There are certain life-changing events that really knock you to the floor. In this case, it was a breakup with a boyfriend of seven years. We lived in different cities — him in Berlin, me in London — but after a year and a half of uncertainty, I finally pulled the plug on a relationship that wasn’t just broken, but detrimental to my mental wellbeing and sense of self. At the time, I was staying in a friend’s spare bedroom while in between homes, and there were personal family issues going on, too.
The fog in my mind took me back to when I was 21 years old, a time when I was gradually coming out to myself and feeling heavily burdened with worry over whether family and friends would accept me. These two life events were quite different, but the end result was the same: I’d spent so much energy trying to make other people happy that I had completely neglected myself. In short, I felt lost.
Back in my early twenties I knew that what I needed most was to get away. I ventured to the mountains and coastlines of South-East Asia and Australia to embark on a tumultuous, yet ultimately healing, journey of introspection and self-discovery.
Fast-forward to the present and the end of my relationship, and the voice of my 21-year-old self returned to my subconscious, telling me to take flight to a new land for another great reset. As the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. In this case, the destination is 11,386 miles away and a 24-hour-plus flight from London to Auckland, New Zealand. It’s a long way to go to get over a broken heart. (Drama queen? Me? Never.)
“My 21-year-old self returned, telling me to take flight to a new land for another great reset”
“Oh, it’s like paradise,” says Cerise, the woman on the check-in desk at Heathrow Airport, after I comment on the flight ahead and how I find long-haul flights more than a little arduous. Privileged problems and all that, I think as I check my ungracious attitude in along with my luggage. She asks if I have visited New Zealand before. I reply that I have not. “It’s far away, but paradise is supposed to be far away,” she adds, a radiant smile illuminating her face. “This much is true,” I tell Cerise as I take that first step to the other side of the world.
AT AUCKLAND AIRPORT, I jump into a cab and head to the port: first stop, Waiheke. A verdant paradise off the coast of the country’s North Island, it was once the destination of hippies and artists. But like other similar places around the world — from Lisbon to Berlin — gentrification has meant that the island is now somewhat more genteel, although a bohemian spirit still permeates the tranquil streets lined with independent shops offering handmade jewellery or pottery, or art galleries that feature work by celebrated Kiwi artists including Kauri sculpture master John Freeman and landscape artist Gwen Rutter.
It may be February, and the height of summer in New Zealand, but Waiheke’s beaches are uncrowded oases of calm, the perfect getaway from the glass and steel skyscrapers of Auckland’s city centre. On a 40-minute Fullers ferry boat trip, they’re easily accessible.
So it is that just a couple of hours after stepping off the plane, my feet sink into the fine sand of Little Palm Beach, the clothing-optional stretch on the west end of Palm Beach — a cosy bay carved into Waiheke’s northern coast. The beach is dotted with gays soaking up the sun or splashing in the waves. It seems I’ve found my people. As the sea laps at my ankles and the birds chirp and flutter overhead, I look out at the Hauraki Gulf (Tikapa Moana in Māori) and reflect on this moment. Here I am, on the other side of the planet, and already I’ve never felt freer. I stay until the sun drops behind the green hills to the east
