Misadventures in Mordor!
Backpacker to Nomad book excerpt #6
I’m delighted to present an exclusive sneak peek book excerpt for my new travel memoir ‘Backpacker to Nomad’
What’s Backpacker to Nomad? It’s my new travel memoir, chronicling the evolution from naive newbie to full-time traveller through my adventure & misadventures.
What readers are saying:
★★★★★ “The writing is excellent, and the author’s descriptions are so vivid” — Amazon Review
★★★★★ “You’ll get lost in Amit’s adventures and laugh along the way (mostly AT him)” — Amazon review
★★★★★ “I thought the way the book weaved between adventure and mental self-discovery was very smart. — Amazon Review
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If you love travel adventures, discovery, and escaping reality to drift off to lands far and wide this is the book you need to pick up.
Book Launched: July 27th 2022
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Sit back, grab a snack and enjoy …..
Adventure day backpacking New Zealand
Light started to fill the vast open dry landscape in the early morning half-light, the slow rising sun caused huge domineering sharp and jagged silhouettes to rise up from the earth to stand tall in the surrounding distance. It was as if an artist had made brushstrokes behind the shadowy silhouettes, painting the sky from a deep orange beam to blend into a light blue, leaving the moon high above. It was remarkable, one of the best daybreaks so far.
New Zealand, on many occasions, felt like traveling through a masterpiece. The scenery — from black sand beaches to rolling green hills to dry rocky mountains — was simply stunning and this was no different.
Tour groups and individual hikers marched past the raised wooden boardwalk towards the bottom of the silhouettes. All of them are kitted out in full hiking gear, the correct type of footwear, cargo pants or shorts, aided by hiking poles and carrying backpacks. The tour groups followed flag bearers, while the individual hikers made sure their maps were in hand.
It was like watching a well-drilled army unit march by. However, I decided to take another route, jumping off the boardwalk, dancing past the little spiky shrubs poking out of the dry dusty earth, making sure not to disturb them.
Chasing baby waterfalls
“See, happy Amit is here, dancing and chasing the waterfalls, glad that Alex woke him up early.”
Alex’s soft bouncy accent flowed as softly as the mini streams and baby waterfalls that held my attention. The baby waterfalls falling off the little rocks flowing downhill were away from the boardwalk, but there was enough footing and dry earth to dance around in my cream Nike pumps — not exactly hiking footwear, but they were comfortable and light.
“Nope, Amit is happy because of the adventure today and because I drank three cups of coffee before the sun could come up, not because Alex woke me up at stupid o’clock.”
“Oh, come on, waking up early is not so bad. We have the whole day to adventure and explore it. How do you call this… Merder? Molder? Mondor?” she asked while also dancing around the bushes.
Mordor
The dusty colorless dry earth started to turn to a rich, coppery red the closer and bigger the mountains became. They were emerging from the shadows to reveal their true domineering rock faces.
They’re a lot higher than they seemed at the beginning of the boardwalk. Do I have to go up there?
Yeah, maybe we did come a little underprepared.
Alex had already jumped back onto the boardwalk and it didn’t take long for me to follow as there was no other obvious route to take. There were more looks, shaking of heads, and tuts as more hikers streamed past. It seemed my attire screamed out ‘clueless or typical backpacker’. One of the hikers in front was even carrying a rope.
Why does he have a rope? Do we need a rope? Nobody else has one, though, I guess he’s just being cautious or he’s a rock climber. We don’t need a rope, we’ll be fine.
“Alex, are we a little underprepared for this? Look at what everybody else is wearing. We look like we’re just going for a leisurely walk.”
“No, I’m fine, just no hiking stick. You are just you.” Her green eyes dotted around and she shrugged.
“What do you mean, just me?”
Not a proper hiker
She ignored the question as the boardwalk started to get swallowed up by the earth until it completely disappeared. All of a sudden, a coppery rusty smell took over the air. Loose charcoal had replaced the dry grey dusty ground and it almost felt like we were standing on a different planet. Wind swept up some of the finer loose charcoal grazings across my exposed legs like crushed glass. It only took another few steps before I was dwarfed under a sheer rock face that stretched up high to touch the sky.
