No one to comfort me

No one to comfort me or guide me, why is there no one here with me?

No one to comfort me or guide me

I got the ferry over from Auckland to Coromandel. David, one of my next hosts, had recommended it rather than taking the coach. The views were much nicer from the ferry than out of a coach window. Even the screaming child sat a few feet away from me didn’t spoil the journey across. David was waiting for me at the wharf and helped me with my case to the car. The drive from Coromandel to Whitianga would take about an hour. The drive took us up over the hills and the windy road reminded me of the Snake Pass, the road between Sheffield and Manchester that we had driven virtually every weekend when I was young to go and visit my grandparents.

On the drive over we chatted about mutual friends. Having been put in touch with David we had worked out that we had three connections, all of them separate from each other. David was a friend with a guy who used to be my lodger, he knew a guy I had met the month before on my travels when I was in Portland and, mostly randomly, he knew one of the partners I used to work for. David told me that he had been in the travel business for a long time and had his own travel company. That was how he knew the partner, who was from New Zealand,  as David had booked numerous trips back home for him and his family. David also told me that his company had a specialist gay travel business too and that he might be able to help me while I was in New Zealand. 

View from Bayview

Having arrived at the house (Bayview) I was shown to my room, which had stunning views over Whitianga. I was introduced to Dmitri, David’s other half and Dot, David’s mum. Over a lunch of homemade pizza I told David & Dmitri of my travels to date. They asked what I had planned for New Zealand and I admitted that I had nothing else planned yet apart from my flight out of New Zealand, which left a 3 and a bit week gap I needed to fill. After lunch Dmitri said he was off to help some friends, Gordon and Diana, put up some Christmas decorations. It made me realise that Christmas was less than a month away. With the warm weather and travelling I had lost track of time. It would be odd seeing Christmas trees, Santa and snowmen in sunny weather. David took me on a drive through Whitianga so I could get my bearings before we called in to see how Dmitri was getting on with the decorations. Gordon and Diana convert their huge conservatory into a winter wonderland every year to raise money for charity and they had already got a dozen or so Christmas trees up. We found them sitting eating fruitcake and drinking wine, as it was apparently too windy for putting the lights up round the roof. The rest of my afternoon was taken up sitting on the veranda overlooking the bay, enjoying a glass of wine and doing some writing. David and Dmitri fired up the BBQ for the first time in months and we had dinner sat outside.

Cook's Beach

The following morning I sat in bed for a while checking my emails while I had a coffee, waiting for it to kick in.  Two things stood out amongst the messages I read through. The first was a message from Mother telling me that my sister was being admitted to hospital. She has suffered for years with a condition called colitis and it had taken a turn for the worse, flaring up so much that her normal medication wasn't working. My stomach sank reading the message. I felt so useless being on the other side of the world and guilty that I was not there to go visit her or do anything to help. I think it was virtually impossible for me to be any further away and still be on the same planet. Mother said there was nothing I could do even if I was in the country and that she would keep me posted on how Karen was doing. She told me that Karen understood I wouldn't be able to visit and that there was no point in me flying all the way home. 

The other was a message from a friend asking if I had seen the comments that had been posted following an article about my travels on an online Australian gay magazine. I hadn’t and I went and read them, knowing it was probably the worst thing to do. One random guy was calling me a slut, having a go at me for only staying with men and getting publicity for sleeping my way around the world. Now, I’ve not been celibate during my travels but I am far from being a slut. I can understand that some people make that initial assumption about my travels but once I explain to them what I am doing I think they realise that it is not about sex.I knew that I shouldn’t focus on the comments of one person but it really played on my mind and upset me.

Why is there no one here with me?

I decided to go for a hike to try and take my mind off everything for a while. I thought that the fresh air and exercise might help clear my head. I got dropped off in town and got the little ferry across the harbour to where I was going to go for my hike. My route would take in a few of the beaches in the area – Front, Flaxmill and Cook’s beaches and Lonely Bay. During the entire time I was on the various beaches I only saw one other person out walking. I saw them on the beach in Lonely Bay (irony that even an American would understand). The walk and being alone with my thoughts didn’t help any. I managed to get myself worked up into a bit of a state, feeling alone and far away from friends and family when I should be there for them. For the first time in a while I sat down and cried. It was a real low point for me.

Lonely Bay

I pulled myself together and headed back, stopping in for a coffee and a piece of cake to try and cheer myself up. I figured I could blame my red eyes on hayfever when I got back if David or Dmitri asked. A couple of things happened in the café I had stopped at that started to turn my day around. As I ploughed my way through a huge slice of delicious chocolate cake I checked my 80 Gays email account. I had about half a dozen messages from people who had read the article, offering me places to stay when my trip reached Australia. I also had a couple of messages from people telling me that they had read the article and thought what I was doing was amazing. The other thing that happened was a very amusing conversation I listened in to between the New Zealand waitress and a table of four French people. The waitress had brought their drinks out and asked, “Who ordered the short black?”. The people all looked a bit confused and there was a bit of conferring in French. They denied ordering it. The waitress asked again but slower and louder, as though that might help them understand English better. The upshot was that the coffee was theirs but they had misheard “short black” for “chocolate”, and none of them had ordered a chocolate. The misunderstanding made me chuckle and reminded me of my own language slips in Buenos Aires.

The thing that really changed the entire day round was waiting for me when I got back to David and Dmitri’s. In my room was a sheet of paper with an itinerary all mapped out – places I would go and contact details for people who were willing to host me for a night or two. David was part of a gay stay network and he had spent the day ringing and emailing other people involved, explaining my trip and finding me hosts. It was unbelievably kind of David, and all the people who had offered to put me up, as they were all offering me free accommodation for my stay. It made me focus on the amazing people that I had met so far on my trip, and the amazing people that I had still yet to meet. The comments of that one guy seemed insignificant in context. Feeling a lot better about things and sending positive thoughts home to my sister I headed to bed.

“No one to comfort me or guide me, why is there no one here with me?” 
Lyrics from I’m all alone from the musical Spamalot