any number of New Zealand’s livestock back through customs and it’s another few hours of waiting. Bryan and I are riding a wine buzz and are pretty much more occupied with the airport’s free unlimited wifi rather than the cancelled flight.
Long story short, we were put up in Sydney for another two nights, all accommodation payed and breakfast included. Bonus. Since we had nothing booked in Hawaii whatsoever, we ended up gaining.
With only one full day in Sydney, we did what all tourists might doe- the harbour bridge, the opera house, koalas, kangaroos, wallabys, snakes, spiders(such a polarity in wildlife from the bird-and-only-bird wildlife of NZ) and of course more potent Australian vino.
New Zealand was getting cold when we left. And here in Sydney we’re sweating at 9 am from walking. And this is autumn.
It was a strange moment when we realized we weren’t in New Zealand anymore. The size of Sydney, indeed one of the world’s great cities, really came out of nowhere and put us in our place. Part of me already missed NZ’s humble, relaxed hospitality.
What did we net from Australia? Spending so little time there, especially considered with our in-depth look at NZ, it seems like a fleeting dream. I will say one thing, though.
Australia: Your women are beautiful, and your 2 dollar coin is stupid.
Oh, and I’d rather swim in a tank of sharks than catch myself in a room with a Funnel Web spider.
People often ask us: “Why New Zealand? Are you going to do Australia too?”
And while we can’t honestly say we’ve done a proper tour of Aussie, we can say we’ve really immersed ourselves in New Zealand. Why we chose it, well, it just seemed more ‘us’. We couldn’t really explain why we chose it. It just seemed, for a such a little country, to offer so many diverse experiences. And we didn’t know what exactly we were looking for. We were just looking for something. Did we find it? I’m not sure. It might be too early to tell. I think that deep down, we as a race are always searching. Always pondering, wondering, imagining what the future holds, and how the present will manifest. We’re always questioning, always seeking answers. And sometimes those questions can bring us places we never imagined. Has ‘the travel bug’ bitten us? Probably. But even if we continue searching and wandering this earth, we can still, in this present moment, say we’ve made at least one discovery for ourselves.
Tucked away in the south pacific, far removed from everything else, with a very small, very friendly population, and tremendous natural landscapes, formidable mountains, rugged beaches, gorges and crystal clear lakes and glaciers and geysers, silly birds, hectolitres of fresh and fruity wine, rich nutritious soil and heaps of beautiful produce, a ton of adrenaline, a wonderful and proud indigenous culture, a proud tradition of sport, and a great place not only to visit, but to live, is Aoteoroa: “ The land of the long white cloud.”
New Zealand.
So what did we learn?
The best answer, I think, is the most utterly simple one:
We discovered New Zealand.
And it was absolutely epic.
-K&B