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The Welsh have a saying ‘Dod yn ôl a fy nghoed’ which literally translates to, ‘To return to your woods.’ This saying embodies the sense of returning to a safe place and reclaiming peace of mind and calm. This is how it feels. Coming back here has given me a deep sense of belonging and a feeling that I can finally rest for a while.

And not only have I returned to my woods, I think I may have finally found my waka, in the shape of a coastal Celtic longboat.

So, this is where my story moves out of Act One (the bike ride) and into Act Two (finding my waka).

More coming soon, my friends…

Day forty-seven

I wake at 4:30 am in Jerantut. I haven’t slept well. The room smells of old cigarette smoke, the bed is lumpy, and through my earplugs I’ve heard the man in the room next door clearing his throat with loud guttural hacks all night.

My belly has an ominous dull ache, and after a week of tenderness I know what’s happening. Code red.

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I wake at 6am. I remove my earplugs, letting in the sound of the air-conditioning. I’m comfortable here in my little Airbnb room on the 32nd floor of the Riveria Tower block. The noise of the relentless traffic outside is already in full swing, so I ease myself out of bed, flick on the kettle, and open the curtains to darkness across Kuala Lumpur.

This morning I have errands to do, mostly involving laundry. I leave my room barefoot, and take the lift to the rooftop terrace, still in my pyjamas. The pool on floor 53A is empty, and I’m the only person there. I take photographs of the view and stand there gawking at the buildings and the traffic rushing past in the dark.

From the rooftop, I take the lift down one floor and check out the co-working space and the gym, discovering to my dismay that I can’t even do one pull-up. Something else to work on at some point in my future. Perhaps one day I’ll be a middle-aged gym bunny.

I take the lift again, down to floor 30 and the row of laundry machines. I haven’t seen a washing machine since I left New Zealand and I feel a thrill at the thought of clean clothes, but I need the right Malaysian currency to get the coins to switch the machines on, so first thing I need to go to the shops to buy some breakfast and get some change.

The morning passes with laundry and planning and catching up with friends online.  I decide not to trek across the city to try to get a China visa, but will wing it with the 30 day visa-free exemption for New Zealanders. And if that doesn’t work, I guess I’ll change plans. I’m beginning to lose my grip on having to complete plan A, and I think that’s a good thing.

I eventually leave the apartment at 3 pm after a swim in the rooftop pool and my clothes freshly laundered. They all look reasonably clean, except for the sun-sleeves which were once white and are now still a grubby shade of brown with stains from a pen that leaked that first week and from the leaky fruit incident. My knickers suddenly seem to be falling apart too – as though my clothes from my old life are giving up on me.

I head to KL Sentral monorail station, where the young man at the ticket office sells me a Touch ‘n’ Go card. Then I hop on the next train to Bukit Bintang where Anna recommended I should go for street food. I’m not really hungry but I remind myself I have to eat. It’s only a few stops to where I’m going, and the train is busy with teenagers in school uniform – the girls in white blouses and turquoise pinafores, the boys in white shits and pants. They stare at their phones in tight huddles as the train moves between stations.

It’s not long until we’re at my stop and I successfully negotiate the exit gates, out into the bustling city centre. I don’t look at Google maps. I don’t care which direction I’m going. I’m just thrilled to be here. In the middle of Kuala Lumpur. I wander down the streets, surrounded by buildings that stretch to the sky, advertising hoardings flashing. I wander into the cool air conditioning of a mall. Everything is shiny and clean and expensive-looking. For a moment, I just stand there, feeling dazed by it all. The newness the wealth. It’s like Jakarta’s rich uncle has just turned up and is making a point.

I finally switch on my app and start to navigate my way to the street food place, ducking down the backroads where I can. Here, things aren’t so polished. There’s durian skins in the gutters and street-food carts selling chicken wings. Wandering through the streets, I feel content – all this newness is invigorating, but part of me wishes I had someone to share it with.

The street Anna recommended is famous in KL – Japan Alor – lined with food vendor with red Chinese lanterns strung across between the buildings. I have a mango and dragonfruit juice, then wander through the street, looking at all the different foods on offer – whole squid on sticks ready to be grilled, chicken legs and feet, crates full of rambutans and durian.

As I finish my drink and turn around to head back up Jalan Alor, something catches my eye on the ground. A playing card. The seven of hearts. Just there.

I’m not particularly superstitious but this feels like a message. I pick it up and tuck it in my bag, wondering what the universe is trying to tell me.

On my way back through the stalls, I sample the Stinky Tofu. According to Google Stinky Tofu is made by fermenting tofu for several months until it develops a thick black crust. It’s then deep fried and served with fermented cabbage. It doesn’t smell too bad to me, and it tastes reasonably bland. The cabbage has more flavour as well as a bit of a kick. Legend says that the legendary stinky tofu was invented in China during the Qing Dynasty – a merchant accidentally left a batch to ferment for months, then decided try eating it, and it had a funky flavour which he kind of liked.

After the tofu, I’m ready to head back to the hotel – it’s been a quiet day, but perhaps that’s what I needed. On the way home I pop into Decathlon in the mall and buy myself new UV sleevies to replace the white ones I brought from New Zealand, as well as a replacement sunhat and new knickers. Living the dream!

That evening a friend who’s going through some life changes of their own, messages me. I know it’s cliché but I’ve been a bit lost lately. I want to find fulfilment and find someone who really wants me.

I reply, Fulfilment is a big ask.

Because it is. We can’t expect a journey or a partner or anything in life to fulfil us. We need to find that within ourselves. We need to find our own sense of meaning and direction, whatever that is. Right now, I have no idea what fulfilment looks like, and I hope I’ll recognise when it arrives.

I reply. I’ve been paying attention to the little things. A nice cup of coffee, a smile from a stranger, an unexpectedly good view.

One good moment every day. Isn’t that all we need? Is that enough to feel fulfilled?

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Today is horrible, horrendous, the worst from start to finish. I wake at 4:23 am do Wordle, pack my bike and leave the backpackers on the backstreet in Bandung, glad that my stay there was only for one night. Perhaps I’m getting too old for shared bathrooms and thin mattresses. At 5 am, with my lights on, I head out into the traffic, hoping that it’s quieter at this time in the morning, than yesterday afternoon.

It’s not.

My route takes me out of town along the main roads, and by 6 am the streets are already packed with scooters, local mini-buses, and trucks. I tell myself that the traffic will only be bad for the first ten or twenty kilometres until I’m out of town.

I’m wrong.

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I wake at 12:30 – just after midnight. I don’t do Wordle because there’s still no wifi in my tiny, wooden, garden cabin. I use the bathroom, then fall back into a dreamy sleep, comfortable and enjoying a few hours of un-stressed time. It feels like a luxury to be able to doze like this, even though it’s the middle of the night.

My alarm goes off at 4:30 am and I reluctantly crawl out of bed, make a cup of tea, and slowly pack my bike. I wander down to the restaurant, perched out over the river in three layers on rickety decks. Right now, it’s pitch dark. Below me I can hear the water rushing past – the river that had rafts floating down it yesterday afternoon with Indonesian tourists having the time of their lives.

I wouldn’t go into that river by choice – the rubbish in there and the run-off from drains makes my stomach turn. You can tell a lot about a country by the state of its rivers, and here they look sad, polluted and grey. I help myself to some yoghurt and muesli from the fridge in the bar, as arranged last night. I hoped there would be a pre-prepared bowl with my name on it, but there isn’t.

By 5:15 am I’m pulling out on my bike. I glance down the track towards the restaurant one last time and spot one of the members of staff – an older guy wearing a red t-shirt. I wave and call out Goodbye. He says something back in Indonesian, so I ride up the bumpy track to the main road and turn left into the morning traffic.

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Just a few hundred metres later, the guy in the red t-shirt catches me up on a motor-scooter. He waves and pulls me over. When I’ve stopped by the side of the road, he hands me a plastic bag with a tub of fruit, yoghurt and muesli. I try to explain that I’ve already eaten, but lack of language on both our parts gets in the way, so I thank him, take the tub, and tuck it into my panniers for later.

My route takes me back out past Borobudur temple, and I think of all the people up there, watching the sun rise through the thick layers of smog. The pollution seems worse than usual this morning – the sun a ball of orange long after it’s risen.

I take the back road towards Wonosobo, a road that is full of steep ups and downs, and I soon get tired of changing down into first gear for every steep pinch. My legs quickly tire too. My stomach still isn’t right and my muscles are probably low on fuel.

The road winds through rice paddies, scrappy forest and little towns. Even though we’re climbing, the air quality doesn’t improve at all, with anything beyond the first couple of ridges disappearing into haze.

I’m passed by trucks belching out exhaust fumes, and I pass rubbish fires, stubble fires in crop fields, and timber yards processing tree-trunks, spewing out great plumes of smoke as they burn off the waste. This place could be so beautiful. Imagine sunrise at Borobudur and Prambanan with clear skies and views across to the volcanos. Imagine the forest without the haze. Imagine being able to see the stars.

Two hours in, I stop at a roadside shelter to eat my second breakfast of fruit and yoghurt. I programme my navigation to a place marked as tea gardens which look like a great place to stop before I have to decide if I head north up to the volcanic plateau, with a 1500 metre climb, or continue west towards Jakarta.

I ride through more towns, past more rice paddies. In one town, I pass the town domain where a group of middle-aged women, all wearing red and white are doing an exercise class. I stop and watch for a while, as they stretch sideways, wondering if I could join in, but I don’t. It’s gentle exercise – not quite Tai Chi but something close. They breathe in, reaching for the sky, and I breath in too. Then they breathe out, and I can feel my shoulders relax as I follow their cue.

I’m at the tea gardens by 8 am, and I pull off the road. There’s nobody at the ticket desk, the only people around are a group of three guys busy sweeping up leaves from the paths, preparing for opening, whenever that is.

I let myself through the entrance, and park my bike next to a wooden picnic bench. The guys look at me, puzzled, but nobody comes over to tell me to leave, so I leave my bike alone, and walk up the hill amongst the tea plants. I’ve never seen tea growing before. The neatly trimmed shrubs have large gloss green leaves. I tear off a corner of a leaf, and sniff it. But nothing about it smells of tea, not even like green tea.  But it’s nice there – peaceful away from the traffic – and I spend a contended half hour, wandering though the plantation, with the place to myself.

After some more snacks, and plenty of photographs I return to my bike and we push on.

It’s not far down the road until we get to the junction where I have to decide if I go up to the plateau or not. I dither. I make a decision to go one way, then I change my mind, then I start pedalling uphill, then I tell myself not to be stupid – I’m still recovering from food poisoning, I’m tired – so I turn around again and head west towards Jakarta.

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I wake at 3:53 am, my arms numb from the lumpy mattress in the budget family hotel next to the water park. The whole room stinks of the air-freshener balls in the bathroom – an overpowering smell of camphor attempting to drown out the stench of open drains.

My guts churn in a way they shouldn’t.

I try to go back to sleep, but my insides won’t sit still. At 4:20 am, I make a dash for the bathroom, grabbing the box of tissues from my bedside table on the way, and only just make it in time for my guts to empty themselves of everything I’ve eaten in the last 36 hours.

I sit on the white plastic toilet in the tiny grey-tiled bathroom that stinks of drains and air-freshener, my head in my hands. This can’t be happening. Not now. Not today. In my head,I run through the food I’ve eaten in the last two days – the rice and vegetable dinner last night, the iced tea at the roadside warung, the eggs and rice for breakfast yesterday morning, the prawn that tasted a bit off at dinner the night before? That would be it.  I only took one bite then spat it out, but perhaps that’s enough.

Miserable, and sore inside, I pack my bike. I’m awake. I’ve got a 120 kilometre day ahead of me to my next digs, and despite my guts, there’s no way I’m staying here.

By 5:07 am my bike and I are on the road. My rear light isn’t working because I forgot to charge it last night, and I feel vulnerable as well as sick as I ride off towards the first climb of the day.

Good moments of today:
The downhill after the first climb with beautiful sweeping bends through the forest.
Taking a shortcut to avoid the centre of Ponorogo and going through backstreets and rice paddies.
Stopping at a gorgeous warung, even though it was closed, and still enjoying the views across the rice fields.
Having an iced tea 12 kilometres out from my digs, with an owner who took my photo for publicity, with a hand-written sign saying something in Indonesian, something probably like Look at this crazy white woman cycling through the midday sun, stopping to drink my iced tea – so refreshing!
Chatting to friends back home on txt – reading messages of encouragement and support.

Not so good moments:
Really sore guts, as in I’m not sure I should be riding today.
Too many bad public toilets – I’m talking about squat toilets with no running water and nowhere to wash your hands afterwards. Thank goodness for hand sanitiser.
Saddle sores getting worse all day, exasperated by my dodgy guts.
Changing out of my bike shorts by the side of the road – I hid behind a tree, waited for a pause in the traffic, whipped my bike shorts off and my hiking shorts on.  
That moment on the hundredth uphill pinch, which must have been at an angle of about 18 degrees, in the heat of the midday sun, when I actually felt as though I was about to die – dehydration, aching legs, over-heating, just leave me here by the side of the road and let the vultures pick my carcass clean.
Nothing to eat all day because my body doesn’t want me to put food inside.
Cheap dodgy accommodation tonight which also stinks of those moth-balls, covering up the smell of dodgy drains, the hard bed, the grey prison-like walls, the air-conditioning unit that rattles as though its on it’s last legs, the thin stained duvet with no top sheet.

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I wake at 4:35 am, and I’m not sure if that’s an improvement on 3 am. It’s too early got get up, too late to go back to sleep.  I roll over, feeling sad and lost and lonely. What am I even doing here? I know that my low mood is partly due to hunger and exhaustion. Something that only rest and food can fix.

We did 100 kilometres yesterday, and finished with a steep hill up to last night’s digs – a little hut perched on the hillside overlooking Banjuwedang. The sounds of mosques and music have been drifting up the hillside all night, along with the smoke from the village fires. The views are amazing, but it isn’t exactly peaceful.

I make a cup of tea, then me and my bike have a heat-to-heart conversation about distances.

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Day ten

Today is a good day. I wake at 5:14 am – my alarm still ringing on the pillow next to me. I can hardly believe I’ve slept a whole night without waking. I pull out my earplugs, switch my alarm off and flick on the light. I can hear the sea outside, gently lapping the shore.

I feel hot and dehydrated after my night in this tiny bamboo cabin with no air conditioning, and I haven’t even started cycling yet. I ease out from behind the mosquito net, barefoot on the bamboo floor. I grab a glass of water, wishing I could make a cup of tea, then I pack by the light of my head-torch, stumbling down the steep wooden steps off the tiny verandah with my gear to my bike which is waiting under a tree, itching to get going already.

Last night at the campfire, Wayan told me that he’d grown up on this beach, that he watches the sunrise every morning.

‘I watch sunrise from my place at home every morning too,’ I said. I love a good sunrise. But I don’t have time to hang around this morning. I’m heading north. I leave just as first light breaks over the sea, the first glimmers of grey and orange tinting the horizon with the silhouette of Lombok in the distance.

Out on the road, it’s quiet, with just a few scooters zipping past. As I head downhill, I hit one of those rough patches where the road has worn away and there are potholes in the tarmac. Bali seems to be full of these holes and gravel patches – usually on a tight corner at the bottom of a sweeping downhill. This morning I hit a pothole harder than I’d like and my bike thumps. I swear at the road, then immediately thank my bike for being robust enough to go anywhere. Gravel bikes are a miracle – sleek and fast, with enough gears to get up almost any hill and robust enough to deal with potholes like that one. I ride on, the day growing lighter all the time, and full of optimism for the day ahead. I can just tell it’s going to be good. It’s going to be a good day.

Then I glance down at my front wheel. One of my panniers has gone. Completely gone.

I skid to a stop. My pannier has gone. My front pannier. The pannier with my iPad, my keyboard, the brand-new headphones I bought at Auckland airport just for this trip, both my passports (NZ and UK), $500 NZD in Indonesian rupees, and the sarong I want to post home.

I slam on my brakes.

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I wake abruptly from a stress dream – me meeting my ex at a Pilates class and I’m running late…

I roll over and check the time. 3:20 am. Two hours until my alarm is due to go off. I’m hot and I get up to switch on the air-conditioning, deciding I can put up with its loud hum for a few hours. In any case, I immediately decide I’m going to stay in this tropical cottage for another day. I have a heap of university marking to get through, and here is comfortable and peaceful, I may as well make the most of it.

So, instead of heading off across Lombok at 6 am, I have another rest day, luxuriating in the simple cottage in its tropical garden with ginger plants in full flower, coconut palms and banana trees. After a walk through the village, along dusty tracks, picking my way through rubbish to the beach, I spend the morning working my way through my first batch of marking – the American students who have been in Christchurch for their semester abroad experience. Their personal essays make me laugh, but they also make me realise that when we travel we’re always trying to balance that simultaneous desire for the unknown with the fear of the unknown. How much control and safety do we need, against how much uncertainty can we tolerate?

While I’m making my tenth cup of tea of the morning in the tiny shared kitchen, which is really just a covered bar leaner with a kettle, a hob and a sink, I meet a young Brazilian couple, Camilla and Fernando, who are travelling around Asia for five months. Both are toned and tanned as though they’ve spent the last five years in the gym or on the beach, like some kind of surf gods. Both have long blonde hair, though Fernando’s is piled on top of his head in dreadlocks. Next to them, I feel old and frumpily British. I make another cup of tea.

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‘I hated Bali,’ Camilla confides, as though she’s not allowed to admit it. ‘I don’t see what there is to like about it. It’s just noisy and busy. But here? Here is beautiful.’

‘There’s lots of traffic,’ I agree. But I was only there for a few days before coming to Lombok. Surely there are peaceful parts to Bali too. I hope so, I’m heading back there tomorrow.

‘When did you first arrive?’ Fernando asks, as he stirs two sugars into his black coffee, somehow managing to flex his arm muscle as he does it.

‘Nearly a week ago,’ I say, lifting my teabag out of my cup, and tidily putting it in the bin. It’s only been a week.

‘Ah,’ Camilla smiles. ‘The first week is hard. It’s always the hardest. I hated the first week too. I didn’t know what I was doing or why I was here. It gets easier.’

‘I hope so,’ I whisper under my breath, because I’m still unsure why I’m here. I leave the Brazilians making protein fruit smoothies, and planning today’s surfing adventure and return to my pile of marking, in the shade on my little wooden verandah.

Mid-afternoon, the internet falls over, putting an abrupt end to my work. I try switching the router off and back on again, but t makes no difference. I take this as a signal from the universe that it’s time to stop work for the day.

So, I pack my things away, and head down the road towards a smarter hotel closer to the beach. 

I leave the tidy confines of tropical gardens around my accommodation, and walk downhill into the village, with its open drains and plastic rubbish littering the side of the road. There’s another holiday villa, right next to the village cow pen. I pass the tiny shop, with a woman sitting brushing dust off the steps while three other women sit in the shade, watching. They all call out ‘hello,’ as I pass. A hen with a flock of chicks runs across the road. A dog, lying in the shade flicks flies away with its tail. The track is rutted and muddy and the air is full of the smell of smoke and wastewater.

Around the next corner, I duck off the dirt road, stepping over the ditch full of rubbish and stale wastewater, and in through the entrance to the hotel garden. Suddenly everything is clean and neat again. It’s a crazy juxtaposition. Village life meets tourist life. Each way of living so close but miles apart. In another ten years, I’m sure this place will be unrecognisable. If development gets its way, it will be full of sarong shops, juice bars and night-clubs, just like Kuta.

At the smart hotel I pay $10 NZ for an hour-long massage. Then I walk through the gardens with its carefully labelled trees to swim in the pool and lounge on the poolside loungers. I’m the only person there. Just me and six members of staff. And while I lounge by the pool, checking my email using their wifi, a poem by Chinese poet Tao Yuanming, arrives in my life, thanks to A poem a day from The Academy of American Poets. Here it is:

 [A long time ago]

A long time ago
I went on a journey,
Right to the corner
Of the Eastern Ocean.
The road there
Was long and winding,
And stormy waves
Barred my path.
What made me
Go this way?
Hunger drove me
Into the World.
I tried hard
To fill my belly:
And even a little
Seemed a lot.
But this was clearly
A bad bargain,
So I went home
And lived in idleness.

I don’t need to spell out why that poem spoke to me, it’s so clearly about journeys and being a different person on the other side. And, honestly, I quite like the idea of going home at some point and living in idleness for a while.

After an afternoon nap, back at my digs, and still without internet, I head out for an evening walk, to the neighbouring beach, hoping to find somewhere that isn’t littered with plastic rubbish.

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My alarm goes off at 5 am, just as the local mosques are starting up for the day. As I lie there in the utter darkness, I can pick out five seperate voices each coming from a different direction, including one voice that sounds like a child. All of them are singing a similar sequence of notes. Base note, minor third, then fourth, then fifth. I hum along for a while, enjoying the sound in the dark.

I fumble for the light switch, flick it on, but nothing happens. Darkness. No power. I stumble out of bed and open my curtain, letting moonlight into my room, then search for my head-torch.

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No power, no tea. I pack up in the dark, using the beam of my torch. I secure my bike lights in place, and by 5:30 I’m ready to leave. But just as I‘m about to heave my bike up the steps out of the accomodation, I realise I’ve lost my bike helmet. I frantically search my room; on all the surfaces, in the bathroom, under the bedcovers. But it’s not there. I run up the stairs to the place where I first checked in when I arrived, I check the restaurant. But it’s nowhere.

Standing up there, next to the restaurant counter, I call out a hopeful ‘Hello?’ into the darkness, and a young man appears from where he was sleeping on the kitchen floor. I know from yesterday that he doesn’t speak any English, so I tap my head, gesturing to where my helmet should be, and thankfully he understands. He nods, and gestures for me to follow him downstairs, where it retrieves it from of an otherwise empty, locked room.

I breathe out, remind myself not to put my helmet down anywhere stupid again, and clip it on. By 5:45 am I’m ready for today’s ride. The roads are quiet and calm, and I enjoy the first 10 kilometres of rolling roads though sleepy villages, past mosques blasting out their morning prayers, and dogs lying asleep in the gutters.

I quickly make it to the junction where I have today’s first big decision to make – do I take the coast road or the mountain road? The sensible decision is to head to the coast and roll along by the sea. There will be lovely views, but probably more traffic. The less sensible option is the mountain road with 1500 metres of climbing, a road that is notoriously steep and winding, but has superb views of Mount Rinjani.

I turn right towards the mountain, a decision I end up regretting.

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I wake at 3:45 am, and I’m proud of myself for sleeping past 2 am – my body slowly shifting time zones. It’s dark and quiet as I wander down to the beach and back, then I make a cup of tea and slowly pack my gear. I put my NZ clothes in the bin, still shedding that identity.

Even with the early wake-up, I don’t get out until 7:30 – it takes me ages, faffing with gear, deciding what to pack where.By the time I head out, my bike fully loaded with gear for the first time, the road is already thick with Bali traffic. Heavy trucks lumber by, coach-loads of tourists pass within centimetres of me, and a melee of scooters race past. The air tastes of exhaust fumes, a toxic medley for my lungs. And I suddenly miss the clean air and quiet of home. Hopefully every day won’t be this bad, but part of me suspects it might.

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As soon as I’m on the road it becomes obvious that tweaking my bike gears last night has made them far worse. I now only have one gear that doesn’t jump, and the rest have rebelled against me, clicking and hopping around between rings. I stop three times by the side of the road to fiddle, but don’t make much progress. I promise myself I’ll look at them again later. Later. When I have more time.

I cruise through town to the wharf, hoping to get a ferry out to Lombok. I’ve nothing booked and I’m not even sure if I can take my bike with me. At the docks, I find a helpful group of men wearing blue t-shirts with the word helper on the front. One of them ushers me to a ticket office and efficiently sorts a ticket for me and my bike on the next ferry, leaving in 30 minutes.

On the ferry, the porters park my bike in the front cabin along with piles of luggage from the other passengers. They tell me to sit in the passenger cabin and assure me my bike will be fine. As we leave the wharf, the boat wobbles once and from my seat, I watch my bike slowly tumble over. I rush forward, heave my bike upright again then jam it firmly into place between two rows of seats piled with luggage. Then I cram myself amongst the luggage too, determined to spend the rest of journey in the keeping a close eye on my bike. The aircon is turned down to arctic, so I snuggle into my NZ puffer jacket, then instantly fall asleep. Exhausted by 9 am.

I wake as the ferry pulls into the Gilli islands, the jetty crammed with tourists and their wheely suitcases. The ferry stops; I don’t get off.

When we eventually pull into the dock at Lombok, I’m first off the ferry. I know where I’m going because I’ve just booked tonight’s accommodation, and I’m glad to be back on my bike again, dodgy gears and all. When I arrive at my digs an hour later, tired, hot and hungry, the woman, Dewi, who owns the place cheerfully tells me she has to cancel. Dewi is originally Javan, she’s slim with greying hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her partner, Fernando is from Spain. He makes me an espresso while I sort out somewhere else to stay, and Dewi recommends a hotel 10km back towards the port. I was hoping to keep going around the top of the island, but perhaps northern Lombok will wait for another trip. I turn and head back the way I came, stopping at a café delightfully called Bely Garden for lunch. The café looks out over rice paddies, then up to the flanks of the volcano. It’s a lovely spot, despite the traffic rumbling past on the road outside.

It doesn’t take me long to get to the new hotel, despite missing the turning and biking up and down the same stretch of road past the mosque more times than I’d like to admit. It’s a change from the Hindu temples of Bali to be on an island with mosques dotting the landscape. The girls pouring out of school, all have their heads covered with scarves, and they yell out ‘Hello’ as I pass.

My GPS takes me down through the back alleys of the town – along narrow roads just wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side, and I have a moment of delight to be off the main drag and ducking though real lived-in Lombok. If I could make more of my trip like this, it would be fabulous, though it would slow my already snail-like pace even more.

I find the hotel at the end of a rutted dirt track and check-in. My room is cheerful enough, as long as you don’t look at the bathroom, and it has lovely views over the garden and swimming pool.

The hotel is beachfront and from my room I can hear waves washing against the shore. I decide to go for a swim – after all the water is just there. I paddle at first, relishing the warm ocean, then I go up to my knees, but there’s something there, floating in the water, something colourful. I glance down, thinking at first that it must be fish, but it isn’t. It’s plastic rubbish. Loads of it floating forward and back with every wave.

I paddle back out again, no longer keen to swim. On the beach, the tide line is a mass of plastic waste; old packets, water bottles, plastic bags. We really have totally trashed our planet, and as I walk back to my room, feeling despondent again, I wonder if there’s really any hope for the environment. Amongst the traffic and the trash, it seems we’ve ruined it already. This place, this rubbish, this smog wasn’t what I was looking for in this journey. But perhaps it’s the sad reality of the world we live in. How many untouched places are still out there?

I sit in my room feeling glum and out of place. The only thing that cheers me is the sound of laughter from a French family playing in the swimming pool. Children’s laughter is magic and healing, and the world needs more of it. I need more laughter too. More play, More joy. The French woman tells me they’ve been travelling for four months and are here for the last three weeks of her trip. I tell her I’m three days into my journey and I’m just not feeling it. ‘I’ve just given up work and rented out my house,’ I say relaying the story I’ve told myself so many times. ‘But I still feel restless and listless.’

‘The change will come,’ she says. ‘Those moments are like bubbles. They’re there. It just takes time. You’ll start to feel the bubbles soon.’

I thank her and say, ‘I hope so.’

As I eat dinner at the hotel restaurant, looking out at a spectacular sunset, I make plans for tomorrow, trying to find a route that takes me south. I’m reluctant to leave Lombok so soon after I’ve arrived, but I want to be back in Bali by the weekend, so I can start heading north. After dinner, I use the drying rack in my room as a makeshift bike support, hanging my bike by the saddle to lift my back wheel off the floor so I can re-tune my gears.

As I sit in bed, writing these notes, my room is filled with prayers, blasted on the loudspeaker from the local mosque. So many religions use song or chanting as part of prayer, it must be an essential way of tuning into a higher presence, of transcending ourselves. Perhaps I’ll let myself sing as I ride tomorrow. For now, earplugs.

Day four

I’m wide awake at 1am again, my brain spinning in an anxious loops of kilometres, maps and places to stay. I remove my earplugs and lie there contemplating my life choices, then make a cup of tea. I set my alarm for 5:30 so I can make an early start, then drift back to sleep.

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In the end my alarm is pointless. Instead I’m woken by the pre-dawn prayers blasting on the tannoy again. I feel like I haven’t slept at all, but I still potter around in the darkness, make another cup of tea and pack my bike. Outside, by the pool, one of the other hotel guests is doing Tai Chi in the pre-dawn gloaming. I join her for a while, working through a few rounds of sun salutations, until it’s light enough to ride, and then I get anxious for the road.

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I land in Bali at four in the afternoon, having spent the last half hour staring out the airplane window at the unmistakable shape of volcanos as they loomed out of the horizon towards us.

After landing, I say goodbye to Max, a paramedic from Auckland, who I’ve shared the journey with. We grab our bags from the overhead lockers then head off on ou…

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As I sit here watching the clouds pass beneath me, I still don’t totally understand why I’m doing this — it would have been much easier to stay home. Or maybe not. Maybe staying home in the same routine in a house with the same memories, navigating the same relationships with the same expectations would actually have been harder.

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about deliberate disruptions to life, about those times when we consciously decide to step into uncertainty, and whether these moments of radical change are essential to personal growth and expansion. I’ve been wondering what ‘radical change’ might like like for me.

I put my bike in a box, filled four bags with gear that I’m not sure I’ll use or need, and jumped on a plane, because I know I need change. Not just a small change. But a big, life-shaking, mind-clearing change. The kind of change that wakes you up, takes your life off on a new tangent, and makes you a fundamentally different human

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Perhaps this is how it goes after every divorce – there’s one partner who carries on like normal, as though nothing happened, and one partner who tears up the current version of their life and jumps on a plane to Bali. I’m deeply aware of the cliché – a middle-aged, recently-divorced woman heads to Bali to ‘find’ herself. But in my case, I’m not going alone. I have my bike with me. And what better company could a 52-year-old mother-of-two ask for?

Amidst the chaos of last minute packing, I’ve had a final week of goodbyes. Goodbye to my office at the university and to this semester’s group of students. For one of my classes this semester, I’ve been teaching ethnographic writing to a group of American students as part of their study abroad experience. A large part of my role has been encouraging them to step out of their comfort zone and have a truly kiwi experience. Most of them have had the time of their lives. One of them went ghost-hunting around Christchurch’s cemeteries and earthquake ruins, one went WOOFing on the West Coast and had the full kiwi caravan experience complete with an ancient stained mattress and rain for five days, one decided she wanted to learn to play rugby, one went shark diving with great whites in the ocean off Bluff, one tried to learn to surf at Sumner Beach and found herself immersed in surf culture, and one went off on his first ever hitchhiking experience despite warnings from their education coordinator that hitchhiking was ‘too risky’ (apparently surfing, hunting for ghosts, and shark diving are ‘safe’). All of these students were courageous in their own way – stepping out of the comfort of their American lives and taking chances they’d never have an opportunity to before. They each gave a short presentation on Wednesday evening, showing videos and photographs of New Zealand at its most glorious – basking in sunshine over the last few months – the months I’ve spent in an adrenaline-fuelled loop of working and preparing to go away.

In many ways the student who went hitchhiking experience was the most inspiring of the bunch. He spoke about the vulnerability of standing at the side of the road with your thumb out, not knowing who (if anyone) would stop. He focused on the act of choosing uncertainty and the opportunities that can bring, and he talked about the kindness of strangers and trust in the human spirit. Ideals I am planning to embrace on this journey of my own.

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On Thursday evening, I was close to tears saying  goodbye (for now) to the fire brigade. This community has given me stability and a sense of family through the difficult years. It’s hard to put into words how grateful I am for this bunch of humans, just for existing in the same place at the same time every single week, for being there in a non-judgmental way on those weeks when (unbeknown to them) I was struggling just to get out of bed. There’s nothing more grounding than community, camaraderie, consistency, kindness. All things that were lacking in my marriage. Add to that mix, a healthy dose of taking the piss, and a ride to the airport. As the deputy chief dropped me off at departures yesterday, and heaved my bike box out of the back of his Landrover, he came over all serious. ‘There are people in the bay who are worried about you travelling on your own like this. I mean, have fun, but do take care.’ I assured him I’ll be fine, even though I have absolutely no clue what I’m doing and am full of self-doubt.

The poem Fear by Khalil Gibran appeared again on my feed this week, with scarily perfect timing. Right now I am that trembling river, about to enter the ocean, about to become the ocean.

For my last night in New Zealand, I caught up with my Bumble date from a few weeks’ ago, who also happens to be an ex volunteer firefighter from Waiheke Island. He’d tried to impress me on our first date with his knowledge of K-codes. I raised one eyebrow wondering if I should go home. Then we laughed about it.

We’ve kept in touch since, and yesterday he picked me and my bike up from Auckland airport looking cheerfully pleased to see me. We drove through the city to the seaside suburb where he lives, then he dropped me off at a waterfront bar and told me to order a drink while he went home to ‘sort out the kids’.

I jumped out, waved him off, then chose a table with a nice view and ordered a wine. But as I sat there, sipping a glass of chilled rose, looking out across a blustery ocean to Rangitoto island, I had an awful sickening feeling as it dawned on me that I’d just let a man who I’d only met a few weeks’ earlier, drive off with my bike, my passport, my ID, my credit cards, and all my cash.

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In the pre-departure chaos, my whole house has become a disaster-zone full of half-packed boxes of books, wardrobes with contents spilling out, piles of things to maybe pack on the bike, and a stupidly optimistic pile of books to read before I go, including Michael Palin’s book on the Himalayas, Ruth Shaw’s The Bookshop at the end of the world, and This is not how it ends by Jehan Casinader. Three books before Saturday? Who am I kidding?

I’m currently sitting in a hotel room in Dunedin, having left my house at 5am this morning to drive south along SH1 in the dark, fuelled only by black coffee, to see my daughter who is studying at Otago University. I’m deeply aware this is the last time we’ll be together until we meet again in Nepal in November. By the time we catch up in Kathmandu, she will have turned nineteen, and I will have cycled more kilometres than I can imagine.

As I’ve struggled to pack my life away this week, there’s been that niggling question at the back of my mind – why exactly am I doing this? I’m sure I’ll feel different as soon as I’m on the plane this time next week, or at least I hope I will. I’m hoping that the goodbyes are the hardest part. Because they haven’t been easy.

The first goodbye involved a literal shedding of identity at Auckland airport last Monday…

For the last three years I’ve been fortunate to have a job as a project management trainer – a job that enabled me to secure a mortgage and keep my house during the separation. This job isn’t directly writing-related (though I do have a book project that’s come out of it), and I really enjoy the contact with students. What I don’t enjoy quite so much are the corporate overtones (I’ve never been the corporate type) and the need to wear what I affectionately call my Business Barbie outfit – a pencil skirt, smart blazer, and shoes with heels.

This week, after my last business trip to Auckland on Monday, I decided it was time to say goodbye to the corporate costume. I arrived at the airport after a full day’s teaching and sneaked into the tight confines of one of airport toilet cubicles with its grey tiled floors and wood veneer doors, then I swiftly changed into jeans and sneakers, bundling my work outfit back into my bag. Later, alone in the new upstairs lounge, waiting to be called to the gate, I opened my carry-on, knowing that no one was looking, and I smugly dumped my heels and skirt into the nearest bin.

Ten minutes later, the rubbish man came. He reached into the bin with his set of grabbers (you know, those pincers on the end of a long handle) and pulled out one of my shoes. He inspected it then set it down on a table. He pulled out my other shoe and did the same. Then he pulled out my skirt. He put the grabbers down, held the skirt up in front of him, then folded it neatly and placed it on top of my shoes. He looked in the bin again, glanced one last time at my pile of clothes, then stuffed the lot into his black plastic bag.

I watched as he walked away, bag clutched tightly in one hand, and I bade goodbye a small part of that corporate identity. One step closer to leaving.

Other goodbyes this week have been harder. Much harder…

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It’s three weeks now until my trip, and life is becoming increasingly hectic. The week started in Auckland, which seems to be becoming my new norm. Me in a windowless, air-conditioned room in an office building on the outskirts of the city, dressed in my ‘Business Barbie’ outfit, teaching a group of professionals gathered around a large white conference table. I’m sure you can picture the grey corporate carpet, the standard white mugs with the company logo from the canteen, the empty whiteboards around the conference room, the motivational posters with mission statements emblazoned in big letters, the fluorescent lights, and the buzz of the air-conditioning. To add to the ambience at this workplace, every single room requires a key-fob to open the door, giving it an unfortunate prison-like feel. I had to ask to be let back into the conference room every time we took a break, every time we stopped for tea, every time I went to the bathroom.

At lunchtime on Monday, after a corporate lunch of cold pizza, I marched out of the venue and up the road to get a blast of real air. When I reached Mt Hobson, I climbed (almost ran) up the steps to the top, still wearing my high heels and pencil skirt. Standing on the summit of that extinct volcano, gazing out over the city, the beach suburbs and Rangitoto beyond, with the fresh breeze blowing through my hair, I felt a hint of freedom. Freedom that I hope to get in bucketfuls on my sabbatical. And freedom that unexpectedly found me again later that evening.

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I adore my house, but that doesn’t mean other people will be enthusiastic about its quirks. One of the prospective tenants told me she was going to buy my house one day. I smiled politely while my insides went into a territorial tailspin. It’s my house, my home, my sanctuary. I fought to keep my house for years during the divorce, eventually paying my ex out far more than I should have to hold onto it. Hearing someone else lay claim to it hit a nerve. I gently told her that I had no intention of selling. My house is mine to come back to after my trip. It’s literally my anchor.

Because of all the rushing around and tidying up, I haven’t ridden my bike in almost two weeks. This is unheard of for me. I’m usually out three or four times a week, enjoying the heart-thumping grind of pedalling uphill and then the exhilaration of freewheeling down the other side. I’ve been pining to spin those wheels, and after showing potential tenants around this afternoon I had a couple of unexpected free hours before I needed to head to the airport.

So I clipped on my helmet and rode out to Godley Head, my absolute favourite road ride, and it didn’t disappoint with stunning views out to the ocean. Two hours of glorious autumn sunshine. Two hours of rolling roads and the best views in Christchurch. Two hours of reset and of freedom from chores.

Back home, I was straight back into hustle-mode, packing my overnight bag and heading straight to the airport for work. Now that I’m here, I can finally pause to ask myself, how am I actually feeling?

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I didn’t even get any sex out of either of them. So much for getting under another man!

What I did get was a couple of nice meals in my favourite restaurant (yes, the same meal both times — I pretend to deliberate the menu out of politeness), and a crash course in the strangeness of modern dating: how quickly some men attach, how quickly others project, and how surreal it is to sit across from someone who has already decided that you fit neatly into their life before you’ve even finished your first drink.

In fact, the first date triggered a full-on trauma response (not his fault) that sent me running to my therapist, trying to explain why a perfectly pleasant man, talking about a ‘crazy ex’ and a smashed car window, had my nervous system behaving like I was back in 2023.

I talked through a lot with my therapist this week; about trauma responses and how to reset from them, about my daughter, about how to move forward, and about triangulation (one of my ex’s favourite ways of keeping control).

My ex was an expert in establishing triangles. His favourite way of communicating involved using other people as third parties, which often meant that he ended up with all the knowledge and therefore all the power, and I ended up carrying the emotional load and the fallout.

I’ve been trying to dismantle some of those triangles this week, especially the ones that still involve my children, but it isn’t easy. I’ve been talking openly to others who have been drawn in, naming the dynamic and explaining the impact, without asking them to do anything or to get involved. It’s felt powerful talking openly, especially with people who have been unwittingly drawn into these power games for years.

Life can be complicated, but as author C.K. Stead would say, It’s all material. If you’re a writer, when life hands you lemons, you use them to form stories. Real life has a way of giving us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it, even if we don’t recognise that at the time.

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And I agree: there’s noth…

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