Hot and Cold

In general, weather talk is conversational suicide. You've veered into the realm of small talk, meaningless pleasantries, and have started digging a hole that's tough to get back out of – if you were hoping to segue into any existential topics or get a second date, there's a decent chance you totally blew that one.

In general. For Newfoundlanders, talking about the weather is not just verbal spewing used to fill an awkward gap. If someone from Bay Bulls says, “This is some weird weather we're having,” then there's a good chance that it is weird, a hodgepodge of seasons in one afternoon, and even if the guy who you're talking to is from the Goulds, he's probably just as enthralled because it could be totally different from whatever he's got on the go. Five years later, he's your best man as you marry the girl who you picked up with the story of driving your Ski-doo in August. Weather matters – Toni Marie is a celebrity in Newfoundland. Anyway, you know what's coming – I'm going to talk about the weather. In particular, how it's getting cold.

Now, I'm well aware that parts of the Northeast Avalon have been battered by sea surges over the past week, and pockets all over the island are in the middle of that season “Spring-oh-just-kidding-Winter-again” – but in the Northern Hemisphere, Spring is coming, I assure you. It's Autumn down here, and I'm figuring out on a daily basis just how unprepared I was for this transition, thanking my lucky stars that I actually got moving south when I did, rather than delay it. You'd think, coming from a rock in the North Atlantic, that I'd be prepared for just about any weather, but I've heard that Canadians are actually one of the worst at adapting to New Zealand's colder climates, because of the lack of central heating in the homes. You expect it to be colder outside, but you're used to the lounge being a safe haven of coziness. When the sun's out in the afternoon, it's nice. But there's frost in the morning, and the evenings are borderline frigid. I've got a little heater in my room, and boy oh boy does she crank to life at 8:00.

The seasonal realities were on my mind this week, as I'm gearing up, sooner rather than later, to head to Invercargill, one of the most southerly points in New Zealand. From there, I'm planning to disappear into Fiordland (which sounds like a magical made-up place, but it's definitely real) and go on a multi-day tramp, which includes sleeping in a sleeping bag in a hut on top of an actual mountain. It sounds deadly – but a bit chilly for my shorts and windbreaker. So I had some much-needed shopping to do, a wardrobe 180, so I don't come back from New Zealand in the form of an ice block.

That's not to say that I have to give all my shorts up to good will right away – like I said, the days are still pretty good. Good enough to go mountain biking down Signal Hill on Monday afternoon, and even, dare I say it, swimming in the Pacific Ocean the next day.

We drove just south of Dunedin, to Tunnel Beach. The beach gets its name, not surprisingly, from a tunnel – there's a sea arch thrust out into the ocean, and within that there's a narrow tunnel, going down over stairs cut into the rock. Kind of like walking down to a dungeon, except there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and that was the enclosed, sandy beach. 

 

I was happy enough to just splash my feet, but Manfred suggested we go out into the waves for real, and there was no way I was being the one to wuss out. Actually, the water was surprisingly comfortable. I was kind of expecting the first plunge to be painful, but we got on alright. Afterwards, the mid-afternoon sun dried me as I helped build sandcastles in the rising tide.

I like Dunedin, but I've gotten comfortable, complacent, and content to spend days doing nothing. I finally admitted to my host family that I've got the itch to get moving again, and will disembark early next week. That leaves just enough time to spend a night out in Dunedin and to go to the Waikouaiti Food Festival tomorrow, north towards Oamaru.

There's a great song from Newfoundland, “Wave Over Wave,” that's consistently been in my Top Ten – probably because I can relate to that bittersweet pull of exploring the unknown while leaving a life behind. And I've always liked the ending: “With life to live over, I'd do it again” – but would you? Should you? I've given it plenty of thought these past few months, and now I don't think you should ever want to repeat anything, even the very best parts of your life, because there could be something so much more out there that you would totally miss out on. You don't go to an all-you-can-eat buffet and stock up on your one favourite thing, so with life to live over, I think you should try it completely differently and see what happens. 

 

Fortunately, we don't ever get that choice – all we get is life to live, full stop, and now it's time to collect the bits and pieces scattered over this room, pack that backpack, and move on down the road, to something I've never seen before.

Cheers,

rb