“On a Mish” #347 The Waiting Game – Part One. Taramakau Valley. Arthurs Pass National Park. 17.9.2022. I am not the biggest soccer fan, however I was very impressed with the fact that the famous soccer star David Beckham waited in line just like everyone else to see the Queen for the last time. Nobody likes the waiting game and it was awesome to see that even though he could have used his connections to avoid hours of waiting, he still stood patently with everyone else. I am currently using this small event to help me get through my own waiting game…
Over the last four months I have been told I have something, then a few months later I have been told ‘It’s not that, it’s something else’. The lack of answers has made time drag on and also made how I approach my recovery a little bit awkward. It is hard for a physiotherapist to work out a recovery program for my problem when we don’t know what exactly the problem is. Frustrating only begins to explain the situation, and to prevent internal combustion from stress happening I really needed to escape the real world for a short amount of time. As weird as it sounds, I am actually lucky as I have an escape in the form of going ‘on a mish’. Getting out and about has been the only thing that has kept me from going crazy, and I am lucky to live in a country with wilderness available to everyone, even the injured. If you ever find yourself in a situation where everything is getting a bit tough, I recommend a mish into the wild, but before I could escape reality I had to deal with the inconvenience that is Covid. I had been lucky to avoid getting Covid but knew it would only be a matter of time before I’d get it. After a windy mission up the Wilberforce Valley I returned to find out my flatmates (Parents) had contracted covid, and due to the close proximity it would only be a matter of time before I would be ‘lucky’ enough to say I have got the now very famous flu. The timing couldn’t have been any worse (not surprising) as I had two scans scheduled, both I would have to reschedule because I would be isolating. Waiting around was tough enough and now I had to deal with all the fun that comes with getting Covid-19.
Spoiler alert… I did manage to survive the seven days of isolation and after a couple more days doing very little to help me recover, I was craving the wild more than ever. So with a sore back and hip, and also depleted energy reserves due to the virus, I began scanning the map for an easy camping spot fit for a broken battler. Something was telling me to head west and with the weather on my side I loaded up my car and began to drive away from the hum of Christchurch City towards the tranquil setting of the Taramakau Valley…
