The Heroes Journey!

I began busking in Queenstown on the 2nd of January, 2018. It was one of the most rewarding decisions of my life. But it almost didn’t come to fruition… On the 1st day of busking, I toppled out of my car, tapping my fingers to try and counter the nerves.  They had spread throughout my whole body - I was terrified! My music wasn’t ready yet .. I needed more practice .. Sure I performed with my band SHEEP, but this was different!  I opened the boot of my car, revealing the heap of gear I had gathered to make busking as a piano player possible. It was a lot of stuff! - A full sized keyboard (battery operated), a keyboard stand, a fat black amplifier (also battery operated), my special fold-up chair, and a little treasure chest for tips. Only then, as I stared half vacantly at the stack of busking apparatus, did it dawn on me: ‘How the heck am I meant to transport all this stuff to the waterfront??’ After all the expenses and all the hassle, of course there was some...

The year’s final sun had long since settled beneath the horizon.  And then the crowds came. They swarmed Queenstown from all crevices, gathering by the thousands to collectively celebrate the grand coming of 2018. The new year was upon us at last. The new chance, the new frontier…  It was 11:40, and town was pandemonium. We were still crammed in the car and stuck at the pedestrian crossing, seriously concerned that we would still be here when the fireworks painted the skies. People wafted past, wandering the streets in droves, seeking the party and the magic. There was a brief opening in the crowd, and I pressed my foot into the accelerator, darting through. By some token of luck, there was a carpark just on the other side where I pulled up and offloaded myself and my party.  The instant I stepped from the drivers seat of the car and locked it, I was swept up by the current. My friends were just ahead of me, lugging and slinging their bottles of booze, turning ba...

I was at work when I got the phone call. Jack's Point Clubhouse was tickety-boo as usual, and so was I, maybe even little more so. It must have been a Thursday - the most unsuspecting of days - when the inevitable news I hoped never to receive found its way through my ears and into my heart, like a droplet of dark green ink.  Front of house restaurant operations had become second nature to me by this stage, and I always had my hospitality face equipped regardless of the circumstance. But on this day, it was certainly genuine, as I had oodles of hope residing in my thoughts, especially after my little sojourn in Dunedin (Re: The Dunedin Hook). And as if that wasn't enough excitement to keep my spirits high, I was due to return home in just about a week's time, to see my parents, my brother, my sister, and Oh! Nessie! Maybe she was still waiting for me at the front door. Criss-crossing the restaurant, I was in and out of the kitchen, carting plates of food (th...

My 21st birthday was peeping through the key-hole; knocking on the door of next week. Ever since the whimsical experience on the night of my 20th birthday (Read: '20th Birthday Tale - An Interesting Gift', if you're interested in that), I started to believe that the birthday season is a fertile time for something marvellous to transpire. Why should it not? It is a celebration of the day we arrived here on Earth. And turning 21 is apparently a big moment in the great Odyssey. But I still wasn't sure why. The Dunedin Hook My parents wanted to steal me from the mountains on an Auckland-bound plane. But before I could politely respond, the Dunedin hook came to retrieve me. SHEEP had confirmed this coming week to be the one in which we gather in Dunedin once again, take a shaggy step forward as a noise-wielding unit, and record an EP. Playing with Sheep was, unparalleled, the single most frenetic activity I knew. I couldn't imagine a more wild birthday bash, e...

It was one of thos e mornings that I felt as crisp as a green apple the moment I woke up. The curtains of my room couldn't seem to restrain the rays of the honey dew sun, its morning pollen spraying through the gap between the clumsy curtain and the wall. I hopped out of my sheets and tossed the curtains aside like a circus conductor; the sunshine flooding my room.  I was delighted to have arrived at the weekend after a busy week at the Jack’s Point Clubhouse. T he weekend was my window of freedom to embrace my love for exploration, and to feed my spirit which hungered for adventure. This day was just one of those days that was calling out to me - I sensed that I would find something, but I just wasn’t sure what. I wondered what kind of tr easures I was yet to discover in Queenstown that would enrich my journey. Secret little nooks and crannies? Interesting characters? What was the Mountain Town still hiding? After finding the Celestine Prophecy in Dunedin (Read: The...