I was feeling pretty restless towards the end of last year. I was pining for London and wondering if I was ever going to settle back into Durban life. I'd never been an outdoorsy girl and most of life revolves around the outdoors here. One day I was chatting to an old friend and he was telling me that there is no other place he'd rather be than Durban and I thought that was so cool. He was telling me how rad it is that mountain ranges are just an hour away and it was cool to listen to someone so passionate about our hometown. And there I was, longing for crowded undergrounds and bustly streets and poky old book stores and ancient buildings...but I wanted to love Durban just as much. Of course, there is alot about the city that I do love but I wasn't feeling settled. And I knew I wasn't appreciating it as much as I could be but I didn't know why. And then I asked my friend if we could go on a nature walk one Saturday and we spent a day by a waterfall, noshing cheese crackers! It was epic and I couldn't believe there was such a beautiful, magical place just twenty minutes from my home. And so we started going on lots of fun adventures and I started to see our province in a new light. I crunched through autumn leaves, napped on river banks, hiked in a mountain, played in a snowfall and pretty much came face to face with a school of dolphins! I feel so grateful to live here now. When I turned thirty, someone asked me if I feel panicky about not having a house and kids and all of that but I don't at all. There is plenty of time for that stuff. I'm hoping 2013 will be filled with more adventures and epic nature missions. Of course, I still love everything I did before - London, markets, book stores, thrifting, weird movies...there's just another part of life that I appreciate now. I no longer feel restless – I feel like there is so much more to explore! And that's my little story about how I fell in love with the outdoors :)
