Panic down under
Leaving New Zealand was bittersweet. It was clearly time and I was sad about it, but not for the typical reasons. I was very much still struggling to put my humpty dumpty back together again.
With no plan, I arrived back in Sydney. It didn’t vibe with me last year when I first visited. But I understood how the city worked now and hoped for a more positive experience this time around.
One thing was for certain, I knew exactly where I was going the minute I landed … Brighter Coffee. I fell in love with this place last year. The coffee, the vibe and especially the people. I went directly from the airport to the cafe.
Still in ratty trail clothes and with all my hiking gear, I arrived and greeted immediately like a returning friend. They remembered me and I gave them the cliff notes version of my Te Araroa experience. In exchange I got to try several new coffees they were working to dial in the roast on. Always a fun experience.
The next day I went to see my buddy Michael, and reunited with my "normal" stuff. It felt so strange to have it all again. I don't have much, but after living the last six months with practically nothing, I felt overwhelmed. So many choices. Shirts, pants, jackets, oh my!
In my head a plan was starting to formulate. My buddy Peter had offered me a room in his apartment in Saigon. I adore Vietnam and it felt like a good match in these times of uncertainty. It inexpensive, has amazing food and coffee, and the people are great.
My original, pre-TA plan had been to return to Australia and use the remaining six months of my visa traveling the country. The reality was that I was broke and that was no longer viable. I needed to get somewhere less expensive and quickly.
This was disheartening, to say the least. Australia is a difficult place to reach and I’d seen so little of it. I didn’t want to admit that I wasn’t going to get to follow my original plans. So I strung things out for a few additional days, pretending everything was fine.
Eventually, I decided on one more little Aussie adventure before I’d crack on, so I hopped a flight to Melbourne.
Melbourne is known as one of the coffee meccas of the world, and I couldn’t imagine being this close and not experiencing that. My plan was to go for a few days while I waited for my visa to Vietnam to process.
I am happy to report that Melbourne is indeed, a coffee wonderland. Such an amazing plethora of quality coffee shops available. It comes with a but, for me at least. Australia is a pretty milked based coffee scene, so I still had to track down shops doing pour over. There were still more shops than I could visit, and several I would consider the best in the world. Path Melbourne especially. Great vibe and tons of top quality single origins to try. The team is knowledgeable about all things coffee and are welcoming and friendly. We became friends quickly and I visited multiple times while in town.
In between coffee shops, I found time to explore the city. Its vibrant and full of great little neighborhoods just waiting to be discovered.
I covered every inch my legs would allow for. Parks, plazas, alleyways and river walks. I stumbled into an amazing pop-up museum for street art, sampled amazing cuisine and even found myself in a tiny bespoke whiskey bar more than once.
I also had the pleasure of reuniting with my friend Zac. We met in a hostel in Skhodër, Albania. On what is still one of my all-time favorite adventures, we hiked together in the Albanian Alps back in 2022. If you read back on that post, you’ll know I felt such a connection to the group from that hike. It was so great to hear Zac say he felt the same way, even all these years later. We caught up over plenty of beers and some bangin Chinese food.
Throughout this, I was still struggling to pull out of the my doldrums. Being in Melbourne was bringing back some of the old me, and I felt like I was making progress, but I still felt in a haze.
The impending doom of running out of money was looming larger with each expensive day I spent in Australia. I was doing what I could, reaching out to everyone I had a connection with, hoping a project would pop. And multiple times it seemed like it was about to, only for the bubble to burst. Timing wasn’t right or outright ghosted on what seemed like a sure thing.
The pressure was building and I don’t always do that great with pressure. I was ignoring it while feeling it so completely. I alternated between panicking and trying to “trust the process.” I kept telling myself that everything would work out the way it's supposed to. And this is true, but it didn’t make things feel any better and ignoring it wasn’t going to work. Something had to give.
What gave was my appetite to keep bleeding the little cash I did have. So I finally bought that ticket to Saigon. It was a rational decision born from logic, not my usual modis operandi, but the best I could hope for in this moment.
I was hoping that a familiar place full of things I love would help me pull out of my funk. I was hoping the inexpensive nature of the country would allow me stretch this adventure out until I could land some project and get things going again.
Only time would tell.