Day: 33

Location: Rome, Italy

Weather: Sunny and warm (sense a theme?)

It feels like we’re crawling from the airport to Roma Termini but the screen inside says we’re doing 90km/h. An attempt at a footpath runs parallel to the tracks, but it’s more of a cobbled plank than something to amble on. A man stands pissing against a fence. Nearly 200 tourists see his crown jewels. The fields thin, the houses thicken, and Rome, The Rome, materialises. For a while it’s cream houses with tiles rooftops, then it’s pylons, cane (normal cane?), and a McDonalds. I’m looking forward to eating pizza and gelato, I’ll be popping my lactose pills like there’s no tomorrow — because there mightn’t be if I don’t. I may implode. Could be worth it to eat real Italian pizza in real Italy. The heater is on in the train and I wonder why. It’s hot and sunny outside. I’m sweating buckets.

I have a mixed relationship with big cities and major tourist attractions. I’ve always been a person to try and make my own mind up about things. Who is to say this is the most important and beautiful thing to see? We are all different, so we are all moved by different marvels. Some by the Sistine Chapel, others by the Colosseum, some by the Tiber River — me, well I’ll update you after I finish my visit to Rome. But I do like oceans, mountains, stories, and places off the beaten path. I might be moved by a lady smiling to me through the window of a back street bakery.

– Later that day

Good first impressions of Italy — people know what to do with their face when I smile at them. And they seem to have manners too. I found a restaurant down a side street and the owner greeted me and asked where I was from, New Zealand, I replied. Ahh paradise, he said, then kissed me on the hand, welcome. Out came a free starter followed by water, then he took my order, a whole pizza and some lemon soda. I ate and ate and ate — why does the pizza come un-cut and with a knife and fork?! It was amazing. I went up to pay but he made me sit back down again, I have a surprise for you New Zealand. And out came some free biscuits. Delicious! Then I was allowed to pay and had to promise to come back and eat the pasta he makes at 5am each morning.

Day: 32

Location: Aveiro, Portugal

Weather: Sunny

My last morning in Aveiro and the sun pours into my room. Again people outside take photos of the building and I step onto my little balcony like I’m Princess Kate. People look up, and I look down, feeling a bit silly about it all, so I head back inside and make my breakfast of cereal and soy milk in a small cup.

Later, I sit at the bus station waiting for my transfer to Porto airport and a man strums happily on his guitar. Another man stands and watches. I listen and take sideways glances every now and then, smiling to myself. Music makes the world go round. Portugal has the most street performers and the fewest beggars I have seen. A saxophone, a cornet, many guitars, singers, dancers — all with hats out. I don’t empty my wallet of change so quickly anywhere else.

The bus is an interesting experience. I hold on for dear life as we hurtle towards Porto at 120km/h, the green fields and terracotta rooftops whizzing by. Storks nest in pylons and on top of construction cranes. My neck strains trying to watch them at work. At 10am a woman gets a kilo tub of yoghurt out of her bag and I wonder whether that is her breakfast. She opens the lid and instead of entering with a spoon, she enters with a fork. She brings to her mouth an entire hard-boiled egg — that’s when I realise the container is full of them. The bus stinks.

I’m getting good at waiting. I can watch people for a long time without needing any entertainment. What provides me the most joy today is a group of excitable nuns heading back to Rome. In my mind they are solemn people who reject all modern things — I know that isn’t true, but for some reason that idea persists. They sit next to me in the departure lounge drinking cans of Coca-Cola and eating potato chips. One lady checks her cell phone, the other types rapidly on her laptop. Tap tap tap. As we wait in line to board the plane, one nun sees a fellow nun wandering across an air bridge to a different flight. She begins jumping and waving trying to get her attention. She smiles at me and I smile at her and for some reason I almost cry. Another nun strokes the cheek of a young baby held in her father’s arms. The baby looks at the nun and smiles. As we make our way up the stairs the nuns’ habits catch the wind like kites and two of them almost blow over the edge and onto the tarmac. They grab the rail and make it up okay, only a little windswept and bewildered.

I think European bus drivers watch a little too much F1, because the driver from Rome airport to my motel uses the accelerator and brake like he is Kimi Antonelli. An Italian hero. I say grazie to the driver and step onto the street in one piece. Luckily.

Day: 31

Location: Aveiro, Portugal

Weather: Sunny and warm

I arrive to a bike rental place on a side street in Aveiro and ask to hire one for the day. The lady shakes her head, they’re all out. I ogle at her, all of them? She nods, there’s an event. Turns out the event is a group of school children. She talks to her colleague in Portuguese and she turns to me again, we might have one you can borrow. This all felt very strange, she led me down a corridor to a garage, and opened it to reveal an entire room full of rental bikes. What do they mean they’re all out?! She lends it to me with a helmet for €20. She asks for my drivers license as collateral, I hand it over and she says incredulously, is this your drivers license? My god, does she want my business or not?! I shake my head in disbelief, but say a friendly obrigado.

Off I roll down the canal towards the wetlands which are supposed to have flamingos. After 10km over the marshy boardwalks I’ve seen a handful of seagulls, a few wrecked boats, and a dog. The smell of eucalyptus trees permeates my nostrils and sprints straight to the part of my brain where nostalgia lives. It lifts a handful of memories from the shelf and opens each jar simultaneously. Like a ribbon from a clown’s mouth, a never ending stream of freedom, wild young girls, paddocks, mud, bonfires, treehuts, sheep, games of darts and jugs of beer appear. I’m back in Fielding where my grandad lived among paddocks of sheep filled with eucalyptus trees. We built a treehouse in one, and hung a rope swing from another. Us four girls — my sister and two cousins — ran wild, barefoot or gumboot-clad through the long grass to make up games where we were brides or lions or whatever else. We dressed in net curtains and doilies, we lit bonfires and made up plays. We raced homemade go karts, we played darts in grandad’s shed while he smoked and drank beer and we drank lemonade and ate chips. I long for those days now when I was little and wild and free — where my small world was a playground and my parents were always there for a hug. Young girls, when let loose into paddocks, become who they truly are. To have feet in sheep poo, to be dressed in flowing lace curtains, to wear a paper tiara, to swing on a rope hollering like Tarzan — a millions wants and needs collide and girls exist in their purest form. I’m alone now at the end of the boardwalk, the memories returning to their jars but the feeling lingering. I’m 24 and wild and free. I’m halfway across the world alone and on an adventure.

I decide to head for the sea, because I get to make the decisions. Out to Costa Nova. Google maps draws me a slightly dodgy route as I weave through an industrial port area, cross a motorway overpass, pass a stinking fish factory, and ride through some dilapidated residential roads. I cycle over the last overpass (on a fenced off footpath luckily) and stop in my tracks. The marsh beneath me glitters and the flamingos drag their beaks through the water. A few storks peck at the mud. A couple of people in waders pull shellfish from the ground. Flamingos! Fricking flamingos! In the wild, right in front of me. As a bird nerd I can’t believe my eyes. I stop for a while to watch them, but invariably I end up watching people too. Because although birds are a marvel to me, people seem to be more-so. The arched backs of 7 men and women in waders take shell after shell from the marsh, placing them in buckets after giving them a rinse in the murky water. I make it to the beach still thinking about the fact that days for those people will be the same. Up, breakfast, bike to marsh, waders, bend over for hours, bike home, shower, bed. I’m assuming. It could look very different. I sit on the beach for a while, I eat the peanut butter sandwich I made, I watch a class of Portuguese teenagers learn to surf. There’s only a handful of us on the beach and I feel at ease. A striped lighthouse peers down, and a few streets over striped houses line the road. When my craving for the ocean has been satisfied I wind my way through the sleepy village. I pass a lady tying string between two stop signs, I pass another lady hanging clothes on a string between two give way signs, I see sheets hung between two power poles flapping in the breeze. Washing is a public affair here. You choose two free poles, you tie some string, and you lug your basket of wet laundry onto the street. I remember living at home as a child and mum telling me to hang the undies behind things… We lived at the end of a quiet cul de sac down a long driveway, and our washing could be seen by nobody. I wonder how she’d get on if the entirety of Costa Nova saw her undies on the line. I’ve talked before about it, but privacy is less of a concept when you live tightly packed, even in villages.

I begin the ride back to Aveiro and I stop again on the overpass to watch the people. They’re finishing up for the day and a weary lady leans her arm on a bent over man who has his hands in a bucket of water and is carefully washing the mud from her waders. She then takes her turn, bending down, the man leaning, and her washing mud from his waders. Love exists in many forms. This is why I like the back blocks, the small places, you see the threads that hold the tapestry of a place the tightest. It’s not all Lisbon and trams and big beaches. It’s waders and mud and leaning on each other.

Day: 30

Location: Aveiro, Portugal

Weather: Sunny and warm

Today I ran 8km and spent most of it stopping to look at Google Maps as I got more and more lost in the residential depths of Aveiro. Apartment buildings with chipped tiles, rust stains, and grime sat below a leaden sky, they drooped in the pre-storm heat. Clothes hung wishfully from balconies but I know this feeling. Hot, dark, windy. A storm. Cars thinned out and the excitement of the main centre quickly disappeared. It’s all a façade I realise — not Aveiro — but tourism in general. I’ve often been a sceptic of popular places, they feel curated for tourists. You’re not really seeing the country for what it is, you’re seeing it for what locals think you want it to be. That’s why I like these smaller places off the beaten track. People are living their normal lives and you get to slip in for a while, to observe, to tread lightly, then to slip back out again and onto the next port, or back home. There are people going to the dentist, there are men in the barbers, there’s a lady with a dog going for a walk, there’s a child with his backpack, there’s a mandarin squashed on the footpath, cigarettes by a drain, a half worn shoe in the gutter. There’s two friends giggling and walking, there’s a man telling a woman she’s beautiful, there’s a pied stilt sucking bugs from the lagoon, there’s swifts wheeling in the sky. This is Aveiro. I kept running, the sweat beading on my shins and forearms, my heart rate is climbed and my watch told me I was making progress. What sort of progress? Technological, physiological, environmental?

This morning I walked through the Aveiro Museum which was an old convent. That seems to be a theme of this trip — convents. An ornate chapel covered in gold shimmered under some twenty first century LED lights. I took a photo on my iPhone. I walk from the chapel to a new wing built to house a collection of religious painting over 300, almost 400 years old. A lady sits with her breast out feeding a young baby, oil on wood, 16th century, produced in Bruges. A sign reads that around this time paintings depicting nudity were being repainted as the Church had introduced a ban on showing such things. This painting was unique in that it hadn’t been censored. Humans have changed their minds again and again as new ideas and concepts make their way to the fore, now we can show nude paintings in old convents, no worries apparently. If you look back over the course of history, various schools of thought and prominent beliefs have guided whole societies only to evolve and change and grow like any organism. That’s what we are — organisms. We adapt and change and grow, so it only makes sense that our views do too. It’s just funny we rebel so much in the face of change that happens too quickly. I guess if one day you woke up to find an ape had turned into a human it would be a bit shocking to digest. But overtime — lots of it — it’s believable. Another painting shows a group of people kneeling around dead Jesus Christ, however he has two left hands. This is because originally his hand was over his groin, but it was later deemed indecorous, so they tried to patch it up and repaint a new left hand that wasn’t touching his groin. The only thing is the touch up job isn’t that great. Anyway, lesson is we change our minds, what we decided is right and wrong changes, how we decide we can live our lives changes, what we censor changes. Change is the only constant. I guess I’m learning to resist it less. I am a natural organism and all we do is change.

I’m yet to try an ovos moles; an Aveiro specialty. They emerged from the convent too. Along with the teachings of the bible. Eggy sweets, and the holy trinity. Sugar was used in the convent pharmacy, and egg whites were used for everyday tasks like gumming clothing, so as not to waste the yolks the nuns added sugar to them and packaged them up inside communion wafers. The ovos moles was born.

Day: 29

Location: Aveiro, Portugal

Weather: Muggy and warm

People who can speak two languages are a bridge. Their job opportunities increase tenfold, if not more, they can work in tourism (where the money is), or in a restaurant, or a government department. I cannot speak two languages but the one I speak is English, and that makes me lucky. It’s strange to think that being from a country that was colonised makes me lucky. But it does. In this world we live now, English seems to be a prized commodity, if you can speak and write well then the world opens up.

I’m halfway through my train trip to Aveiro when I realise no one has checked my ticket.

I’m off now in Aveiro and no one looked at it.

I ran this afternoon, down the main canal before branching off and letting my legs follow my nose which led me into the salt flats. Pied stilts picked in the water, and a man balanced on the thin beam of grass between ponds doing his final checks for the day. There’s a large lagoon nearby too, I think I’ll hire a bike at some point, apparently there are flamingos. I’d like to see those. I ran and ran until I felt quite ready for a shower and a trip to the supermarket. I’m thoroughly enjoying supermarket shopping in a new place, everything is a novelty.

It’s nice here. Swifts circle the darkening sky singing me home, I wander the edge of the canals listening to the church bells chiming 8pm. A small abundance of people holding hands reminds me I’d like that one day. I’ve been adventuring alone for 4 weeks now and I’m in the rhythm of it. I forget normal life goes on at home, I don’t know if I’ll be able to slip into it easily anymore. I now know there is so much more than my little bubble, and I’m getting used to being with my mind. I can hear myself and I’m making friends with the thoughts in my head. But every now and then I’d like to walk somewhere beautiful with my hand in someone’s, pointing out the reflection of the moliceiro (gondolas) on the water and swifts in the sky. I’d like to lie in bed talking about the day, I’d like someone to watch my luggage when I go to the toilet, I’d like someone to see I’m tired and hold me up for a bit. I moved out of home at 17, and for the last 7 years I’ve gotten good at having my own back, at fixing things, at wiping my own tears, at celebrating my own achievements. But one day I’d like someone next to me for all of it. In the meantime though I’ll keep wandering canals with my friend the camera, showing it all the sights, writing my thoughts on here to make sure I never forget the magic. I’m grateful to have time by myself, it’s such a luxury to get to know who you are away from the things you sometimes define yourself with. A place, people, sport, a job. When all that is no longer there to fall back on, who are you? I hope I’m a person who holds open the door, who says thank you at pedestrian crossings, who talks to the quiet ones, who laughs easily, who sees the good, who smiles so wide at sunrises it bursts off my face, who gets into the sea and feels at one with the world, who takes photos, who writes, who only cares for how I see myself and for the opinions of those I love. I’ll head back now to my little room with a view. I’ll eat something yummy that I bought and stashed away, then I might write some more.

Day: 28

Location: Porto

Weather: Hot

I visit the Porto photographic museum, it is filled with every kind of camera, from tiny pocket watch espionage cameras, to brownie boxes, to Kodaks. But today an exhibition is on from a man, who forty years ago, took photos of a little community on the edge of Porto — bare feet, shacks, horses, children with huge eyes. They stare through time and space at me. I can feel their longing to reach through the photo and hold my hand. That’s what I’ve realised from this trip — the past blends into the present and bleeds into the future, all that exists is one long, tangled moment where my great great grandfather from Portugal reaches out and touches me now, saying olá Kate, how are you?

I sit outside afterwards and stare at the barred windows, the museum used to be a prison. The signs explained to me that photography was for the rich and for the delinquents. The rich posed in elaborate studios with props and lighting, while prisoners sat against bare walls, stripped of any context or meaning. But their eyes — again — look into the lens and into my eyes. A woman pleads with me. A man tells me his life story. A child tells me he didn’t do it. I watch the world for a while with my greyish-bluish eyes. A proud father watches his little girl toddle around in the square, a pigeon decides whether to eat my shoelace, a spider crawls onto a strand of my hair, a seagull accosts a woman eating hot chips.

Later that afternoon I walk past another shop selling photos of your own iris. Europe seems to have an inordinate amount of shops that take high resolution photographs of your eye and blow them up huge on a canvas or piece of glass. It’s weird and freaky walking down the street to see a window full of giant eyes staring at you.

I go to the supermarket to find some things for lunch and I discover what must be the absolute joy of Portugese children — loaves of crustless bread. It looks naked to me. It’s like selling a banana out of its skin.

I have some Portugese blood in me. My great great grandfather sailed to New Zealand from Lisbon in the 1800s. We all have blood from all over the world, does that mean earth is our home, rather than an arbitrary landmass we have drawn lines on? Am I inextricably linked to this country which I am visiting for the first time? Should it be called my mother land?

I walk Porto’s streets and listen to a saxophone player, guitar player, singer, and cornet player. One man has a little sign next to him that says, street performers are like wildflowers — brightening the side of the road, brightening the way. I agree. I put a euro in his guitar case. I have given more money to street performers here than I have in my entire life. Here there seems to be no shame in putting yourself out there. In New Zealand we have tall poppy syndrome, where if your head appears above others, if you are seen to be doing well or trying hard, you’ll soon be cut down to size. Children learn to cut themselves down to size before anyone else can. We put our heads down and we work hard, quietly. Somehow New Zealand punches above its weight on the world stage, but it isn’t without an underlying fault line. A crack in our foundation which has caused our country to have one of the worst youth suicide rates in the world. A speaker came to tell us about it when I worked as a teacher. He couldn’t believe the stats when he first heard. I couldn’t either. In little ways I’m trying to be proud of what I’m working on, I’m trying to share my words and photos, I’m trying to celebrate the success of others. What would the world be like if we weren’t all so scared to share our talents?

Day: 27

Location: Porto

Weather: Warm and sunny

Sign in Porto airport toilet: please do not flush socks. Does that happen often? This is my first impression of Portugal.

On the train I met a man from Nelson who lived in London for 20 years and now lives in Porto with his wife who is from Porto but also lived in London.

Got off the train and there was a man collapsed on the ground.

Day: 26

Location: Cieza

Weather: Hot (28°C!)

The day started with a breakfast menu that included Gunpowder Tea, and ended with eight of us getting trapped in a lift. Somewhere in between, we cycled 60km, climbed 1000m of elevation, and realised we’d become a little family. We spent a week glued together cycling through rural Spain, stumbling our way through orders with broken Spanish and broken English, sometimes ending up with what we’d ordered, other times, definitely not. The first stop came 20km in when we arrived at a tiny village and found a cafe where a police officer was sitting at a table drinking a beer. His cop car was parked outside. He ate nuts drowning in salt from a cracked plate in front of him. By the counter — like so many other places in Spain — a cigarette vending machine offered people an easy place to get their nicotine fix, and a smooth route to lung cancer. Camel cigarettes seem to be at the top. Do camels smoke? We try local croquettes and a strange sweetbread pie. My palette is expanding. The menu that night included fried blood and brain salad. We avoided those. M and I had our umpteenth lemon Fanta for the week.

The day ended after dinner where eight of us decided we should take the lift. The doors closed, we pressed floor six and the lift jolted up slightly then dropped again, it did this a few times before we realised the maximum capacity was six people or 450kg. We began to add our weights up, any embarrassment ebbing when the worst flowed through some people’s heads. We’re going to run out of oxygen, what if we die. I laughed and laughed as MF pushed all the buttons possible, but the jolting continued. MF is a coroner, but she is one of the funniest people on the trip. In my mind those two things are opposites. Again an assumption is proved wrong. We pressed floor five as if that would work. MF then hit the call bell after a brief team meeting decided we were too heavy. Nothing happened. D and J began to panic, we banged a little on the doors after realising the ‘open door’ button wasn’t working. No one came. We stood a while longer and suffered through a few more jolts, when suddenly the doors opened and a receptionist stood in front of the lift, her face quickly changing from concern to disbelief. She pointed harshly at the sign, six people only, see six. A few took the stairs, M and I took the other lift, sheepishly saying our apologies before shutting the doors and laughing again.

We all said goodbye later that evening — long hugs and promises to keep in touch filled the otherwise quiet reception. We covered a couple of hundred kilometres and 4000m of elevation, we ate countless sandwiches, drank many marginal cups of tea, had quite a few €2 beers, and had three crashes. Our guide translated so patiently for us, he’s kept us unruly bunch safe, happy and on top of the world. To cycle is to know freedom: to ride roads and tracks privy to only a few eyes, to stop when you like, to eat rough sandwiches in beautiful places, to be alone with your thoughts, to have the company of new friends, to see the real places, devoid of all tourists other than us. A week is a short time, but my mind and my world has expanded impossibly. Get on a bike and let your legs take you places.

I have felt so much support for my life and photography from this wonderful group of riders. J told me to go get it, to go make it happen, to go after it. M told me, ‘have a good life, you deserve it.’ That made me feel so loved, and like I was on the right track. For someone who has had a lot of adventures in their life and had a lot of things happen, for him to tell me I deserved a good life, made me feel worthy and valuable. He is wise and I hope to be like him one day. He’s cheeky and loves a sweet treat, he is empathetic, giving all his last change to a person digging through a bin, he was the back rider the whole week and never once complained. He could tell stories that didn’t dominate a conversation, he was easy with his laughs, he lived his life — looking at the things he wanted to, he forgot things quickly when a hard word was spoken against him. I am trying to get better at that, to let things go after they’ve happened, to let the difficult feeling go. I want to be wise, to be cheeky, to have fun, to be present, to be selfless and humble, to have stories, to make people feel seen, to make people feel at ease in my presence. He has a rainbow crochet glasses case he swings around as he walks. He unapologetically stops to squash coins for souvenirs. He also told me, ‘you can’t be a real person’, when I mentioned a tiny home seemed to be the way to live.

Day: 25

Location: Calasparra, Spain

Weather: Sunny (again!)

We wake to the song of hundreds of swifts as they rise with the sun and emerge from their rooftop nests. The castillo brightens on the hill, a girl and her mum are the only ones down on the street, the air is cool but it’s meant to get hot, J and I marvel at how thin the walls are. We heard things. Things you don’t want to hear as you’re trying to fall asleep after a long day of cycling in the heat.

We hadn’t even got 500 meters down the road before a police man stopped us. He started speaking to our guide, they exchanged some words and the cop didn’t look happy. We got the gist of it though, we were going down the street the wrong way. The small cobbled lane with no road signs indicating the direction to travel. We nodded at the policeman and kept going, he watched us roll away and all that went through my head was, goodbye narrow brick road.

At lunch I added that to the playlist M made called Cycling Earworms. We’re all adding the songs that get stuck in our head over the course of a week of riding. Our guide likes to tease us — I don’t think he means to. We’re beginning with a 3km uncomfortable uphill, he then proceeds to say at the top of the hill, now we have two more kilometres of uphill. On day two we gave up trusting his instructions and were prepared at any moment for steep, uncomfortable uphills. We’ve climbed 3000 metres so far, and we still have more to go. No wonder my legs are sore. We pass a man in the village coasting along on his bike with no helmet and a pipe hanging from his mouth.

We stop for lunch in the middle of nowhere, we eat sandwiches that we make by ripping bread apart with our hands and cutting tomatoes with a crude knife. Flies crawl into my ears and over my nose and one lands in my eye. We swat at them with weary hands and I wish I had a wide broom hat with corks. I rolled over a dead snake before we stopped for lunch. I ate a sandwich and a yucky apple, I ate some blanched almonds and a strange biscotti thing. I had some pear from Ali and a muffin I nicked at breakfast. It was quiet in the middle of nowhere, the kind that allows you to think of nothing at all. You meld slightly with the earth when you lie down, the land begins to talk without saying a word. I can hear murmurs of the feet that walked this earth — Romans, Muslims, Christians, Spanish, some Kiwi girl on a bike with a camera. This land isn’t ours, we just visit, we leave a few ripples that hopefully buoy people rather than sink them.

We stop by a river and our guide explains that they are getting rid of the cane because it’s an invasive species that takes over more important plants. We ask what sort of cane it is, he looks at us like we’re stupid, the normal kind. What’s the normal kind, I wonder? We bike on. We find a church built into a cave. Various offering hand on the internal walls. Plastic legs, bracelets, dolls, plastic arms, plastic heads, human hair. It means something. Us humans we do strange things.

That night I order a hot chocolate and a mug of melted chocolate arrives. I am in heaven. My face paints a good picture of the bliss that has been delivered from some divine place I can’t begin to imagine. It’s only €2. A dream.

Day: 24

Location: Caravaca, Spain

Weather: Sunny

Is it a Spanish thing to wrap tv remotes in clingfilm? And for monks to happily give tours of their convents? Is it normal to have a lunch which includes anchovies laid over potato crisps?

My hand has been going non-stop today, swatting flies from my face as I ride, when I pull over, when I eat lunch, when I drink lemon Fanta. I have been assaulted by a menagerie or of bugs, or have I assaulted them? My tshirt is painted with the unfortunate innards of a few. A sad graveyard. 27°C in rural Spain on a bike presents us with various sights. Lizards laze on the tarmac and shoot into the grass when we pass, unfenced horses shelter in stone ruins, donkeys flick their ears like I flick my hand, centipedes continue to make risky passages across the road. To be in Spain is to be in the back blocks. Where every street is quiet but every pub is full. Full of men on a Wednesday morning drinking beer and eating nuts. Almonds grow everywhere. We ordered a plate of ham and cheese as part of lunch and it came covered in the most delicious almonds — salty, fresh, skinned. We wonder where the women are, are they at home cooking or taking care of the children or doing the washing? Why are the men again in the pub (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)? They talk to each other for hours on end face to face behind fly screen doors that lead in from the village square. Everywhere we have passed through has had a square. That’s something that seems to have persisted here — coming together in public places, talking, watching the world go by. We sit in a square for lunch and order huge amounts of tapas, pay €8 each and listen to a woman shout from her balcony to some men also eating lunch. Anchovies on crisps, patatas bravas, tempura vegetables, ham and cheese and almonds, bread, mushrooms, egg (battery farmed?). The tea debacle continues as J, M and D have year to find someone who makes a good cup. Red, green and chamomile have been delivered, but not yet a black tea. And when they ask for milk on the side it usually comes hot and frothed as it would for a coffee. But still they continue, ordering a cup at each place, using Miguel to translate, and again receiving the wrong thing. Maybe by the last day they’ll get the right thing. Lunch didn’t mean to stretch out so long, but it did. We picked slowly at the dishes that emerged when they were ready, taking nearly two hours to each everything. We felt very Spanish.

In the morning before we left the convent a very jolly monk gave us a comprehensive tour, stopping in every room to explain the history, architecture, and current use. They have 23 masses a week in one of their various chapels. The garden is pristine, the hallways clean, the seats aligned and the paint fresh. Paintings and sculptures and photographs of people watch us with their unmoving eyes. Just over an hour later we’re on our bikes and heading out of Caravaca. The day heats quickly, climbing to 27°C as we spend the first 3km climbing a mountain, weaving around one hairpin after the next.

That evening after another very late dinner — later than my bedtime — J and I lie in our beds and talk into the darkness, I say, “we’ve still got two more days of cycling”, “I know, my arse will be utterly broken by Friday” — she says in her British accent.

Day: 23

Location: Caravaca, Spain

Weather: Sunny

A man behind his wire fence talked to our guide in rapid Spanish as four rough looking dogs barked at us and our bikes. The man smiled. Our guide proudly told us we were invited to go and look at his battery chicken farm — like it was a wonderful tourist attraction where we could learn about the local farming practices. We shook our heads. I thought about the poor chickens. I wondered if the boiled egg Tom was carrying in the back of his cycling jersey was from there. He’d taken it at breakfast thinking it would be a great snack for the road. It bulged from the back of his top and each of us riding behind him spent at least five minutes trying to work out what it was. An egg! He proudly told us. The further we got into the country the more battery farms we could see and smell, and the less we wanted to eat eggs. The further we got into the countryside the more creatures I found on the road. Centipedes scuttled unsuccessfully from one side to the other as I tried my best to dodge them but failing miserably. Why did the centipede cross the road? I rolled over a snake skin next. The crispy husk lay curled on the gravel and I thought of its hot body lying on the road emerging from its old clothes then slithering off. I wondered if it hurt, if it knew what was happening, how many times it had shed its skin before. Metaphors bombard me the more I look. I think about whether this trip is the shedding of a skin for me. I want to let go of some of the views I had, some of the ideas that I had to live a safe and mapped out life where I married, had kids, raised a family, worked, then retired. But I know none of that is guaranteed and life makes its own plan. I am shedding the idea that I am too shy and nervous of a person to ask for what I want to make my goals a reality. I am shedding expectations that others have of me, ideas of who they think I am. I am realising maybe my I am braver and more adaptable than I thought. More adventurous maybe.

The further we got into rural Spain, the more I realised how traditional things remained. A team of seven men planted an entire field by hand, moving slowly along ploughed roads, baking in the sun, just like hundreds of years of men before them did. Each seed forced into the dry ground, a stream nearby to water it, an old aqueduct stretching across the sky, crumbling and unusable. The world goes on and my entire attention is focused on these men half an earth away from my usual life where my worries consist of various things that now seem unimportant. I want to drop my bike and camera and plant seed after seed. But my legs take me on and soon we’re stopping to order sandwiches for lunch from another bar that doesn’t have a menu — just a headful of local knowledge where you must be in the know to order. Miguel helps us find something and I end up with a thick baguette filled with some pork concoction. It’s nice. A ‘prohibido fumar’ sign hangs on the wall behind the bar, and one of the workers making Mary’s sandwich takes another pull from his cigarette, a swig from his glass of beer and hands over the sandwich — ash on the tinfoil. The smoke puffs out and gets lost somewhere near the ceiling. Again we are the marvel of the town, people stare, and my limited Spanish tells me they’re talking about us. I don’t know whether it’s good or bad. Across the road from the bar is a closed garage door with a sign above it saying ‘disco pub’. We are in a village of 1000 people, if that. How many people go to the disco pub? When does it open?

Day: 22

Location: Bullas, Spain

Weather: Sunny and windy

I thought life was happening elsewhere: in big cities, in Europe, in the places I only know from books and films. But it turns out Life with a capital L is happening all over the place. I am riding for five days through rural Spain, my legs and lungs taking me places my mind would never imagine. Amongst the winding streets of Cehegín two men plaster the wall of a crumbling home, a cat eats from a pile of biscuits on the footpath, a dog with teats full of milk barks at us, flies hang in the warm sun traps alleys make, and I keep pedalling. The streets give way to dusty fields where hand cut acequias (irrigation channels) feed olive and almond groves. We turn another corner and nestled on flat sections are square upon square of greenhouses, filled entirely with blooming carnations. I’m right back in the summer of 2020 where I spent weeks picking carnations at a flower farm. Six days a week from 6am until 2pm we’d pick, strip leaves, and bunch flowers to be sent to the markets. You worked quickly in the morning to get out of the greenhouses before it got too hot. But some days you’d be caught in the early afternoon sun in overalls with the greenhouse making an oven. Cooking you alive. I loved the job though, and being back by the greenhouses reminded me of a summer filled with flowers, and long afternoons free to swim and play tennis and sunbathe. The stuff of dreams.

Lunch was had in a little sandwich bar on top of a hill. We used our guide Miguel to translate for us. I stood staring at the ceiling which had four pigs legs at various stages of the curing process hanging from it. The walls were covered with signs, paintings, and photos — the pope, the prime minister, a man drinking a bucket of wine, street corners, the sky, small alleys, a Spanish flag, a sign that says they’re not open on Tuesdays, a bull made of flax and a coat hanger. We ate them biked to a small square at the top of the hill town. I used Google translate to discover that the plaza was very multipurpose. It said it was used for ‘the weekly market, open council meetings, bullfights, comedies and political rallies.’ Maybe not all at once. I can picture it now. A bull in the plaza crushing barrels of tomatoes while a man cries out about the hilarity of the solar system, all while people chant about laws and a group try to carry out a council meeting. Again, it’s all a checkered tapestry. In Caravaca we walk up to Basílica-Santuario de la Vera Cruz, a very important Catholic Church, one that holds part of the True Cross — the cross that bore Jesus. On the way we pass shop after shop full of cross and Jesus memorabilia and also somehow FC Barcelona football jerseys. Football and Catholicism. Both a religion some would say.

Day: 21

Location: Alicante and Murcia, Spain

Weather: Rainy

When it rains it pours. I have two and a half hours to kill between check out time and getting the bus to Murcia. I had planned to have lunch somewhere, do some wandering, sit in the sun on the beach. That’s all well and good when it’s nice weather, but it’s pouring with rain. I put on my raincoat and start walking. I dodge puddles that are a funny colour, I try to stay upright in a city that insists slick tiles are ideal for footpaths. I duck under an archway and decide to extract my umbrella from the depths of my pack. Cities are the antithesis of privacy, I fish around between my clothes, shoes and toiletries and find the item in question. I stuff everything back in and put my umbrella up. I wander a while more until I find some lunch. You don’t know the joy of sitting down until you take two months of your life off your back and put it on the floor. Ahhh. For a while I eat and think about rain. How in Taranaki it thrashes down, how we can see 100mm in 24 hours, how you must turn the tv up to 100 to hear it. It rains properly there, the kind that means you yell to each other, the kind where your window wipers can’t move fast enough. My friend and I decided on a tramp one weekend at high school. We were halfway up the flank of Fanthams Peak when the storm of all storms rolled in. Hail lashed down and we sheltered behind our packs, lighting swept closer and closer to our two small bodies on the side of the mountain. Thunder grabbed the sky with its bare hands and tore it apart, seam by seam. Beth couldn’t open her Moro bar, her fingers were too cold. God almighty rained down on us. We were ok. That’s the thing. You can choose to be wet and miserable, or wet and happy. We smiled, this isn’t safe, let’s head down. We were wet and happy and still making smart decisions. The rain in Alicante isn’t quite that bad — luckily. The bus station came into view and I was happy for a dry place to sit and wait. Happy for a liminal space. I wasn’t watching, I stood in a big dirty puddle and somehow through the wondrous laws of physics an air bubble beneath my shoe created a suction and flicked a spray of muddy water up my pants. Great, fabulous, just what I need. I got into the bus station and sat down. I pulled out my drink bottle and tipped water into my hands and began rubbing carefully at my pants. Slowly they came clean, but my legs were now wet and I didn’t have much left to drink. Finally I could relax. Haha don’t get too complacent. As if the rain was laughing, I noticed some strange white cream at the bottom of my bag. Huh? Bird poo? If only. I identified the culprit. Half my tube of sunscreen had decided it wanted a holiday from its bottle. I kid you not, it was everywhere. The more I dug, the more sunscreen I found. That stuff doesn’t wash away easily. I took myself into the bathroom — luckily it didn’t cost me €2. I scooped great handfuls of it out of my bag and into the sink, trying to wash what I could, but the cold water just smeared it further. I held my pant leg and my back pack under the hand drier that was blowing as much as an asthmatic running a marathon in winter. When it rains it pours huh. You’ve got to learn to laugh. I’m getting better at that. I think of grandad, you can’t take yourself or life too seriously.

I made it to Murcia and the streets are dead, I think because it’s Sunday. I find a pub playing the Monte Carlo Masters final between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz who just happens to be from Murcia. Me and two old men sit having a drink and holding onto every point. We lean back in our seats then forwards again. The commentary is all in Spanish but tennis needs no language, their body language speaks. Jannik drops to the ground, a small smile grows as he realises what he’s done. He’ll return to world number one the next day, he’s just secured his first clay title, and his family are all there watching. I grin too. I’m a Sinner supporter, but I keep that to myself in Murcia.

I like my roommate on this cycle trip, her name is Jeanette and she’s 59. Everyone is at least 35 years older than me but it’s quite fun. At 9pm — my bed time — it was decided we should go out for dinner. It poured with rain. A lady called Mary had brought only a bin bag with holes cut for arms and her head as her raincoat. So we traipsed around Murcia trying to find a place that had room for us looking like quite a motley troop. Four people ordered a half chicken, and much more than half a chicken came out. Much more. The table was laden with chicken, potatoes, egg, chillies, and various Murcia dishes. We left full and a little bemused at the lack of vegetables on the menu.

Day: 20

Location: Alicante, Spain

Weather: Cloudy but hot

Alicante is a contradiction. Mediterranean coast Spain and a burger joint that boasts you can have the ‘All American Experience’. A sign asking your dog not to piss on buildings that looks like it has wee dribbling down it. It’s grittier here than France. I’m in an 8th century fortress stretching across an entire hill. I can roam as I like, it’s free and I can climb things like a playground. Far from the Palace of Versailles herding me through narrow corridors and roped rooms. No touching anything! My hair is curled from a swim in the ocean this morning, alone in the water with gentle waves perfect for a body surf. A small archway I have to duck to enter takes me into a room that was once for something else — far, far from what’s in it today. An exhibition on album covers from the rock era. Rock music inside a big rocky hill. Psychedelic illustrations tell me Gong made an album called Angels Egg in 1973. Pink Floyd’s infamous prism cover looks at me. I almost forget to duck on the way out. As I reach the top of the hill, the main lookout point, a small sign tells me my pacemaker may stop working as I enter a magnetic field area. The sign is very small. Luckily I don’t have a pacemaker. But as I sit on top looking at the view I’m also watching a group of old cruise ship tourists, waiting for a few of them to keel over.

I’m getting good at physical liminal spaces. Waiting in airports, bus stations, restaurants, on the side of the road. I just wish it could spill over into my life. I’ve studied, I’ve worked, I’ve saved, now what’s next? I have a want to follow my passion — whatever that may be. Writing? Photography? But I’m in a liminal space, not quite sure where I am, where I’m heading next. I hold no boarding pass with a destination stamped on it. Just a train ticket to nowhere and everywhere.

Day: 19

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Weather: Middle of the night, I have no idea

I’ve slept in an airport. It’s 3:30am and I just ate a crepe from a packet. There’s quite a few of us that have formed a little unspoken club. We’re lying sprawled on curved wooden benches, shoes off, jackets and bags as pillows. I think back to little 7 year old Kate who couldn’t bear to be left alone with a babysitter who threw up in the sink from nerves, I think of 11 year old Kate too afraid to go to sleepovers, I think of 17 year old Kate afraid to move down the country alone. And here I am in the antipodes, 19,000km from home sleeping in Barcelona airport. Never would little me have imagined I’d be able to do that. There are times when I think how different my life would have been if I hadn’t been so nervous and shy all the time. I sometimes wish I had had more confidence. I was a good sprinter, but start lines made me squirm, a good gymnast but spent the week before the competition in knots, a good tennis player but afraid of moving up coaching groups. If I had more confidence, would one of my early talents have stuck? I used to get frustrated at myself, why are these things so difficult for me, and so easy for everyone else? Small changes in routine would throw me, even fun changes. Here’s a photo of me on a school trip drawing what I found in rock pools, look at my face. But I am so proud of myself and I think little Kate would be too, that’s who I strive to impress each day. I want nervous, shy 7 year old me to know that life is brilliant, and the world is wide, and things aren’t necessarily easier but you just get better at them.

I’m about to go and get McDonalds from the 24 hour window in the airport. I’ll probably need a Coca Cola.

Day: 18

Location: Annecy and Lyon, France

Weather: Sunny

I saw a pair of crocs (the shoes) that looked like they had a French version of Steve Irwin on them. I saw a man in a church plaza playing a game of tag with his three grandchildren, he couldn’t have looked happier than if the clouds opened and God himself appeared. I saw a lady sweeping the pavement and smiling. I saw people wandering with children in prams. Slowly the shops opened, a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker. The sun was up but it was cool in the shadows, a fresh cool, like mint or a popsicle in summer. 9:30am is the time to fill potholes on the canal footpaths with terracotta coloured concrete. The men kneel and scrape with palate knives. A vast chasm compared to the hot, black gravel that men scoop unceremoniously with large spades back home. I’m early enough to see piles of un-touched gelato, perfect curves of cream and fruit in their little cabinet. I think Annecy might have the densest population of gelato shops, glassiers. There’s one on every corner, sometimes two, sometimes three. It’s warming up now and I wish I had brought my sunglasses. I want to stay here. I want to bike around the lake again and again. I want to lie in the grass then swim. I want to watch the sunset over the alps forever. Beauty is hard to draw yourself from.

Annecy bus and train station is something. A little dirty but fine. I’ve gotten good at hovering over toilet seats, holding my pant hems an inch off the floor. I carry a good supply of hand sanitiser and use it liberally, I’ve already had a bit of a cold this trip. A man next to me smells a little, but the dog by his feet doesn’t seem too phased, his clothes are a little ragged but you can never judge someone by their clothes. A lady in a station uniform came over and asked him — I think — to move on. He nodded and left through the door, sortie. A barefooted man — a rare breed in France — came hurrying inside holding a cardboard bowl, he made quickly for the bathrooms and came out with water sloshing over the sides of it. He went out the door, his bare feet blackening on the footpath, before he knelt before a homeless man, a friend(?), he scooped water into his hands and washed blood from the man’s face. He was tender and gentle. The man with the dog threw a coke bottle, the dog chased it, caught it and brought it back. The man with the bowl came back to refill it, and again he went to wash the blood. Like a father to a child, like a child to a sparrow. We care, we all do. Sometimes we forget to show it. We all want to be loved. I want someone to dry my tears, to hold me, to listen to my thoughts after a long day at work, to tell me it’s okay after a student spat at my feet. I want someone to tell jokes to over the phone at 10pm, to whisper secrets to. We all want that — me, the bloodied man, the train station lady, the cleaner, the cashier at the supermarket. We keep believing we’re so different — Kiwis, French, Brits, upper class, lower class, blue collar, white collar, travellers, home-dwellers. We are and we aren’t, we’re a rich, diverse tapestry — but I’ll say it again, we all breathe oxygen, we all bleed red.

I’m in Lyon airport waiting for my flight to Barcelona then Alicante. I watch a group play foosball. I see a lady with her shoes off. Children lie on parents laps. It’s getting late. I walk over to a 3D printed map of the airport where you press buttons and different areas light up to tell you how they’re powered. Biofuel, hydrogen, geothermal, electricity. I think to myself, not for the first time, I wish Dad was here so I could share the wonder with him. I walked past a mini golf course in Paris and almost cried, I wish my family could be here so we could play like we always do. A small tradition — unspoken, to find a mini golf course in each new place. The frustration at our inability to as children giving way to a heated rivalry now we’re all adults. Though sometimes I don’t feel like an adult. I cried when I walked past mini golf for goodness sake.

Update on the cashew butter. I was assuming that cacahuètes meant cashews. Turns out it means peanuts. I was eating peanut butter all along. And they did have a few varieties of it in the supermarket. And it was creamy and delicious because it was filled with sugar. Ah well, it happens. I ate the whole jar in three days.

People are searching for themselves as if self lives elsewhere. Maybe it’s hidden in the French Alps, in the glittering Mediterranean, maybe it’s in the Seine or somewhere in the tube. If that’s the case, we’re just bodies waiting to find a soul hidden somewhere else in the world. I don’t think that’s true. We are born whole, but we constantly change shape — letting bits go, gaining things, having experiences. Like trees— would you argue they aren’t whole when they are saplings, how about when they are grown and tall, what about in winter when they are bare, what about when they lose a branch, what about when they flower. Aren’t they whole the whole time? They just go through seasons, through constant change. At what point are they fully formed, fully themselves?

I’m confused. Not about trees any more, or being fully formed, but about languages. On the plane to Spain I listen to the safety briefing twice. Once in Spanish and once in English. Then they proceed to do all cabin announcements in French. Huh. Small towns pass by below — a network of cobwebs. The lights finish in a sweeping curve and give way to an inky black. It must be the coast. A few stars dot the sky. Anyway, I’m trying to sleep but theres too much to look at. As Grandad would have said, onwards. He would have laughed.

Day: 17

Location: Annecy, France

Weather: Sun (again!)

When you’re on an adventure — not a holiday remember — you eat when you’re hungry, you sleep when you’re tired, you write when ideas and words swirl and ripple in your head. Finding peanut butter is difficult in France, I’ve only managed to find cashew butter, so I eat it by the spoonful, slather it on my toast, on cut apples, on crepes. It’s creamy and delicious.

I’m slowly getting used to everything being in another language. The road signs, the self checkout, shop hours, warning notices, food packets. I can’t eat things that say lait in bold writing. Lait.My world begins to widen, I know jour means day, sortie is exit, velo is bike, pomme is apple. I feel less bare in France now, my shoulders sit back as if language has unfurled my shy spine. But tomorrow I leave for Spain, and I begin again. Then to Portugal, then Italy, then Greece. Travel means to be expanded, the edges of ability collapsed, stretched, rebuilt further from what your mind said you could do. Did you know you can buy Nutella crepes pre-rolled in packets in a supermarket? You can buy fromage from an expansive deli, baguettes for 69 cents, you can buy every fruit and vegetable whether it is in season or not. On a bleak Paris street a fruit and vege market with a green storefront peered out from the mist. The city emerged from winter tentatively, people walked past in coats and scarves that told the wind it wasn’t wanted, and on the sloping display out front a pineapple sat next to a mango which sat next to a watermelon.

I slept for nine and a half hours the last two nights. I think my mind and body are tired — in a happy way. They just need time to relax and reset. I want to stay in Annecy for longer, it’s utter magic.

I lay by the lake wondering if we are all so drawn to water — rivers, oceans, lakes — because we are 60% water ourselves. We need it to live, so our minds somehow pull us irrevocably towards it. There is a place at the top of New Zealand called Te Rerenga Wairua, it is the leaping off place for spirits. When someone passes, Māori believe their spirit travels to the northern point in Aotearoa New Zealand before departing this world and returning to the homeland of Hawaiki. I can imagine vast tree-lined highways in the sky, tangled with aurora, with stars, with sand and sea, that they ride along once they have leapt.

Day: 16

Location: Annecy, France

Weather: Clear skies

Mountains were born at some point, and will die too. They rose out of the earth as tectonic plates arched their backs, now slowly the rain and sun and wind take small pieces and throw them to the sky. Stone dust. I’ve always looked to them as anchors, immovable and constant. But I know they aren’t, my mountain at home — Taranaki — is overdue for an eruption. It could change shape, dancing, rising, collapsing as it has done for tens of thousands of years. Alps surround Lake Annecy and I bike 40km in their shadow, my mouth open and eyes wide. I can’t help but laugh to myself, a smile isn’t enough joy. I like my legs turning around again and again, it’s meditative. The sound of tyres on tarmac and the soft tick when I stop pedalling. I stare to the sky and see 11, 14, 17 parasailers sweep back and forth. What a thrill that must be, I wonder if it is quiet. The top of mountains usually are — the thin air seems to steal sound, leaving only thoughts in your head. They must think so blindingly clear up there.

I stop for lunch on a little jetty, the water turquoise, a yacht anchored just off the shore. I eat a sandwich stuffed with prosciutto that I made in the morning — my new favourite. I eat a biscuit too, a mandarin, a few lollies. I drink a lot of water and think about the fact you have to pay to use toilets in Europe. Luckily I find a free one on the edge of the lake about an hour later. It’s not even too dirty. I draw and watch and watch some more, I could never get tired of staring at the world go by. I used to be good at it at school. My physics class was on the second floor and the sea was two streets over. I’d watch it glitter and my friend would elbow me in the ribs every now and then, Kate, listen. I pass a hotel that looks like it belongs in a Wes Anderson film. I see a sign saying deer may cross the road at any moment. I have to stop and slowly translate a sign with a picture of a bike on it, right, left, no, yes, bikes permitted? I choose another spot to stop and I lie on my back with my eyes closed just listening. Two young girls laugh and scream and talk in rapid, excited French, a couple have a picnic, a duck quacks, an apple is bitten, some bird I’m yet to name chirps. Is this life? I wonder. I think so. I sometimes wonder about whether I should have chased sport or a career harder. But I think, would I be lying here, free and uninhibited? Would I have been able to run down to the beach at sunset with two of my best friends after eating pizza and sewing at my house, would we have lay outside on my lawn for hours under the stars talking? Would I have played brass music in an ANZAC parade, would I have climbed mountains, crossed rivers, kayaked oceans, eaten a lot of delicious food. Sports people say there is sacrifice, and I know there is, some of my friends have chosen that route and are incredibly successful. Would I want that life? I don’t know. It’s hard to compare unless you’ve experienced both. And you can’t. You choose one and you make the most of it. That’s what dad always taught me, make a decision and make it the best one. Don’t spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder at what might have been. Turn your eyes to the side at the people walking next to you, face forward towards your goals, and let life’s nudges push you in the right direction. Things seem to have a way of working out.

I walk now in the old part of Annecy, clouds of bugs fly in the shafts of light that sift between buildings. The sun catches poppies growing in baskets hanging from the rails of the canal. Bikes are left leaning as people sit and eat, sit and watch, sit and talk. The canal flows through the centre of it all, quiet. A man selling balloons filled with fairy lights sets up in front of Église Saint François de Sales church. People wander eating gelato, a white swan glides towards me, I watch the world go by. Sometimes I want to be amongst it, sometimes I’m happy on the side. When you are a writer and photographer — though sometimes it feels strange to call myself that — your primary job is to observe. I see people with cameras — stop, click, and walk off. I stand another five minutes before I raise mine to my eye. I have wandered for an hour back and forth along the edges of canals, now I stop to make some notes. Storytelling is watching light, listening to accents, letting your legs take you, following your nose. The sound of a dropped glass carries, bouncing off buildings.

Day: 15

Location: Lyon, France

Weather: Beautiful and sunny !

I booked almost the same seat on the train going up to Lyon. It’s the same line just in the opposite direction to Paris. Surely this time I’d be going forwards, carriage 1 must lead, carriage 14 must follow. No, again I’m going backwards. Carriage 1 is the tail. I’m going backwards and on the opposite side to the view. How. You’ve just got to laugh. An old lady sat down beside me and was talking to me in French, I said, desolee je ne parle pas Francois tres bien. Sorry my French isn’t very good. She kept talking to me in French. I think she was convinced she should be in my seat. Her daughter came over, and shook her head, no that lady (meaning me) is in the right seat.

However I am impressed with the efficiency of the trains. We were scheduled to leave Paris at 8:21am, which I thought was strangely specific, but to the exact second, we left at 8:21am. And again now, scheduled 5:58am, left 5:58am. We hurtle along at about 300km/h, the French countryside stretching out, waking up, the dew drying in the sun, the flowers opening, just as they have been for the last few thousand years.

Halfway through the trip she came and took her proper seat, but before sitting down she let our two loud and very smelly farts. Bonjour to you too.

I sit now outside the train station in Lyon watching the cobbles chew the wheels of suitcases. I’m getting used to liminal spaces. I enjoy people-watching more than my phone. I like the feel of the cool wind and the warm sun. I’m beginning to like that chatter I can’t understand, because so much still said as three little girls and their mum blow dozens of farewell kisses over their shoulder to their waving dad outside the station. So much is said in tone and body language and smiles and tears.

Day: 14

Location: Monte Carlo, Monaco

Weather: Hot!

If a foosball table in the train station and free public toilets doesn’t scream, WELCOME TO MONACO! I don’t know what does.

Monte Carlo is asleep, I walk down one empty street after another. The sun blazes at 9am. I wind past the Hermitage and two Ferraris parked out front, I walk past the Monte Carlo Casino, I walk past Audis and McClarens, and I find myself again heading in the direction of the ocean. It’s more beautiful than any building, deeper and richer too. What car, what casino can produce over 50% of the world’s oxygen. It covers about 70% of the earth’s surface. 80% of it is still unmapped and unexplored. To dip below the surface is to discover a world of skyscraper pinnacles with fish swarming in shoals around them, a moray eel pops from the side, vast forests of kelp sway on the ocean floor, a whole society, a whole city exists in the shadow of an offshore island. You float with the current, you slow your breathing, you are completely at ease with the world. All fears, all expectations, all made up things slip away. This is real life.

I take my time walking to the Monte Carlo Country Club to watch the tennis. My eyes sweep the tall buildings stretching from the sea to the cliff. I wonder if the place feels empty because it’s full of wealthy people in various fields — business, sport, the likes — that spent most of their time on the road. How many apartments are empty? It feels like I’m in a strange futuristic film, and I can’t work out if it’s a utopia or a dystopia. The paths are clean, there are expansive glass buildings on piles by the sea, a walkway the width of a paddock runs beneath them. People walk little fluffy dogs, sausage dogs, and chihuahuas in vests. I feel uneasy. This feels too fake, too showy. But I know looks aren’t everything, you can’t judge someone scruffy by their clothes, maybe I can’t judge a well dressed person with a rat-dog either. I haven’t had a conversation with them. They could be kind.

I arrive to the tennis. I think I might be the only one in sandals, but I’m happy as, why is everyone in shoes? It’s hot. I sit next to a couple from Cannes, one is Irish the other Belgian. We share snacks and talk. A German father and son sit on the other side of me, they ask to borrow my sunblock halfway through the day. The dad missed the mark though and was still slightly pink by the end of the day. He laughed. You form a little club with the people you sit next to at tennis for 9 hours. 10:30am-7:30pm. Utter bliss. The sea stretched behind the courts, the orange clay glowed in the spring sun — though it felt like summer. We agreed we must have had the best matches of the day, a couple of almost three hour long games. One player threw up on the side of the court partway through, some officials had to come and mop it up. They chucked the towels in a bag and walked off. Nava wiped his mouth, then played a few more games before winning the match. Life must be strange on the road, travelling with a couple of coaches, maybe a partner if you’re lucky. Week after week, court after court, you’d have to love the process to get satisfaction out of it. I admire them — sometimes I wish I had dedicated myself to sport more, but I didn’t like the process enough, the small tweaks, the slow grind. I like it more now, showing up to train, I wish I had that want when I was younger. But I think my strengths lie elsewhere — storytelling — writing, photography. I love the process of those, to sit down with a blank piece of paper and a pen is heaven, to pour over pages making tweaks is thrilling. To sit for hours with my camera is meditative, and hours editing is satisfying. I took many photos, imagining for a second I was living my dream of being a pro sports photographer. The world wouldn’t be so interesting if we all wanted to be F1 drivers or star tennis players. Maybe I’m just finding excuses for what I now think was a wasted opportunity, if I wanted to go all the way in a sport, the support was there. Have I squandered it? But one cannot live in a place of regret, it doesn’t do any good. Take the reminder to grab life’s opportunities and run with them, then let go of the guilt. I think I’m trying to convince myself more than you. There are sacrifices at the top level. And I admire them for making that decision. It makes watching them all the more special, knowing they have lived lives where tennis has trumped difficult or brilliant family moments, other opportunities, freedom of the anonymous.

Groups of children from local tennis clubs watch, each clutching their precious rackets. When greatness is right in front of you does it help you believe that it’s possible for you too? Like the children at the Louvre, do they see great art firsthand and absorb some of its greatness? But kiwis perform on the world stage. And we are so so far from everything. Does it come instead from a relentless grit, a number 8 wire mentality? Finding a way because trial is normal, struggle is part of the parcel when the world isn’t on your doorstep.

There was a lady, friendly as anything, cleaning the bathroom and toilets under one of the grandstands. She was there when I went in the morning, and again that evening. I asked if she got a lunch break, ‘usually, but they forgot today. The things we do for the love of tennis.’ She smiled and taught me some more French, I can now count to twenty instead of just ten. She had music playing and ladies in the line were dancing. If you weren’t smiling when you entered, you definitely were by the time you left. She pulled the paper towels out for me so I didn’t have to. And when I asked whether the tap water was safe to drink, she said, ‘you’re in Monaco baby’. She had a tip box so I gave her a tip. It’s people like this that make the world go round and make it a better place. She’s not on court, she’s not driving players around, she’s under the stands cleaning toilets but has the biggest grin on her face and made the thousands that passed through those bathrooms smile too. For every famous athlete or singer or actor, there are dozens if not hundreds of people in their orbit making what they do possible, they are often humble, kind, and selfless. They are the ones with the keys to the world.

I watched the world number three Alexander Zverev and his doubles partners cane their opponents. It was magic. My day was complete.

I walked back to the train station in the soft evening light. No clouds, just the gentle lowering of a pastel blind down the sky. I walked past people dining on the promenade, I walked past Alex de Minaur dining on the promenade. He’s ranked sixth in the world for tennis. I glanced briefly and saw him laughing with some people I guessed were family. No one bothered him. Are there famous people down every street here?

The train took me home happy and tired — the kind where you’ve had a little too much sun, but never too much tennis.