You know how lately all TV shows tend to start with “previously on…..” then the voiceover launches into a review of the previous show? I feel a lot like that here today in front of the computer, but nothing comes to mind at all. Haven’t I just experienced one of the greatest breaks we’ve had in 10 years overseas? Didn’t both Cass and I agree that this trip back home easily topped the others for a multitude of reasons? Perhaps, at long last, I’ll be able to hang up my keyboard and two finger tap out an easier, more relaxed kind of update by email, not worrying about meeting my Sunday night deadline and not obsessing about updating the excruciating minutia of our lives.
Who am I kidding….here’s the long winded version of our holiday coming up, in true wordy, overblown form, gratuitous verbiage and overly drawn out description and detail included!
It really did become the joy of the holiday to go on our daily walk from our place along the Bather’s Way, all the way up to King Edward Park and the tiny grotto of the convict hewn Bogey Hole, at times glistening and calm and at others furiously powerful with wind and swell. It’s only 6 km, but a few testing hills made it a workout if we stepped out a bit. It was on this walk that we re-connected with our hometown. Whales puffing in the distance, dolphin pods of 100s bending their steely banana bodies in unison in the water just beyond the break. The lone, plodding swimmer in the mirror like pond of ocean with a stiff westerly holding down the swell. The other walkers cheerily greeting us on the way, and the skaters dropping precipitously, exhilaratingly into the bowl at the skatepark or clacking around on top. Back home was just as good as hangliders desperately searched for a puff of wind to sustain altitude, seemingly almost careering into our dining room as they looped and swirled in front of our windows. The cup of tea while we watched the “reverse sunset” was always a treat, impossible colours mixing in the evening clouds, changing minute by minute. We’d sometimes sit and watch well after nightfall, and then be shaken from our contemplation as we questioned where the light went!
We headed out on the Harley for a week of blissful riding, the hum of the engine at cruising speed a natural relaxant. Each kilometre out on the open road we travelled, the more we again felt that strange pull of being in a faraway world, where time seems to slow down and troubles just melt away. Having left a little later than usual, there wasn’t much to melt as we’d already had our fair share of relaxation! Just absorbing the countryside, the sights and especially the smells of the land as our thunderous beast whips through the outback landscape is an amazing cathartic exercise. You can clear your head to the point where speech becomes redundant, which we often found when we’d stop for a break. We were pretty content to just continue our own thoughts of the ride, just have a few words and enjoy a coffee or a meal before saddling up for the next leg of the journey.
As can be seen from the photos above, which give just a tiny smattering of our social interactions, we managed to make some time to meet up with friends and family as well. Always a slightly difficult task as no one else seems to be leading our particular life of leisure at this time of year; we nonetheless managed to have some fine catch-ups in between all the other commitments of people’s daily lives. Restaurant meals, meals at homes, nights out, coffee afternoons etc etc, all gave us a chance to touch base again with the people we miss the most while we’re over here.
Our Tasmanian friends, Lewy and Alison, currently working in Singapore but previously with us in Taipei, paid us a visit for a few days and it was fantastic to see them, play host and show them around a little bit of our fine city. We were due to fly to New Zealand to visit Ross and Ains, but after getting down to the airport, we found out in the queue that all flights were cancelled! Biggest snow dump in years meant flights were impossible for days, so we pulled the plug and went back home. I had a good catch up on the phone with Ross that night, we got credit for our tickets, so we’ll try again next year! As it turned out, the small silver lining on this snow cloud was that the weather really turned it up a notch for that last week. It was like a mild summer: crystal clear days, warm temps and water just bracing enough to shock but not to repel: I spent a few great sessions surfing and even body surfing just in boardshorts!!
We reckon the proof of a good holiday is how relaxed and content you feel at the end of it, along with how positive you feel about being ready to face the grind of daily work again. Even though we’re a little trepidatious as the TAS juggernaut looms large for a start tomorrow morning, we were so relaxed at the end of our holiday; we had a hard time staying awake! The prospect of another ten months in Taiwan before being back on the shores of bonny Newcastle was not daunting either: we’ll work hard, play kinda hard and miss all our people and places back home, but know that another magical break will be upon us before we know it.
Here is a link to the slideshow, from which I pulled most of the photos above. I just snapped the last shot when we shopped the day after we got back to Taipei. Reckon you'd see anyone wearing this gear in the supermarket back home?!