Today has been D day for me and I have spent the day getting organised and ready for the next section of my trip. This morning I met with the most amazing local fisherman, John. Your knowledge, wisdom, calm manner and patience with me today has helped so much. We arrived after climbing the steepest hill I have been up for a long while, but happy that we opted to leave Cuzzie in the campsite.
Getting to meet and be in contact with everyone over the past few days has helped me out immensely, I owe the people of Bluff, Invercargill and Stewart Island for sharing and spending time with me. Honest, true and real people are what makes this community.
Soon we headed into Invercargill again and started to tick off the list of things to get, the afternoon raced along. Waterproof copies of my maps, just in case everything electrical stops working, chemist, DOC, Macpac for a couple of items, food supplies, parcels from Auckland and we were ticking off the job list. We stopped for lunch in Cuzzie near the local park, we tried out some precooked meals we had located in the local PaknSave. Then some more emails and phone calls then back to Bluff to cook up the hugest roast chicken meal I could imagine, a final supper for a little while.
The night has calmed and tomorrow's weather is looking great. My gear is out and there will be a final check in the morning. Chargers, batteries, warm clothes and my tent all itching to be used, even my fishing line at last may get in the ocean. A book, a pack of cars and my paper and pen to write my blogs, lets see what stories I have.
I am okay? Yep, nervous but that is a good thing. We have a plan, we have spent time talking and preparing and now i need to get paddling. Back to you with my stories in a little while, we will try and keep you posted on my locations and once I get back to the mainland again then will be able to post my blogs.
My smiles today:
To every single new person I have met today, everyone has been amazing.
A decision at last !
The calmer weather tomorrow!
To be heading back on the water!
My dessert of coconut choc ice cream, none of this for a long time now.
My thoughts today:
It takes a lot of energy to be negative. You have to work at it. But smiling is painless. This year I'm using my energy smiling.
Red
John and Red discussing the next few weeks