First Overnight Road Trip - 3rd - 4th June 2018

This weekend, my brother (Camilo) and I decided to go on a road trip over the long weekend. Our aim was to apply a few principles from what we have been reading:

1. Vagabonding - go unplanned (didn't know where the journey would take us)
2. Stoicism - I followed a ritual that Tim Ferris advices based on stoicism, which was to put myself in the lowest position possible for three days (consisting of eating only the cheapest of foods, wearing the most minimal clothes e.g. track pants and a jumper, and sleeping in an uncomfortable location (which in our case was the car)) while all the time asking "is this the condition I so feared. He recommends to do this so that the person is able to put themselves in the position they greatly fear and realise it is not so bad.
3. Camilo decided to do a 24 hour fast from Sunday 10am to Monday 10am.

So on Sunday, we woke up and looked out to the rain, deciding we would head where the rain wasn't. So we searched up the nearest location where this was which directed us North, and that's exactly where we headed.

After a half an hour drive North on the Motorway, we decided it was time to explore (we weren't going to find something exciting on the usual route). We we drove, we saw a sign that said Algies Bay, and since we had reached a space on no rain we decided to follow the sign and chill at the beach for some time.

The beach turned out to be beautiful. Near the shore was a blanket of brown (assuming from the mud and sad that had deposited from the rain), but out further was a beautiful emerald blue.

We decided to head over to the look out fro here. So got out and walked to where the sign posted. Here, we reached a beautiful hidden spot where there were no people around, but there were... donkeys?! Never had I seen such friendly donkeys around, it was an awesome discovery.

We also came across a magnetic tree, that as you stood under and looked up, it hypnotised you with its magnificent beauty of nature.

Camilo then remembered a beautiful beach he had once been to, near Tawharanui Regional Park which was not far. We both thought, why not, and decided to hear there. It was the perfect decision. The beach is not made up of sand, but of different size stones. Ranging from ones as large as your face, to small pebbles. The waves crashing were like nothing I've ever heard before. You could hear them tumbling the hundreds of rocks around as it went in, and out. Here, take a listen for yourself:

Here we sat for an hour, Camilo reading his book and me gazing up at the sky thinking "How have I not done this earlier". New Zealand is full of beautiful places, and this one was just around the corner from my house.

It started getting late, so Cam and I decided we wanted to drive out and see the sunset from a high mountain. As we drive we came up to multiple landslides that the rain had caused, had to do a three point turn (more like a 20 point turn) in a narrow mountain path as we couldn't get past a landslide, and led us back down the mountain. 

We pared outside of a Town Hall, and to my dismay I fell asleep at 6pm!

In the middle of the night, I was dreaming and suddenly there was loud music and singing in my dream. I woke up to realise it wasn't a dream, but actually a car that had parked next to us in the middle the night, in which where four large men drinking and singing loudly. As Cam slept next to me, I sat there in silence waiting for them to leave. I did this for a couple of minutes, until suddenly I felt them knocking on the car, and then trying to open the car doors. I quickly woke Camilo up and told him to drive, quickly! He slowly woke up, trying to make sense of what was happening. As soon as the men saw someone moving in the car they immediately jumped back into the car and sped off. 

Due to the lack of food the next morning (surviving off beans and rice isn't the most energy rich way to live), we decided to head home and our awesome journey came to an end. 

So out of this weird experience, there are some lessons I learnt:

1. It's fun at the beginning to not have a place to go to, it feels adventurous. But after a while, you realise you're just lost, and using your time up with decisions that have no real purpose. I learnt that next time I would like to have at least a proximate end point, but enjoy the journey on the way.

2. The funnest times where when we actually got out of the car and out of our comfort zone, this is where the experiences happen. Next time, I will strive to get OUT and go SLOW to experience more.

3. New Zealand is ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL. As people who live here every day, we should take more days out to explore the beautiful locations we have around. Even drives 1 hour from Auckland can bring a great adventure.