A Polynesian Prologue

On the Metrobus in St. John’s, there are signs behind the driver, telling you to leave by the back door. About half the people who take the bus actually follow the writing on the wall, and for them there are two kinds of doors midway down the bus: one with a vertical handle that you push on, and an automated one where you swing your hand and feel like you pulled some Jedi mind trick. Every time I used to take the bus, the first thing I’d do would be to scope out that door, just so I was sure I was ready – there’s a special circle in Hell for the poor sucker who fumbles with the door. The rest of the ride would be spent reassuring myself that I had the exit maneuver figured out, and checking over my shoulder with OCD intensity at every other stop, just to make sure the door was still the same one. 

It’s at this point that a careful reader should wonder what this story that has literally nothing to do with anything is doing here. It’s pure perspective – as January 14 creeps closer, I can’t help but come back, time and time again, to a question older than time: what in the name of God is a dude who needs a day-to-day itinerary and has a mild panic attack every time he gets on the Route 10 by himself doing, running off to New Zealand? It gets zanier, and I realize it whenever I have a conversation with someone new about my little foray into the great unknown and it ends up reading like a well-rehearsed script:

“You’re going to New Zealand to work? Where?”

“Oh, you don’t have a job lined up . . . well, are you going down with anyone?”

“No? Oh, well, you know a few people down there?”

“Hmm, gutsy . . . so what part of the country are you going to?”

“. . . Sure, there is plenty of time to make that decision. I guess. How long are you going for anyway?”

“A one-way ticket?! For the love of . . .”

And so, that brings us to here. The start of a brand new year, and the start of something that the romantic side of me calls an adventure, and the rational side of me has dubbed a segue into sheer lunacy. And boy, am I excited for it.

I feel like I should address a few basic things, just to get you up to speed. First and foremost is the why. Nearly everyone I spoke to about backpacking across New Zealand had a cousin who babysat the dog of the sister’s boyfriend who did a similar thing five summers ago, but it remains a destination with some mysterious, elusive, semi-random appeal. The Kiwis are doing alright down there, but the spot isn’t exactly the first place you think of when you think about an overseas adventure.

I do, however, have my reasons:

1.      (*Don’t say Lord of the Rings, don’t say Lord of the Rings*) Lord of the Rings was filmed there (*Idiot*). In all seriousness, that’s totally not my number 1 reason to go.

2.      Lord of the Rings was filmed there. In all actual seriousness, I have an English degree because, when I was in grade six, a teacher who had no idea that the stones she was slinging would start an avalanche slipped a copy of The Hobbit into my report card. Before that summer, I liked to read, but that moment was something like when the guy who thinks two cups of coffee gives him a buzz drops a few hits of LSD. My imagination went roaming a whole lot farther than it ever did before, and the movies came out a few months later – in essence, my picture of Middle-earth was rooted in Peter Jackson’s picture of Middle-earth. So, you know what? New Zealand is kind of the cornerstone of not only my adolescence, but the whole development of my creative impulses. I think it’s about time I went there for realises.

Some say Hobbiton, some say Matamata

3.      In the Northern Hemisphere, it’s cold this time of year. Like, really.  I’m not one of these guys who whines about the weather . . . much. 

“Satched” is a word that doesn’t get tossed around enough

I grew up around snowmobiles, had a ski pass for Marble Mountain for half a dozen winters in a row, and even went through a few pairs of ice skates AND a hockey stick during my awkward phase. But, winter means something different these days, living in St. John’s. In particular, it’s icy, glacial mountains on the “sidewalks,” slush wherever you manage to find some footing, and a daily struggle up Long’s Hill that makes you wonder why you left your ice pick home that morning. Plus, even though Fredericton Tourism says that the city is “your perfect winter getaway,” I’ve heard that it’s really, really cold there. That’s where I’m going to be for the next three winters, so I basically need to go to the South Pacific now, just to average it out.

4.      New Zealand is almost unbelievably beautiful. Just look at its forests, its coastlines, its rivers, and its mountains, and get ready to be hit by more in-your-face sublimity than a graduate course in Romantic Poetry (pretend that this website totally doesn’t exist). Europe might have its sweeping history, but the Land of the Long White Cloud has labelled itself as the youngest country on earth – I’m not going thousands of miles from home to see architecture and museums, but rather a part of the world that still retains some sense of wilderness. What’s more, the Kiwis have really taken the landscape and decided to do stuff in it: see that river? Let’s go kayaking. That mountain? Strap on your hiking boots. Let’s ride those waves, and see that big empty field? Well, we’re going up in a plane, and we’re gonna jump on that sucker from a couple thousand feet.    

     

Here’s a chance to pick grapes from the vine, soak in thermal hot springs, take in the traditional rituals of the Māori people and eat from the ground at a Hāngi, catch sight of a sheep (or five), and have my breath taken from me around every corner. The program is SWAP, a Canadian-based organization for students that sends you packing to some corner of the globe on a working vacation and helps keep all your loose ends together – an opportunity to travel and do things I could never do in Atlantic Canada, while making a few bucks so that I don’t starve along the way.  

I really am going to live out of a backpack for 6 to 7 months. I really do have no idea what part of the country I’m going to spend the bulk of my time in, or what I’m going to do for work. That’s part of the intrigue – whether this becomes something to make you jealous or a “what-not-to-do” guide to Polynesia remains to be seen.

Leaving St. John’s was the first step, leaving Pasadena comes soon. Love ultimately, invariably, leads to loss, and I don’t mean that in any negative, cynical way – the relationships that you value on this earth are all fleeting things, one way or another. And that’s not a reason to fall into a perpetual funk and lose your appreciation of wonder – that’s all the motivation you could possibly need to enjoy the crap out of what you have while you have it. All the new things too, the stuff that will shape all your future experiences that you don’t even know about yet. They won’t last forever, so enjoy the ride.

To anyone who thinks an English degree means a la de da appreciation for the written word, let me lay down my Dostoyevsky for a second to let slip a little secret: one of my all-time favourite books, which I think is more genuine than a lot of the classics, is A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh. If these ramblings encourage you to do one thing, I hope it’s to go travel and find some cool nook of your own. If it makes you do two things, bring Winnie-the-Pooh with you on your travels. Christopher Robin’s dad does some wicked stuff in the Hundred Acre Wood, but one of his best lines is almost deceptively simple:

“How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

Thanks for making me far luckier than I could possibly deserve. Check back in ten days – I’ll be in California by supper time, and then only halfway there. Not. Real. Life.

Cheers,

rb