On canyoning, skydiving, puzzles, kayaking, car-sickness and glaciers

Covering february 18th to february 24th



a full day of canyoning condensed into 1:20 for your viewing pleasure. The green (again, unbearably sexy) helmet is perched precariously on the presomtuous pumpkin of yours truly (i.e. green = me)

The next morning I had a first-hand experience of how rude kiwis can be as one of them pushed me out of a perfectly good airplane. I was horrified to find that I wasn't wearing a parachute! Fortunately, the guy strapped to my back had brought his and it was big enough for two so we shared his. I gotta learn to remember these things.

That evening I went to the lake with three aussies, a guitar, and a bottle of whisky. All of them good company.



The next morning it was raining. There were four of us in the car. A german guy, a german girl, a danish girl, and a danish me. All of us strangers. We'd set out on a spontaneous Lord of the Rings location hunt. The german girl had a car, the german guy had a LotR guidebook, I had binoculars, and Linda (the danish girl) had the idea. We were foiled by the weather, but a good time is defined by the company and the attitude, not the circumstances. We had a very good time.

Also, Linda taught me some Salsa. Fun!

The forecast said heavy rains for the entire weekend so I chose to hole up in wanaka, waiting for the weather to clear. A full day glacier walk didn't seem very appealing in pouring rain, and I didn't want to wait it out in Fox Glacier township as there's nothing to do there. This meant I had another couple of days to kill in Wanaka.

If you ever go to Wanaka, you HAVE to check out their cinema. I've never been in one like it. I don't think it even matters what movie is showing, it's just the whole experience! Everybody was sitting in sofas or comfy chairs, and one (un?)lucky couple got to sit in an old car. The film for the night was 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'. Nice movie, and Brad Pitt is always awesome.
Anyways. Before the movie started i'd ordered a Pizza, and by the half-way break a table had been made ready for me in the foyer with one steaming pizza waiting for me. Awesome!

Puzzleworld is also quite something. It's not that big, but it has some quite impressive illusions and the maze itself will keep you occupied for an hour at least (unless you're as skilled as me and Linda, in which case you'll zip through it in 45 minutes ;) ). I didn't have my camera since it was a very spontaneous thing, so these were taken with my phone.

Linda is not very tall

Or is she?

When I went kayaking on Wanaka lake I forgot my camera again. Sorry. Pictures wouldn't have done it justice anyway though, as the weather wasn't too good. The trip however, was awesome and completely spontaneous! I was paddling with a californian bloke, and in another kayak were two german girls (Christiane and Nadine). We sailed out to a little island (Ruby island I think) and went for a walk.



Monday, the forecast said the weather would be clearing. Nadine and Christiane was going to Fox Glacier too and offered me a lift in their tiny little car. Wonderful! Christiane was driving. Horrible! I never get carsick, but she made me feel queazy.

The road up the west coast was one I'd really been looking forward to, and sitting cramped on the backseat of a car with no view wasn't exactly the great motorcycle adventure I'd been dreaming of. To top it off, I slept most of the way to stave off the car-sickness. They thought I was suffering from sleeping sickness. I was too polite to tell them that it stemmed from survival instinct. I miss being on a bike. I checked the used bike market again, but to no avail.

Arriving at Fox, I had no reservations for a backpackers place or the glacier walk. Backpackers went ok, but the glacier walk was fully booked. I was gutted. I was already behind schedule, and didn't feel like wasting any more time in Fox.
The town of fox is beautiful and nestled in rainforest, but I found it hard to enjoy, being worried about spending too much time here. I only had two weeks left before the north island, if I were to stick to my plan. Then it struck me that the only person telling me to stick to my plan was me, and if I wanted to change it I could. This made me relax a bit.
After one night of worrying, I got up early and went to see if there'd been any cancellaions on the day trip. there had! It's funny how my worries seem to vaporize the closer I get to them.

The backpackers here in Fox is covered with those cheasy motivational posters. They're tacky, but this one caught my eye:
What we hope to do with ease, we must first do with hard work and perseverance.

This area is called the Gunbarrels. Notice the huge boulder in the foreground. Just five days earlier it'd come thundering down all the way from the top of that mountain!

I smirk in the face of danger!

I was quite inept at using that pick, and almost took off my foot. Looks good in pictures though.

Ice caves rock!

The Fox Glacier, together with the Milford Sound, is some of the most stunning scenery I've ever known. It's nestled in a valley with rainforest covering both sides, and it's a very weird feeling walking through rainforest to get to a glacier! Standing on the ice, you can see down the entire valley, see the hills in the distance, and behind them, a vast and sparkling sea. Once again, I was overcome by a sense of immense wonder at the natural forces at work in this place. This entire valley had been carved by a grinding river of ice, and I was witnessing its slow but deliberate push towards the ocean. Soon, this sense of wonder grew in scope and once again I found myself marvelling at the planet we're on. Just like on the Kepler track, I realized how insignificant we are in the greater scheme of things. Nothing we can do can stop this planet, or even stop life. We can kill ourselves, easy! And we can take other species with us, but wipe out the planet? All life on it? That is only a boast we do to seem important to ourselves.


Some people think that scientific explanations takes away the beauty of things. Somehow they think that, if they know too much about something they'll be unable to appreciate it. I find the opposite to be true. The glacier itself is beautiful to the eye, nothing can ever take that away, but knowing about the processes going on hundreds of meters below me, imagining the sheer weight required for the glacier generate enough pressure to grind the mountain into a pulp, seeing it all happen in my minds eye. Suddenly the beauty goes much further than the eye.

Carl Sagan said something humbling while pondering this picture of earth, taken by Voyager 1 in 1990.

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Puts it all in perspective doesn't it?

All Roads Lead to Queenstown

Covering february 9th to february 17th



After the Kepler track I took a day off to rest my feet and get my bearings. I didn't want to sit idle for too long as I felt I was behind schedule, so I booked a kayaking trip on the Milford Sound for the next day. I figured it would be a good way to be active and still be able to rest my legs. I was a bit concerned about the weather as it'd been quite bad all day. The weather in the Fjordlands is very temperamental however, and the next day was as beautiful as anyone could've hoped.

I was in a double kayak with Tiphaine, or San, as she prefers. San is french. Very french. Passing a waterfall on the way to Milford, everyone went "ooh, ooh!" and pulled out their cameras, except San, who nonchalantly took the cigarette from her mouth and exclaimed "Iz o.k."
She dresses like a pirate, a very beautiful pirate mind you, and she is great fun being around and a marvel to study. Fortunately she has a great sense of humour and doesn't take herself too seriously. We coordinated our double-kayak very well, but then again, that's what you'd expect from two people whose names mean stuff like "Divine Apparition" and "Beauty of God" isn't it? ;)

The kayaking was amazing and generally very relaxing. Unlike the cruise boats, we got right up to the cliffs and we were only meters from the NZ fur-seals resting there. The waterfalls were magnificent too, and we got as the kayaks could go.

The road from Te Anau to Milford is studded with a plethora of sights which were as varied as they were beautiful.

The next day San and I went horseback riding. It was ok, but honestly I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get to gallop. I understand the safety issues, but what's the fun in trotting? Besides, galloping is far easier. And we wore helmets.

Fuck yeah. Helmets!

That same afternoon I hitch-hiked for the first time in NZ. Hitch-hiking is extremely easy in New Zealand. Anywhere I stood, I didn't wait for more than 20 minutes for a ride.



That evening as I left the hostel I'd chosen, the town revealed its true identity to me. I was standing on a hillside with mountains on three sides. Beyond the town in front of me, I could see jetboats zipping around cruise-ships and steam-boats on the lake. Above me, hang-gliders were looping and the screams of para-gliders reached me even as I stood wondering at their madness. Before my feet lay the thundering adventure metropolis of the world, Queenstown. She had something to offer!

It's hard to describe what Queenstown feels like. It reminds me of Don Rosa's rendition of Klondike at the height of the gold rush days in his "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck". There's a fortune being made here for the people running the adventure businesses, and a fortune to be spent by everybody else. The key to my backpacker's room had the allure of 2 for 1 prices at two different bars in town, which resulted in five consecutive nights of drinking. Every bar has a theme for each night of the week, and thursday was Wet T-shirt contest at the Buffalo. Madness I tell you. Madness!

My infamous and insatiable hunger eventually led me to Fergburger, which just so happens to have the best burgers I've ever tasted. Whoever thought of making a burger of such quality and then put bacon and blue-cheese in it surely deserves the nobel prize! (note: said burger goes well with a pinot noir.) This town could easily make me a very poor man!

I decided to go for some adrenaline, and I thought about doing the Shotover Canyon Swing . In a flurry of quick decisions I ended up booking it for that afternoon and fear started churning in my stomach right away. Fortunately, I'm fairly well versed in that particular anticipatory kind of fear, and I was able to put it out of my head for most of the day. Remember what I said about worrying? I'd made a decision.
Of course. I am not as perfect as I sometimes lead myself to believe, and a tingling sense of panic had me itching all day, whether I cared to admit it or not. I showed up at the meeting point way too early and found it very hard to speak. The team I was going with had around ten people, and my fears that I was the only nervous one were quickly abolished as I looked around the bus. Someone piped up, asking the driver what it was like. "Oh, I haven't tried it. No way! I've seen what happens to those people!" He was joking of course. The bastard.

They led us up a narrow dirt track and after around 300 meters we came to the all-too-shabby looking building we'd be jumping from. Looking down that valley, it hit me what I was doing.

I have a motto: It's okay to be scared, as long as I do it anyway.

Me: There's no way I'm doing this!
Jumpmaster: okay, cool. If you just put on this harness.
I put on the harness.
M: There's no way I'm doing this!
JM: What's your name?
M: Jophiel
JM: Hello Garfield. Is there any physical handicaps we should be aware of?
M: I'm from Denmark
JM: Well, apart from the obvious ones I meant. Just walk this way. Look, this is where you'll be jumping.
What! the! hell! am! I! doing!
JM: We'll just check if your harness is secure. Wait is this supposed to be loose?
Assistant: I don't know, it'll probably be alright. This looks wrong though. Nevermind, just let him do it.
They mess with your mind like that. They are not good people.
M: There's no way I'm doing this!
JM: Do you see the camera? Give it a smile.
I made the weakest attempt at a smile ever.

I knew how to do this. All I had to do was to wait for that milisecond where my mind wasn't thinking about where I was, jump, and worry about the rest on the way down. I found it, I jumped, I panicked.
But I knew immediately that this was the best, most intense thing I'd ever done! I did two jumps in all, the second one hanging upside down.







That evening Sarah (from Invercargill) came to Queenstown, and the next day I took her to paradise. Paradise, however, turned out to be overrated. Far too many sandflies. The road there was gorgeous, but fairly tough, and offroading in a Nissan Bluebird is a death-defying act.

This afternoon I arrived in Wanaka. Wanaka has much the same offering of adrenaline pumping activities, but it's a smaller, quieter town, and a welcome contrast to the kind of "hyper-life" I lived in Queenstown. Despite this, I've already booked a full-day canyoning trip for tomorrow, and a voluntary ejection from an airplane in flight for the day after. Awesome!

The Kepler Track

Covering february 6th to february 8th



I appologize in advance for the sappiness of this post.

A part of myself was lost on that mountain.

Part of me left and now lives somewhere on the slopes of Mt Luxmore. I saw it today, from Te Anau. It was making rainbows.



What am I talking about? I'm talking about my hike on the Kepler track. I did a huge amount of video blogging, which I edited down to these three. Notice how cocky I am to begin with? It didn't last long...

And I know the hat is stupid, but it was all I had!

According to my Lord of the Rings location guide, this river was used as part of the Anduin.

As I was hiking, I was painfully aware that other people did this track easily. It was never meant to be a test of stamina for me, and I felt like an amateur for being so exhausted. As the trail wound along however, I stopped comparing myself to others and just took it as an opportunity to show myself what I was really capable of. That I was capable of stretching myself out beyond what I previously found possible. Who cares what others can do - this is about what I can do! In that light, the hike was a tremendous success.

The first victory: Reaching the ridge!

A sleepy Kea

At some point after the second day's first shelter along the ridge, I sat down against a mound and laid back on my pack. I closed my eyes as a heavy drowsiness took me, but was awoken from half-sleep as I heard voices approaching. I thought it odd since I'd expected to be the last one on the track. I opened my eyes and found that I was all alone. Trick of the brain I though, and closed them again. I drifted off again, and again I heard them, this time accommpanied by approaching footsteps. As I drifted back to consciousness I thought I saw human shapes, but as I came fully awake I realized that, as before, there was no-one there. Was it ghosts I had seen? Or maybe the spirits of the mountain? I rested a while longer and then set off again.

As I arrived at the second shelter, I saw a hiker coming towards me in the opposite direction. I waited for him at the shelter, and of all people it turned out to be Matthis, a french guy I'd met on two previous occasions. He (like all other french people) turned out to be crazy. Obviously, we make good companions. He'd chosen to do the track in two days, doing the first two parts in one go. On top of that, all he had was his jeans, shirt and hoodie, a tent, a fairly light backpack, and a pair of 30$ sneakers. We shared a rest at the shelter, and then set off again in opposite directions.

About an hour after ascending Mt Luxmore peak, I crossed a small stream. i sat down by it, marvelling at the changes of mood I'd gone through since starting the hike. Physically, I was completely smashed. Mentally and emotionally however, I found myself in a strange, empty, comfortable and calm state. It was as if a part of me had torn itself free. The part that focuses on problems and worries about everything it can think of. I was left feeling completely at peace, and completely accepting of my place. I was right here. Right now. And loving it!


- 'I feel at home here' he said. He that had torn away from me. He was now sitting beside me at the stream.
- 'I think I'll stay, if you don't mind' he added. He felt so incredibly far removed from me that I found it hard to believe that we'd been one and the same just moments earlier.
- 'I don't mind one bit', I answered, happy to see him content.
He smiled and looked around, taking in the landscape.
- 'I don't suppose we'll ever see each other again.' he said, sharing my relief.
- 'I suppose not'
We sat there for a while. Waiting. Enjoying our last moments together. At last I got up. I picked up my pack and adjusted the straps.
- 'goodbye' I said, smiling a half-sad smile. He didn't answer, but smiled as he splashed his feet in the cold water of the stream. I turned my back and started out on the day's last stretch. I never looked back.



On the last little slope before the hut, I heard the voices again. I turned around and stood listening intently in silence. I thought I heard footsteps, but as I waited no-one came. I know that it was most likely one of a hundred perfectly reasonable explanations, but still I like to think that there was someone there with me looking after me. Spirits? Who knows!



That night I went caving in a tight cavesystem close to the Luxmore hut. I went with an aussie called Luke. The caves extended quite far, and we must have gone on for maybe a kilometer or so. In some places we had to squeeze through sideways, in others, we were on our hands and knees crawling through shallow water, and in still others we'd be climbing over huge boulders, dropping feet first into the unknown blackness.

this is Luke, my impromptu caving buddy.

My first aid kit:

Relieving sore feet:

Being there

I've heard some people claim that, soon, with Google Maps, Earth and Streetview, there'd be no reason left to travel. You could just log on to the net and see every sight in highly defined detail. Every view of every shore will be captured. Every tiny detail on the Notre Dame in Paris can be browsed from home. Better photographers than you have already captured the most beautiful sunsets and posted them conveniently on Google Earth. Why not save the money and just buy a new computer instead?

well, because that's not being there.

Being there is riding through rain and storm, falling over and having my motorbike break down in the middle of nowhere.
Being there is discovering the hidden reserves within me that enables me to overcome such obstacles.
Being there is seeing those picture-perfect sunsets, and knowing that this particular one is mine alone.
Being there is not just seeing that sunset, but enjoying it with a good bottle of wine and a meal shared with that new friend with the funny accent and a million stories.
Being there is feeling the wind on my face, the cool rocks against my bare feet, and facing the rain with songs at the top of my lungs.

Being there makes me feel alive.



Now, drink with me, to friendship and love. For everything else is just tin.




Leave me a comment if you like this post, and please share one of your travel stories.

Breakdown

I left Dunedin after buying a new sleeping bag. Finally! I drove south towards Nugget Point, the first thing I wanted to see, and what a sight that was! A great little walk ending up at a lighthouse set on a dramatic dropoff into the ocean. All along the coast, fur-seals, sea-lions, and elephant seals lay basking on the beach or frolicking around in the waves.

I found out I can use my binoculars as a zoom lens. The results are less than stellar though.

The next destination for the day was Cannibal Bay, but on the way there I passed a sign saying "Tunnel Hill Road", which I thought sounded interesting. The road was gravel, and I was going too fast for the turn I attempted, which resulted in the back wheel skidding out from under the bike and me and the bike ending up in the vegetation on the side of the road.




I went on to Cannibal Bay where the only interesting feature was this dying seal in the carpark

Not long after, I arrived in Owaka, thinking I might carry on into the Catlins if I could find accomodation there. The information booth was closed when I arrived however, so I stayed in Owaka for the night. Owaka is really... REALLY small. Much smaller and it wouldn't even qualify as a town. There was one gas station and two pubs. The school serving all the children in the Catlins area is located in Owaka as well. That's about it.
At the backpackers I stayed I met a great guy from Wales named Colin. We instantly clicked and had some good laughs that evening.

We decided to go see Jacks Blowhole. We went in Colin's car, and when we got out we followed the only road we could see. Not long after we came upon this sign:

We had a good laugh about how blunt the kiwis are, and we both thought it was brilliant. None of us thought the sign was meant for us. After all, this was the only road to Jack's Blowhole! As we went further up we came to a house, and the path ended in a field. We were very confused. Had we missed a turn? For a moment I thought this was it, so I took a picture.

On the way down we spotted another path. Only problem was that we'd have to cut across a field to get to it. We had a go at it, and to our surprise we ended up at Jack's Blowhole. On the way down, we were discussing how we could possibly have missed that road and we thought it was very weird that no signs were posted. When we got back down however, we found a huge sign saying 'Jack's Blowhole this way', and another by the road we entered saying 'Private road, keep off!' I still don't know how we missed both those signs, went up the wrong road, and thought nothing of the 'piss off!' sign! We're the saddest sods on the south island.



Thursday I took off for the Catlins. They'd promised light rain, but I thought I'd brave it. There's a lot of sights there, including a couple of waterfalls (some of which are shown in the video below), and the Cathedral Caves which are only reachable at low tide. Since I've never really been in caves before, this was quite something for me. When I arrived there, I felt a primal fear crawl into my spine. In front of me it was pitch black, and I started wondering what kinds of abominations might live in there. Sure, the guidebook said there's no monsters in New Zealand, but what if that's only because no one's ever returned to tell the tale? I steeled myself and ventured inside.

Yup. City-folk are afraid of the dark.

Two british ladies came in behind me. They were joking and laughing loudly, not caring what they'd wake up. Go ahead! Get yourself eaten!

I arrived in Invercargill and found Sarah's place without too much trouble. Sarah was a really pleasant host and made me feel at home instantly. She is very active in the couchsurfing community, and already had another couchsurfer staying with her (Tina from the US. Make sure to visit her blog! ). I stayed there for three nights waiting for the weather to clear up a bit. There's not much to see in Invercargill, but I took the opportunity to catch up on some blogging, among other things (I know, I'm very bad at keeping up). Sarah studies music, and both friday and saturday we went out on the town, listening to bands she knew. In the end, Sarah ended up being my guardian angel, as you'll see very soon.



Sunday afternoon I was in a hurry to leave invercargill since the rain had stopped. I was thinking that a little wind shouldn't stop me.

Once I got out of the city, the wind turned really vicious, and I was fighting to keep to my lane. What had I gotten myself into! I felt like such a fool for putting myself in so much danger, and I was seriously thinking about pulling up to a house asking for shelter for the night. Problem was, there wasn't any houses around!

Suddently, I heard a loud clatter from the engine and the bike went dead. I pulled over and tried to start it. No use. Obviously something had gone wrong inside it.




Sarah came and picked me up, and that afternoon her aunt's husband (John) took me in his pick-up to pick up the bike. After a bit of fidgeting we thought the problem was solved and the next morning I set off again. after ten kilometers, it made the same noise and died. This time the gears were stuck as well. John came and picked me up again, and we took the bike to a mechanic. He said he'd have a look at it and let me know the condition in the morning. The next day Sarah and I went back to the shop and he showed me the disassembled engine. It was carnage. The piston, as I'd guessed, was broken. The piston chamber was cracked. The gearbox was screwed. The valves were bent. Unsalvagable. My only option was to buy a new engine or sell it to the mechanic for use as spare parts. I soon found out that engines for XR250's are very hard to come by. The mechanic payed me 400$.

The next day Sarah was kind enough to drive me to Te Anau. She and her family have been extremely kind and helpful, and I really don't know what I would have done if it hadn't been for them. Thanks guys!

The broken piston. I kept it as a souvenir

the cracked cylinder.

This is Sarah with the remains of the bike.

A closer look.

I was quite frustrated for a couple of days about not having a bike. It seems like I'll be hitchhiking for a while. There are a few options for new bikes available, but 3000$ up in smoke was a huge cut in my budget, so I'm hesitant about buying a new one. I guess I'll just see what happens. At least people tell me that bikes in Australia are pretty cheap, so I'll probably get one there.

Who knows, maybe this might go down in history as the longest motorcycle trip without a motorcycle! One thing's for certain; I won't let it get me down anymore. I'm on an adventure here, bike or no, and I'm gonna enjoy every bit of it!
I can plan all I want, but when the planning breaks down, that's when the real adventure starts.

I don't know what the future will bring, but I'm sure the best is yet to come.

Towels

Since I'm now a hitchhiker, I have a whole new set of worries. Towels. And, in particular, where I left them.


The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc, etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Currently, I am not a man to be reckoned with.

Not only did I forget to bring one, I've managed to loose the one I bought three times. Fortunately, I've recovered it twice.

Quickie

Hi all

Just a quick post to let you know I'm still alive. I'm in Wanaka, and I have 2 posts ready for posting and another half finished. The problem is finding a fast/cheap internet connection in this net-forsaken country, and it doesn't seem like I'll find one here in Wanaka. I'll be here for a couple of days, so it'll be at least as long before I get anything up. Maybe longer though!

As some of you know, my bike is dead and gone. The details will all be covered in the first of my finished posts. Stay tuned!

Thanks for your patience :)


your man in the field
Jophiel