Tim Tam Slammers

We always think we're unique until we realise we're not. Out here, it seems I am very much a product of my generation. And I while I often wonder where it is exactly that I belong, the answer seems to be quite simply that I belong wherever I end up going. My brother once dispensed some wise advice to me in an unguarded moment. He said: "If you want to find like-minded souls, it is essential that you do the things that are true to what you really feel and want, because you're most likely to cross paths with them there."

In a sense it's only logical that the emotions, fears and wants that drove me to travel, have similarly driven other like-minded people in the same direction. The more people I meet, the more I discover that my story is not all that different from the people around me. This transitory stage I thought my was my own, is that of many others.

Here in Kaikoura, my Single Serving Friends Ollie, Marta and John make it the place where I belong at this very moment. The commonalities are striking and sobering. Like holding up a slightly distorted mirror: Enough common ground for self-recognition and enough distortion to contrast your image by their differences.

- Ollie & Marta on our evening beach walk -

It's perhaps not coincidental then that while I've met few to no people in the last few years that have read my favorite book, my three Single Serving friends here have not only read Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but all rate it in their top five. One of them even carries a copy of it with him wherever he goes.

Last night, Ollie and I were sat in front of a log fire and attempted (not unsuccessfully) to engage a conversation in our respective native languages of Afrikaans and Flemish, while Marta was cooking us a real Italian pasta carbonara. I can't help but feel that it's a succession of moments like this, that make life what it is. I don't for a second regret the transitory nature of these moments, for while this group of Single Serving Friends will dissolve tomorrow, it's a moment had and stored.

Fact of the Day:

Local delicacy: TimTam Slammer. Bite two opposing corners of a TimTam cookie, and suck some hot tea through the resulting straw-like gap in the cookie. Once the tea hits your mouth, stick the cookie in your mouth in it's entirety. Messy Sugary Goodness. And if you would believe it, the slam actually warranted an entry in Wikipedia! Thanks to Ollie, for helping me make a mess of the dinnertable.