I had woken up about about 5 o'clock - probably the first time since the road trips as a child I used to take, what, 10 years ago? I had not seen Dad since then, nor much of my family down south since then. To be perfectly honest, I had barely left Auckland since then. I wasn't accustomed to waking up this early, but it was enough that I look forward to the sun rising upon Rural New Zealand. We were leaving from Glenfield, North Shore, Auckland. This home of ours, where we moved to at the start of 2013, was bought by our grandparents. It wasn't quite Torbay, where I had grown up, as the silence of night had been replaced by applied exhausts and police sirens. We were heading to Wellington, the capital city I had never seen before. What memories did I have beyond Auckland? Besides a few road trips to Foxton or Northland to see grandparents. We weren't going out with the exact intention of seeing relatives - we were interested in seeing an exhibition at Te Papa museum, although I knew somehow I'd end up seeing Dad, somewhere along the way. I find that the journey is the greater reward than the destination, and I never think too much about where I'm going. If anything, I am always a little saddened to reach the end of any journey. I don't think about it too much, instead resigning myself to enjoy the scenery and take photographs where I can. I wasn't thinking about where I would stay or what I would do, and I certainly didn't predict that the exhibition would be very average, but the experience of meeting family members I hadn't seen in 10 years or more, or those I had never met at all, would make this trip to Wellington so memorable.
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| Into the Stratosphere |
