Greetings from Motueka, New Zealand, on this new year’s day 2023. I wanted to write something witty and poignant to mark the resurrection of this blog after a brief six and a half year hiatus, but I’ve felt no real urgency or inspiration (truly the story of my life), and finally decided just getting something down was better than continuing to put it off. I’d say it was a new year’s resolution or some such, but I’m not here to lie to you.

Anyway, I’m back abroad! Right now I’m about a month into a three month stay in New Zealand, living in a van and hiking as much as I can. It’s great. I bought my van, Milly the Mazda, up around Auckland, and then raced down for a lovely ferry ride to the south island. I did a little bit of hiking around the lakes and mountains of Nelson Lakes National Park and then along the beaches of Abel Tasman National Park, mostly sleeping in a parking lot here in Motueka in between. Yesterday I went for my first hike in the mountains of Kahurangi National Park, the Mount Arthur summit. It was a magnificent hike, all clouded in the whole way up, then opening up above the clouds at the summit, and finally sunny all the way down so I could see all the scenery I’d missed during the climb. Everyone on the trail was in a great mood, mostly getting ready to camp out for the new year, and I stopped for a fair few cheerful chats. Scrambling down the beautiful rock outcroppings from the summit I finally felt the giddy, overwhelming feeling of joy and beauty that I’m liable to feel on a really good hike, and that I’ve been hoping to run into in New Zealand. For whatever reason beach hiking doesn’t really do it for me, but from here on out the mountains should only get more dramatic, so I’m looking forward to that.