Zealandia

2020, Mar 17    

There is a slight feeling in my chest of light ghostly detachment by being away from home, family and friends in times of global unrest of this caliber. Tracking news from home and the rest of the world has been surreal! Having said that, I suppose I must also be grateful I am in an area of the globe with very low prevalence of the virus and things are pretty normal around here so far (well, except for tourism industry starting to feel the pain). The government seems to be taking the right precautions to keep everyone safe and remain prepared. Hoping it stays that way. It is possible I may stick around a bit longer than originally intended as it may be the soundest option at the moment. That, or escaping to Fiji which could be in the cards too. We’ll see…

I went to my first movie at a theater since I left the continental US. The selection and time offerings were limited, but I needed a little mental escape so went in anyway. Movie was Guns Akimbo. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, but it was the light, fluffy, pointless entertainment I was looking for. Popcorn was good.

Attended a sketch comedy show part of a small local comedy festival. It had it’s funny moments but it was not very good overall. I have to hand it to the performers nevertheless. Doing comedy is not easy and they did give an earnest effort which I respect. They delivered some decent lines and performances for some chuckles and did sustain my grin for the duration of the show. Their comedic intentions were good albeit falling a bit short in the delivery and being unpolished. But yet another amusing experience. Would be interesting to see them again if/when they mature their act some more.

I am noticing, and liking very much, that there are a handful of independently owned bookstores in town. I realize I missed that feeling of randomly walking around and poking my head inside a cool little bookstore to browse titles and kill some time. I also enjoyed walking into the big chain stores like Barnes and Nobles and doing the same. Yet these little bookstores have their very peculiar charm which is a lot rarer to see these days.

After grinding at work I finally got a chance to visit the famous Te Papa museum. What a fantastic place chuck-full of information about everything New Zealand. I did not realize that to cover this place in detail you would need multi-day visits. I spent over two hours in there and got overwhelmed so just resorted to a quick pass over most areas. Not quite the light activity I thought I was getting into after my mentally exhausting work sessions. Still an enjoyable and very informative cultural experience.

Continuing with my dependance on the Couchsurfing app for my social interactions, I met a couple Japanese ladies for a late bite and a couple of drinks. We had the most candid conversations about personal relationship preferences that you would expect to have with total strangers on a first go. Very entertaining. They turned out to be quite nice and interesting new acquaintances and hoping I get to catch up with them in Japan on future legs of my travels whenever that may be.

There used to be a (long) time (ago) when I was able to comfortably do some low level mountain biking. Apparently this is no more. Last summer I had some brutal wipe outs during man weekend tearing up skin from head to toe and probably breaking my left pinky finger. But now my loss of abilities has been reasserted from another mountain biking adventure in Wellington. An über nice CSer invited me to go ride the local Polhill Reserve and even lent me a bike. I just needed to rent a helmet from the shop. For someone who hasn’t recalibrated himself to this activity, an extremely narrow trail that works in both directions and shared with regular hikers was very confidence crushing. While I did manage to ride for some stretches, I’m embarrassed to report that I probably ended up walking my bike for over two thirds of the route due to my inability to safely navigate the trail. The drop offs to the sides were very steep and my unsteady handling of the bike was just a gory accident waiting to happen. I didn’t want my new buddy to have to carry my maimed body off the mountain. But he was incredibly nice about it being supportive, encouraging, and honestly unbothered by my lameness. And we still managed good conversations throughout the whole afternoon. I didn’t wipe out, but a few close calls scared me off riding for longer stretches. My crotch was sore for days of course. Still hurting a bit as I type this to be honest.

After my mountain bike-walking fiasco I joined a group for social bowling. I crushed everyone. I know it sounds egotistical but it’s the truth. Expectations were low as it was one of those shitty alleys where the pins are held by strings and even bowling shoes were optional. Ew, what?! The meet-up type group was made of nice folks but mostly socially awkward. Imagine that I was the one trying to get them all to talk during what must have been the worst game of pool ever played.

Zealandia Ecosanctuary is a protected area where they are working to restore the local biodiversity of fauna and flora once lost and it was one of my final visits in Wellington. It was a very peaceful trek thru the park listening to the super cool bird songs and being surrounded by nature. Not the colorful flower bonanza of the botanical gardens, but pleasant in its own right.

After my eco tour I was too tired to function properly so I rested my sore legs before meeting my friend for Vietnamese dinner followed by drinks at El Culo del Mundo bar (yup, the one that made the title image for my previous post). Best named bar yet! Many topics were discussed and argued over tasty drinks and made for a nice farewell.

Next morning I hopped on a comfy bus ride across Rohan-like (ref LOTR) kiwi landscapes to Taupo on the center of the north island where I found slightly cheaper accommodations and very tasty restaurants. It is a small village next to a lake and where this week’s stories end because no one wants to hear about how I worked from my room for an entire day getting up only to pee and eating nothing but a few dried mango slices until dinner time when I stuffed my face with magnificent Indian food and had such a food-rush induced ecstasy that I sang and hop-danced back to the hostel on the chilliest night yet of my visit to this country. So I’m not going to tell you about that at all.