What began as a novel, passing thought has grown in my mind like a well-watered tomato plant and is about to come to fruition: Today, I will step out my front door in Queenstown and begin walking to Picton.
I arrived in Queenstown in October to work here over summer, and during the flight I decided it would be my last air travel for the foreseeable future. My quest for a low carbon lifestyle and my highly mobile habits no longer synced. At the end of the day, it’s not possible to travel in aeroplanes and live within my carbon ‘allocation.’ If we all continue our flying habits, the chances of staying below that dastardly 2-degree target are zero.
So how would I return to Wellington, once my summer contract was over? I could walk, I thought amusedly to myself, back in October. And though I never conscientiously decided to do just that, having slowly built up the gear and a basic idea of where I’m going…suddenly it’s time to go!
I’m walking to Picton not just because I don’t want to fly. There are plenty more low-carbon ways to get North. But if I’m going to have a hiatus on international travel, I need a different kind of adventure. I need to turn this self-imposed restriction into a positive. This way I get to explore my own backyard. The poet Hone Tuwhare said (as quoted in Geoff Chapple’s Te Araroa guide book), “To know Papatuanuku you have to go through slowly, on foot.” I want to get outside my comfort zone and do something a little bit outrageous. I want to live simply, out of a backpack. I want to visit friends along the way. And, of course, I want to prove by example that you don’t have to overload the planet’s resources in order to have a bit of an adventure.
That might seem indulgent. I know I won’t solve climate change by walking for six weeks. I know there are much bigger problems- the unstoppable freight train of consumption and growth, the manipulative power of fossil fuel industries. But those are pretty big and complex issues- I need a walk to think about them.
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