New Zealand

New Zealand.

A scenic favour from mother earth.

I have been struggling to come up with the words that will fully justify the magnificence of this place in a simple description. One sentence typed, and two sentences deleted. There are too many places to start, and not enough to end. 

Perhaps the words are destined to come from someone els's head. 

                                            

" It's a dash of red, orange and yellow in vast openness. Hidden beneath troughs of luscious green earth, that roll to where the eye cannot see. Darkened at some points by the rocks that possess these mountains of which own the land, and will longer than any man. 

A mist, ghostly in its presence, bellows between the hill's gaps. Equally comforting, as in its fog so lives freshness. Something that exists here in abundance. 

Its cold here.

Things seem bare. Peculiar for a landscape that is so often covered in snow. One would think of warm beds and hot drinking chocolate. Yet most things to inhabit its soil have no such desire. The cold is a christening to the fur inside my boots capable of keeping my toes intimate with warmth. Proof that one thing synthetic lives up to its natural counterpart.

Amongst the icy cold breeze sounds the rushing of a river, not yet succumbed to the solid grip of ice. In this case my ears tell of the truth that my eyes cannot see.

 The suns appearance not prolonged enough to consume the frosty air, but just enough to chase the mist up the mountains, like the slithering motion of a snake back into its hole. An assortment of greys, pebbles, wood and corrugated metal build the framework to what I call my shelter. Rich. But by no means as opulent as the land I embrace around me. Noise is scarce here, a lapse in silence only occurring every so often. Perhaps by the sound of a motorcar engine traversing the small quaint road below, or the crunching of dirt beneath the feet of a passerby.

A deep breath, the running of the wildest imagination or the likes of a profound dream. When I close and open my eyes again, it is still before me. " 

         - Brett Goosen 

                                                                                                                                                          

New Zealand July 2012