The Mahamudra Tibetan Buddhist Monastery is serene. One of the nuns greet us when we arrive and gives us a short tour of the facilities. They are simple yet welcoming. A varied tea selection, fruit, candies, and other refreshments are all complimentary. A well-stocked library on eastern and Buddhist philosophies and teachings line one corner of the common room. We wander the grounds for a bit. It is not large, but there is a silence, stillness, and peace that I was so often famished for back in The States.
They offer dorm rooms as well as allow camping on the lawn for a smaller fee. We decide to stay the night and reconsider our plan in the morning. We join the few others here for a simple dinner of soup and bread. There is a farm down the road that offers a few hikes, and we decide to head off for one labeled ‘mine and glow worms.’
Mooooo
The hills of the farm are full of cows and sheep. When we cross one fence, there are horses as well, grazing right along the path. Elvis ventures to stroke one of them, and they let him. They are gorgeous creatures. I regret having left my phone that is my camera in my car.
“I think we might have taken a wrong turn,” Elvis says. He is holding a map we borrowed from Mahamudra center. “It says turn after the edge of the pines, but we’ve come a long way.”
“There really wasn’t anywhere else to turn off,” I say.
“It looks like it is just around the bend up there,” Kyle says.
“Well if it is, the scale on this map is really bad.”
“It is a hand-drawn map, it is communicating the necessities,” I say. But we are all unsure a bit. We have been walking further than we thought we would up hard hills.
We finally spot a sign. “Mine ß” is all it says. But there is no real path down the hill it indicates. “It looks like there might be a path through the trees there,” Kyle says, pointing to the far side of the hill where it comes back up. “Do we chance it?”
“We’ve got to. We’ve come this far.” Elvis says, heading down the grassy slope. “God do I need to get some proper shoes soon.” He is in Birkenstocks, his other shoes are old, worn out, and no good for anything. He has not worn them since we left Auckland, going barefoot when not wearing the sandals.
There are pink markers every so often to keep us confident we are going the right way. Down the steep hill, and back up the other side, we finally see the mine up ahead.
“HOLY FUCK!” Elvis says, screaming at something Kyle and I do not see. We burst out laughing. “That bloody bat scared the shit out of me.” Elvis looks a little jumpy.
“Well let’s have a look then,” Kyle says, flicking his flashlight on. The mine is not large, tall and wide enough to stand in, but not if we were much taller. We keep flicking our lights off and on to try and find the glow worms. There are few, but they are underwhelming. The giant grass-hopper-like insects crawling on the cave ceilings, however, are not.
“Jesus Christ,” Elvis says, startling again as Kyle points one out. Elvis urges us to quit the mine with haste. “I could never be a dwarf.”
Monday we head back off to Coromandel to check in with Elvis’ car and resume our travel around the country.
Sounds like Elvis is keeping things interesting, even at a Buddhist Monastery.