(written on the 26th from notes taken previously)
I’m sore.
Surprise surprise. 🙃
My left Achilles tendon is especially unhappy. 😬
It was a day of goodbyes, in a way. I’ve spent so much time at Chinaman’s Bluff, that it was starting to feel like a home base. So… goodbye Chinaman’s Bluff. Goodbye gazillions of fords. Goodbye Mount Earnslaw. Goodbye Isengard. Goodbye Dart River.
Speaking of Isengard and the Dart River, I drove over to the Isengard lookout and the long bridge and took more pictures. 🙃
I’m gonna miss New Zealand. 🥺
From there, as I was passing through Glenorchy, I stopped to dispose of more recycling waste before popping back over to Bennett’s Bluff Lookout to enjoy the view and just… sit for a little while.
With all of the goodbyes, there’s one good riddance–Queenstown. 🙃 It’s never done wrong by me: It’s just… the very definition of a tourist town; and the more time that I spend away from it all, the stronger my desire to leave, even small towns, increases the moment I approach them.
And Queenstown feels like a micro New York City. A very small town that’s just jam-packed with people, the streets crowded with people walking everywhere.
Great place for a business. 🙃
Not a great place for little me. 😆
So… good riddance Queenstown. 😅
On the way out of town, I availed myself of the outdoor bottle fill-up faucet at the bus station (something to be thankful for about civilization), the Pak ‘N Save grocery store to stock up on food stuffs (another positive of civilization), and the gas station to be ready for the drive through Haast Pass back to the west coast.
For fun and a little bit of nostalgia, as I was heading out of town, I stopped off at the Kawarau Gorge Suspension Bridge that people bungee off of. Chase and I visited that bridge last time and I remember were told a story about a drunk guy who just walked onto the bridge and jumped right off. I think it’s something like 43 m to the water. 😅
Apparently, he survived (at least the initial fall), as the worker saw him swim to shore.
I walked around and took some pictures and watched a bungee jumper or two dive head first into the gorge below.
Looking at the time I figured that even though there were multiple hours left in the day, I might not find an empty freedom camping spot if I continued on down the road, and there were multiple empty slots in the parking lot here for freedom campers, so I decided to just hang out here and not risk not having a place to stay further on down the line if I continued.
I managed to squeak into the AJ Bungie building bathroom before they closed, gratefully, as there aren’t any outdoor dedicated bathrooms here.
Not much else to say about today. Sore body and didn’t really want to drive around to sightsee anywhere else and risk losing my parking spot, so I just veged out in my van the rest of the day.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 