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There are two sides to boredom, I think: one is looking for new things to do -new challenges; the other is succumbing to indolence and, because it takes less effort, do something you’ve done a hundred times before, hoping that maybe -just maybe- something new will arise. It’s Phoenix-thinking: believing something exciting will emerge even if you use the same old ashes, eh?

Anyway, I thought I’d try it out with a drive up to Te Mata peak again -I do it every time I visit the Hawke’s Bay area. It’s thrilling, albeit much the same, year after year. I admit that in geological time, this isn’t even a blink, but my phone GPS prefers local standard time so I go along with it by and large, and don’t expect surprises.

I did throw a spanner in the machinery, though: I keep my phone on Airplane Mode to avoid roaming fees and that helps minimize the costs of my trip a little. The trick is to ask my phone for GPS instructions to wherever in the motel WiFi system, and run for the car before it forgets the route. Admittedly, the little advice-voice sometimes -okay, usually– gets things mixed up, or turns on the sign on the screen saying it’s reprogramming, but leaves the road map on while she riffles through whatever directional instructions remain. I figure it’s sort of like what probably happens in the brain immediately after death, but before the neurons lose their blood supply altogether: some circuits are still open if the poor little voice trapped in there is lucky.

Anyway, it’s a fun game if you have a lot of gas in the tank. I usually turn the sound down or the voice keeps saying stuff like “At the next roundabout, take the second exit”, or “in 600 metres turn left and then take the first road to your right”. It’s all gobbledegook, of course, but sometimes the map on the screen reprograms for a place I don’t even recognize, so I stop watching it. I got taken through the Hastings city centre in traffic today before I realized that I was as lost as the GPS.

Then, suddenly, a little Tinkerbell voice tintinnabulated from the phone, and after the screen glittered (or did it static?) for a moment, the voice seemed to take command: “In 500 metres, at the roundabout, take the third exit” (It actually italicized its voice somehow) and when I was in the roundabout, repeated its command like my mother insisting I eat my porridge or there’d be no peanut butter on my toast: “Take the third exit now,” she who must be obeyed, commanded.

Suddenly, I realized I was in good hands again: my mother brooked no nonsense when I was a kid. I have to admit, though, that the phone’s commands came tumbling out one after another, often confusing me into obeying them without thinking. Now I was in its bailiwick, and so totally lost on the little narrow windy roads, I didn’t dare disobey, and hunched forward in my seat so I wouldn’t miss the next diktat.

I’ve never been good at directions, either in the classroom, or advising a stranger on the street seeking orientation, although I’m usually pretty good at solace: when we’re both lost, we usually have a good laugh and feel better about it…

I suppose what I’m saying is that in the old pre-cell-phone-GPS days when I was trying to find Te Mata, I would usually have to pull into a gas station and ask directions. The clerk, or mechanic, or whoever, would not find it funny when I didn’t understand his (there was no political-correctness in those days) continually repeated instructions. Finally, he’d pull out one of the maps for sale at the counter, and trace the route -usually with a smudgy pen; one time, the garage guy even found a big fat red crayon so I could see it more easily while I was driving -that one was my favourite, although he charged me for the crayon as well as the map.

Anyway, here I am at Te Mata. I’m parked on the edge of a cliff littered with paths that little kids in helmets and mountain bikes disappear over without even waving to their proud parents who, by then have jumped into their 4x4s and rattled off to wherever kids on mountain bikes go when they disappear.

Today, what I can see of the mountain through the rain-spattered windshield is limited, but I’ve been here before, and climbed up to the top when I was younger. I even tried to paraglide from up top one time, but l was discouraged from trying too hard because of the gusty and variable winds up there, and because the day before, someone had fallen from the hang-glider ramp while trying to stabilize his friend’s wing. It didn’t take long to convince me.

At any rate, it’s windy and cold up here again today, and I have to wonder why I come here each year. I suppose it’s like any pilgrimage, though, isn’t it? It’s the journey, not the destination; the memories not the actual place. And once again, despite the diminishing number of leaves still on my branches, I have made it back…