lovely Lumsden

Its small, and thats being modest. There isn't much to do, the library is open three days a week. There's no nightlife, no movie theater, no traffic lights, no traffic, no fast-food, one gas station, one market,  one, pharmacy, one hardware store, and the restaurants can be counted on one hand. Population 450. Stress is a foreign word here. Where stress seemed to occur once an millisecond in DC it seems to occur once a week in Lumsden. You can walk from one end of town to the other in about 10 minutes and its fantastic! I know most people would go crazy here for lack of things to do, but for me right now its perfect. I love being able to walk to anywhere I need to go. If I want to go further, hitch hike, people actually stop. I have a comfy house and free food, tv, and internet. Well sort of free, I am working for it, but the work is good and so is the company.

I wake up, shower, brush my teeth and eat breakfast. I walk over to the cafe and get a complimentary americano. I sit and read the paper. Start working around 9:30 and put in a good 6 hours of elbow grease. After work I usually hang out around the cafe drinking coffee, chatting with the peeps, and surfing the interweb. Occasionally helping to eat leftover scones and sandwiches. Its rough, I know, but I make do. When I get antsy I can go for a hike down by the river or set up my slack line and try not to break an ankle. There is also some good local entertainment just to keep things spicy. My excellent host, Rob a member of the fire brigade invites me to come to their weekly trainings. This weeks training: a practice burn on an old shed, neat-o gang! So basically pace of life is ideal, I haven't been this relaxed since I can remember, and I haven't had such a centered sense of being since... ever.

In such a peaceful state its a challenge to get excited about leaving. I've just bought my plane ticket to Sydney and will already be leaving New Zealand on the 5th of April. I could have stayed until the 30th, but airfares were increasing and I want to keep the momentum going. Well, thats only half true, I am starting to run out of money and am eager to find a job in Australia. Not that I want to go back to a "regular" job but I have a lot of places I want to go and plane, train, and bus tickets don't appear out of thin air. So work I must, but Sydney seems like a cool place to do it. I'll be hitting the ground running when I arrive and hope to land something in an outdoor sports equipment store. Kathmandu is their version of REI, and I'm thinking its a good place to hear about local adventuring and meet cool folks.