How do you sum up 3 months + of experiences? With great difficulty!
Over 30,000 miles by air, more than 5000 on the ground; 94 days of exploring using most types of transport (except rockets!)
The title for this blog was easy – it came to me about a month into the holiday – probably because I’d used the word “awesome” rather too often by then! But you see, awe and wonder were very much the emotions that filled us as we saw so many beautiful, rare and wild aspects of God’s incredible creation.
Our main aim had been to spend a good amount of time in New Zealand – and we certainly did that. However, there are still things we’d love to have seen that we didn’t get to – so we have the excuse (and the invitations) to return. We’ll have to start saving up again! But we were blessed with so many sights, sounds and smells, so many friends along the way that it’s probably the people we met, whose lives touched ours, that will stay with us longest.
We’d always intended to camp a reasonable amount of our time in NZ – we were fortunate to have such good weather that it meant we could camp far longer than we intended. In turn this meant, of course, that we had more opportunities to meet people than we would otherwise have had.
There are, of course, scenes that will stay with us too – Mt Cook in a crystal clear blue sky – the deep turquoise of the hanging glaciers, the peace and stillness of Doubtful Sound, the diving of a whale, and dolphins swimming with us and only inches below. But how can you forget Langa Township and the harshness of Robben Island? I think the brain will be in “overload mode” for a good few weeks yet.
What will we take out of the experience? Hopefully a wider, more understanding view of the way the worldand it's people work, and a deeper appreciation of the relative luxury and comfort in which we are privileged to live. Also, the feeling that we may have “lost something” when it comes to spiritual connection with the Creator and His creation. Those with nothing seemed to have a better connection no matter which country they called home. It is the antithesis of the issues we had with the internet in New Zealand. We had everything we needed but couldn’t always make the man made things work!
Finally, read Psalm 104 written in the 3rd century BC or before. The psalmist had so much to say about the world in which we live. Let us all open our eyes and our minds to what a blessing we have been given in this fragile earth. We are stewards of His Kingdom and we , as the school teacher has need to say “could do better”. Nuf Sed!
Our main aim had been to spend a good amount of time in New Zealand – and we certainly did that. However, there are still things we’d love to have seen that we didn’t get to – so we have the excuse (and the invitations) to return. We’ll have to start saving up again! But we were blessed with so many sights, sounds and smells, so many friends along the way that it’s probably the people we met, whose lives touched ours, that will stay with us longest.
We’d always intended to camp a reasonable amount of our time in NZ – we were fortunate to have such good weather that it meant we could camp far longer than we intended. In turn this meant, of course, that we had more opportunities to meet people than we would otherwise have had.
There are, of course, scenes that will stay with us too – Mt Cook in a crystal clear blue sky – the deep turquoise of the hanging glaciers, the peace and stillness of Doubtful Sound, the diving of a whale, and dolphins swimming with us and only inches below. But how can you forget Langa Township and the harshness of Robben Island? I think the brain will be in “overload mode” for a good few weeks yet.
What will we take out of the experience? Hopefully a wider, more understanding view of the way the worldand it's people work, and a deeper appreciation of the relative luxury and comfort in which we are privileged to live. Also, the feeling that we may have “lost something” when it comes to spiritual connection with the Creator and His creation. Those with nothing seemed to have a better connection no matter which country they called home. It is the antithesis of the issues we had with the internet in New Zealand. We had everything we needed but couldn’t always make the man made things work!
Finally, read Psalm 104 written in the 3rd century BC or before. The psalmist had so much to say about the world in which we live. Let us all open our eyes and our minds to what a blessing we have been given in this fragile earth. We are stewards of His Kingdom and we , as the school teacher has need to say “could do better”. Nuf Sed!
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