Archive for January, 2011

more postcards from new zealand, an iphone app and a question

January 27, 2011

hello again fellow gypsies,

thank you for all your lovely comments on my last postcards from new zealand. i’m so in love with my homeland and delighted to be able to share some of my journey here with you.

today, i would like to take you exploring one of my favourite places on earth. it’s a place i first visited nine years ago when on my honeymoon. my husband wanted to share his favourite spot with me and i’m so pleased he did!

also today, i want to share an iphone app with you that has been an essential part of our trip (more on that below)…

lake waikaremoana is in the uruwera national park in the north island of new zealand.
it’s a fairly remote part of the country, though probably not really remote when considered from a global perspective! it’s so peaceful there – no tv in our cottage, no cellphone coverage, no internet… bliss. a great place to relax, breathe, be still, explore, sleep, swim, dream.

let me show you some of what we saw….

~


this is the manawatu gorge; a narrow road that winds through a narrow river gorge on the way to our destination


toi toi catch the afternoon sunlight at the waikaremoana camp ground


the sun sets beside the panekiri bluff (part of the walk around the lake leads trampers up to an amazing view of the lake from the top)


there are some great caves and pathways to explore around the lake


lake waikareiti is a smaller lake about an hour’s walk up a gentle track from the nearby visitor’s centre. there, you can hire a row boat and spend a lazy afternoon messing about. the water is beautifully clear and warm enough to have a dip


i’m standing in lake waikareiti looking back towards the shore taking this photograph. there are tiny fish swimming around my feet.


this is the mokau falls. the tiny bridge you can see above it is the road that leads to waikaremoana.


there is a tramping track that goes around most of the lake. it’s listed as one of the great walks of new zealand and takes 3-4 days to get around. this swing bridge is on the way into the first hut from the northern end of the walk.


more of the track towards the first hut

~

i also wanted to tell you about an iphone app called trip wallet that has come in very handy on our travels.
it’s one we created because we couldn’t find anything already available that would do what we wanted. it’s nothing fancy, just something to help us keep track of our spending while on holiday. we have been able to set ourselves a budget, then keep track of how closely we are sticking to it. we just record every purchase (or cash withdrawal) and trip wallet shows us how we are doing.

we’ve already had some great feedback from people wanting something similar for help with their day-to-day budgeting. so (while trip wallet covers the basic requirements already for this) we’ll be working on another one more suited to home budgeting use in the near future.

rather than trying to tell you all about it, i’d like to offer five of you the chance to try it yourself.

** update: all five codes have gone now, thanks for all your interest! we have the app in the iTunes store for an intro price of only 99c, so if you want to try it out, you can buy it by clicking on this link. thanks so much for your support.

sorry, it does only currently work with the iphone or ipod touch, but will work in any country (so you don’t have to be in nz, or the usa specifically to use it).

if you would like to give it a try, please leave a comment saying you would like to, and i will email the first five commenters a promo code. and we would love to hear your feedback if you have any.

~

and finally, is there anything specific you would like me to write about for you here?
if it’s okay with you, i will continue to share with you some postcards from my travels, but i’d also love to find out if there’s anything in particular you’d like for me to discuss.

hoping you are having magical adventures of your own, wherever you are and that i hear from you soon!

~

leonie wise is a regular contributor to gypsy girls guide

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Posted in Giveaways, Places

Destination or Journey?

January 25, 2011

How does that saying go? It’s not the destination it’s the journey? I looked it up and found 2 distinct quotes that really say the same thing, though just enough differently that I wanted to quote them both:

“The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.” –Don Williams, Jr. (American Novelist and Poet)

“Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.” –Greg Anderson (American Author and founder of the American Wellness Project)

I like parts of both these sentiments. Doesn’t it feel like they were born out of our modern rush to “get” somewhere, even when we don’t know quite where we’re going? Wherever that “where” is: a long planned trip to far away shores; a new business venture, making a major life shift, or taking an inner journey deep into your very own soul.

Slowing down to enjoy and learn from the journey is a beautiful thing, but my feeling about both of these quotes is that they leave out the importance of where you end up, your final destination, your landing zone. I know for me I definitely get joy out of the “finishing of something” and have picked up quite a few lessons that I didn’t understand until I reached that final destination.

I am remembering back to the year in my very early 20s when I ended a relationship, sold my car and all my other not easily move-able possessions (and stored the things I couldn’t bear to part with in my mother’s attic) and moved to Greece. The journey just to get on to the plane bound for Athens was long, almost 8 months. It was painful (to put it mildly) and full of tests and lessons that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I hated almost every moment of it – except the night that started the journey, when I took my mum out to dinner and told her my grand plan. She was not nearly so thrilled as I, but she kept it to herself, and well, that’s a whole other journey…

So move forward 8 months, and I have landed in Greece and am whipping along in a taxi bound for Athens, and am dropping my few belongings in a small small hotel in the Plaka where I will live for a few weeks before finding moving to a little apartment, which will be temporary, but homey. I feel a sense of calm, a quiet and palpable joy that puts the whole journey into a new perspective for me.

Somehow a lot of tears, stress, worry and what seemed to have been a never ending series of painful and difficult conversations with the boyfriend and with my family, as well as conversations with friends that often ended with them saying things like, “well…. as long as you think this is a good idea…” had coalesced into sureness and peace. Peace and sureness, when by all rights I should have felt more stress and worry: I didn’t speak any Greek, I had no idea where I was going to live, I didn’t know anyone and I had only about $800 to my name. But I was at peace, and I was happy. Not giddy bouncy silly happy, but happy in that way that an equal combination of joy and peace can bring. This was my destination. The destination of this physical journey was Greece, but the larger destination was about following through on a choice that made sense to me, made sense for my life, and my journey.

The journey is often where we struggle, and stretch for things that feel out of reach. It is where we can get tangled up and it is also where we can find purpose. It is often fraught, it is sometimes painful and it is almost always something to look back on and say: “Oh, that’s why (insert the lesson/story/journey) that happened in that way”. The journey is about movement – literal or figurative – and it is more often then not about change. I think that the destination is about taking note of the changes, putting together the story and celebrating all the moments that got you there. It is about tying up the ribbons and tucking in the bows, it is releasing a long held breath, it is completion, and contemplation before the next journey begins.

For every journey I have been on, whether it involved getting on a plane, or jumping into my own head and tossing things around, the destination was the place where I arrived with my bag of experiences and hopefully a new outlook. It is the place where I can come back to who I am and where I am, and say, “oh hello, don’t I know you?”

For each of you reading, do you believe the journey is all that, and the destination not so much? Or vice versa? Where do your journeys and your destinations put you on the map of your own life? Have you thought about the map that could be created from all your life experiences? Kind of a fun thought, huh?

Liz Kalloch is a regular contributor to Gypsy Girl’s Guide.

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Posted in Archives (My Journey), Creative, Places, Soulful

Dollars And Sense-How To Fund The Gypsy Girl Life

January 24, 2011

I get emails all the time asking advice on how to set fire to the cubicle and walk away from a fully formed life. Truth is I never know how to answer. This ain’t no how-to manual, simply the tale of one woman’s wacky attempt to live a different life with no promise of a happy ending.

My situation is unique. No kids, check. EU passport, check. Ready and willing husband, check. But the key to creating chaos like this is all about the money baby.

I don’t have any debt but only because I worked like a dog for 15 years to pay back the $130,000 it cost to have a big string of letters after my name. While I don’t have a big wad of cash I do have the proceeds from the sale of my house and everything in it however this won’t go far in France. Apparently I have landed in the town with the most expensive houses in Burgundy. Of course I have. Anywhere else would have been downright sensible and that, it seems, isn’t how I roll.

The secret, so far, is to simply spend less. Since September I have purchased French lessons, a portable CD player for language CDs, a sweater, 2 workout DVDs, a cure for red lesions, hair gel and, my big splurge, a few books for my Kindle. The only other expenses I have are insurance policies and one charity that I support monthly. My husband, god love him, pays for food, lodging and tampons.

The real trick though is not to spend less but to want less. You knew there had to be a catch. It’s not easy. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t want anything as long as I stay home. I never know I want grey suede boots until I see them walking past me on a super chic French lady.

I thought I’d be safe here in the village. And I was until I stumbled upon Amazon France. Oh very dangerous territory this. I now have access to English books (freezing the credit card may be the only strategy here), English DVDs, every European boot, shoe and bag produced (burn the credit card) all with free delivery right to my riverstep. Mon Dieu!

See now that I can actually get anything I want, I want one of everything. I’m pretty sure I don’t really need a gold sequined clutch but it could be here in 3 days, delivered by the post lady who flies about the village on a bright yellow bicycle. Oh sweet seduction.

My rambling point is this journey is all about trade-offs. To make this work I have to be willing to give up stuff that I occasionally think I still want. I just need to remember that Amazon doesn’t sell the experience of a lifetime and that, my friends, is what it’s all about. Well, that and jewelry.

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Posted in Nomad