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As a few of you may have noticed I am currently not in Japan and am instead sitting here back in Cloverdale looking for a job and thinking of what to write to wrap up such an incredible journey. Despite the unfortunate circumstances that led to my arrival back in Canada, I could not be happier to be home.

                It felt really surreal being back after a year abroad. Climbing into a full sized truck, and not the import sized trucks and Utes that populated Australia and New Zealand. I was passing all these landmarks that I knew so well yet it felt like a dream, I wasn’t sure if I should be excited or sad. My mind was having a hard time deciphering the experience; had I just imagined the last year or was I just having another dream of home and I would soon awake back in New Zealand. Even as I sit here writing this I find it hard to believe I am back home.

                Despite my stubbornness not to get jet-lagged after only a five hour time difference, I find myself not sleeping regularly and waking up either super early in the morning or in middle of the day. To try and get my head around the change and just to escape the whole rush of feelings I decided I would jump on the bike and escape to something familiar. The route I eventually decided on was to take the back roads to Fort Langley as they would have the least traffic and from there the roads were all fairly easy, empty and safe.

                The bike I chose for my ride today was my touring bike as I had still not put my road bike back together after dismantling it over a year ago. I immediately noticed the resistance the bigger tires and bike added, never the less not carrying my life over the rear tire was a big improvement and I found myself gliding effortlessly up the shallow hills of east Langley. The weather of Canada was a welcome comfort on the bike, no need to constantly be taking off and putting back on your jacket depending on wither the roadside vegetation was blocking the sun out or not. Nope it was officially cold at home and there would be no removal of any of the layers I had left the house in. In just over thirty minutes I arrived in the small town of Fort Langley, only 18km from my parent’s house, and decided to stop for a morning coffee at the locally famous Wendalls Books and Café. I took out the four dollar that the board said my mocha would cost me only to be asked for the remaining forty eight cents that I owed… Oh right tax is not included in Canada. As I sat beside my bike enjoying my mocha it began to sink in that I was home; the weather was cold and held that eerie uncertainty of rain that Vancouverites knew all too well; The road I took to my destination was devoid of roundabouts and the traffic on them was far too great in number; but most of all I knew exactly where I was, I knew where North was and every turn was no longer an adventure but a route I had known and calculated.

                Getting the grande mocha was probably unnecessary and I was not expecting the size of it compared to what I had been drinking for the last year or the volume of my stomach it would occupy as I weaved the bike up the winding road of 264^th Street. Brian and I had really only seen rain four times in our 1500km journey through New Zealand but as I crested the top of that winding hill and began to gear back up, it started to rain. I had been home for two days, chose to cycle for one of those and it started raining on me. Eager to not let the rain get any worse I made my way home, wet and cold but home.

                It’s amazing the things you learn in a year and how much you can change and realise about yourself and potential. Now I’m back and I have to use the lessons I learned, and from good and bad, to not fall into the same routines that I had before I left. They say travelling changes you, and I know its cliché but I do believe it does. The hard part is coming home and keeping that positive change and not falling back into your old self, as it seems so much easier to do.