Today started with the sounds of fur seals at sunrise and, for the first time in three weeks, ended with the sounds of cars in rush hour traffic.
As planned, I got up before dawn this morning and headed out to Kaikoura’s seal colony. Just as I’d hoped, no one else was there and the seals hadn’t yet retreated from the walking paths, so it was a landscape of pinnipeds around every corner as the sun peeked above the horizon. To my surprise, with the exception of one jogger no one else showed up for the entire time that I was there, so it was just a few hundred sleepy, ornery fur seals with a bald guy talking to them, while waves were crashing, the soft light was brightening, and the tide was retreating.
Since I had a plane to catch, and since Christchurch was still two and a half hours south, I had to leave sooner than I would have liked, but it was a pleasant drive along the coast and through pastures and farmland back to town. It was a bit of a shock to the system to see traffic lights again in Christchurch, but nothing compared to what awaited in Auckland. The flight was uneventful, I got to Auckland and picked up my car (a Suzuki… we have a mixed history, so we’ll see how the next three weeks go…), and then departed for my hotel. Google maps showed everything red, the highway was three lanes of often impatient drivers, and it was a rude reminder that the past three weeks have been spent far away from the masses.
Tomorrow I’ll almost certainly be leaving early to escape from the city, and the destination is one that I’m (embarrassingly) super-excited about: dinner is at the Green Dragon Inn, and I’m definitely going to take a selfie at Bilbo’s House.
