Friday, 24 October
Woke up early to ride the 30km back to Picton to catch my
10am water taxi to the Queen Charlotte Track – a roughly 70km track exclusively
for walkers and cyclists that runs alongside the Queen Charlotte Sound. Just so
you can see, here’s where the track is:
This was high on my priority list to do in NZ. It’s a popular
track for mountain biking, and the water taxis make actual mountain biking
possible for a touring cyclist carrying panniers because the taxis carry your
bags and drop them off at your campsite each night. Perfect.
The weather was COLD. Yesterday during my winery tour the
weather was warm, sunny and 20. Today, the weather was cold, rainy and less
than 10 degrees. The boat ride over was cold, but once I got moving on the
trail everything but my fingers recovered. I had about 22km to my campsite, and
it was a nice ride with great views – and at the same time a difficult track to
ride in the rain. The rocks and roots were slippery, and the slopes next to the
track were steep. I took it slow and even though I didn’t want to keep stopping
to take pics in the rain, I couldn’t help it – so much beauty around me!
Made it to the camp wet and muddy, set up my tent (by myself, officially for the first time! Haha) and walked down the coast to a little bar on the water and treated myself to a hot cup of tea and read a book. J
Back at camp, I cooked dinner along with 5 Swiss uni
students studying English in NZ, and three guys (1 Indian, 1 American and 1
British) two of whom are walking from the most northern point of NZ to the very
southernmost tip – in socks and sandals called Bedrock Sandals – put a plug in
there for you Dan (he started the company with a friend through Kickstarter),
and they swear by them – they climbed snowy Mount Tongariro a couple weeks ago
in them... They walked the whole north island in 42 days…
As I was talking to Naresh, he made some off-handed comment
about writing to his good friend, Francis Chan, who’s an author… ever heard of
him? He wrote a great book called Crazy Love and others – read him! J Turns out that Naresh
– who worked for several years in Silicon Valley in IT world, made an app for
IJM that everyone in the field will be using soon (if not already? Lisa do you
know about this?). He’s the only Christian in his family, who are all back in
India and who he’s been supporting since he got a scholarship to study in the
States. Naresh is a long distance runner (ran across TN in just a few days…)
and gets his high from climbing mountains and doing things people tell him he
couldn’t possible do.
We spoke the same language (not the crazy mountain climbing
in sandals and long distance running language…) – the language of someone who
absolutely loves Jesus and lives to know him more. It was really refreshing to
talk with him, and I felt very encouraged. It’s been three weeks since I’ve
talked in any depth to another Christian here about faith stuff, and it was
really cool to swap stories of what God is doing in our lives through the
travels and adventures both back home and in NZ. So thanks for that Naresh. J
Wow, what an awesome run in with Naresh! So glad :)
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