Jess is finally going! That New Zealand holiday is at its dawn, and all she can think of is landscapes, walks and adventures. But what she does not expect to find, is what is waiting around the corner - someone.
Someone who will turn her holiday up...
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The little car trundled along. If Jess had been taking a route like this back home, she would have called it the scenic route. But then, she thought, in New Zealand, it was probably the everyday route.
The scene flashing by outside the windows, was now of rolling green fields. Sure, this was probably not an exceptional sight here, where there were more sheep than people, but, nevertheless, Jess's face was hovering inches from the glass slab before her.
There was something entrancingly serene about the patchwork of fields, weaving in and out of each other and unfolding into the distance. This landscape seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see, broken up only here and there, by a clump of buildings or a herd of cows, happily chewing their grass under the clear sky.
"Someone's enthralled!" A voice spoke from beside Jess.
She turned to grin at her aunt, who grinned back, her pale green eyes and dirty blonde hair lit up by the sunshine streaming into the car.
"Aren't you glad we were all able to convince your mum to come over here?"
Jess nodded, "For sure Aunty Charlotte." and turned to her mother, who smiled back at her from the front passenger's seat.
"Jess," Her uncle, Samuel, spoke from the behind the wheel, "Take a look over to your left now; I think you'll have something more there."
Jess, suddenly gripped by excitement, turned. The sight that met her eyes made her draw in her breath.
Before her was what she had, for all this time, been dreaming about - the fields still stretched away around her for miles but, beyond them, just discernible, were the snow-capped peaks of a mountain range.
The soft, tumbling meadows stood in the sharpest of contrasts from the steep, bleak mountains, rising steeply behind them. It took Jess's breath away to get to see such a sight, and within hours of landing too!
"You guys are so lucky to live here!" she said, before turning to her mother, "Imagine staying here mum! You could go on walks every day. You'd probably just need to step outside to go on an adventure!"
"Ah well, adventure is what you're asking for when you come here!" Her uncle chuckled from the driver's seat, laughter lines creasing around his nose. "Your aunt and I have been here for quite a while-"
"Now dear, no need to remind us of how long we've been around. We are not quite as close to Jess's age as we may like to be."
"Right, well," uncle Sam laughed, "we've been on our fair share of adventures around this country, but we can hardly claim to have seen even half of it. You could adventure here your whole life, and you would probably still have missed places."
Jess smiled at this notion - an everlasting adventure. That sounded like a dream.
"I think I'd like to be on adventure my whole life - it'd save me the hassle of keeping house." She glanced at her mother, who chuckled knowingly.
