It was Monday. The cloudy morning made us feel worried about the day. And fortunately when we started hiking at Hooker Valley Track, the sun began to shine, the cloud evaporated, and the blue skies joined our trip that day. A very fine day in New Zealand.
We went down from Hooker Valley Track and arrived in Twizel around 6 p.m. Twizel is a town in Mackenzie District, Canterbury Region of New Zealand’s South Island. One thing that I’d like to mention: Twizel is my favorite town from all the towns we visited in our New Zealand trip back in March 2017. I felt peace in this town.
So after having very late lunch in Jasmine Thai Restaurant (we had satay with rice, you don’t know how I felt so content after days not having rice for my meal), we decided to go for a walk around Twizel. There was an artificial lake near there, Lake Ruataniwha. So we headed there.
The lake water wasn’t as blue as Lake Pukaki, nor as clear as Lake Hawea. Yet it had very beautiful golden hills surrounded it.
It was cold. The wind struck my skin. And a crazy idea popped up in our head: Let’s take a swim! But was it allowed? Because noone was there but us. We saw a girl inside a car parked not too far from us. And I made one of my friends to ask her (lol). She said it was okay to jump into the lake. So without taking another tought, I took off my Tshirt. It was Prayoga who joined me. I could feel the cold water started to run through my feet. But I was overexcited to jump! Well, don’t ask me how many seconds I could stand. The water was way too cold. My skin went numb. We screamed and laughed at once!
I got back to the car and pulled out my towel, it was freaking freezing. I changed my clothes, and covered my body with my jacket. We still had some nice photos on the lake shores.
Just before we headed back to the hotel, we saw a park near the lake, we took a little closer. Not too long after we sit around the wooden tables or playing with the seesaw, we saw a beautiful sky color above the horizon. It was bright gray at the top and dramatically changed to dark blue with lovely pastel pink in between.
One of the best skies I’ve ever seen. We were teasing each other when it happened, and we paused. We were amazed at the sky.
Now I miss that kind of afternoon. With my closest friends, sharing the same moments, sharing laughs, sharing stories, sharing the same feelings. We left all the burdens that afternoon, all the problems. We had one trip we’d never forget.
And today, it’s been a year since that afternoon. One kind of afternoon that I miss.
bardiq 