Everyday at the rainbow gathering I said ‘I’ll leave tomorrow’ and never did. Sitting by the fire one night, Emilio told me he’d been thinking of leaving too, but questioned that thought. Why the desire to move?

I’d started to crave some solitude. I’d had many new thoughts, now I needed time to process them. I was getting bored of the rainbow routine. Moving forwards on the map feels good – it satisfies my ego. These were the best answers I could come up with, but none of them actually felt enough to explain the feeling. It remains a mystery.

But the next morning I decided to head on anyway. I packed up once the dew had evaporated and said goodbye. ‘See you in five’ is a rainbow goodbye – it could be 5 seconds, hours, days, weeks, months, years …

It’s funny how a few days back I wrote that my mind felt stale and I needed some new input, only for me to stumble upon a gathering of diverse, open-minded humans who enjoy thinking about life. Paddling onwards, I felt the most at peace with myself I have in a long time, my brain processing the last few days like a pack of hungry dogs with their heads down, silently eating, leaving me to enjoy the present moment in a rare kind of in stillness.

Along beautiful coastline I kayaked, the mountains above me. I passed a man paddling a canoe and asked him where he was going. ‘Where are you going ?’ he retorted.

Where was I going? Somewhere to find lunch, which ended up being Hotel Rivera on the edge of Qeparo. One seafood pasta. I won’t make comparisons with Italian pasta, that could start a war. Slow service but I left a tip anyway because I paid in Euros. To do: research Albanian tipping culture and take out some Lek (136 Lek to the pound by the way).

At this point my phone realised I’m not still in Greece and I got a scary text message from O2 saying I’ll have to sell all my belongings if I want to make a call or something along those lines. So it’s cafe WiFi only until I buy an Albanian SIM or I reach Montenegro.

This was a blessing in disguise. Not being able to upload blogs everyday means I don’t feel the pressure to. It’s the feeling of serving a duty I can’t stand. But what the hell, if I want to shirk I will. Thank God an excuse to not be sharing my life on Fb and insta too. A break from deliberating the pros and cons of these platforms.

I reached the town of Himarë where I resupplied at a chaotic supermarket that was incredibly well stocked with Milka chocolate and bottled water and then popped in to a bakery to sample a slice of byrek, a rich kind of cottage cheese pie.

On the beach I met a friendly Mexican girl and a Ukrainian couple, plus Gimal, an Albanian dude renting out kayaks who had a go on my surfski, bought me a coffee, and gave me some elastic. Why? Because he was so enthusiastically eager to help me in any way possible, even if I had no need for elastic.

The sun setting, I paddled off to find a good camp spot, thinking maybe I should’ve just stayed talking to the people on the beach and camped there too. When I came towards my chosen beach, the sounds of a guitar drifted across the water and I thought I’d come upon another rainbow gathering. No, it was a lovely cezch family travelling in a van who invited me over to eat potatoes and steak from their BBQ. They’d travelled the world and now it was holidays with their three (four?) small kids.

The community of travellers in Albania is great, it reminds me of my time in New Zealand where you meet people wherever you stop. The Albanians are so cool with it too. Wild camping is legal here and they don’t look down on people pitching up on the beach or wherever, that’s normal here.