Homeless in Auckland

It is almost 10pm and I am sitting outside on a beautiful night in downtown Auckland. In order to conserve my rapidly depleting cash reserves, I have decided that it didn't make sense to get a room for the night when my plane leaves for Australia at 7:15 in the morning. There appears to be some type of art festival happening with many people drinking wine and beer and enjoying the evenings festivities. This works to my advantage in several ways. I am unlikely to get mugged with a large crowd hanging around and I will not be the only strange character lurking around the streets at 2:00am in the morning. There is a sixteen dollar shuttle bus that leaves from Queen street every half hour or so. My plan is to hang tight 'till 2:00am, do the sad and lonely homeless thing for a while and then catch the bus to the airport for some much needed rest on a cushy airport chair.

If you are reading this before you pick me up Frances, I apologize for my physical appearance and I promise to bathe as soon as possible. For anyone reading this who does not know who Frances may be. She was my first best friend as a young child growing up in England and she currently lives in Sydney Australia. She ended up in Sydney and I ended up in New Jersey. What was up with that? Actually New Jersey was quite an awesome place to be.....a lot of great people up there.

I can't help but sit here and reflect on what I just went through over the last two and a half months. I have seen some amazing things and have pushed this fifty one year old body and mind to the limit. I have stood at the summit of Mount Tongariro and walked alone through the Martian landscape of the Northern circuit. I have trekked almost eighty kilometers through a driving storm on the lonely and wide open Heaphy track. I walked along the ridge lines of the Routeburn, Kepler and Milford tracks and walked through the mud and rain forest of the Raikura track on Stewart Island. I slept in my tent along the Abel Tasman Coastal track and awoke to the sounds of the waves crashing on the beach and I fell about fifteen feet off of the path during the Waikaremoana great walk and I Kayaked the primal and challenging Whanganui river. Having accomplished this I now realize that it is the people that I met along the way that probably had the greatest impact. Calvin from Singapore hiking in his rubber shoes that looked like gloves for your feet. The two young Russians and juggling Canadians I met on the Northern circuit. The cool English Doctor from Christchurch and the two sweet German doctors along the Heaphy track. My Canadian friend Shelby who pulled out of the Kepler due to rain. The Irish woman Toni, who made bird calls and the diabetic Englishman Tony, who struggled with me in a storm at the top of Mackinnon pass. My young Australian paramedic friend who warned me about the loud American group on the Milford track and who I met again while hiking the Routeburn and the couple from England who worked at the Artic, who just recently bought a boat and sailed it to New Zealand and who were hiking the Kepler along with his parents. Geoff and Linda two awesome Kiwis who love to tramp and who happily walked in miles of mud along the Raikura track and two hysterically funny Dutch guys and an amazingly strong and inspiring sixty nine year old Australian who kayaked the Whaganui river. But most of all, I will remember a family from Wellington with two little angels, that took me in fed me and made me feel at home. When they dropped me off at the train, one of the girls said in her cute little Kiwi accent "Greg..will we ever see you again." There was a pause and then she said "ever?"..I sure hope so.