RAG -> WEL

I'd overslept. Quickly I packed my things and threw them into the car and drove along the coast and into the tall bush and over the rolling hills and into the farm towns and through the suburbs to the city of Hamilton. Initially I'd hired the car for a week's time. The plan was to drive it south along the west coast back to Wellington. This would take several days and cost a few hundred dollars. Here I was two days later, dropping it off only an hour's drive from where I'd first picked it up in Auckland.

The guy at the rental car place gave me a ride to the train station where I hopped the train all the way back to Wellington.

The train ride was much the same as before, but I did not have the nice woman beside me, nor did the mist coat the mountains. I read and slept and ate. And for a while I hated on myself so hard.

If one were to look at a map and see the path I'd taken, where I'd gone and what I'd done, they'd be baffled. I was moving from one town to the next, covering so much land and passing by so much in between, and stopping only long enough for a beer or two. I felt like I was making a mess of this journey of mine, that I was throwing away money, that I wasn't trying hard enough, that I was fucking failing.

But at the end of the train ride all those feelings went away. I arrived in Wellington and collected my things. With my big duffel bag on my back and a smaller backpack on my chest, instead of getting a cab I hoofed it into town. The wind was really whipping, and my back was aching, but the evening sky was beautiful. I didn't know where I was, or what I was doing, or where I was going, and I didn't give a shit.

I was doing it the right way, I told myself. I was doing it my way. I had no ties and I was embracing that. I was taking in the atmosphere and appreciating the landscape and enjoying the food & drink and avoiding the tourists.

That night at a bar alone, in my little black book I wrote:

"This evening in Wellington I get drunk and extremely positive. God Bless this World."