Road Weary

April 29, 2013
Omapere, NZ

I've gotten behind in my journaling. I think I'm feeling road weary. I can keep pedaling, but seem to be tired of all the other parts of traveling: the food shopping, the blogging, the picture taking.

And given my poor memory, I'm not sure what I'll recall. One wonderful night was deep in the kauri forest at a lookout. So dark. So quiet. Utter joy! Then in the morning when my back tweaked, I thought what would I do if I put my back out so far from anything. Wait until someone showed up, I guess. But a few spinal waves (yoga cat and cows) and it was all better:).

View from the lookout:



I got there from a recommendation from locals, but I was a bit concerned cycling a long ways down a gravel (or as they say here, metal) road. Luckily I could continue down in the morning and didn't have to climb out. It's staying in remote places like that that I feel most serene. Magical place. But in the morning I heard this whoosh. A big bird flew in and landed. Then cockadoodle do. Rooster? Really? What a pesty bird it was harassing me all morning while I did chores, dried gear, and cleaned my chain. Maybe it wasn't a chicken but a special NZ bird, for all I knew...someone suggested to me.

Looking back through my photos jars my memory. I stopped at the Kauri Museum. The biggest slats of wood! Enormous logs!



Breakfast of apple, yogurt, and muesli by the side of the road. Standing up using the back if the bike as a table.



View from a bridge in the kauri forest. So beautiful.




And then there are the kauri trees! In the middle of woods with trees of all sizes, you turn a corner and a humongous tree appears:



With these stats:





I'm currently camped at a hostel. My second night. Delightful place. Met an amazing woman from England (actually the town my trike comes from:)) who is doing her first trip. Wild woman, Mandy! She spent 5 months in a very Aboriginal area (northwest) of Australia because she wanted an aboriginal experience. And it came to her. She knows about the Universe delivering and trusting. We've agreed to hook up for a backpacking adventure some time, some place. It will happen.

Today we did a coastal walk, plopped ourselves down in the deep grass and shared our stories with an amazing connection. What magic meeting her was!

Quiet afternoon doing laundry, reading, and napping. Just what I needed. In 2 days I'll be meeting up with the rest of the Maori family on a marae up north. Can't wait!

I'm scraping the bottom of the food bags. I'm out of bread because it went moldy. The gas station in town had nothing I wanted to give them my money for. So I made lentil stew with feta cheese. Quite tasty. I have an apple, an orange, a square inch of chocolate and some ginger snaps. There's always ramen noodles, mushroom soup packets, 2 hard boiled eggs, milk powder, macadamia nuts, honey, and butter (but nothing to put them on except maybe a block if ramen noodles...hmmm?). And yogurt and muesli for breakfast:)!!

BagLady




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