Cheryl and Ken and Paul

"My son is an engineer too. He works in Switzerland now, for one of those telecommunications companies. He's 29 and quite an adventure himself. Paul... that's his name."

Adventurer? I think to myself as I listen to Cheryl's shoft-spoken voice. That's certainly not me.

"You should tell him about the phone call from Syria," Ken says as he pats Cheryl's hand on the table.

The three of us are enjoying our well earned dinners, the two of them sitting across from me. I met Cheryl and Ken briefly, as I passed them on the trail in route to the Daley Flat Hut. They smile frequently. The smiles are ageless, but the smile lines at the corners of their eyes have me guessing, 'late-50's?'

Cheryl has short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. She's quite thin, and her movements have a gracefulness that makes her seem fragile, but also there's a self-assuredness that makes her seem incredibly resilient. She's a beautiful person, and must have been a knock-out in her youth. Positive, curious and really sharp... I like her immediately.

Ken is tall and fit, with a full head of snow-white hair. A handsome fellow, he has a well groomed and deliberate manner that seems fitting of someone who is a draftsman by trade. His kindness and soft-spoken manner reminds me of my good friend Ainge's father. Needless to say, I like Ken too.

Cheryl obliges Ken with the story, "It was New Year's and I received a call from Paul... to wish me a happy New Year. Oh dear... I should apologize. I have this lisp, you see, because I chipped my tooth the other day..."

I noticed Cheryl's chipped front tooth on the trail, and loved the fact that it was hours into our meeting before she felt compelled to explain it. My own self-consciousness would've had me explaining a chipped tooth just after the part where I said, "My name's Tim, nice to meet you." Cheryl never once hid the gap in her smile.

"...where was I? Oh, so it's a number of months later and Paul was here in New Zealand for a visit. He picked up a copy of a North & South magazine I had laying around and said to me, pointing to an article about Iraq, 'Hey, this is about me.' As it turns out, when he called on New Year's, Paul was actually phoning from a satellite-phone he'd borrowed from a journalist friend he'd met while in Iraq... the journalist writing the article for North & South. Paul had crossed the border under the guise of a UN worker. Gosh... sometimes I wonder about him."

"That's how he spent his Christmas and New Year's holiday?" I ask.

"I think he was just curious as to what it was like in Iraq. He's always getting in crazy adventures like that. I think it's just that age."

No, I think, I'm no adventurer. But, it is certainly inspiring to know that there are still people like Paul out here traveling.