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A car, a ferry, a plane, a bus, and a taxi. That’s what it took to get me from my home Port Townsend to my home-away-from-home in New Plymouth, Taranaki, Aotearoa.

That, and 40 hours!

I left on a Tuesday (19 Sep) and, having crossed the International Date Line, arrived on a Thursday (21 Sep). Wednesday vanished into thin air.

Dan and I made great time, so I arrived at the Vancouver airport eight hours before my flight to Auckland. I spent time chatting—in a mixture of French and English—with a lovely French-Swiss man from Geneva, who’d just spent two weeks helping his bother- and sister-in-law build a yurt in Whitehorse, Yukon, just in time for winter. We whiled away a few hours, talking of his life and mine. He was impressed with the tattoo, which I did not show him in person, just some PG photos.

“It’s like you still have clothes on!” he said.

“That’s just how I felt when I first saw it on my body, as though I still had to step out of shorts!”

With the help of Flexaril and Ambien, I slept for half the thirteen-hour flight. We landed in Auckland at about 5 AM, in the rain and fog and dark.

With fog at the Auckland airport, small planes were grounded. So my connecting flight to New Plymouth (and the flight to New Plymouth before mine) had been canceled, along with lots of other regional flights. The domestic terminal—not my favorite on the best of days—was in chaos, trying to cope with the cascading series of cancellations, masses of people clamoring to be re-booked.

With no hope of accommodating everyone on later flights that day, they proposed to bus us to New Plymouth. But, oh, they hadn’t found the bus driver yet, didn’t know when the bus would leave. And it’s a five-and-a-half hour drive!

They kindly booked me into an airport hotel and on a flight the following day, at noon (I was not taking another chance on early morning fog!) But I couldn’t get into my room until after 2 PM, and I was pretty exhausted.

A driver arrived at 8 AM, and I returned my vouchers with thanks, said I would go on the bus instead. Eleven of us—strangers thrown together from all over, bonded with the same sense of displacement and disruption—left at 8:30 AM, not too long after the 8:05 AM departure of our canceled flight.

Once we were out of Auckland’s rush-hour, our route took us on the meandering, two-lane Highway 3. Took us through small villages, and vast green fields of grazing cattle and sheep, with their new calves and lambs, spread out over rolling hills with remanent stands of trees, which were just coming into leaf and flower.

I’d flown from the northern hemisphere to the southern, from fall into spring. Flown on the equinox, so twelve hours of daylight blazed in both places.

Out of Auckland’s fog, a glorious spring day of cerulean skies, scrawled in a script of scattered white clouds. Shrubs and trees dappled and awash in blooms from cream to butter, from magenta to rose.

And everywhere the bright viridine of new-born leaves.

A quick fifteen-minute stop in Te Kuiti at a cafe and bakery, yielded a buttery individual ham-and-cheese quiche, heated up and served to me in a fold of news paper. Yummy and the first real food I’d had in a while.

As we quickly gobbled our food, two young women from Taranaki chatted me up. Where was I from they asked? Why was I going to Taranaki?

“I’m going to get a puhoro,” I replied, “to reclaim my body for myself.”

“I’ve heard about you, read that story!”

“A reporter wants to interview me, but we haven’t spoken yet.”

“What’s your name?” she asked typing it into her phone as I spelled it out.

“If you go to bruceloeffler.com, you can read all about it, including some x-rated photos.”

So now I wonder if an article has already been published in New Plymouth about my journey.

Mark will know, I’ll ask him.

The road past Mahoenui rose through low mountains. We followed rushing rivers that’d carved canyons through ocher sandstone, the slopes and walls covered in a riot of different trees, including giant tree ferns. A steep, very curvy descent brought us to Awakino and the turquoise surf rolling in off the Tasman Sea.

As we followed the coast south toward New Plymouth, we crossed many river estuaries, including at Tongapōrutu, where one of the sea stacks was shaped like an elephant.

Along they way, spectacular views of snow-capped Mt. Taranaki against a clear, blue sky. An impressive, perfectly-shaped, young stratovolcano in all its glory!

We passed through Waitara, past Rangi’s house, arriving at the New Plymouth airport ahead of schedule at 1 PM. I grabbed a cab, arrived at my Vrbo with king proteas in bloom.

I’m so glad I opted for the bus. What a drive—5 stars for sure!

It was warm enough in New Plymouth that I wore light pants and a t-shirt to walk to the grocery store to round up food for my breakfasts and lunches, to Flame Restaurant for Indian take-away for my dinners. This place feels like home.

What a great arrival in Taranaki on a perfect early-spring day! It’s like I never left.

Now, after a good night’s sleep, I’m still waiting a bit for my mind to catch up to my body in this time zone.

Having a mellow day, which is cloudier and cool than yesterday.