New Zealand is not about the cities. At least for us. It is about the breathtaking power of nature that can compare to nothing else in the world. But this time, the city was calling. So here are some impressions of the trendy, charming, compact, walkable, little treasure box of "Kiwilandia", the capital of New Zealand. Where the wind never stops blowing your hair - Wellington. Aka Windy Welly, probably the windiest city of the world. :)
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My love to travel. To be on the road over and over again. A way of life. And sensations born within.
Travelling. Short term. Long term. Alone, with friends, with family. To the shop around the corner. To the end of the world. Across cultures, continents. To a destination. Through a stage of life. Travelling genuinely shapes me. Been on the road my entire life. But what does travelling really give me? I have been trying to find the best way to express how I have been feeling recently. To put it in words. To write it down. To make it "tangible". To visualise it. To see it clearly in front of me, with my own eyes. To better understand it. To truly embrace it.
Guess what I came up with?! :) Festivals. I haven’t really been a festival person per say. Not that I don’t like to have fun, music, and dance. :) It’s just that the festivals I have known so far - mostly musical - never really attracted me truly, deeply. I enjoyed them, but I never really felt the “HELL YEAH” feeling. Neither during, nor after. They never enriched me with an experience of a lifetime, or unforgettable memories. Except for some dance festivals.
I guess now all this is changing. During the past few months living in New Zealand, my world has grown wide open. (And I thought it was already pretty wide…) In many many walks of life. Including the festival scene. Here are some of my reflections after amazing Earthbeat. Change. What a beautiful word. It is a verb and a noun at once. It is full of motion. Full of action. Full of tension. Full of potential.
Change is powerful. Scary. Forward looking. Motivating. Change. You are not used to it. Change. You get used to it. Where ideas grow. This is the message that greets you upon your arrival. Literally. Not only a fantastic introduction to the South Pacific region, a wide variety of flora and ever changing landscape, but a truly inspirational place. To wonder around (the world, too). To learn. To play. To relax. To reflect. I'm an absolute flower person. And a plant person. And a tree person. No wonder I have been so looking forward to our visit to the Auckland Botanic Gardens. A beautifully and well designed huge space that welcomes every visitor right from the start! And where culture meets nature. For free!
Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved spending time on the beach. Walking barefoot in the sand, toes splashing in the water. Sun caressing my face. Wind playing with my hair. The salty smell of the ocean in my nose. The chirping of the seagulls. Listening to the little stones, sea shells dancing in the water. Riding with the waves. And then washed ashore. Taking a sunbath...
You step into the woods. The trees ask you to dance. You are in a completely different world. You smell the fresh air, the leaves, the earth. Your lungs fill up with Oxygen.
You step out of the car. The engine goes to rest, and your ears begin to tune on to a different rhythm. The sway of the branches right above your head. The mysterious wood knocking of the birds. The gentle cracking sounds under your toes. You walk on the soft ground, on a pillow-like cover of fallen leaves. A little dim light finds its way through the green layers. We spent the last weekend in Awhi Farm - a centre for sustainable practice. The name in Maori means "to take care of", "to nurture". It is a little paradise in the middle of nature. Isolated from the "modern, hight tech world". No electricity, maybe just some solar panels. No heating, just your sleeping bag. No light at night, just the moon and the shining stars above you, and in the morning, waking you up, the first ray of light. Compost toilet or the bush. Shower only at the Squash Club nearby, or at the natural hot pools. No charger for your phones, but real birds chirping around. No supermarket on the corner, yet a fascinating food forest and hens that nourish you. Just pure nature.
You loose connectivity, yet reconnect. With the people around you. With yourself. Simplicity, at its best. I always had something about peninsulas. They just look so fascinating on the map. Almost like an island. They are attached to the land yet still out there on their own. I can get so excited to walk along the shore, discover the parts that are next to the water, to see how the landscape curves and where it will lead me. Have you ever had this feeling?
As we were planning our weekend, we realised that the place to pick up the piece of furniture we were still missing from our flat is just located in a beautiful area. Well, it is not really hard in New Zealand not to be located in a beautiful place anyway... So we decided to combine the pick up with the discovery of the Mahurangi Peninsula, just about an hour's drive north from Auckland. |
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AboutSharing my passion for photography, New Zealand, nature, and a journey within.
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