At 4 o’clock on this summery Saturday, the Waihekeans welcomed Christmas with drums and bugles, homemade floats, bellydancers, Saint Nick, and other festive spectacles.
Since the island hosts only about 7,000 residents, the procession (which most anyone can enter) lasted only 25 minutes. Clearly, that’s not long enough for a grand parade. So they simply circled around and marched up the street again!
We’re on sabbatical, yes. But it’s also a working holiday, if such a thing is possible. Our business (purveying ideas and words) is quite portable, so we have taken the liberty, once again, of testing the limits of its mobility. (To read about the last time we did this, in 1994, click on Past Travels in the lower left of this page.)
When we left home a month ago, we brought our Powerbook and a handful of projects: a major tradeshow that needed a theme; a website we wrote a few years back that required a complete overhaul; and a few other loose ends we didn’t get sewn up before we departed. Three adapter plugs later, we’ve almost finished them all. And already have a few more on the docket.
Of course, working around the world isn’t as blissful as the IBM commercials would have you believe. There have been the requisite technical difficulties and disasters—chronicled earlier in this travelogue. But there are also formidable psychological challenges to contend with.
There is the lure of lounging and leisure—being practiced by most everyone around you wherever you go. There are the endless temptations of whatever novel place you’re in. It can be torture to tether yourself to a laptop in a cold spare bedroom when a crashing surf or village churchbells are calling. Or to try to work on the kitchen table when a sleep- and child-deprived 3-year-old is shoving a baseball card in your face or driving a toy Jeep up your arm.
Working on 777s, in hotel rooms, on cedar decks, and terracotta terraces is both glamorous and grueling. Yes, it is better that toiling in a cubicle. But it is still work, and—just like at home—you’d often rather be doing something else.
Yet there are times when sitting down to work is a comforting return to the familiar and mundane. It’s a welcome escape from surly clerks, stale croissants, and incessant drizzle. Working gives a traveler a justifiable reason to opt out, skip a side trip, and get a little privacy and P&Q. But that’s the bright side. Mostly, working on a trip like this is a strenuous exercise in discipline and concentration.
Nonetheless, we feel privileged that our work can accompany us wherever we go. And that our clients are willing to do the same. We are humbled by their enthusiasm and trust, and grateful that they put up with the inconveniences that invariably accompany a journey of this kind. In that sense, we are not on this adventure alone. In some small measure, they, too, are travelling the world with us. As are you, dear reader. And to steal a slogan, we sincerely hope you enjoy the ride.
The people on this island must love their gardening; greenery and colors dominate the landscape here. Of course, given the virtual tropical climate, perhaps the plants grow themselves.
That’s certainly true with the pohutukawa tree (shown here) which, according to locals, releases its red flowers before Christmas when the summer ahead will be a long, warm one. They’re blooming now—as are hundreds of other plants, some of which we recognize and many we don’t.
The most confounding thing, though, is the lack of fauna (critters). We’ve seen only one wild four-legged creature since we’ve been here—don’t know what it was. There’s nary an alley cat. And hardly any bugs, either. In Minnesota, you need to watch your step to avoid tripping over the squirrels, rabbits, and other rampant rodentia. What gives? Who knows? But after screaming for years at varmint that do big damage to gardens, homes, and sanity, this respite is as welcome as the buds and the blooms.
When we left Kuala Lumpur, the rain was pouring down, and the evening traffic was barely moving. It was also raining in Auckland, NZ, when we landed the next day (as if we bring our own clouds).
We meandered through the city to the port on a shuttle bus, and then boarded a ferry. Less than an hour later, we were on the island of Waiheke and in our home for the next two months. It’s summer here. The flowers and green are aglow all over. The first impressions left us glowing too. It’s good to be “home,” whatever that means. We’ll soon find out.
1 kid, 5 islands, 69 days
Here's my son’s blog from an '08/09 BreakAway in the Caribbean.
1 planet, countless cultures, 120 days
In 00/01, when the internet was a pup, I went RTW and posted these words and pics en route.
