Confession time.
I spent my birthday weekend alone.
And it was glorious. Most of the time.
After telling the guy I was seeing to get out of my house, I took advantage of my four and a half days off to go through to Queenstown, Kinloch, and Wanaka. I had originally planned to go to Wanaka and go snowboarding at Treble Cone, but after the spat we had, I felt it prudent to get away on my own and do some explorations.
So, I rang up Taylor, who was heading to QT for an interview, and we arranged to meet up Friday night in Queenstown for a little pre-birthday drinking. First stop, The Winery. I love this place. I come here almost every time I am in QT. Imagine a wine shop where you can taste to your heart’s content… or sip a delicious glass of wine that you can’t even buy in a bottle shop somewhere. How about a glass of wine from a bottle that retails for $150? Yeah… I love this place.
Taylor had also never had a Fergburger, so after a few more drinks we went down the street to stand in line. Luckily, we didn’t wait long, and I ended my self-imposed two months of vegetarianism in favour of a juicy Fergburger with crispy bacon. Judge all you want, it was delicious.
Our final stop of the night (yeah, I’m old, get over it) was the Atlas Bar. I have to say, I honestly can’t believe I’ve never been here before – it was everything I like in a bar, down to the hot tattooed guys drinking their expensive craft beer. Exhibit A: the sliding scale of birthday photos.
So, no insane night for us because we *planned* on getting up to hit the mountain for a half day of boarding… which didn’t happen in the end and we spent the morning having coffee, wandering town, and (window) shopping.
All too soon, we went our separate ways and I headed out to Wilson’s Bay to meet my friend Tom and his adorbs dog for a hike at Bob’s Cove. The only walk I’ve ever done in QT is the Ben Lomond hike, but there are plenty of others. Bob’s Cove is a ten minute drive from town and offers up fantastic views of the mountains south of town and the Remarkables on the north end.
By late afternoon, I was back on the road – this time heading further around the lake to the top of Lake Wakatipu. Glenorchy sits on the end, the last town with any semblance of a grocery store (expensive as all hell) and petrol. Beyond, the road to Paradise continues as a gravel road, or you can turn off above the flats toward Kinloch. This last bit was where I was going – to the remote outpost of Kinloch Lodge. I arrived in time for sunset, which was stunning as the light hit the snow on the mountains and mirrored in the glassy lake.
I checked in and found my room, a cozy, warm room with a great view of the lake and mountains. I returned to the restaurant with my ipad and ordered a glass of Van Asch Syrah from John, the owner and bartender. I settled into a comfy chair next to the woodstove and sipped my wine as I read. The fire crackled next to my feet and the music played, but I was companionably within my book and noticed nothing.
The next day, I got up and – after coffee and returning to Glenorchy for petrol, something I should have done the day before – I headed up a tiny dirt road to the start of the Routeburn Track. When I was planning my year in New Zealand, I told myself that I was going to hike the Routeburn, the Kepler, the Milford tracks. Thus far, I have done about two hours on the Kepler and four on the Routeburn. But, guess what? It’s still worth it. I will write about my hike soon and link back to it here.
I don’t want to go into too much detail about my hike here, but I will say that that day, Sunday, the day before I turned 31, was my loneliest day. It’s hard enough to be a solo traveller. It’s hard to be away from family and friends for holidays, although things like Skype and FaceTime make it much easier than it was back when I was living in Scotland. But to spend a birthday alone, when that wasn’t your plan in the first place, is hard… and its hard when you don’t have anyone to talk to about it. Hiking through the wilderness, alone with my thoughts, was tough.
Side note: a thought I just had, as I write this a week later… I never felt remote. I never felt scared, or worried, to be hiking alone. I’m sitting here right now trying to place this feeling, and I can’t. I know I was alone. I saw a grand total of twenty other people on the trail, most of them going the other direction. But I never felt like I was in any danger, I never felt overwhelmed by the hike, only by my own thoughts.
So, soon I’ll write about the hike and all. For now… let me paint you a picture. The evening before my birthday, the night I after I hiked, I sunk deep into the barrelled hot tub behind the lodge, overlooking the mountains beyond Glenorchy. Then, I had a hot shower, threw on a cozy sweater, went to the restaurant and had a glass of wine in front of the fire with my journal and my ipad… and I felt content. A bit lonely still, no one to share my birthday eve with, no one to clink glasses with mine as I enjoyed the fire. But content. I wrote a bit about it, putting things into words was therapeutic.
The following morning, my birthday morning! *cue fireworks and sparkles*, I woke to sun streaming through the windows. I packed up and grabbed a takeaway coffee from the restaurant before having a peek through the Heritage rooms with John. Then, I hit the road. I also stopped about six times to get some photos – using my nifty self-timer on the iphone, I got some blurry photos of me taking in the scenery. They’re not as good as if I had someone doing it for me, but still, you get the idea.
I had an urge to do some adrenaline pumping activity, so I swung into Glenorchy and stopped at the helicopter office to see if they had a flight going out. Unfortunately, I had *JUST* missed it, and as a solo traveller, I’m unlikely to get up in the air unless there are others going up. So, defeated, I stopped at the aerodrome to see what sky activities I might find there. Heli-skiing – nope. Gliding – looks cool, but there was no office. Skydiving – been there, done that, and definitely want to do it again, but I wasn’t feeling it for some reason. Instead, I watched the gliders go up, the skydivers take off, and the helicopter come and go. Then, I climbed back into my car and headed back to QT. Tom had promised me a nice and easy walk “with a pub at the end” so naturally I was keen to do that. We loaded up Manu into the car and cruised around to the Kelvin Peninsula, across from Frankton. We parked near the marina and then walked forty-five minutes or so down the lakeside to the Hilton hotel for a few cheeky ciders and chips at the pub.
That evening, I drove up to Wanaka, stopping first at Brennan Winery in the Karawau Gorge for a bottle of their tempranillo. Tom had put me on to this idea, actually… we had been discussing wine on our hike at Bob’s Cove and we realised we both love the Brennan tempranillo, and he said I should pick myself up a bottle if I drove through the gorge. I hadn’t planned on it – I had wanted to drive over the Crown Range road – but in the end, the temptation of the tempranillo won out and I did it.
Anyway, I arrived in Wanaka without a hostel/lodge and found one in town; unfortunately they didn’t have a room so I called down to Altamont Lodge and luckily got their last room. When I walked into the lodge, I had major deja vu. It turns out I’ve stayed there before. When I was nine. With my parents and little brothers.
I couldn’t believe it – what are the odds of happening upon it completely randomly – in a town that has exploded with hotels, hostels, and lodge since 1995?
I felt like this was a good omen, so I headed into town to pick up some groceries for the next day. I also sussed out a dinner place and walked back to town once I got hungry. Here’s where my night turned.
I’m one person. I get that. I get that it was a busy night in town. But Surely, SURELY, you can seat one person somewhere in your restaurant. I was turned away from two places because they didn’t have room for one, and that’s when the depression kicked itself into high gear.
Everywhere I looked, there were couples. Families. Friends. And I was all alone. I walked back to the lodge fighting back tears and unpacked my groceries that I’d planned on using for lunch the next day. I made a tiny bit of pasta and put together an antipasto platter. I also opened the bottle of tempranillo and had a glass of that. It was good, but I had *really* been craving sushi (still am!) and was really disappointed and upset.
In the end, the picture perfect birthday I envisioned, on the mountains, with snow, was mirage that I created in my mind. I’m beyond happy with my weekend, but I also got back into town feeling low and lonely. I can put on a happy face about it – I hiked! I hot tubbed! I got a massage! I played with a puppy! I drank my favourite wine! But deep down, I felt like I was overcompensating to myself for feeling so low.
You’ll be happy to hear that I feel much better now, I’m back in Dunedin and working – at least for a few more weeks – and will be (fingers crossed) having more adventures soon.
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