Big skies in Ontario
Lace among the conifers
Up north/back in time
This superhero is ready to take on that storm
Sunshine in a bowl
Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive
Elegant wedding table setting (and that cookie was delicious)
Big Star in Wicker Park, Chicago
I hope that does its job deterring thieves
August=tomatoes
A few hours before dusk, when the deer come out
Couchsurfing can make people nervous for various reasons, but questioning what it might do for your reputation or job security is not usually something that comes up. Janet at Journalist on the Run published a letter her friend received after hosting CSers at her flat in Korea. In it, her supervisor warns that her neighbors have filed a complaint about her because several strange men have been seen exiting her apartment over the past month.
Basically, her supervisor says, “I know you’re doing Couchsurfing, but you look like a slut, which is not the image we want for teachers in Korea, and you’re hired by the government of Korea, so you gotta change your ways or risk being fired.” Janet and the commenters discuss whether the supervisor should have supported the employee or whether the employee should have taken a cue from CS and adjusted to the new culture she finds herself in.
It’s a fine line between respecting cultural norms that are different from yours, and standing up for your own beliefs and way of life. This particular issue is made trickier because it involves her job. I guess for me, knowing that my job protection as an American in Korea is basically nil, I’d err on the side of caution and keeping my job. Then engage in conversation with other teachers and parents over the course of the year, with the goal of gently encouraging alternate points of view. Actually, if you’re a teacher in the States, your job security is pretty bad too, so that’s probably the tactic to take here as well.
Now, if it didn’t involve employment, I might act differently. Living in an apartment in Rome and my landlady disapproves of my nighttime visitors? Too bad, lady, I pay you each month and my bedroom is my business. Miming trying on a skirt at the night market in Chiang Mai and the merchant just laughs and says “too big! too big!”? Okay, that’s blunter than I’d hear at home, but you know your product better than I, so I’ll move on.
It can get a lot more serious, of course. A woman visiting Saudi Arabia? Cover your head. A lesbian couple visiting South Africa? Don’t hold hands. A Sikh man visiting rural Alabama? Bring a white friend. These aren’t matters of cultural misunderstanding so much as basic personal safety. How do we integrate respecting other cultures and respecting our own integrity? A question for the 21st century, and one that can only be answered by including the voices of people from the countries we visit as outsiders.
There’s a lot more to say on the topic, but I find myself posting later than expected today. Weigh in, dearest fellow travelers. What would you do if you were the teacher in question? What changes do you make in deference to cultural differences when you travels? What changes do you refuse to make?
I’ve been back in the States for a week, and I’m just now starting to settle in. It’s been a whirlwind of cleaning and organizing the stuff I carried around in a backpack for the better part of a year, meeting up with friends I haven’t seen in as long, going to one of my favorite weddings ever, and dragging my family along to my most-missed eating spots in town. But now it’s the second week here, the jet lag is behind me, and it’s time to think about what’s next.
Lots of this in my future
As I’ve mentioned before, my long-term goals involve more travel and finding the money to make that happen. I will definitely be in the States through the end of September, and possibly through Christmas, depending on what kind of employment I find. But I’d like to skip winter again this year if I can, so in the new year (if not sooner) I’ll be heading off to Africa or Latin America.
In the short term, I’m readjusting to suburban America, which takes some doing–the politics, the modes of transportation, the distances from place to place, the foods, they’re all different. I’m also living with my parents again for the first time since I graduated college 8 years ago. That takes adjustment on both sides! We’re figuring out how to make it work for everyone; they’re quite content with their lives and I don’t want to get in the way of that, and they want me to be happy but also productive. Which sounds about right.
Here are my goals for the next few months:
1) Get short-term health insurance. This is easily the biggest difference between where I’ve been and where I am now. I’ve had health insurance through my various employers ever since I graduated college, and before that I was covered under my parents’ plan. If I were in the UK, I’d show the National Health Service (NHS) proof of residency and they’d assign me a doctor (who I could change if I wanted), and that would be that, no fuss. But as we know, it’s a very big fuss in the States. It’s scary to be without insurance here, so I’m shopping around to find a short-term plan that won’t charge a huge deductible or monthly fee. If you have any leads, let me know!
2) Find employment. If I stay through the end of the year, I’d like something stable, but I also don’t want to feel bad ditching after just a few months. I’ll be signing up with temp agencies, which will hopefully provide me with admin or data entry work, or something that will put some money in my pocket. Of course, I’m always on the lookout for freelance editing work, so I’ll keep that search up, and I might try pitching some pieces of my own to online magazines and such as well. Be sure to tell your friends and neighbors they can hire me for odd jobs, housesitting, babysitting–just about anything!
3) Focus on the writing. I’ve been cranking out blog posts for y’all Monday through Friday for all of 2013, as promised, and I’m happy I challenged myself to do that. I’ll continue to make that a goal, but I’m also going to try my hand at more in-depth essays and pieces that someone other than me might want to publish.
4) Keep within a budget. It’s easy to simultaneously feel like I’m still traveling about and should experience everything at least once and the extra dollar or two isn’t that much, AND to feel like I’m back on familiar ground so all the old spending habits can come back. But I do not have the steady job I used to, and the whole point of this interlude is to save up for the next adventure. I have to keep that in mind.
Of course, there are other things I want to do, too: visit my friends in Chicago, make the playlist for my sibling’s wedding, learn new songs to sing with my dad, take walks with my mom, enjoy the beauty of a Michigan summer, read new books, and finally watch the new season of Arrested Development.
It’s going to be a good few months.
I can hardly believe I’m writing this, but exactly a week from now I will be boarding a plane to return to North America. I’m in Budapest right now, and next week I’ll spend some time in London. Of course, there’s no reason to make flying home a simple process when it could be complicated: I’m flying from London to Toronto because it’s cheaper by several hundred dollars than flying to Michigan, and then I’ll get a bus to Detroit, and my parents will pick me up and drive the last hour and a half to my childhood home. After 308 days on the road, I’ll be back where I started from.
I’m in Budapest with some friends right now, and we’re about to explore the basilicas and public baths, so I don’t have time for a major reflection on what nearly 11 months on the road means to me. (That’s definitely one of the things I’ve learned–how hard I have to work to make time to reflect, because there’s always something to see or do.) But there will be time for reflections and end-of-trip lists aplenty.
Don’t worry, the blog isn’t going anywhere! I’ve only taken you as far as Laos, after all. There’s still Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan, the UK, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Poland, and Hungary left to visit with Stowaway. And that’s just for the first part of the trip. I’m not totally broke yet, so I’m trying to figure out how I can extend the trip and carry on come this fall or possibly after the new year. There’s still so much of the world to see and I’m surprisingly not sick of living out of a backpack yet.
Looking for home and far-off horizons
I’m incredibly fortunate to have been able to do this trip, and there have been many times that I’ve looked around me and said out loud, “What is my life? Amazing, that’s what.” It’s all the better for the wonderful people I’ve met or re-met along the way.
Thanks to everyone who’s funded parts of this trip, and thanks to everyone who’s followed along on Stowaway as I make my way around the world. I’m happy to know that the blog brings something fun or thoughtful or new to your day, or at the very least provides photos to kickstart daydreams. That’s what my favorite travel blogs do, and I hope to do the same for my readers.
So stick around; just because I’m headed back to the States doesn’t mean Stowaway is going anywhere!
And for those of you I’m about to see in the States: I am so excited to hug you all! Minimum three minutes per hug. Get ready.
I’m headed home
“Oh, you know they’re always trying to rip you off.” “They’re always looking for a way to scam you.” “You have to be really firm with them.” I heard variations on this theme so many times in Southeast Asia that I started to wonder what I was missing, because I didn’t feel that way. How much of this attitude comes from personal attitude, and how much from the many, many guidebook warnings on scams and ripoffs in Southeast Asia? Probably a mix. A not very pleasant mix of reality, stereotypes, and suspicion.
In the 40,000 kip tuk-tuk
Guidebooks and websites list the various scams you can fall prey to–the gem scam, the tuk-tuk scam, the travel agency scam, to name just a few. I even knowingly went into one of the well-known scams, to see what it was like. There are a lot of setups to separate you from your money, and the more serious ones have legal repercussions if you don’t cooperate (see: anything involving drugs). Being wary of any deal that seems too good to be true is a smart move for avoiding scams anywhere you go, including SEA. That’s pretty straightforward.
It’s the ripoffs that are a murkier area. Traveling in SEA from a Western country means encountering new currencies, new modes of transport, new foods, and a new bar of “normal” prices for it all. I got pork satay for $1 and thought I’d got a bargain, until further up the street I saw someone selling it for 50 cents. Did I feel cheated out of those extra 50 cents? Slightly. Did it affect my budget or my mood? Not at all.
I met some women on the slow boat to Laos, and when we arrived in Luang Prabang we decided to share a tuk-tuk to the Kuang Si Waterfalls, 40 minutes outside of town. We found a couple tuk-tuks and asked how much to take us there and back. (You never have meters with tuk-tuks; you always negotiate price upfront.) The drivers wanted 50,000 kip per person, round trip. What a ripoff! That’s much more than it should be! We’re going to find someone else! And then they did start walking off to find someone else. The drivers let us get pretty far; this wasn’t a haggling technique, you could tell, they really didn’t want to drop their price. But finally they consented to 40,000 kip each, which was deemed acceptable. (I should say here that I really enjoyed hanging out with these women, as we did over the next several days, but we just disagreed on this point.)
We passed a checkpoint (all the tuk-tuks in Luang Prabang belong to a group that they report rides to and presumably pool some money for), and I saw a sign saying trips to the waterfalls are 200,000 per tuk-tuk. There were four of us, which meant the 50,000 was just basic math, not a ripoff at all. But when I mentioned this, the women said no, they’d read online that it shouldn’t be more than 40,000 per person, and it’s a matter of principle, not being ripped off. And “they” will rip you off any chance you get, I was reminded; hadn’t the price of a dress been slashed in half at the market yesterday when one of the women simply started walking away after hearing the opening figure? That proves that they’re always asking for way more than it’s worth.
How much, how much?
But I think it’s not that simple. The dress, yes, that was a funny piece of haggling, because clearly the woman would have settled for much less than her opening price, but why shouldn’t she give it a shot? It wasn’t out of line with prices in other stalls, and it was still only $10. It’s frustrating when you’re not sure what the normal price is, but markets here are meant for bartering, so make up your own normal, or what feels comfortable for you without leaving the seller with no profit.
The tuk-tuk, though, is much easier to avoid being ripped off. They’d gone online to see what the norm was–40,000–so if the driver had said 100,000, we would have known straight away that we were being ripped off. But 50,000 isn’t unreasonable, and according to the tuk-tuk company sign, it was in fact appropriate for the size of our group.
And in the end, it’s a $1 difference. Yes, it was the difference between a $7 or an $8 ride–for 40 minutes out, waiting several hours, and 40 minutes back to town. That $1 means so much more to the driver than it does to me, so why begrudge him that slight boost in his pay for the day? It’s going to go a lot farther in his pocket than in mine. Sure, they countered, but if you keep saying, “oh it’s only one dollar” everywhere, those dollars are going to add up, and you’ll lose a lot of money that way. Yep, I replied, and I’m okay with that.
I complain about how much I’m spending on this trip more often than I should, but I’m still acutely aware of how fortunate I am. I’m far more upset about the ATM fees I pay every time just to access my own damn money than I am about the couple hundred dollars I’ve probably overpaid to people trying to send their kids to school or get dental care.
Finally, this kind of thinking can get dangerously racially based. There’s way too much “they” and “them” in the talk surrounding scams and ripoffs. If you’re always thinking that a certain group of people is always out to get you, you’re not allowing them any individuality, and you’re closing the door on opportunities for understanding each other. That isn’t to say you shouldn’t look out for ripoffs–I had to bail on a taxi in Hanoi with a super-fast meter, for example. But try not to make it the first thing you see in a person.
If you see someone as a scam artist solely based on his race, that’s racist. If you see someone as out for your money, that’s one more friend you haven’t made. That’s a lonely way to travel, and it doesn’t fit in my budget.
It’s been years since I took one of those Myers Briggs personality tests, and I don’t remember what four letters I got, but I bet it’s a strange mixture. My default setting is quiet, observant, hoping something cool will happen and I can join in. My approach after the disastrous years of middle school has been louder, friendlier, trying to start something cool. I still need a lot of privacy and alone time, but I wouldn’t say that I’m shy anymore, which is a big change.
Bol Beach, Brac, Croatia — nice way to pass an afternoon
Still, it doesn’t always come naturally, and sometimes I need to remind myself that I like meeting people and some of my best friendships are a result of me going up to someone and saying, “Hi!” Travel is the perfect setting for such encounters, and I’m rewarded again and again for approaching someone with a smile and a greeting.
This weekend, for example, I was in Split, on the coast of Croatia. I decided to take a day trip out to the island of Brac, to see the beach Bol, described by everyone I talked to as “the best in the country.” I bought my ticket at the booth on the pier and started the long walk to the ferry boat at the other end. At one point, I noticed the guy who had been behind me in line pass me, and then later I caught up to him as he stopped and looked around. He seemed a little unsure of where he was, so I paused, smiled, and said, “Further up, further in” (a weird quote that’s stuck with me from the last of the Narnia books–the terrible one).
And from that smile and that comment! He grinned and we started chatting as we walked the rest of the way to the boat, and we didn’t stop talking for the next hour. Russ asked me where I was from, and when I told him, he went into rhapsodies about how much he loved Chicago. I rarely meet non-Americans who have actually visited Chicago, but those who have always say they liked it (unless they went in winter, in which case I can’t help you for your terrible life choices). It’s always nice to hear someone say good things about your city.
The ferries lined up and ready to go
Then it got a bit freaky. We did the British Zoom, which is what I call it when you zoom in on where, exactly, someone is from/has been on the tiny island of Britain. For him, it went, “You know Shakespeare, of course, well I’m near Stratford-upon-Avon.” “Oh yes, I’ve been there.” “Oh, do you know Warwick Castle?” “Yes!” “I’m closer to there, to Leamington Spa.” That’s as far as I zoomed in, to a town a few miles away.
But Russ won the game, hands down. I said, “Oh, my mom’s from Worcestershire.” “Oh yeah, I know it.” “Okay, she’s sort of near Birmingham.” “Yeah, I went to school near there.” “Okay, so you know Kidderminster, then.” “Yeah! Never tell me she’s from Kinver, haha.” Kinver being a tiny town, this seemed highly unlikely to him, just as it was highly unlikely to me that anyone, even a British guy, would have heard of Kinver, which is indeed where my mom was born.
So we had a laugh about the smallness of the world and the importance of starting conversations with fellow travelers, because you just never know what strange and wonderful bits of information are going to turn up, or what kind of new friend you might make.
Russ was headed to Brac to research it as a possible destination for his travel company, Green World Holidays. Best part of the job, as he said, and I remarked that I need something that will similarly let me move around. Should be easy, as an editor, since all I need is a computer and an Internet connection, but it’s tough finding clients. He laughed and said this really was a crazy day, because not only do I know tiny Kinver, I’m an editor and he’s probably looking to hire someone to oversee the company blog in the next few months. We definitely exchanged business cards. (No pressure, Russ, but I needed to mention it for the story!)
Later, he overheard a Finnish woman at the snack bar say something about pooling for a taxi to Bol, and he brought her over to me so we could figure out the details. Turns out this woman from Helsinki had also been to Kinver! We decided that we should all buy lottery tickets that day, because something was clearly in the air.
Those sorts of kismet moments don’t happen to me often, but they do happen, and as everyone who’s happily settled will tell me about finding love, they happen when you least expect it. I thought I was taking a quiet ferry ride on the Adriatic, but instead I found an hour of friendly conversation and fun connections. All because I saw a fellow traveler and said hello. A conversation that not only started with a smile but ended with one, too.
The smile looks something like this.
That’s the latest motto for this Stowaway. Whaddya think?
Have party, will travel
Hello dearest fellow travelers! I’m writing to you from a guesthouse in Hoi An, Vietnam, and I thought I’d update you on how the trip is going so far. (We’ll get back to in-depth posts for each place I’ve been, in chronological order, next week.) Here’s where I’ve been and where I’m going through the end of next month:
September 2012: Hawaii & Australia
October & November 2012: Australia
December 2012 & January 2013: New Zealand
January and February 2013: Thailand
February 2013: Singapore
March 2013: Laos and Cambodia
April 2013: Vietnam and Japan
May 2013: Japan and England
June and July 2013: Eastern Europe
mid-July 2013: Back in the States!
I’ve hiked on a glacier in New Zealand, snorkeled in the Great Barrier Reef, swum with dolphins at Kaikoura, bathed elephants in Thailand, cruised on the Mekong in a slow boat, scrambled on the temples at Angkor, and crawled through the Viet Cong tunnels in Saigon.
I’ve made friends in every country I’ve been to, and I’ve visited old friends along the way. I’ve eaten food I’d never seen before. I’ve bargained for wedding presents at night markets. I’ve clung to the edge of a motorbike, stood in the back of a pickup, and jolted along in a tuk-tuk. I’ve had a few epic nights and a lot of relaxing days.
I’ve also had some not-so-great times. I got shingles in Australia and concussions in New Zealand. Last week I was hit by a car in Nha Trang, Vietnam. I was flung backwards into a pot of boiling water, which burned my thigh and some of my back, and a mystery object stabbed my calf, leaving a deep wound. I’ve had a tetanus shot, stitches, and enough antibiotics to make me fit for eating (political joke!). The healing process is very slow and I’m real shaken up. I’ve moved up to Hoi An to rest and recover, and will probably move on again in a couple days.
Tomorrow is my birthday. I’ve said for ages that I wanted to start this trip before I turned 30, and I did it. I have to say that I didn’t think I’d be spending my 30th popping anti-inflammatory pills and seeking out plain foods–I mean, 30 isn’t that old, right? But here I am, and while on the one hand I feel very alone and sad for myself, on the other hand, the magical internet means I can talk with my family on my birthday, and pretty soon I’ll feel well enough to be able to go out and enjoy the sights of this city (another World Heritage site, incidentally).
So that’s where I am and what I’ve been up to; I hope this round-up was helpful (and brief enough) for those of you playing along at home. If you’re in the States, I hope to see you this summer when I come back for my friend’s wedding. If you’re somewhere else in the world–when can I come visit?
As ever, thanks for reading, and have a great weekend.
Still searching out new horizons
Welcome to the 500th post on Stowaway! I’ve been writing this blog for 3.5 years, and in that time it’s gone through one name change, 1508 comments, and, almost unbelievably, 500 posts.
I started Stowaway as a way to get back into writing, which is something I’d enjoyed doing in college but neglected in the years since. I also wanted to record my plans for this big RTW trip, partly as a way to encourage myself to actually go on the trip. I wanted to try my hand at travel writing, but not limit myself to that. Five hundred posts later, I’m writing on an almost daily basis, and I’m on my RTW trip, so I’d say I’m doing well on those fronts.
I’d enjoy writing Stowaway even if I were the only one reading it, but it’s even more fun knowing that other people like reading it too. I like the challenge of making my travel updates entertaining and the photos nice to look at. I have a small audience made up mostly of people I know personally, and in some ways that makes it easier to write, to guess who might like what joke or who might appreciate which detail.
But I’m still refining my style; as every writer has ever said, I want to write the kind of thing I like to read. For travel writing, I like a chatty but not chummy tone, thoughtful reflections on the implications of why and how we travel, and a few wry asides. I don’t know that I’ve ever spelled it out before, but there it is: that’s what I’m going for with Stowaway, but whatever actually turns up on the blog every Monday through Friday, I hope it resonates with you.
I don’t know what Stowaway will become once I return to the States. I might try harder to write pieces that can be published on other sites. I might put the blog to the side for awhile and focus on getting a job. I might take another year just to get the posts caught up to where I am in real time (yeesh).
Stowaway has already changed somewhat since I started it, as recurring features came and went, and I made the inevitable switch from planning the trip to doing it. It will naturally change again, and even after 3.5 years and 500 posts, I’m still excited to see how it does. I hope you’ll stay with me as I continue to explore the world with my faithful travel companion–Stowaway.
Where to next?
Sometimes, things go wrong on a trip and it’s just terrible. (Contracting shingles of the eye comes to mind.) Sometimes, things go wrong in a funny way. And sometimes, things go wrong but it all works out well in the end. I went on a road trip to the Coromandel in New Zealand with four other women in a tiny rental car, and we passed through each of those scenarios and, lucky us, landed on the last one.
On the walk to Cathedral Cove
I met Vasha (from Oregon) and Rachel (from southwestern China) at a Couchsurfing event in Auckland my first week there. We got along so well that we met up again for a night out later on, and when I decided to rent a car and explore the much-touted Coromandel Peninsula, I went straight to them to see if they wanted to be road trip buddies. Rachel brought Natalia and Xi Xi too, and on a sunny Sunday morning in December we picked up the car in Auckland and set off.
Karangahake Gorge
An hour and a half later, we had a flat tire. Cue the sad trombone music. Since it was a Sunday, all the mechanics were closed. We’d bought the insurance (phew), so I called the car company up while Vasha changed the tire to the donut from the trunk. The car company rep told me to drive 60 miles over the hilly terrain to Whitianga, and visit the Firestone store the next day to get a new tire. We got directions on the shortest route there, piled all five of us into the tiny car, and promptly took the wrong turn out of town.
I’m not suggesting the flat tire was a good thing, or that the time wasted on changing the tire and talking to the car company was fun, but nothing bonds a group traveling together like a minor disaster soon fixed, and the wrong turn took us to one of my favorite walks in New Zealand.
Karangahake Gorge
That walk was through Karangahake Gorge, which was once the site of a huge gold mining operation. After lunch at an adorable cafe across the road, we walked over the swing bridge spanning the river and took some silly photos with the obliging Olde Fashionede props.
Our table number at lunch was Tiger.
The ghosts behind me are indifferent to my cruel fate at the hands of Xi Xi
There are several different trails to take, and we chose the one that takes you into the mining tunnels and along the ridge of the river. Disused machinery dots the trail, and the original train tracks still run through the woods and tunnels. We peeked through the windows cut into the tunnel–miners would chuck rock waste through them into the river below so that the carts on the tracks only had to carry gold.
Gold! (photo by Rachel)
Deeper in the tunnels, using only our handsome head torches, we explored the pumphouse, separated from us by a tall metal gate. Dusty machinery rusted slowly in the damp cave, and overhead we saw the tiny blue-green pinpricks of the glowworms made famous by the Waitomo Caves farther south on the island. Eventually we went back outside and strolled along the river and over another swing bridge to get back to the car.
Glowworms!
Driving the car was an adventure. It was a tiny Nissan Sunny, a white four-door made in Japan, barely big enough to fit all five of us and our bags. (This is a very popular rental model in New Zealand.) We didn’t want to go too fast on the spare tire, and anyway the twisty two-lane roads of the peninsula were a challenge. The Kiwi drivers behind us were very frustrated with our slow pace, until Vasha drew up a little sign saying “Busted tyre, please pass” (she even spelled “tire” the Kiwi way). After she put that in the back window, people were all smiles and sympathetic waves as they passed.
Vasha didn’t want to drive anymore after the tire busted when she was at the wheel, so of course I took over, but this was my first time driving on the other side of the road, on the other side of the car, and it was a full car, and it had proven itself rickety as all get out. It was a slightly stressful drive up the inland road to Whitianga, but we made it before dark, with enough time for dinner in town before crashing at the hostel.
The next day, we were up and at the Firestone just after it opened. The grumpy proprietor (likely not excited about doing work the insurance company probably took ages to to pay for) told us to come back in an hour, so we went across the street for a pastry breakfast while he worked. Vasha’s boyfriend Dar had joined us on his motorcycle, and once the tire was fixed, the two of them roared off on the bike looking very cool, and the rest of us piled back into the car, now with slightly improved balance, and beetled along down the road after them.
Hot Water Beach (photo by Rachel)
We met at Hot Water Beach, a stretch of sand that sits atop a thermal patch. The idea is that you show up with a shovel and dig yourself a hole to sit in, then watch the ocean waves while enjoying the warm waters of a natural spa. Little did we know that it’s not just “dig somewhere and you’ll find a hotspot.” It’s more “dig at random along the beachfront, think you find a spot, discover the water’s just lukewarm, and move on to another spot, while surrounded by other tourists doing the same thing.”
Vasha gets to work (photo by Rachel)
Eventually, two girls (who had got there much more on schedule with the tides than we had) decided they were done and offered us their spot. The water was a nice warm temperature in most of the little pool, but we stayed away from one corner, which had boiling hot water bubbling up from underneath. I think if we’d come for the night tide it might’ve been more relaxing, but as it was it was just an amusing experience I don’t need to do again.
After buying scandalously overpriced food at the small general store the next town over, we parked high up on a cliff and began the walk down to Cathedral Cove. It’s a commitment–45 minutes to an hour down there, 30 to 45 minutes on the way back up. A steep walk down the cliff in the sun, then a wooded bit, up a hill, along a ridge, through a field, down steep stairs, a few more stairs, and there’s the beach. But the views along the way are stunning.
Like I said, stunning
We were ravenous by the time we got there, and that picnic lunch was gone in no time. We spread out to variously nap in the shade, sunbathe on the sand, explore the arch that gives the beach its name, and swim in the Pacific. It was a lovely spot, but eventually we tore ourselves away so we’d have time to get back to Auckland.
A beautiful beach
Cathedral Cove
Taking the gravel road through the mountain pass may not have been our best collective driving decision, but by going no more than 30 km/hr and keeping up a steady chant of “oh shit another blind turn oh shit oh shit,” I got us through to the other side. Vasha took over so I could steady my nerves, and it was smooth sailing back to Auckland.
I had such a great time road tripping with these women. Learning “I love you” in Mandarin and Russian, snacking on tiny Rachel’s neverending supply of goodies, bonding with Vasha over driving disasters and US-specific jokes, giving Xi Xi about five new nicknames… Anyone who’s ever driven long distances with other people knows that a successful road trip is 30% scenery, 10% car and weather conditions, and 60% camaraderie. Even with a flat tire, the weekend still came in at 95%, and that’s an A–for awesome.
Thanks for the excellent road trip! (Xi Xi, Natalia, me, Rachel, Vasha; photo by Xi Xi)
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