The Wayfaring Path

Later this year we are off to the UK and Europe for a 7 month working holiday. It’s terribly exciting, but I’m a long time between adventures, and travel is different in your 50s than in your 20s. So I’m using a trip to Sydney to practice packing my gear, figuring out where to sit on the plane, and how to keep myself happy and healthy while away from home.

I had a number of minor disasters with my packing – the zip broke on my big suitcase, and I managed to lock myself out of my day bag. (I can now pick a padlock, which seems like an excellent life skill to have). Then a stone got stuck in one of the wheels of the smaller suitcase I had moved everything into, and I stupidly dragged it along for a few moments before realising, which has damaged the wheel to the extent that the bag sounds like it’s going over cobblestones, even on smooth floors!

Both of my suitcases are second hand ones and I’m pretty sure an upgrade is needed before The Big Trip, so that’ll be a fun job when I get back. There’s nothing quite so exciting as travel-related purchases!

It was a glorious day out of Wellington, but on the plane I was entirely surrounded by youngish blokes who all seemed to fart continuously. I chose to sit in a window seat so I could stare at clouds (well, mostly at the wing) but felt hemmed in and immediately changed all my future flights to aisle seats as soon as we landed.

I’ve been working since I arrived, so haven’t really seen much beyond my friend’s dining room, but even short walks in unfamiliar surroundings have given me a taste of adventure… and they have such great trees around here! I’m planning on shooting a meditation video in the back yard this weekend – I’m in the Blue Mountains and it’s achingly beautiful. Cockatiels, huge swarms of them, just fly around freely, and I heard a Kookaburra today too. Brilliant.