We had finally left behind the sardined buildings of the city proper, and were faced with the infinitely more palatable (though by no means ideal) open stretches of wool-dotted greenfields. Highcliff Road is a slender young thing, thin and wisping as it meanders across the peninsula's peak. The lack of sidewalk forced us to keep our eyes ever forwards, trained ahead for any sign of the speeding automobiles that would not give us the time of even a single waterfowl. Combined with the ever-present uphill slope, this forced ocular determination turned our ramble into a journey, a quest, a search for the next horizon. I let the fantasia take over my mind, and surrendered my thoughts to the pumping rhythm that pushed me ever forward. Before I left my home in St. Paul I had begun to consider the possibility of meditative walking, the transformation of backpacking into an exercise in focus and wellbeing. Any thought of such a spiritual awakening was forced from my mind upon entrance, however, as the drill sargent of purpose levied strict marching orders at every intrusion. Right leg, left leg, right leg, left. Rest step on the steep bits, let the leg lock and the bones relieve my muscles' strain. Long strides, feel the thigh burn... and push off again. I was a a machine, a robot with but a single programmed purpose, the physical embodiment of God's great walking concept. Looking behind me I realized that my comrades were sweating and panting solidly behind me, less robots than fresh recruits toiling in fear behind that strictest commander, a fear of shame.
I slowed my pace slightly, scolded myself, and determined that I would no longer give in to the destination poltergeist just as we reached our luncheon spot, the Soldier's Monument. Situated high atop the ridge on a massive stone foundation all its own, this towering statue stands watch over the bay and city of Dunedin, a tribute to the brave souls that died to protect someone's interests in bloody foreign escapades. Here, then, was my master and commander, the leader of my platoon of one. I sensed a spirit in this place, a little malevolence or perhaps a great one buried deep. I had failed to consider my companions or even my own dreams on this stretch of journey, enslaved as I was to these ghosts of the always running horizon, the ghosts that brought countless men and women sweating up these slopes. I stared down the empty, eyeless face of the soldier past and rejected his place over my conscience, turned the spirits back to their purposeless resting places. Perhaps it was that these soldiers could not understand what purpose they had died for, were left wondering at the end why they had chosen to keep thrusting their way up the ridge when the horizon never seemed to get any closer. But I digress.
Our lunch finished and my awareness regained, the remainder of our day passed in lightly springing gaiety, a hobbit's trek through the merry realms of this evergreen county. We stopped to take photographs of the stunning hills, asked in on an ancient old lady who sold beautiful handknit sweaters from her 19th century home, and laughingly forswore the use of our little map in favor of intuition, memory, and gut. Finally our turn appeared, the legendary Buskin Road, a gate swinging wide to our holy grail: undeveloped public land. We dropped for the first time off of our beloved ridge and swung round a hedge into the most beautiful landscape my eyes have yet been given the privilege. A carefree dirt track laughed its way through long grass and spearpurple thistles, great Californian evergreens and hedgehog brush as it kissed the hillsides on its way to the polished stone Pacific. A series of sharply drawn breaths marked our collective wonder at the sight. We were standing, freshly drawn and unsmudged, at some ancient painter's favorite dream of the world's edge.
The trek continued down through the path that we assumed would stop on the white sands of Boulder Beach. We sat for a long time in the tall grass of the hillside, silence scattered with a few languid statements like stones long settled in a meadow. The lack of words was made powerful by the massive aesthetic around us, the overwhelming beauty that left no doubt in one's mind as to the thoughts of the others. This has always been one of my favorite parts of wilderness travel, the breaking down of barriers between otherwise socially aware people. When it was time to rise we rose, and continued until we realized that our companion the track was leading us up onto the beachside cliffs, away from the comforting sands below.
Faced with a potentially setting sun and a fear of illegal campsites we decided to drop our packs, explore the elevated rock formations, and find a good tentpad back along the trail somewhere. The burden of our loads removed we floated a little, each person drifting to a spot of their own like dandelion seeds free of their head. I watched the others take their places on rocks and ledges, knees pulled tight into arms as they stared off into the sea. I laughed at the sight, an Indie stereotype, even as I was taken aback by their earnestness and lack of pretensions. I wanted so badly to understand the sea as they were perhaps understanding it, to let my mind wander in body's stillness, but I couldn't. Making as little noise as my awkwardity would allow I hopped on half-buried boulders through the thistle fields, and pulled myself up a slope to explore a set of bubbling rock outcroppings. After a full day of uphill trekking I found my drive towards motion hard to believe, but some part of me craved the mental emptiness of such physical maneuvering. The last semester of school had been an exercise in unbridled cranial output for me, and all such exertions require a counterpoint lest they overbalance the scale permanently.
We all remembered the glorious old pine that bent its body rooflike over fine rich dirt, and remembered that it lay but a few moments' walk back along the track. When we returned from the cliffside we found it even more perfect imbued with purpose, as every jutting branch became a hanger and every pile of overturned debris revealed more matresslike loam beneath. We spread out our tents and then spread out our food, both subjects full of bright color and inviting warmth. Two pieces of slightly crumpled wheat bread each, layered first with a coating of glass-jar fullgrain mustard. As the group 'starded their bread I unfolded my leatherman and sliced thick rounds off two ripe tomatoes and a young avocado, then gently unwrapped our muscle-builder; dense, dry salami. A can of brined beans and the cheese wedge crumbling open for consumption, and we were ready to feast. I love the abandon with which hikers dive headfirst into a dinner, the same lack of social grace that overtook us on the seaside hills. Food is a magnificent aesthetic itself, a fulfillment of nearly every sense and our great deep desires, capable of reducing even the tidiest king to a mere animal like the rest of us. As dinner ended we unwrapped the greatest treasure from our packs: a winebottle of coal-black New Zealand stout, purchased two days before in a small ale boutique and refrigerated in frozen vegetables for this very moment. We walked back out onto the track and slowly uncapped the bottle, savoring the subtle flavors of the thick-bodied beer with what remained of the cheese. The textures and nuances of the brew began to blend seemlessly with the soft light of the approaching night, and all great aesthetics became one as the sun set over behind the hills and withdrew its light from the aleblack sea. We headed to our tents for a short game of euchre and slept as soon as our heads hit our pillows.
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