Normal

Riding a bus from Christchurch to Nelson, driver is a white-haired gent who raises the first two fingers of his right, sometimes left, hand to any large moving vehicle every time we pass. Ships in the early morning hours. Friendly gestures on the road. Is this how these people keep themselves connected while they roam the land in their graceless highway elephants?

I've had two days by myself due to being infected in the chest (and what a frustrating double back to Christchurch, knowing what I was missing out on ahead - the Lewis Pass) and the solitude has jarred some unexplored parts of my brain into thought. On this most extraordinary of trips, and during what is an extraordinary time in my life in a broader sense, I have found myself rethinking and challenging the notion of my “ordinary” - the normal circadian pattern of everyday existence, the rituals I keep and why I keep them.

Routine has not been a hallmark of my past two years. I have slipped and slopped and tripped from day to day, resisting any consistent form of structure outside of that required by the working week. At times this was delightful and I was giddy, and at others I was unstable and very sad.

Now, I am in a different place than I have ever been before. On a daily basis I am stretched and tired and resigned and euphoric. Virg and I have talked about how your emotional radar goes into overdrive in these circumstances. You've never been so sore; your food has never tasted so simply good before.

As part of this, I have noticed my conceptions of “normal” fall away. I'm now thirsty for unfiltered tap water. We eat pasta for breakfast. It's commonplace to nap in my sleeping bag on the side of the road in broad daylight. We dine on the grass and cook in a tiny skillet on a gas canister. I care less and less about the clock and more about the intensity of the sun on my skin. We shower at dirty campsites and have perfected the one-handed Macarena on our bikes. I ride with a thumb-sized hole in the thigh of my bike shorts, a reminder of the time at Taeri when Lee scorched my pants as I tried to dry them on the warm top of an oven. A month ago, this hole would have bothered me for reasons I would have been uncomfortable sharing with you. Now, it's just part of the landscape, an extra patch of skin I need to remember to put sunscreen on.

From all of this I have learnt that normality is so adaptive, so fluid, that we mustn't be scared when our old normal sheds its skin. It is normal for me to want to blog this experience perfectly, with cutely-worded recaps and distances covered and gorgeous pictures. And I'll get to that. But for now, I'm falling in line with this new pace and pattern and taking my time, with the pressure off. I want this blog to be an expression of how it really was for us, not doctored up and delivered on a regular posting schedule.

This post has been more self-directed than anything, but I still wanted to share this part of the journey. Future posts will probably jump around a bit more, and that's all good. We've got a lot we want to tell you all about, and you'll have to forgive me if it isn't told in order. I am learning to embrace the chaos!

Leg 1: Dunedin to Invercargill

If you could humour me and put from your mind these past two weeks where I have been AWOL (classic overestimation of physical and mental fortitude at the end of the day when I commonly think "oh, I should blog" and then pass out, a mess of quivering muscles and trail mix, in my sleeping bag), I'd like to tell you where we have been and where we are now. I'll give you the first two legs (Dunedin to Invercargill and then Invercargill to Queenstown) today, in separate posts, and will return tomorrow for the Queenstown to Christchurch stretch (by far the most fraught and exciting, so don't go anywhere).

Lee also has some posts of his own to guest-blog, including a poignant piece comparing the Dipton pie to the Lumsden pie (you'll really marvel at his nuanced rating system). And finally, I must tell you about what is quickly becoming the most-anticipated event on the bike trip: the Waihi burger showdown, where Lee will pit his bottomless stomach against Virg's slow-burning yet powerful metabolism as they race to be the first through 1.5kg of burger! There's talk of live-blogging the showdown ...

Dunedin to Invercargill via the Catlins
Leg 1: 240km

When I last blogged, we were all fresh and green at the end of day 1. I think our average mileage was around 30km per day in those yonder times, whereas 70 is now more or less where we end up. I believe I dropped you off in Milton, so let's begin there.

We went from Milton to Balclutha (In Balclutha, tattered and rough Maori bikers introduce us to their kaumatua and I eat my first deep-fried Mars Bar; we have our inaugural argument as a trio and cool off by watching the local sheep shearing competition and admiring Southern boys) to Owaka (we stop for lunch at a cafe/bar here and thus begin the lunchtime beer tradition; Virg is fascinated by a house dedicated to tea cups) to Papatowai to Tokanui (quickly and earnestly dubbed our favourite tiny town thus far; we camp out the back of the dairy cum supermarket - it's the only one around - and EUREKA! there is an open tavern and coulditbetrue? they're showing the cricket; Virg is subjected to a rigorous introduction to the gentleman's game; we return to our tents with whiskey and fall asleep happy) to Fortrose (we meet a German man on a campervan trip with his wife; he tells to look for life's signs, because he just saw the hessian bags he worked with in Papua New Guinea in his youth used as retro cushions in the cafe we've stopped at) to Invercargill. Up until recently, the ride into Invercargill had been our hardest. The rain pissed, the headwind blew, and the road signs kept lying to us. We rolled in to Invercargill, three drowned rats, and spent as many days waiting out the rain and recuperating. Our next "big" destination: Queenstown, place of tourists and thrill-seekers.

Virg and Lee muse over our route at Brighton beach

Tree dwelling.

Virg-o.