Now that I am here in New Zealand It feels as secluded as it looks on an atlas. New Zealand is often omitted from atlas’s completely and we’re only ever talked about when a kiwi is good at something.
I have crash landed (metaphorically) into my home country after a 18 month break from reality and it is hard to update a travel blog when every day has been up, down and spent not traveling. Not impossible though, that is the longest break from this blog I will take.
New Zealand is incredibly isolated which is both good and bad.
I spent 8 extra months in Europe after realising how far away I would be If I returned. Whilst living in Edinburgh I would use one of many flight searching websites by typing “Edinburgh” as my location and “everywhere” as a destination,
the results:
Doing the same here; From Auckland, to “Everywhere” yields the following results:
It is expensive to leave New Zealand although from here it is reasonable to travel to Asia, which is probably the next stage of my goal.
Isolation works in New Zealand’s favour too, This country is known for its beauty and the beaches are mostly empty.
Me and my friend Sandy, This time last year at a beach in France
I took this photo the other day and there was nobody else there to be in it. Piha, Auckland.
I wasn’t thrilled about coming home to a winter after an Edinburgh winter, I feel like a pro skier…without the professionalism.. and skiing. But the thing to note about this winter in Auckland is that there isn’t one. Since I have been home I visited the Coromandel, Omaha Beach, Piha a couple of times and Tawharanui- where I took this photo:
In Auckland city everyone hibernates, occasionally exiting the cave to meet with small circles of friends in homes. My uncle flew here from Scotland in 2003 and he flew back to Edinburgh vowing to never return. NZ would be a drag if you were used to rowdy football matches and pub banter. I remember feeling like I should be offended by this, but when you look at the situation honestly it is clear that Auckland is a boring place. I have met a huge number of 20-something kiwis who travel and only consider flying home when they discuss “settling down”.
There is plenty to do outside of the city and when you live in Auckland you leave as much as possible, that is what I do anyway. Kiwi summers are a target worth working towards – festivals, BBQ’s, Christmas at the beach, I grew up doing that and the wait through the winter was always worth it.
Now that I’ve been to some fucked up places it takes the sting out of any complaints I have about New Zealand. NZ is a nice place and I am lucky to be here. I am no longer living out of a bag, shitting in holes or dodging rats, I am not breathing in smoke either and when I was going through those rough days New Zealand seemed like a paradise.
Overall it has been a textbook case of the ‘post travel blues’. But it takes a lot to make me cry, so onwards I go. More work and more traveling with-in continents. It isn’t easy to travel with in continence.
The Travelling Carpenter 
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