It was sunny today in Auckland, funnily enough, and I emerged from the bathroom at the Grand Harbour Chinese restaurant, after my first ever yum cha, wondering if there may ever come a day when I stop being scared right before I do scary things. I got in my Uber, leaving mom and brother behind, and I cried softly, wishing I could cry loudly, sort of like when just yesterday I wished I could yell in revelry as I scootered down Franklin Road, free and exhilarated.

What will it feel like to always do exactly what my body wants me to do?

Will I get there one day?

Anyway

I left Auckland teary-eyed and dumpling-filled and nervous for my flight to Invercargill, having no idea what I might find there. What an interesting thing it is to write that now, having landed there hours ago, having been almost blown off the tarmac by 65km/hr gusts, having missed the taxi because I was too busy re-packing my pack. I wondered in the moment how painfully obvious it might be to airport strangers that I am a complete and utter beginner at this through-hiking thing.

When I did get all my ducks in a row, I asked the man behind the Hertz counter to help me get a ride. He walked me around the corner and showed me a phone. And so today, I used a landline to phone a taxi.

Hoping for a cheaper alternative, I initially dialed the shuttle service, option number 3 on the laminated poster above the phone on the wall, and the voice on the other line told me that his company were only offering the taxi service at the moment. And yes, he could be there in ten minutes.

The gusts outside the airport smelled like cow manure.

After telling me about all his adventures across all 50 states, including North Dakota by the way! Dave dropped me off, a painful $122 poorer, in front of an ex-post office, whimsical in colored exterior and even more-so in the characters within. The sign in the foyer screamed “rooms starting at $35” but Kay offered me a $5 discount because I am walking the TA.

“Nobo or Sobo?” she asked

My spine straightened because I knew the lingo; I am proud that my research has already paid off in some way.

Kay told me about her husband’s sister who lives in Pensacola and how she spent some time in the French quarter just before Katrina some twenty years ago and Atu, a hardened man whose role at this backpackers lodge I’m not quite too sure about, sits and plays solitaire while I point out my home town to Kay on the illustrated children’s atlas she keeps handy.

And it is such a wonder to me that I have all the time in the world to listen and to talk and just feel myself being myself.

And this place isn’t much but it’s a bed in a room with a roof and there’s a kettle and I took a hot shower and Kay didn’t even charge me for using a towel!

And I just wonder about her joy and where it comes from and how it makes me almost not want to leave this place so soon.

Off on the trail tomorrow!

xx