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Wednesday 21 January 2009
Saturday 17 January 2009
Nelson, Tahunanui, Kaiteriteri
I had a wonderful 2 weeks with Dorothy and Joe doing a variety of things, and Christmas was good, spending it with their family. I kayaked down the Motueka River for a couple of hours, which was just stunning, it also gave me a feel of some light white water, and I'm hooked.
I also slapped myself awake at 6am to join James (their son) at a market in which he has his rock and fossil stool.
In some of my spare time I studied a few of Raymond Brigs sketches, and made copies, its interesting working out how an artist creates an image and trying to imitate their style, although he has many, so his skills are elusive to me.
I departed from Dorothy and Joe after 2 weeks for Tahunanui, a beachfront area of Nelson where I camped at, apparently the largest holiday park in the South Hemisphere... I had previously been approached by some Christians on the beach and had a really interesting discussion with them about religion, after which they invited me to join them in their free time (there was a large group of them staying at the holiday park on an Evangelical mission). I took them up on this for a couple of days and had a lot of fun in a really happy atmosphere. Sadly there were a number of things over those days that pushed me further away from finding god, through Christianity at least, but that’s another story.
On my last night in Tahuna I decided to live more like a traveler, and I made myself a Ray Mears style bivvy under a huddle to pines skirting the beach, and just before dark I lite a beautiful fire collected from the mounds of driftwood along the beach. Later a waning moon rose from the trees casting a strong shadow, and I swum in the sea without getting cold. It was magic.
The following day I woke up picking twigs and leafs from my hair and hitched an hour up the coast to Kaiteriteri, recommended to me for its beach, and WOW! The sand is Gold, and the water is a lush clean blue. The beach also had a really cool geography, when the tide comes in it fills an inland reservoir, and as it goes out the water rushes out under a bridge, which everyone jumped off to get carried on a lazy river down the beach, where you jump out and run back to the bridge to do it again.
Opposite me on the campsite was gorgeous family that decided to take me in, and I spent a couple of days with them and their 13 and 17 yr old daughters on the beach. On the second evening when it was well dark I was taken by Robyn to see the glow worms up in the woods, where at the beginning of the trail you turn off the torches and grip a guide rope (and other people occasionally) that leads you through the eerie, dark, cool, but sublimely quite woods to specs of heavenly blue light scattered along the stream and path. You are lead to a bench where you can sit and gaze at the stars through the silhouetted canopy and wonder where they finish and the glow worms begin. So you stare at them from millimeters, but they are still as far away as the stars. I think 'if I had been on my own I would have been scared, but the presence of some one else allows this to be one of the moments I am never, ever going to forget'.
I hitched a lift with my family back to Nelson, where I am now with Dorothy and Joes other son and his wife for a couple of night’s before I’m off to my next wwoof host to build an eco village.
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I also slapped myself awake at 6am to join James (their son) at a market in which he has his rock and fossil stool.
In some of my spare time I studied a few of Raymond Brigs sketches, and made copies, its interesting working out how an artist creates an image and trying to imitate their style, although he has many, so his skills are elusive to me.
I departed from Dorothy and Joe after 2 weeks for Tahunanui, a beachfront area of Nelson where I camped at, apparently the largest holiday park in the South Hemisphere... I had previously been approached by some Christians on the beach and had a really interesting discussion with them about religion, after which they invited me to join them in their free time (there was a large group of them staying at the holiday park on an Evangelical mission). I took them up on this for a couple of days and had a lot of fun in a really happy atmosphere. Sadly there were a number of things over those days that pushed me further away from finding god, through Christianity at least, but that’s another story.
On my last night in Tahuna I decided to live more like a traveler, and I made myself a Ray Mears style bivvy under a huddle to pines skirting the beach, and just before dark I lite a beautiful fire collected from the mounds of driftwood along the beach. Later a waning moon rose from the trees casting a strong shadow, and I swum in the sea without getting cold. It was magic.
The following day I woke up picking twigs and leafs from my hair and hitched an hour up the coast to Kaiteriteri, recommended to me for its beach, and WOW! The sand is Gold, and the water is a lush clean blue. The beach also had a really cool geography, when the tide comes in it fills an inland reservoir, and as it goes out the water rushes out under a bridge, which everyone jumped off to get carried on a lazy river down the beach, where you jump out and run back to the bridge to do it again.
Opposite me on the campsite was gorgeous family that decided to take me in, and I spent a couple of days with them and their 13 and 17 yr old daughters on the beach. On the second evening when it was well dark I was taken by Robyn to see the glow worms up in the woods, where at the beginning of the trail you turn off the torches and grip a guide rope (and other people occasionally) that leads you through the eerie, dark, cool, but sublimely quite woods to specs of heavenly blue light scattered along the stream and path. You are lead to a bench where you can sit and gaze at the stars through the silhouetted canopy and wonder where they finish and the glow worms begin. So you stare at them from millimeters, but they are still as far away as the stars. I think 'if I had been on my own I would have been scared, but the presence of some one else allows this to be one of the moments I am never, ever going to forget'.
I hitched a lift with my family back to Nelson, where I am now with Dorothy and Joes other son and his wife for a couple of night’s before I’m off to my next wwoof host to build an eco village.
x
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