21.1.2018: Home sweet Home

Just before the official check-out time, I decide (although with a heavy heart) to continue driving. But maybe Abel Tasman National Park will make good use of its second chance as well. On the way, I pass Lake Rotoroa again, which recently also greeted me with bad weather. The lake is busy today. The empty boat dock from the other day is now full, as is the parking lot, and the constant buzzing of wasps fills my ears again. Although Lake Rotoroa is showing its best side in the sunshine, it can't compete with Lake Rotoiti, even though both are equally invitingly clean. And so, after taking two photos, I get back in the car and follow the familiar highway to Motueka. Of course, I take the opportunity to stop at Hope Saddle Lookout again, which offers a great view today and unrestricted views of the mountain range.

Arriving in Motueka at lunchtime, a town that I had not paid much attention to despite several visits to Abel Tasman National Park. Today is market day, and even though it's already winding down, I easily get six filled dumplings and churros with caramel sauce. However, it can't match my very first mind-blowing churros experience from the night market in Auckland.

After checking in at the hostel, I decide to take a stroll through the town, which eventually leads me to the sand spit that extends into the sea, similar to Farewell Spit. I wade through the low, bathtub-warm water and sit down on a piece of driftwood. And here, for the first time after two months of staying, I experience the feeling of being home. I watch a woman throwing sticks to her visibly happy dog, which leaps through the waves like an excited deer, as well as a family letting their two children skim stones across the water's surface. So much lightheartedness evokes nostalgia. How wonderful it must be to swim in the sea after work or at least take a stroll along its promenade and then return to one's own four walls. Because in New Zealand, there are no multi-family houses, as is common everywhere in Germany (at least I have never seen any, and I have been around quite a bit), which is why cities also stretch endlessly. But almost all of them have one thing in common: the tenants or predominantly homeowners live in a bungalow including a garage, cultivate a garden, or at least have a lawn, which often features palm trees or (as in Motueka) lemon trees. Who wouldn't want that for their own home... When I think of the many apartment viewings at home, which one has to attend with other interested parties and can hardly afford to sleep on the decision for another night... Moreover, New Zealand has one of the lowest crime rates worldwide, which is why many high school graduates also decide to do a work and travel year at the other end of the world. On the way back to the hostel, I suddenly find myself enthusiastic about everything due to the newfound feeling of euphoria: the many small lovingly maintained front gardens and estates, the red withered leaves of a bush, the unique songs of the birds, and even the young woman playing a round of golf alone to classical music. I hope this euphoric mood accompanies me for the rest of my journey.