All Roads Lead to Home

Lakeland Motel was a hovel. And that's being a bit mean to your average, run-of-the-mill hovels, the ones that don't have smoky rooms and rusty merry-go-rounds that revolve in the wind on autumn nights as if it was the kids from “Another Brick in the Wall (Part II).” Still, the low building was something you'd pass anytime you went down to the beach in Pasadena, and when we walked along the scrubby grass and weeds the other day where it once stood, it was hard not to miss it a little bit.

It's great to be home. In some ways, the reason you leave it in the first place is so that you can appreciate it the more when you get back. My buddy grew up just on other side of the woods from me, but this was the first time I'd seen him since January, and we talked a lot about leaving. How when you're away, “home” can still exist the way you remember it when you were young, but every time you come back you realize what's changed, and how that romantic idea gets farther away with every passing year. Change isn't a bad thing – there's a good chance those who are left behind notice the changes in you, too. But if you let yourself stay stuck in the past, then the entropy that goes along with that nostalgia will never let you truly go back. Only for a visit.

I left New Zealand three weeks ago. New Zealand was my life for 2013 – it wasn't some trip, it was a reality, something I lived and breathed and understood. Now, it's a country on the other side of the world, a place that holds a lot of memories, but that is part of the past now. And, much like home, it hangs onto some romantic half-truth, a fragile essence that in all likelihood would crumble if, years later, I were to try to revisit that place from my youth.

But am I ever glad it happened. And, even though it only took three weeks to get back into the rhythm of the life I left behind, it's impossible to live out the rest of my time as if New Zealand never happened.

There are plenty of stories in the interim. The vegetarians on the redeye trans-Pacific flight who decided they wanted the normal breakfast after all and nearly staged a coup; the sunny waterfront of Vancouver in stark contrast to the extreme poverty; buying that homeless guy his groceries; running through Trudeau Airport to make one last connection to get back home; flying in over St. John's, having not slept since somewhere near Hawaii and collapsing in bed until 4:00 the next afternoon; drinking and watching the sun rise from a hot tub, two evenings in a row; realizing that clothes on the line in Old Perlican really do look like a Newfoundland tourism commercial; sleeping in my own bed. There are a lot of stories like that, but they don't really belong. This is the story of the New Zealand adventure, and that one is at the end.

I'm home. And what a change, to go from living out of a suitcase . . . to packing another one up again. One load is already in transit to Fredericton, New Brunswick, and the rest is going with me, at the end of next week. From one adventure to another. My comfort zone has been pretty malleable these past seven months, but I'm still pretty sure that I'm going outside of it again. And, at last, I'm ready for it.

The blue backpack is in the crawl space under the stairs, and that's where it's going to stay, filled with maps, pamphlets, a pair of sneakers with the bottoms out of them, and scuff marks straight from New Zealand.

My pounamu is coming with me to New Brunswick. A reminder that maybe, just maybe, you can't ever really go back . . . but that doesn't mean that that never happened. Because it sure did – and it was great.

Cheers,

rb

Aotearoa Exodus

I've had a complicated relationship with that big blue backpack. There have been times where it's been an awkward hump on my back, bulging with travel pamphlets, clothes, toiletries, and an assemblage of odds and ends that never seemed like much until it was all together. There were times when I outright hated the thing, where it dug into my shoulders and I wished I could fling it as far away as possible – walking in the wrong direction in Taupo was one such time, and the ascent of the Kepler Track made me understand why someone would go llama treking after all, to load up one of those beasts of burden. But no matter how many times I cursed that bag, it was the sole constant during a tumultuous 6 months. I got to know how to distribute the weight, where to put things so they were accessible, and how to buckle my shoes and sleeping bag onto the side so it was a complete package.

That bag is going through airport security now. If all goes according to plan, the next time I'll see it will be when I touch down in Vancouver, in about 16 hours. Air New Zealand flight 84 gets off the tarmac at Auckland International Airport at 8:00 tonight, landing in Canada just past 2:00 pm . . . this afternoon. Back to this time travelling hocus pocus.

I spent my last few days in New Zealand the only way I knew how – decompressing. Auckland is a big city, and for the first time in a long time, I was afforded the luxury of being completely anonymous. It was strange though, because I didn't want to do anything, but I had a hard time sitting still, either. I wanted to savour what I could, while wishing that time would hurry up and get a move on.

The Wellington Sea Shanty Society is even better than it sounds – a duo, one playing the piano accordion, the guitarist wearing a full sailor suit, both bellowing out songs of the sea from the land Down Under. I walked up and down the bar-lined strip of Posonby Road for close to two hours, searching for the Golden Dawn – it ended up being a completely nondescript, sweaty, shoulder-to-shoulder bar cut into an alcove. By the time the band finished by jumping up on the bar and leading the audience in a singalong of “Drunken Sailor” (they passed out a songbook beforehand, not that I needed it for this one), I knew I would have willingly spent another two hours looking for this place.

The dude who's sharing a squat room with me slipped in not long after I got back, bringing a one night stand with him. So that was a pretty comfortable sleep, with that going on about five feet from my pillow (they had a good time anyway, by the sounds of it). How much do people shift around when they're actually asleep? I mused as I lay awake, leg cramped in some acrobatic contortion that I was forced to hold for a solid half hour, afraid that relaxing it would somehow make things more awkward than they already were. I would have willingly swapped for the folded down backseat of a car that night.

I think it was sometime around mid-afternoon yesterday that I realized I needed to buy a few things – crap, no less, but I did promise Mom I'd get her a snowglobe. There are a congestion of souvenir shops in downtown Auckland, and they all sell the exact same merchandise, double as health supplement outlets, and are run by petite Asians who hover over you as soon as you cross the threshold, like a swooping hawk eyeing up a squashed possum in the middle of the road. It's a bit off-putting, but I was on a mission, so I ducked into them all. I even braved a comic book store, thinking I might find some knickknack there, in the bowels of the mall – when I went down the escalator, I was greeted by long rows of tables set up for playing Dungeons & Dragons or something, and a ripe asscrack as ominous as the iceberg must have looked to those guys on the lookout tower of the Titanic.

Anyway, I got the snowglobe.

Between that, I put in more than a few new miles on my sneakers, which I think have to be officially retired once I get home (assuming they make it that far). I sipped a frothy flat white at a cafe while a guitar trio played laid back versions of Tom Petty and Sting songs, and I had my last pie this afternoon (a chicken and mushroom one, beneath the glade at Albert Park). 

Bye Pie (a haiku)

By R. Belbin

My mince and cheese pie

Flaky crust embrace with Wattie's

Mouth memory linger

I lingered for a few moments in the park, finishing my coffee and watching the people pass by, but when I stood up to throw my trash away and turned back, someone had already taken my spot on the bench. It was as if I'd never been there – this life moves on and nothing can be bottled to last forever. The arrivals gate was bursting with the clamour of newcomers, and it's their time now, my turn to gracefully step aside and move on, taking something important back with me (beyond the snowglobe). Some of what I'm bringing back hasn't even revealed itself yet, but I have no doubt there will come a time that I'll be able to trace everything back to a small Kiwi kernel that developed into something I could never imagine living my life without.

Soon they're going to call me for boarding. The sun has dipped below the horizon, running its course in the opposite direction as me, to reconvene somewhere high above the Pacific, west of Canada. There are a lot of things racing through my mind now, thought and memory and expectations of what is yet to be. As frustrating as it might be, I don't know if I'm ready to talk about New Zealand just yet – not until I've sorted it all out in my own head. Trust me on one thing though: it was all worth it. Everything.

East to go west. Vancouver to stretch my legs, Montreal to put my contacts in and brush my teeth. St. John's to get my feet firmly on the side of Cape Spear I belong.

There's the boarding call. This prodigal son is finally en route back home.

Cheers,

rb

[Even More Things] I Have Learned . . .

Jaysus. Is it that time already?

Time, time, time . . . fickle, fleeting, contrary thing that you never appreciate until it's very nearly gone. New Zealand is fourteen and a half hours ahead of Newfoundland (as of this writing), a daily reminder that time is a thing that is constantly moving ahead of you. When I left home, I had big plans, but even bigger uncertainties. Now, that entire journey is something established, a story with a definitive start and end point, and my own story must continue outside of the framework of that one. That's life though – enjoy the things that have happened, but always remind yourself that the best is yet to come. Always.

Still, I want one last look back at the past year, and the things that I'm going to take with me for all the years left to come. I've hobnobbed with Alex Trebek, climbed Mt. Doom (and thrown the Ring in it), swum with dolphins, surfed in the Pacific, trekked with llamas, gone to a sold-out rugby match, cruised through Milford Sound, meditated, bungy jumped, skydived (skydove? went skydiving?) hand-fed a giraffe, had my original artwork appear in a Lower Saxony Scouting magazine, appeared on national radio, soaked in a hot pool, found out if New Zealand has any talent or not, went from one end to the other, hitchhiked over 1000 km, drove around 3000 km on the wrong side of the road, went 38 nights without sleeping in a bed at one point, and over the course of it all, guess what, b'ys? I have learned:

• People are good. Be good to people.

• If someone asks you where you're from, and you start that answer by saying, “My parents live in . . .” that's never, ever cool.

• “Newfie” isn't always a bad word. I don't love it, and will likely never use it to describe myself, but I've heard it touted in enough different accents to be able to admit that context is everything.

• There are plenty of good reasons why someone can't travel. Still, if you say,“I'd love to travel to such and such a place, but . . .”, then you need to look hard at what comes after that but. If it starts with “I have to . . .” then you're forgetting something critical: you don't have to do anything. At all. Some smartass could say you have to breathe, but no you don't – you'll die if you don't, but that doesn't mean you have to do it. Anyway, the point is this: whether we like it or not, everyone who is reading this or ever will read this is going to be dead someday. And when that happens, the number of years it took you to finish your university degree, that job you had when you were 24, your bank account . . . none of that stuff means anything. So, if you put your life into perspective and still want to go on an adventure, then do it now, because I guarantee you you'll never be in a better state in your life than right now. And if you figure that the other stuff is more important, then that's great, I totally respect that – but stop saying how much you'd love to travel, because you've picked a different path, and coveting another one is just greedy.

• Don't ever underestimate the value of a home-cooked meal. You can put a price on instant noodles and frozen vegetables, but fresh meat in actual sauce? Ohhh buddy . . .

• Bring along a sleeping bag.

• We're heading to that town 100 km down the road? Deadly, but no, it's not an hour away.

• Things that look stupid: wide-brimmed hats and wearing your detachable daypack around the front. Things that are surprisingly practical when backpacking across New Zealand: wide-brimmed hats and wearing your detachable daypack around the front.

• I was totally present in a couple of very minor earthquakes (the biggest was a 4.9 in Hawkes Bay). Admittedly, that's not something I learned – it's more like something you're learning, I just wanted to wait until the last possible minute to admit it so no one freaked out.

• You can be in Paradise, living your dream, and still feel lower than low and want to run away back home. You can get over that and feel stronger and happier than you ever have in your life.

• WiFi is expensive in New Zealand, but you're either desperate or not creative enough if you pay a cent (if you pay for it in central Christchurch, then you're just a moron). McDonald's offers it for free, a lot of Telecom phone booths have a router, and some libraries will hook you up. If you end up in the middle of nowhere and absolutely need to check Facebook, try to find a hostel with free WiFi – it'll be worth a couple extra bucks a night.

• “Wh” is pronounced “f.” Stop laughing when people are from Whakatane.

• If you line up a job, give them a phone number.

• The only way you can master this world is to master yourself first – and that doesn't just happen. That's a lifelong process, but worth it every step of the way.

• Jealousy is the absolute worst thing you can take from listening to someone else's adventures. Inspiration is the best.

• Wheels from Degrassi is the only Canadian I've ever heard pronounce “about” like a Canadian stereotype. I don't, and I don't care what you think.

• Bourbon sucks when you have it a second time the next morning.

• If you're staying at a hostel and getting up early or coming in late, have the stuff you'll need taken out and put together so you don't have to root around, wake everyone up, and still not find everything.

• When you're packing to go on a trip like this, put all your stuff together. Then, take out one pair of jeans, one pair of shorts, and two t-shirts.

• Repeat the above step. Oh, and get rid of one of that extra pairs of sneakers too.

• As far as clothes are concerned, clean is a really rough approximation.

• I'm pretty sure I'm in love with Ruby Frost.

Either that, or I just really dig The X Factor: New Zealand

• Every farmer's paddock lock is different, and they like them like their wives: the way they found them. That's almost definitely sexist, but it's what they say down here – either way, lock the damn gate when you're done.

• In the months leading up to New Zealand, my SWAP registration was a comforting safety blanket. Within a week of arriving, I knew I could (and would) do totally without it, and will save my money next time.

• There will be a next time.

• Don't be afraid to get help from other people. There are plenty who will go out of their way, but they won't do everything for you either (or if they will, don't take it – that's a lame cop out).

• I'm ready to go to law school, to cut my hair, comb it neatly, and tuck in my shirt. But there's always going to be that part of me that was able to live out of a backpack in 2013 and eat gross (cheap) pasta, sleep on lumpy mattresses, and tramp like a nomad through New Zealand.

• There's always going to be an even bigger part of me that knows what a lucky, undeserving bastard I am.

The fact that I survived 6 and a half months in New Zealand is testament to one thing: I'm not completely stunned. The fact that I had a great time, however, is testament to the kindness of a lot of people, to whom I'm pretty grateful: Lynn Palmer and Larry Stephan, for laying the foundations; Joyce Switzar, for my first New Zealand lamb, New Zealand kumara, and New Zealand friend; Jane and Stewart Wright, for a truly exceptional welcome to a whole new world; Noah from Korea, for joining me up Mt. Doom and hitchhiking back to Turangi with me; Megan Martinello, for a night out in Wellington to regain my sanity; Shane Mckay, for the whiskey (even if you are a cheap bastard); Eva and Marcia Fantuzzi, for selling me on WWOOFing; Jennie Osborne and Ed Dodd (and Michael Caine), for the wine and escape from Blenheim; Dave Hamilton, for the view; Lindsey Le Milliere, Dorothée Schmidt, Rhys Findlay-Robinson, Anaȉs Guineberteau, and Michelle Gunton, because picking up poop each morning would have been a lot lamer on my own (and because reconvening in a different time and a different place was always awesome, from Dunedin to Milford Sound to Wellington); Mike Moore, for the bearings in Christchurch and hokey pokey ice cream; Fergus O'Byrne, Colm and Cara McGrath for the most unexpected welcome and invitation, and everyone else in Methven who helped paint the town green; the Oswalds, for a Kiwi Easter and plenty of German sweets; Rory Hannan and Mark Turner, for showing me the beauty at the edge of the world; Des Cooper, for the birthday pounamu and the lessons in spirituality; Hilary and Graeme Finnie, for the colours of the season and pints with old farts; Alan Wilson and Norma Mathieson, for the tiki tour and welcoming home; Ian Todd, for throwing me to the deer herd; the crowd in Queenstown, Dave, Jess, Frankie, Sam, Patrick, Go-Go, Courtney, Louis, and Leona, for stupid fun; that girl who showed her boobs, cause that was sick; the cop outside of Cromwell who probably saved my life by pulling us over; Luke Wigram for the open doors, and everyone else who joined in the conversations in Wanaka; Olivia Lerner, for riding shotgun on the Great New Zealand Road Trip; Lawson Bracewell, for reading the stars; Sam and Jonas, for being part of that collective consciousness when the rest of the world was still asleep; Ross and Averil Smart, for trusting me to watch the farm (and Toby); Linda Perrin, for taking me through the forests of Wellington and making pies with me; Gary and Rosemary Severinsen, for Masonic conspiracies and Star Trek; Mark White and Heraina Martin, for letting me join the whanau; Shona Patterson, for opening up the north for one last adventure; anyone who slowed down to pick me up on the side of the road (good on you, cheers, merci, kia ora, danke, 谢谢to all 43* of you); Matthew Byrne for Polly Moore (and her for more than she will probably ever know); Mom and Dad for pushing me to do this, the patience, the support, and for the Home Connection; and anyone who rolled their eyes, laughed, and actually listened to these stories. 

        

        



    

       

  

                

From the most sincere part of my beating heart, thank you for all that. Thanks for coming along on the trip of a lifetime. Thanks for waiting for me back home – I'll see you soon.

Cheers,

rb

* That number doesn't count the rides I got from people I knew but would otherwise have had to hitchhike. By my count, that's about 10 extra lifts . . . but who's counting?

Up, Auckland, and Away

I don't know what I was expecting to feel when I got on the morning bus from Kamo to Auckland on Friday morning. New Zealand, for me, is about the mountains, the lakes, the coastlines, and the Kiwi hospitality – nothing against Auckland, but the city of 1.5 million is none of that. It's a vibrant city, a clean city with a definite beat, but a city that could just as easily be in the United States. So, when I got on that morning bus and made the three hour drive into the heart of the city, I effectively left the New Zealand I came down to see. This, as someone very correctly pointed out to me, is a liminal time, where I'm not really here but not really there, either.

I felt excited. But I felt sad too – I loved the mountains, I loved the lakes, the coastlines, and of course the Kiwi hospitality. But the thing I loved the most was who those things let me become – I don't hitchhike with strangers, I don't sleep in the back of cars, I don't jump out of airplanes. And yet, down here, I did, and it felt right. Now, I'm leaving that. I just hope that that willingness to trust other people, and to believe (no – to know) that this world is a good, exciting place that I'm fully capable of mastering doesn't go away when I go home.

My final adventure in the New Zealand wilderness was to the west coast of North Auckland, to the Waipoua Forest. The rigid, towering kauri trees once covered northern New Zealand, its sub-tropical climate being most suitable for their growth, but their numbers have been drastically depleted. Going through this green space on a road that winds more than a corkscrew is a slight glimpse into what the ancient world might have looked like, before humans tried to tame Mother Earth.

The Four Sisters are four kauri trees shooting up through the canopy of the forest in a tight circle. Don't come on a walk like this expecting to get a picture of yourself hugging one of these giants – the roots grow close to the surface of the soil and are incredibly fragile, so that one too many tourists ignoring the signs on the boardwalk are more than capable of killing one of these magnificent survivors from a time outside of time.

You really have to crane your neck up to see the tops of these things. For a little perspective:

Pretty cool, huh? But as impressive as these trees are, they're nothing compared to Tane Mahuta, the 2,000 year old kauri further down the highway whose name, when translated from the Maori, means “Lord of the Forest.” The largest tree in New Zealand, its name comes from the Maori god Tane, the son of the sky and earth who ended up separating the two and planting the seeds of the world's vegetation. It's one thing to read that it's more than 50 m high and has a girth of 13 m – it's quite another to stand a few feet from its trunk and take in the sheer enormity of it. I was used to seeing tall trees, but I've never seen something this gigantic before.

It would take a dozen of me to wrap around the trunk. You could fit a house in its branches. Jaysus.

I drove back in the afternoon via Dargaville, through intermittent patches of torrential rain and sunshine. The green, rolling country opens up on both sides, a little slice of Paradise whatever direction you happen to look in.

And now, back to Auckland. Back to the city that I flew into nearly 6 months to the day and set out on these shenanigans. Nomads Fat Camel, the hostel I'm staying at until Wednesday morning, is just off Queen Street, a short walk from Base and the SWAP offices.

After I put my bags down and had a coffee, it was off to Britomart, the central bus terminal, to figure out how best to get to Browns Bay and the City Impact Church just north of Auckland CBD, on the other side of the harbour.

I've never been a big fan of those televised talent competitions, but reality TV is popular down here in a big way. As a result, I watched the scattered Masterchef episode, and ending up following the finals of the The X Factor: New Zealand (mostly because it was the least creepy way to follow Ruby Frost). When an opportunity came up to be in the audience for the auditions round of New Zealand's Got Talent, and the dates roughly coincided with when I should be back in Auckland, it was a no-brainer.

This country has a lot of things going for it. Let's see if talent is one of them.

Which is why I caught the bus to Browns Bay and ended up in the queue outside of the lavish, contemporary church. I was expecting pews – inside, it's like a stadium setup, with seating for several hundred and a polished stage, the LCD screen in against the back displaying the glistening New Zealand's Got Talent logo and the signature neon X's dangling from the ceiling (they're about the size of a couch).

The format of the show is pretty straightforward: people, some individuals and some in groups, audition in front of a panel of three pseudo-celebrity judges. If the act is overly heinous (and that happens a bit – they're making a TV program after all, and feelings and dignity aren't a chief concern to a producer), the judges can give them an X midway through – after three X's, the act abruptly ends. If not, they're not necessarily in the clear – the panel gives feedback, and decides if they're going to give a yes or no for the act advancing to the next round. You need a majority of yes responses.

This was the initial round of auditions in Auckland, the second session for the day. Supermodel Rachel Hunter and Jason Kerrison of Kiwi rock troubadours Opshop both returned from last season – the third judge was newcomer Cris Judd.

“Who is that?” The guy next to me asked, taking out his iPhone. “Huh, he's an American. And he used to be married to J.Lo!”

“Wait, what?” I spun around. Shat, I know that name! He totally danced in “Love Don't Cost a Thing!” Oh dear God, please don't tell me I just said that out loud.

He also danced with Michael Jackson before, so whether I consider him an E-list celebrity or not, he probably knows a thing or two about when people bust a move on stage.

If you've ever been to a television taping before, you know that there is a lot of disillusionment that goes on, to create a final, slick product for TV. When the audience claps, there's a decent chance there's a stage hand just out of sight of the camera, edging everyone on. The camera stops between acts to redo makeup and prepare the stage (there was a great comedian interacting with the audience at these times), sometimes having to make slight adjustments between when an act introduces themselves and actually performs.

Before the show even started, the camera did a few sweeps of the audience, doing a mild clap, an enthusiastic clap, a fervour clap, and an ovation, to be edited in later if necessary. Similarly, once the spectacle of the judges coming in and mingling with the audience was finished, they did takes of them all pushing their buzzers with just the producer on stage (they're very loud), just so they would have filler material to use later. So, the next time you see Simon Cowell scowl at some monstrosity on stage, it might just be at a guy with a clipboard who's telling him when to do it.

The talent show took about three hours, a mixed bag of over a dozen acts. That included a kid with diabolo sticks, a few dancers and musicians with acoustic guitars, Japanese drummers, colourful Indian dancers, and a cabaret burlesque dancer that got the dude judges good and flustered.

A lot of the talent was good. Some of it was godawful, exactly the kind of stuff that makes you cringe when you watch it on TV. Poor thing, I got the impression she was a returning contestant, and obviously didn't care that they brought her back just as a joke. Or maybe infamy is just as good as fame, if that's all you can get.

A word on the judging. Last year, I went to a benefit show in St. John's that was hosted by Lynda Boyd from Republic of Doyle. Turns out she's alright when someone is feeding her lines, but when she has to dip into her own imagination, it sounds something like this: “Wasn't that awesome? That band sounded awesome! This is awesome! The talent here is awesome!” By the third act, you wanted to hand her your phone, tell her there's a thesaurus app on it, and have “awesome” typed in the search bar.

The reason I bring that up is because watching the judges come up with a response to some of the acts felt something like that. Some of the acts were bad, but none as bad as the ones who were getting paid to be there. A Michael Jackson impersonator came on and did a dance, and Cris Judd had some meaningful commentary – beyond that, he sounded like he didn't have a clue the whole night. Saying something is cool loses its meaning pretty quickly, so that even when they were singing praises, you didn't know if it was genuine or just because they couldn't think of anything else to say. None of the judges disagreed with one another, but just fed off what the others said – it would have been nice to have seen some original thought. Hopefully when they have to edit it for primetime, they'll be able to make it look like they know what they're talking about.

Actually, it would be an improvement if the producers could just make them look like they're interested in what's happening on stage. A hypnotist invited Cris Judd onto the stage, and he was hesitant to the point where I legitimately thought he wasn't going to go for it – for God's sake, the producers came out and told the audience to make sure they're having fun, but people watching at home are going to see the judges a long time before they fixate on the blurry faces in the background. Same thing for Rachel Hunter. Before each act she introduced, she always said, “I'm excited!” At no point in the evening did I believe that she was excited. I think she would have rather be anywhere else in the world than in Auckland last night.

Huh, I didn't realize the judges did as shitty a job as that until I started writing it. Anyway, it renewed my distrust in the machine that Hollywood entertainment is, and how superficial and fake it is. Thankfully there were some great things on stage – you'll have to watch it when it airs.

The dude and his girlfriend next to me snuck me some fruit snacks and gave me a ride back into Auckland, where I took an evening stroll before retiring, the sounds of a downtown Friday night drifting up from the street.

The hitchhiking, the sleeping in cars, the escape from reality – it's really and truly over now, the concrete the last trail to trod. What a ride it's been – the best thing now is to find a cafe, a flat white, and a flaky mince pie, and think back on the whole thing.

And smile, glad that it happened.

Cheers,

rb

Top of the Bottom of the World

New Zealand is, by most accounts, the youngest country on Earth. You can go ahead and make a counterargument (probably something along the lines of, “But Croatia's just over twenty years old”), but the fact remains that these two islands were some of the last to be settled and inhabited. Early Maori settlers from Polynesia started living here in the 13th century, while Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to set sight on Aoteroa in 1642 (the former didn't really like him, which was why he saw Golden Bay but never made landfall). It was Captain James Cook who did most of the early surveying of “Nieuw Zeeland” in 1767, with the Treaty of Waitangi establishing the groundwork of the current country in 1840.

The Treaty Grounds of Waitangi sit along the shores of the Bay of Islands, far up the eastern coast of Northland. This whole area is the historic core of New Zealand – a short, fifteen minute ferry ride across the harbour brings you to Russell, a sleepy, quaint little town that (somehow) was once both the “Hellhole of the Pacific” and the original capital of New Zealand until 1844 (that was when Maori rangatira Hone Heke staged a rebellion against British rule that led to the Sacking of Kororareke and the shifting of the political centre to Auckland, where it stayed for 25 years).

Walking along the Strand in Russell, you're liable to see some of the oldest buildings in the country. Of course, age is all relative – like the Duke of Marlborough Hotel, the first licensed hotel in New Zealand, which goes back to 1827. It would be a bit of an insult to go to a place like that on a sunny afternoon and not take advantage of a licensed deck looking out on the Bay of Islands.

Similarly, the Anglican church, Christ Church (two words – not the Canterbury city), is the oldest church in the country, and owed part of its construction to a donation by Charles Darwin (I guess the early Kiwi preachers weren't touting creationism from the pulpit), and owed a few musket holes along the side of the building to Hone Heke.

It doesn't take long to wander and poke through town, and before long I was walking up a steep asphalt hill, first to the Flagstaff Historic Reserve, a symbolic reminder of the Union Jack flagstaff that had  been hacked down multiple times by frustrated Maori in the 1840s – the exact translation of certain clauses of the Treaty are still being disputed today, and every year the Waitangi celebrations in February are met with protests as well as joviality. From this vantage point, you can spot the green lawn of Waitangi across the harbour.

The road dips down from here, opening up on the outside of the bay in the tiny little nook of Tapeka. After walking along the gentle curve of the beach and picking up a few shells and bits of coral, I found the grassy ascent leading up to Tapeka Point.

From here, there's a panoramic view of the Bay of Islands – across to Paihai and up the shore, and out to the wide mouth of the Pacific, dotted with some of the 144 islands that comprise the aptly named bay.

No one's sorrier than me that the fish and chips I had for lunch weren't very good, but at least I had that pint and the ocean view to wash it all down. A short walk to Long Beach in Oneroa Bay, and it was back across the harbour, watching a few locals jumping off the wharf as if it wasn't the middle of winter. With the sun glistening on the water, it sure didn't feel like it.

I must be getting to the end of my trip, because every time I set an alarm to wake up early, there's an internal debate that's getting lengthier and lengthier: “Do I really want to do this thing, or do I just want to go back to sleep? That would be nice. Maybe if it's raining, I'll have an excuse . . . nope. Ah, the hell with it, I won't be back here again, I'll do this . . . once more.”

Sleeping in a hostel dorm room isn't conducive to a good night's sleep, least of all when you have to get up early and you keep waking up every hour or so to check the clock. Finally, 6:25 came, and I didn't wait for the phone to vibrate to life – I had my things all assembled, and was in the car about 15 minutes later, driving out of Paihai, further up along the coast. Somewhere around Whangaroa, the sun rose, and by the time I made to to Kaitaia, it was looking like a nice morning. I brought a jacket but wore my shorts (most of the pairs I brought have been donated to Red Cross shops, as soon as the frigid nights down south started to set in – I hung on to one pair, just in case of days like today)

I waited at the i-SITE for the Sand Safari mini-bus, the day tour heading up the Cape Reinga, the northernmost tip of New Zealand. I waited . . . and waited. After it got to be about 25 minutes late, I decided to check with the workers inside, to see if we could get in touch with the tour company. Sure enough, I'd been missed through a miscommunication, and I had to meet them at the Ancient Kauri Kingdom a few clicks north of town.

Peeved, all I could think was that this better be worth it.

This whole area of the country is known for its kauri trees – one of the largest trees in the world is a kauri that's over 2000 years old, here in the Waipoua Forest, but the other ones are nothing to scoff at. They are the ancient giants that once covered this land, the lingering few now standing sentinel to a lost world. Their gum drew early settlers, their massive trunks led to beautiful furniture, and swamped, preserved remnants stand now as they did tens of thousands of years ago.  

Like this guy, the biggest one ever extracted (we're talking 140 tonnes here), and the oldest (if not the only) complete trunk with an internal staircase. As you wind your way up to the gallery, you're going through a chainsawed trunk that's literally 50,000 years old.

But the morning was already dragging on because of that slight delay, so I found a spot on the 18-seater bus – a couple of visiting families with young kids and a few other stragglers. As we started up on the very last chunk of Highway 1, our Maori driver pulled over on the side of the road and gave a traditional greeting. 

“Did you catch all of that?” he asked, straightfaced. “So basically, I'm unemployed, and was picking fruit the other day. At the end of the day, we go to the unemployment office to get our next assignment, and he said there was a busload of people who wanted to go up the Cape. I didn't have a bus license, but he said that was alright – still, I was a bit nervous, so I solved that by going to the pub until 2:30 last night. Only problem is, now I'm a bit tired . . . but I've got a map up here with me, and these dotted lines to follow, so we should be alright.”

Ok, maybe this would be worth it.

The lazy countryside whisked past us, climbing over grassy hills that were once large dunes of sand. We made our first stop at Rarawa Beach, a strip of white silica sand that makes a squeak as you run your sneakers over it.

After a bosenberry ice cream, we drove on a bit further, our guide coming through on intercom every so often to point out something quirky about the small towns we were passing by. This is the far north, after all, where the usual rules don't necessarily apply. Around lunchtime, we started climbing to a point, overlooking the Tasman on our left, the Pacific on our right, and carved mounds of wind-swept sand and forest in between. We had a packed lunch of sandwiches and coffee at Tapotupotu Bay before heading to the final destination: Cape Reinga.

The final headland of New Zealand is a pretty important part of Maori spiritual tradition. A pohutukawa tree sits at the edge of the rocky outcrop, and it's said that the dead begin their trip to the Underworld from here, eventually making their way back to their ancestral homeland of Hawaiiki-A-Nui (possibly one of the French Polynesian islands).

It's also a pretty important part of my trip. It's the end of the road, literally and figuratively. A lighthouse sits overlooking the ocean, and next to it a yellow directional sign, pointing out how far we are from other points on the globe. The same type of AA sign stands at Stirling Point, far away in Bluff, at the very beginning of Highway 1.

It's been a long road – 1452 km, if you believe the sign here in Cape Reinga, although the sign from Bluff reckons it's about 50 km shorter:

   

Either way, it's been a long road, but it's been a good road. One of the best I've had the opportunity to traverse in a life that's been truly blessed, but there's nowhere else left to go now. Except back the way I came.

Before I left the tip of Cape Reinga, I cast my eyes out to sea, where the Tasman and the Pacific meet in a furious frothing of ocean waves, just in line with the Three Kings Islands off in the distance. Then, it's back to the parking lot, along the sublime, rocky coast that faces nothing but the wide world ahead.

I said there was nowhere left to go back – which is true, but it doesn't necessarily have to be by the exact same road. We turned off the main highway at Te Paki, the road suddenly transforming into a quicksand stream that you wouldn't drive over in your rental car, but that's no worries for a 4WD bus and an unemployed Maori driver.

The stream opened up on Te Paki Sandune, the biggest mound of sand I've ever laid my eyes on, rising high up above the ground. Boogie boards and toboggans filled the back of the bus, and they were put to good use here, shooting down over the slope and scrambling back up again. We all ended up picking sand out of our hair and mouths, but what had been polite conversation in the small bus that morning was a lot more laughing and carrying on when we left the dune.

Not that we were headed back to the regular highway just yet. Ninety Mile Beach (real length: 55 miles) runs down the west coast of the tiny Aupouri Peninsula, a long strip of hard-packed sand that was once the legitimate roadway in the area. It still sees plenty of tire tracks these days – the regular rules apply here, although they're not exactly enforced. Plenty of people come out here in their own vehicles, digging for shellfish or just seeing what kind of skid marks they can make on the long, lonely strip of beach. It's not without its risks though, no matter how solid it might seem – bus drivers know the route, but others are discouraged from attempting the drive down the coast, vehicles getting stuck every year. I'm nearly convinced that same kind of moronic tragedy happened in that little sandy patch around the bend from Pasadena Beach around 2007, but can't for the life of me remember who was driving (though I have a pretty good idea).

The tours in this area (and there are many tour companies, around two dozen) make their schedules based on the tides. Morning high tide (like this day) mean that you drive up Highway 1 and back via Ninety Mile Beach – and not just a little skirting on the sand, to say you did it. We drove back the whole way, sea to the right, dunes to the left, and nothing but sand ahead of us. With some Maori singing on the way, no less.

I continued back down the coast on my own, through Northland and on to Whangarei. Now, I've got one last load of washing to do and a final reassembling of my backpack in preparation for my return to Auckland on Friday morning. I started this trip by going to a TV taping (Jeaopardy! in Los Angeles – did you make sure you watched it when it aired in February?), and I'll end it by sitting in the audience for New Zealand's Got Talent. Between that and buying some Kiwiana crap for souvenirs, the only other thing I need to do is make sure I don't miss my flight in a week's time. You can put the kettle on soon.

Cheers,

rb