February 20 – 24, 2014
Our first couple of days having a car in Tauranga were spent shopping, doing errands, and revisiting a couple of our favorite spots. One exciting new thing we came across was the Gourmet Night Market, a weekly Friday evening event that takes place during the summer.
We headed over around 5:30pm, trying to get ahead of the crowd, and were rather overwhelmed by the choices. Finally we settled on steak sandwiches with horseradish sauce, followed by Coromandel mussels served in a creamy wine sauce (these may have been the best mussels we’ve ever had). After that there were Chinese dumplings before finishing the evening with Dutch ice cream. Meanwhile live music played, and by the time we left, there was a pretty big crowd.
What a fun event this was, but as we headed off, leaving the festivities behind us, we both started feeling a little off.
One of the things that comes with this lifestyle is repeatedly experiencing the feeling of being an endless visitor. There are flip sides to this coin. The upside is that there’s so much novelty, which makes this life frequently interesting and gives it a spark. The downside is that we often feel like outsiders, ghostly observers hovering about the edges of a picture instead of being inside it. This feeling passes with enough time in a given place, but initially it can be accompanied by a mild depression.
We both started to feel this after the food truck event. Maybe it was being in such a festive atmosphere and knowing no one. Then arriving back at the marina to see the tight-knit Friday happy hour crowd partying. We missed our friends and the community we’d been a part of in Auckland, and it would take some time to feel a part of this one again.
Still, feeling like outsiders was only a part of this. A larger part was what we call post-project depression. We’ve noticed this happens when one or both of us achieves a big goal. There’s so much mental and physical energy that builds up to the event that no matter how arduous the process or desired the accomplishment, life can feel like a deflating balloon once it’s done. In this case the goals achieved had included cruising the Hauraki Gulf, moving to Tauranga, and retrieving our car.
Rich bounced back pretty quickly, but over the next few mornings I’d open my eyes and find the depression still lingering. Like a cat waiting for me to wake up, it was just there. I was in one of those loops where I had a lot to do but couldn’t seem to get anything done. I was feeling blocked on stuff I was doing for the blog, then the road trip plans were proving overwhelming. I’d tried to organize a first trip only to realize I’d need to figure out all of them in order to make the pieces fit into a cohesive overall plan.
So often the way to break out of a rut is to just take a step, any step, even if it’s not exactly right. I was making yet another stab at figuring out a trip for us which could begin with a stop Rotorua, only 50 minutes away. In an effort to be helpful, Rich found a great hotel deal on Wot If, the travel site we were using at the time. I hadn’t actually planned on spending the night, but it might make things easier. I asked him if we could parlay this into a longer trip. He said sure, but it turned out he was thinking 2 nights in Rotorua while I was thinking of a multi-day road trip to other areas. Once we got that cleared up, Rich said he really wanted to get back quickly and get started on some projects.
It was at this point the realization hit me that we could do most of these trips in a series of two- or three-day stints. It would mean a fair amount of extra driving overall, but taking on that inconvenience would clear up a couple of other challenges, the biggest of which was sticker shock.
Inexpensive yet nice hotels in New Zealand can be hard to find. At this point in our travels, we were finding great deals on a site called Wot If, which showed a month’s worth of prices all at once. It’s amazing how much the price would drop if one was willing to just pick a week earlier or later, or even just a day earlier or later. By limiting our destinations, I could pick days with reasonable prices and as a bonus, do it during nice weather.
This would end up being our method of travel not just for this season, but for all of our travel since then. (Note: We no longer use Wot If, which changed. Instead we start with Google, then use sites like Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com, etc., to find the deal that works best for us.)
So, we booked a night in Rotorua. It didn’t seem like much compared to the list of places I hoped to visit, but by making a list of more things I hoped to do there (I say “more” because we did stuff there the previous year), I felt uplifted, hopeful, and happy. Small steps can mean a lot.
Meanwhile, one afternoon during the period when we were both feeling down, I thought a trip to the beach might help. We went and found the surf was up. We walked along the beach and watched the surfers, and by the time we were done both of us felt uplifted. Sometimes a great way to feel better is to get out in nature for awhile. –Cyndi
(Click to enlarge any of the photos in the gallery below.)
