The last week and a half has been spectacular. We left Christchurch a week and a half or so ago and restarted our walk, this time through the massive Canterbury plains. A "canter" is the natural walk of a horse, and I can only imagine that if horses dream of a heaven, they dream of "Canter"bury. In fact, Peter Jackson brought Rohan, the Middle Earth horse kingdom, to life on the plains of Canterbury. So, what am I driving at? Well, I suppose I'm driving at a description of Canterbury. If I had to describe it in 3 words they would be either: "Kansas with hills" or "Kansas...but pretty." Like Kansas because of the golden color and massive expanse, but the character of the landscape is totally different. Basically our experience was that we would walk from one massive, glacially-carved, yellow grass and tussock covered valley up to a high point with expansive views and down to another valley of the same massive and golden variety. In a few places, the valleys had been filled in and given way to lakes, 30 to 40 kilometers in distance and 10 in breadth. It's been an absolutely amazing place to walk through and, as if NZ read my last real blog post and graciously smiled upon me, it's been unlike anything I've ever seen before.
I'm also happy to report that, since my writing about it, I've had absolutely no desire to quit. In fact, I'm feeling very contentedly settled in to this life of long-walking. I love it. There is a lot that has changed and allowed me to be able to enjoy this walk again. Perhaps the biggest is that I have my big companion back. It's so nice to be able to share the trip with Ben. We spend a lot if time just goofing off and laughing at each other and ourselves and in so doing we make the trip our own. We're doing this trail in a uniquely Ben and Gary way, and that's what I love. As just one example, we don't rise and fall with the sun, as many other thru-trampers do. Instead, we wake up at 9 or 10 and snooze our alarm for at least 20 minutes, curling deeper and deeper into our warm, goose down sanctuaries as the once peaceful and now hell-ish "dawn chorus" alarm sound screeches out each wrenching note in its electronically wrought "melody." Nestled in our sleeping bags we seek to block out the persistent alarm and the mid-morning light shining into our hut before the urge to pee finally overcomes my desire to stay curled in my lofty, baffled, feathered bliss. Then, slowly, groggily and most ungracefully, I stumble out of my bunk and, with a big, sheepish smirk greet the day with one, definitive and cooly defiant word: "oops." A shared bought of laughter then follows, typically joined with the release of another, windier, smellier, and more musical urge that has been building all night. The volume of the laughter increases accordingly before I'm finally driven from the hut to accomplish my original task as the last of the clean hut air becomes swallowed up by laughter or pollution. In my opinion, there is no better way in the world to start the day.
From there we go through our day. We pack slowly and start late, justifying our tardiness by stating that we rarely stop once we've started, though occasional 2 to 3 hour lunchtimes and naps beg to differ. Sometimes we're tired, sometimes I'm grumpy, but always, by the end of the day, I am content, wishing to be doing nothing other than exactly this.
So, life is good. There is still a lot that floats through my head each day about life and existence and all that other lighthearted stuff, but I'll save that for another day. For now, I'm going to go help fellow thru-hiker Jess celebrate her 24th birthday along with her hiking partner, Izak, and, of course, my buddy, Ben. I'll do my best to post again before not too long...
Until then,
G
