North Island - Southbound.

As I walked past the queue of people waiting for the bus, I quickly scanned the crowd (as I do when I walk into any new situation) to see if my soul mate was there. No one stood out so I boarded the bus with my small pack and waited for departure.

The radio was playing a morning talk show and I’m sure the driver, who was outside loading bags into the belly of the bus, had no idea the topic was a detailed discussion about vaginas. How comically appropriate!

Once on the road, we did one of those everyone-introduce-yourself-with-your-name-and-country things. This was around the time that I discovered I cannot tell a Canadian accent from an American one. I also quickly learned that most Canadians get offended if you mistake them for an American. (And this was before Donal Trump!) The bus was full of people from all over the world.

We stopped at a waterfall. Pretty.

After a couple hours, when the bus arrived to our destination in Raglan, we were offered an opportunity to take a walk on the beach and the bus would pick us up on the other side to where some people were taking surfing lessons. Doesn’t that sound nice? A walk on the beach - easy and relaxing!

Well, the trek across the beach was actually some kind of boulder field consisting of large, smooth, round rocks that would easily roll out of place. So, what I thought was going to be a nice leisurely stroll on the beach, turned into a careful meditation of foot placement, decision, and balance.

The first time I fell was easy - I fell with grace and slowly. I managed to land carefully and completely protect my camera! I congratulated myself for having such good core strength, or something. Phew! 

The second fall was not graceful when the rock rolled completely and I slammed hard.  I smashed my hand and camera. I was too afraid to open the lens cap or turn it on to determine the damage. 

Beautiful to see and unpleasant to cross.

After what felt like an eternity, I finally made it across to the smooth sand, my hand and arm bleeding, holding my camera against my chest.

As I headed back to where I saw the other people waiting, another guy from the bus was running down a trail and our paths crossed. I find out that he was originally from Indianapolis but has lived in Australia and Chile over the last several years. He has done a lot of traveling around the world. And has a lot more planned.

As long as I can remember, I have been tortured with this pull to get out and wander into places by myself; let the wind or a random suggestion sway my direction. I have felt alone, and sometimes a bit crazy for this, but now I am beginning to meet other people who have the same drive. Maybe I am not so strange. I thought that I wanted to immerse with the locals, but it might turn out that I needed to meet other wanderers who are drifting around the planet alone for their own reasons.

The feeling to travel is a constant tug that I feel in my chest - causing agitation and restlessness. It feels beyond my control and it feels insatiable. I don't know exactly what it is, but I think I have this idea that there is some big thing waiting for me; there is a conversation with someone that I have not yet found, who will have a piece of the puzzle; there exists some vista that will speak to my heart and direct me to wherever I need to go. Maybe I will find some pocket of energy that I need to experience and share with someone else, somehow.

Anyway, when we got back to the group at the end of the beach, we found that one of the guys who had been taking surfing lessons had been caught in the riptide. He was really shaken up. He said he thought he was going to die. He was celebrating his survival with a beer.

Man, my trip would have looked much different if he had died. Good on ya! Surviving! Life! Woo!

After watching the sunset over the Tasman Sea, we all came together for dinner. I said something like, “Hey everyone! I just want to take a minute to point out that we did not know each other this morning and now here we are, eating together, becoming friends, and existing in each others lives!”

The guy who had almost drowned at the beach earlier, turned to me and said with a British accent, "You're tapped in. I'm sticking with you." And then a song that had been stuck in my head for the last few days came on the radio.