Dreams come true in any weather

We had dinner at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe and watched the sunset. Then we tucked up in our cosy, but very basic room (a bargain at $4 per night), for a good night’s sleep, ready to fulfil one of my longest standing dreams the next morning – watching the sunrise over Mt Everest.

This dream had captured my imagination ever since an English teacher had planted the seed in my fertile mind, years before. As she told her story of her own experience, watching the sunrise at Nagakot in Nepal, my heart answered, “I’m going to do that one day!” It seemed like an impossible dream at the time. And yet, here we were, taking it easy after two weeks hard trekking, with the glory of the Himalaya spread out before us. We didn’t even need to get out of bed in the morning. We could watch the sunrise from our room.

So the next morning we awoke, excited, and looked out of the window. FOG! A complete whitewash. We couldn’t even see the edge of the balcony. “That’s OK”, I said, “we’ll see it when we get to Thyangboche.” And we laughed at the irony of it all.

A week or so later, after a hard week of trekking (well, it seemed that way to me, carrying my own pack this time) we set up our camera gear on the small hillside above the sleepy monastery town. The mountains around were spectacular in the early dawn light, and so much closer than Nagakot. It was like being in a theatre. Slowly the sun hit the snowy mountain ridges, lighting them up in pinks and golds. We took photos, we hugged, we laughed. A dream come true!

Except, I was watching the wrong mountain, as I realised later when looking at a postcard in Namche Bazaar on the way down. We’d actually celebrated a glorious sunrise over Nuptse, Everest’s nearby neighbour. Everest was the one hiding at the back! Aarrgh! We laughed again, over the irony of it all (I’ve taken a few digs on the chin in the years since about it too!)

At home, with the photos back from the lab, I was relieved to find a photo of the sun rising over Everest – I had seen it after all. A rarity, in fact, to capture the Everest summit free of cloud cover, something usually experienced only in the Winter, when we were there.

It’s been a long, wet Winter in Melbourne this year. To be honest, I’m over it! Far too many times this Winter, I have not ventured out – to walk in the forest, meet a friend for a coffee or escape to the beach – because of bad weather. It’s not a lack of gear either – I have enough clothes and wet weather gear to survive a blizzard in Antarctica. Our social lives have gone on complete hold – no dinner parties or weekend breakfast catch ups, very few family events. It’s like a wintry cloud has come over our lives, like we’ve gone into hibernation or something.

Bad weather doesn’t seem to stop us from making our dreams come true when we’re travelling.  So why do it at home?

This week’s post was inspired by our Weekly Story Starter which came from the Travel theme. The cards selected were “The best bargain…” and “Weather”.

Got a great story you’d love to share? Each week we post a Weekly Story Starter on Twitter and Facebook. Send us your story, inspired by the week’s theme, to contact[at]leafjournals.com and you could win a pack of Story Starter cards of your choice. Read more…