Off to Tibet

Day 4-8 - Lhasa, Tibet
Woke up Tuesday morning feeling a little under the weather - bit of an upset stomach. But not all that bad. Had a two trips to the toilet before we headed to the airport but things weren't feeling all that shabby. I ate a GF granola bar (my bag is loaded down with them!), had some water... at the airport in Kathmandu, not too shabby. Felt like maybe it was just a bit of upset and nothing to worry about. I did take the vaccination before I left on this trip after all. On the plane - ugh! I went downhill fast! Getting off the plane my travel mates, specifically Ken and Sandy from Ireland, helped me with my bags and looked worried as I grew paler and greyer by the minute. At the immigration area the Chinese immigration officers even looked concerned and brought me water. BK, our fearless leader, watched over me and helped the others get through the checks all at the same time. He was worried it was altitude but I knew it wasn't - I knew I had eaten something in Nepal and it wasn't going very well. :( So I got on the bus and laid down the whole way to the hotel in Lhasa. Had my first experience of Tibetan toilet facilities (now in retrospect a pretty decent one at that!)... this one was kind of a trough version with half-doored stalls for privacy. I will be seeing more of the long drop versions in the near future with no privacy (the ones shown on the link I've provided are much nicer than some we encountered - wowzers!!). At any rate, I spent the rest of the night in bed and all the next day. Jenn was kind enough to bring me some plain, white rice from the restaurant they had dinner at that night and I ate some of it the next morning.


Wednesday afternoon I got up and showered and got dressed properly (i.e. got out of the clothes I was wearing the previous day and decided to sleep in for 24 hrs). My stomach was still upset but I managed to head out with Jenn in the afternoon for some lentil soup at a nearby western-style restaurant. I couldn't walk there though so we got a rickshaw- it was fun!! I went back to bed after that and the others went out for dinner. I was feeling pretty blue since I'd missed seeing a monastery and a nunnery and was not participating in any of the group meals and what-not.


Next morning, Thursday, was my first real day out and I got up and walked relatively far with Jenn for breakfast. But that just about did me in. My stomach, still a bit wonky, and now actually moving about I realized I had a lot of catching up to do with respect to acclimatising to the altitude! Lhasa is at 3500 m above sea level, making it one of the highest cities in the world. Walking was making me breathless! I had to walk really slowly. While climbing the stairs to my hotel room I had to take a rest and sit down before tackling the second flight! How humbling is that!!??


Tibet, population 2.6 million; 400,000 of whom live in Lhasa proper according to my trip notes. Though from what I was told, with the Chinese people moving there all the time the population has doubled in recent years so I'm unclear as to the actual population. The biggest attraction in Lhasa is the Potala Palace. That day, Thursday, the group went to this place, the Dalai Lama's former winter residence, for a tour. In order to get inside you have to climb up a long, steep set of stairs and then there is the 1.5 hr-long (apparently quite rushed) tour of the palace. I was not feeling well enough to leave the hotel once I got back from breakfast, and thus missed seeing this very important site. I was pretty gutted. Instead I had a long sleep and went out on my own, walking very slowly, and got some more food, trying to regain my strength and take my time acclimatising to the altitude. Eating was making me stressed out, though, I have to say. Between getting sick (therefore feeling overly cautious about what I was eating from a health-standards point of view) and then my food allergies, I was a bit of a wreck about eating and I wasn't eating much. At least there's always dal bhat.


The following day, Friday, I was finally feeling well enough to get out for more site-seeing and interaction with our group!! They are such an amazing group of people!! So we went to the Norbulingka Palace in the morning - the Dalai Lama's former summer residence. It was so nice since there was so much vegetation there! What I haven't mentioned yet is that Tibet is very dry and at altitude the dryness is amplified. It's like a desert. A cold one. And it's quite difficult to manage the dry, dusty, low-oxygenated air. The grounds of Norbulingka were paradise for air-quality!! After this we had some down time and lunch and then later in the afternoon we headed up to the Sera Monastery where we got to watch the monks debating. This was a very interesting experience. I didn't even know that monks debated!! The Sera Monastery is one of the three great university monasteries in Tibet (we got to go to two of them), so the monks here were debating philosophy - part of their studies. It was fun - quite a show. I've got some great photos from here.


I also have some great photos of life in Lhasa. It's an interesting city. There are two very distinct sections: a Chinese area that has lots of construction going on and is expanding and developing all the time; and an old Tibetan part, but which I'm told has even changed quite a lot over the past few years. Still we were able to get a taste of the old life in Lhasa. Shopping stalls line the street with yak meat and fruit and dentist offices and clothing one after another. Traffic can be rather hectic (though nothing like Kathmandu!!). One of my favourite ways to get around was by bicycle rickshaw. The Tibetan people are very curious about us - there aren't a whole lot of tourists - so they say "Hello!!" (practicing their English) and smile great big smiles at us. They are so sweet and delighted when we say "hello" back or even "tashi delek" which is the common greeting here but actually means blessings and good luck.

Tomorrow we leave for the day to spend a day "high" and sleep "low" (4500 m and then back down the 3500 m). I will blog on that later.

Days 2 and 3 Kathmandu

Day 2 - Thamel
I always found the name Kathmandu very exotic. Never imagined I'd actually be here!
Nepal: population ~30 million. Apparently only 700,000 of those people live in the capital city - seems like more. Infrastructure and city planning doesn't really exist much here. Roads have been paved but have never been re-paved. Driving 30 km takes an hour. It's dusty. It's noisy. It's seriously polluted!! This place is wild!

Everyone here greets you with "Namaste!". There are guards at the gates of the hotels and at ours the little cutie is just full of smiles and sings out "Namaste!" whenever we come in. Makes me giggle every time. Jenn and I explored Thamel today, the main tourist area where many hotels and lots of souvenir shopping is had. Also lots of places to book treks or other tours and rent gear if need be (sleeping bags, tents, down parkas and the like). Later this evening we have our trip meeting where we get our information to start our tour tomorrow. FYI, the "h" in most Nepali words is not pronounced after the "t" from what I've been gathering so Thamel is pronounced: tamel.

Day 3 - Kathmandu: Hinduism and Buddhism
Today our group of 15 went out with our tour leader, BK, and explored two of the biggest sites to see in Kathmandu. First we drove in insane traffic and craziness to get to the oldest Hindu temple in the city: Pashupatinath, located on the banks of the Bagmati River (Jenn likes to call it the Basmati River so I always call it that and laugh). The Bagmati River is holy - it actually runs all the way to India - so it is used for water burials. We watched a couple of cremations at the banks of the river at this temple and then the ashes being pushed into the river. The first son is usually the one who lights the fire for the cremation and we even saw two sons shaving their heads at the side of the river after a cremation. I think BK said it meant they lost their mother or something. I hope I'm correct in saying that. I've just got so much information in my head now about so many things. Eep!
After watching the water burials we went on up the hill and saw lots of monkeys hanging around the temple and also got to sit and take photos with some of the holy men: Sadhus. What a neat experience! They were so friendly and wonderful! One of them touched my head and wished me a good life.
Once we passed through the rest of the temple area and crossed a little bridge over the river we hopped back into the bus that was waiting on the other side and off we went to the Boudhanath Stupa, a Buddhist temple. We spun the prayer wheels and did 3 turns of the stupa. The rule is you must do 1, 3, 5 or 108 turns, otherwise it's very inauspicious. Apparently 80% of the population is Hindu thought, being the birthplace of Buddha, there are also many Buddhists. The stupa was really nice and so interesting. This is our first taste of a few weeks of Buddhism. Tomorrow we are off to Lhasa, Tibet and we will see many Buddhist monasteries in that time!

2011 Trip of the Year!

OK... So here we go. Updating on my latest adventure. I will start at the beginning - a few weeks ago.

April 28th - Day 1
Canada to Hong Kong
Great flight to HKG! Seeing as I was traveling with a friend this time (Jenn), I decided to try my hand at airplane pharmaceuticals. Normally traveling solo I would never do this, but I figured I could count on Jenn to scrape me off the plane if need be. ha! I've never taken Ativan before, but I slept about 75% of the way to HKG (15 hr flight) and happy I did. Wow! How much easier is a long haul flight like that when you aren't even awake for most of it??
Upon landing in HKG we made our way to the bus and headed off to Discovery Bay to visit some CDN mates: Rebecca, Mitch and their daughter Gabby. They got us showered up and then we hopped on the ferry and headed into the city for a day of walking around until our connection later that evening. HKG was hot and humid as it seems is par for the course. We visited a few neighbourhoods, a temple, and had a great brunch at a little place whose name I will have to ask Beck for later, but which had great food for me: gluten-free pancakes!! Oh yeah baby!!! I knew I wouldn't get food like that for a few weeks so I enjoyed every bit of them.
Off to the airport for our connection to Kathmandu, Nepal (with a brief stop to let some peeps off in Bangladesh - random!). Landed late night in Kathmandu airport, stranded since our hotel confirmation seemed to have gotten lost. Hopped a taxi into the city - eek! There were moments when my heart was racing as I had no idea where we were going, the streets are mostly dark (no streetlights), it looks like you're driving down back alleys, but it's just that the streets are really narrow here and the shops all of those garage door style doors all latched up for the night. Not fun, but in the end we arrived safely at the hotel to find there was no room for us. Not impressed, Jenn and I had words with the night manager and ended up sleeping in a hotel across the street which he said was their sister hotel. Who knows the story there. The hotel was dark and dingy and our room was small and old. It seemed mostly clean. ?? We slept in our sleeping bag liners on top of the beds. Interesting start to our little adventure to Nepal and Tibet.

Rainy Coast?

After Fraser Island I headed south on the bus and stopped in a little town on the Sunshine Coast called Noosa. It started raining the day I arrived. There was a brief reprieve that first day and I set out to get some groceries and explore a little. I really wish the weather had been nicer when I was in Noosa, as it's such a quaint and charming little place. As with most places along the east coast, if you aren't doing something outdoors there isn't much else to do. That night and the following day it rained like nobody's business - torrential downpours. I read books and got organized and what-not. At least the backpackers I was staying was really great in terms of common areas to lounge around in, hang out, meet other folks, and even watch a little TV. I met a few really cool people there since we were all just hanging out, escaping the rain. The only folks who did anything fun were the surfers - apparently it was warmer in the water than outside. We were getting reports that the storm was going to get worse and there were flood warnings. I headed off the next morning on the bus and we barely made it to Brisbane. In fact, due to detours and traffic caused by flooding on the highway, we were very late and I missed my connecting bus to the Gold Coast. I got on the next bus a few hours later and that bus nearly didn't make it to the Gold Coast. The highway was being closed and the storm was worsening. The winds were picking up and people's BBQs were flying off the decks and what-not. It was not safe. I did make it to the Gold Coast and my friend, Lynn, picked me up.

I spent the next several days hanging out on the Gold Coast while Lynn went to work (she and I used to work at the same company back home and she's now working for them over here - her manager kept offering me jobs here... interesting pause for thought!). On the weekend we tried to make the best of the weather... Saturday we went to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. I got to pet the kangaroos and hold a baby koala and a snake. It was super fun!! We saw all kinds of neat things: dingoes, wambats, tree kanagroos, different birds, etc. We went to see a movie: Samson and Delilah, which has won an award at Cannes this past week - it's about some Aboriginal kids in Australia's outback... I'd highly recommend seeing it. On Sunday we went to Byron Bay for the day - wow! What a fun little town. We walked up to the lighhouse (most easterly point in Oz) and toured around the little town (had to stop at the Byron Bay Cookie Company). Caught a bit of a cool show at a bar that evening before we left.

The storm wiped out all of the beaches along the Gold Coast, so on my last day there, as the weather was clearing up I managed to walk down part of it at Surfers Paradise. It's going to take a lot of time and money to recover from it. Parts of inland northern NSW and southern QLD are still swimming in water. On a high note - the drought is officially over for QLD. Although I'm sure that those whose houses are floating aren't too happy about it. So I didn't get to enjoy the sunshine of the coast too much here, but I've still managed to find some interesting things to do and it was great to hang out with Lynn for a few days.

I decided to fly to Sydney instead of continue my way down the coast by bus. Many roads are still closed and all of the beaches are closed, so visiting beach towns would be a little boring at the moment. It cost the same to fly as to take the bus and was 1.5 hrs of my time instead of 12 hrs. It was an easy decision. I arrived yesterday and the sun was shining here (they did get rain here for the past week too though). Today it's raining so I will finish up a few errands left to do before flying out to Japan in a couple of days! I'm excited to go to Japan!!! And I'm also eating as much hummus and peanut butter (not together) as I can before I leave since it will be three weeks before I expect I'll be eating them again.

Weekend-ing Aussie-style (in a 4x4)

However unlucky I was to get sick suddenly (sore throat and a cough) the day that I traveled from Airlie Beach to Hervey Bay, spending all my mobile credit receiving calls from the inept travel agent who was trying to book me into the same Fraser Island trip that he'd booked my mate, Vanessa and her friends on, and subsequently not even getting onto that same trip... My luck certainly turned around, or perhaps, as I tend to believe, it was meant to be that I spent an extra day in Hervey Bay, chilling out at the beach and starting the recovery from the sudden illness and heading off the following day on my own trip to Fraser with a group of whom I knew no one - only to find myself vacationing in some of the best weather you can ask for with some of the coolest folks.

It is meant to be the 'dry' season here on the east coast of Australia. Hard to believe as I sit here in Noosa, writing an update with torrential rain pouring down, leaving me and my fellow backpackers nearly stranded inside the hostel today. Good thing this is a lovely place with ample common areas to lounge about in and read books and check in on the interweb. For some reason we're having a very big storm for the rest of this week and when I was up in Airlie, as I think I mentioned, it wasn't a whole lot better. So the weekend on Fraser Island was a particular treat - clear blue skies (sometimes cloudless), lovely warm days, amazing white silica sand beaches, huge crashing surf, dingoes, sharks, turtles, gum trees - you name it - we experienced it. It was wonderful!!

So, Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world. Yes, it is only sand. There are only a few very small (like a few hundred meters in length) paved roads around a beach settlement called Eurong. Otherwise, there are no paved roads - only sand tracks which are maintained slightly by tractors when they get too rutted - most were very rutted though and interestingly difficult to navigate, but for the fact that everyone there is clearly driving a 4x4 vehicle. Our 4x4 vehicle was a large truck, outfitted with two long benches, with seatbelts (a must) for 8 others to sit in the back. Off we went, my fellow driver, Adrian and the 'kids' (all between 18-20 years of age, and too young to drive - you must be 21 with a license for at least 2 years in order to drive the vehicles there). We drove through gum tree forests and onto the east coast beach - basically a long beach all the way up the coast, which essentially serves as a highway. You must really look both ways before crossing, lest you get hit. Seriously.

On our way up to the middle, east side of the island where we were to camp for the night at a campground, we stopped in at Lake McKenzie - a freshwater lake whose blue hues completely amazed me. This was a freshwater lake that had blues like that of the Agean Sea! Wow! And amazingly soft, white, silica sand beaches surrounding it. Lake McKenzie is a big tourist draw and was undoubtedly very busy, but we loved it nonetheless. After the lake we made our way up the beach where we stopped at the main sites along the way - the famous Maheno shipwreck, the Pinnacles, and Eli Creek. Arriving shortly after at our campground, we set up camp and cooked a big BBQ and drank goon (very cheap wine in a bag). Even though I'm not meant to drink this stuff, I have been partaking since the sailing trip where the Scottish girls on my boat introduced me to cutting it with juice/cordial. Quite nice that way! The kids taught me a whole bunch of new drinking games - 4 girls from England traveling together and 3 boys from Germany. They were great fun!! Then we headed down to the beach at 9 PM (our camp noise curfew) where we could see pretty much every star in the southern hemisphere!! WOW!! We could very clearly see the Milky Way. I was able to visit, briefly, with Vanessa and her friends, since they were there for their second night at the campground. (the trip we booked was 3 days, 2 nights and we stayed at the same campground, situated very conveniently halfway up the island, so we didn't have to set up camp more than once)

Next morning we slept in and headed out just after 9 AM to see the north end of the island. We got to Indian Head where you climb to a very nice lookout and then trek down a beach for about 45 mins to get to a place where they have things that are called Champagne Pools. I had a crap sleep the previous night (side story to follow) and as a result was still feeling quite ill and decided halfway up the beach on our long trek to stop and thrown down my beach towel and told the crew to pick me up on the way back. I sat at the beach and rested, soaking up the sun - very nice. That weekend, there happened to be a fishing derby on the island, so there were heaps of locals there. Not surprisingly, the fishermen that I parked myself nearby to came over and offered me beer and kept me company while the others were off for an hour or more. That was really fun - learning more about Aussie culture and the fishing derby in particular. :) Back at the camp that night we had more goon and a big dinner and got off to sleep early. We had three tents and I was in one with Adrian and Anne. The first night I was woken up, not only by loud, drunk people, but also by very loud snoring from within my own tent. I turned over and shook Adrian, who very clearly awake, said "What?". Oops!! I said that I thought it was him snoring, but evidently not, since it was still going on. So I asked him to hit Anne! haha! Anyway, he woke her up and informed her, to her embarrassment, that she was snoring very loudly. The next night we resorted to videotaping it and embarrassing her further with the evidence the following morning.

Last day on Fraser we headed off to Lake Allom to see the turtles. We saw at least 20 of them. It was great! The girls were really keen to do it, so they made sure to wake us up so we could head out to do that by 6 AM! (I'm nearly starting to get accustomed to these early mornings) After that we drove back in, collected our tents and the one person who didn't want to come so early, and headed back down to the beach and straight for Lake Birrabeen, which is not unlike Lake McKenzie, but harder to get to (the sand tracks were crazily rutted and some steep hills to boot!), and in vast contrast there are very, very few people who visit it! There were only 2 or three groups of us at any time. We nearly had the beach and lake to ourselves! It was lovely!!! We spent about 2.5-3 hrs there and when it came time to leave and make our way back to the barge (the ferry that transported us to and from the island) we just didn't want to go.

At the campground the night before we saw several dingoes who came around to check things out. We were amply warned not to approach them or try to feed them or anything. They were interesting to watch. We also saw a dead shark that afternoon - some of the kids picked it up to take photos with it. It wasn't a very large shark, but definitely a shark! Given the surroundings, the weather and the great company, I have to say, this was a huge highlight of my trip and I'm very happy that, even though my plans did not work out the way they were initially meant to, I went ahead and took a chance on getting put into an unknown group of people and did it anyway!
I'm now on the Sunshine Coast with not a ray of sunshine to be seen!! This is not the norm for this time of year. I seem to have brought the kiwi winter with me or something... well, actually, it's not nearly as cold as NZ - I am still wearing my jandals (thongs in Aussie-speak) after all. I head down to the Gold Coast tomorrow to visit with a friend and former colleague, Lynn. No set plans after that and no idea how long I'll stay there. I have a few housekeeping things to take care of - like get a haircut!! Let's hope this big storm goes through faster than they are predicting so I can enjoy some more east coast sunshine!!

Stewart Island and the Catlins Coast

Clearly, I really loved Te Anau and Milford Sound. One down side though, is that it rains there 2 days out of 3. It’s still beautiful in the rain, and in fact the waterfalls in the sounds are much more beautiful for having the extra water (and temporary falls due to the rain and the melting snow from that which fell in the mountains this past week).

When I left Te Anau it was still very cold and raining. I hopped off the bus route that the tour bus I have been on takes, and circumvented their schedule, taking the national bus line to get myself to Invercargill. I had arranged to be picked up by a coach that runs with the ferry service to get to Bluff where I caught the ferry to Stewart Island. It was quite the trip. Because of the bad weather (high winds and rain), and road works the bus that I was transferring to in Gore was late; we were 35 minutes late for my pick-up in Invercargill. The driver of my late bus phoned ahead to the i-Site where I was to be picked up so they could let the coach driver know our eta. He rung me up on my mobile as we were entering Invercargill and said that even though we were as late as we were, they were waiting for me. Wow! Mind you, this is a great example of what people mean when they say that NZ is stuck in the 50’s. This is very small-town-NZ, so they aren’t fussed to wait for you for a few minutes. The coach was to get myself and the one other passenger that morning (another Canuck – we’re everywhere!!) to the ferry 30 mins before departure. Considering that I arrived at 11:05 in Invercargill, a mere 20 mins drive from Bluff, we were already beyond the check-in time for the 11:30 ferry. We arrived at 11:30 and the ferry and its passengers were waiting on us. We all boarded right then and there and were off. It’s a small ferry – a pontoon boat that can carry 65 passengers. There were roughly 30 of us that day. I’ve been told that the crossing at the Foveaux Strait is choppy on a good day, but on a rainy, windy day like that it was quite the experience. One person on our boat was sick and I was informed by another backpacker when I arrived that 70% of the passengers on her ferry were sick so I was lucky. Yes, I suppose I was lucky because I had my moments during the one hour trip when I had to silently talk myself through the nausea I was feeling and if more people were sick I may not have succeeded in holding down what was left of my breakfast.

The ferry drops its passengers off at the town of Oban. It’s a cute little place with a little hotel and pub, a few backpackers, some B&Bs and cottages. There are 300-400 residents of the island itself (not sure how many are in Oban) and the primary employer is the sea – fishing. There is even a NZ reality TV show on these days that feature the life of the crayfishermen of Stewart Island. There are a few tracks on the island, which is what most people that I met were there to participate in: tramping – either the 3-day hike or the 10-day hike. I wanted to go kiwi spotting, but I did not. The tour cost $110 and it was SOOOOO cold there I just didn’t have it in me to spend that kind of money to be out in the cold with no guarantee of seeing any kiwi birds. A big highlight of Stewart Island are the yellow-eyed penguins, as they call this and a few other island, and the Otago peninsula home. I went out walking a couple of times to see them but was out of luck. It’s hard to spot a yellow-eyed penguin because they are very shy and any noise at all scares them off and they won’t come ashore. They tend to come ashore anytime after 4 PM and into dusk, although most people I’ve talked to say they more often come in after dark.

A nature lesson for you, as I’ll have more to post on these little guys next time… The yellow-eyed (hoiho in Maori) is the most ancient of all the penguins and can only be found in southern NZ. When the Europeans settled here they brought with them various predators to this little penguin (rats, cats, stoats, etc) and as a consequence their numbers dwindled until they were declared endangered. They are still listed as such. Their colonies are now very closely monitored by conservationists and there is even a penguin reserve on the Otago Peninsula (where I got to see some and will post on it soon). At this time of year they are moulting – they have to shed their feathers and grow a new coat, then spread oil from a gland on their behind all over their new coat to make it waterproof before they can head back out to sea. This takes around 3 weeks, and during this time they stay on land. The way to identify a yellow-eyed penguin is their distinct yellow band around their eyes and head.

I left Stewart Island, thankful for the rest that the first day of rain there afforded me, but not having seen any of what I went there to see. I wasn’t disappointed though, as it was a nice trip – the crossing was much calmer on the way back – and I got to go as close to Antarctica as I may ever get! I hopped back on the tour bus that I was taking before and reconnected with a new friend I’d made back in Wanaka. Another new friend also hopped on that bus, whom I met on Stewart Island. We spent the day on the bus touring the Catlins. This is a really, really beautiful part of the country. Real, soft sand beaches, sand dunes, beautiful surf, dolphins, fur seals, etc. It was really nice. We stopped for a little while at a place called Waipapa Point where we saw two fur seals and a Fiordland Crested penguin. I only know this because when I later went to the penguin reserve I asked one of the conservation workers to look at my photo of the penguin and identify it for me. This penguin was moulting and was sitting in the tall grass in the dunes off the beach. I was much closer to it than you are supposed to get (although I didn’t realize this at the time). You are supposed to stay a minimum of 5 meters away, preferably more, in order not to stress the penguin if you see one. I think I was maybe 2 or 3 meters away. He was soooo cute!!! And apparently it is VERY rare to see a Fiordland crested – one of the penguin reserve workers there had actually taken a cruise in order to try to see them as he’d never seen one before and he never did get the chance. How lucky were we??? After touring around the Catlins for the day we arrived in Dunedin late in the evening. I will post on Dunedin next time.

Fiordland Crested Penguin

New Zealand fur seals

The Ups and Downs of Travel

Through experience comes wisdom – or something like that. I realize that so far, bus tours are just not for me. I’m also not a backpacker. I’ve never really been in love with the backpacking lifestyle, however, it is really the only really affordable way to go about seeing places for extended periods of time. Not to mention filling in time with memorable experiences and saving money to do things that are really worthwhile – like helicopter rides up in mountains with glaciers.

I haven’t been overly enthused about the coach that I decided to try out this time around. I’ve done the full-on solo trips, both by the national bus line and rental car. I’ve toured around with a friend from home with a rental car as well. This time I decided to try one of these hop on hop off things that a few friends whom I’ve met here have done. They both had positive experiences. So is it me, or perhaps the driver of the first couple of legs of this trip that are making me feel less than satisfied so far? Could be a little of both, to be honest. I think I function better on my own. While I don’t want to fly solo all the time, I quite enjoy doing m own thing. I also think that needn’t pay for a coach with a driver who is never on time, quite disorganized, and rarely helpful. I don’t function well with hour-long delays. It has definitely been testing my patience. I’m also not impressed with having to stop at crap-holes in really remote places because it’s a ‘mandatory overnight stop’, only an hour’s drive away from the next town where there is better accommodation – this is just a ploy to keep crappier establishments in business. I was not happy with where I found myself obliged to stay last night – particularly when I found a bed bug on the sheet of the bed I was about to set my stuff down on. I moved rooms, but was quite anxious about the whole thing.

I usually maintain posts on the fun, happy, positive aspects of my journeys, but the reality is that travel, while highly rewarding and usually a lot of fun, also has its moments. It can get stressful and it can test you. But as with all things in life, there is a yin and a yang, and without the bad we cannot fully appreciate the good – and we learn from both.Yesterday I arrived in Wanaka, and as a result of stopping here got off the schedule of that bus and will be picked up by the next one – hoping that things will be better tomorrow with a different driver. I've really enjoyed Wanaka. It is a very, very small place but full of charm. It sits on a really, really big eponymous lake. The backpackers where I chose to stay is really nice and has a beautiful view of the lake. I hired a mtb and rode around the lake and practiced my bunny hops and got my groceries and stuff yesterday. It was a nice afternoon of down time for me. I really enjoyed it. I wish I had one more day here, but I’m off to explore more interesting things over the next few days. As a result of my experience the past four days I’ve decided to alter my trip plans a little so as to accommodate some detours from the coach route. Stay tuned for more as I make my way around the south.

More on the south island and Noel down under

Kia ora and merry Christmas from NZ!! Today is Christmas Eve down under and we have rain. Just arrived back from the south island adventures yesterday (really it was 1 AM when we arrived so we had the whole day here). The weather was fantastic the last two days of our trip, but we had some really crazy weather on the west coast.

Last I posted, I was in Nelson enjoying some sunshine and riding the bike. The following morning we packed up and headed out on a very long drive down on the west coast to glacier country. We traveled through some interesting and cute towns, full of gold mining history (many of them are only a whisper of the towns they once were back in the gold mining hay-days) and on to Okarito, where we had rented a bach (what we would call a cottage in Canada) on the beach. This was a really nice reprieve from backpacking life and a good chance for free washing machine facilities to launder our clothes. haha! But seriously, the bach was really amazing. I have lots of photos of it. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate, but lucky us - we experienced a typical west coast rain system. Fantastic. The glaciers are a 20 minute drive from Okarito, and the following morning we got up early and set out, hoping that maybe the rain would ease up and we'd have a decent day for glacier hiking. Not. We arrived 45 mins later in Fox Glacier and proceeded on to Lake Matheson where we did a quick trek along a walking track around the lake. Unfortunately due to the inordinate amount of rain and mist and fog we weren't able to get the really great views of the mountain and glaciers that you would normally see at the lake. However, we made due. There is one thing you really cannot control in life: that's the weather. Not sufficiently soaked, we decided to do another 30 min trek on hiking trails around the Fox glacier to get views of it. The Fox glacier is the largest of the sixty some odd glaciers in the area. They descend into rainforest and right down to sea level at the west coast. It's truly a sight. We hiked through rainforest to get views of the glacier. Apparently on really rainy days you can still hike on the glacier itself but it's not so fun so we opted instead to head back up to Franz Josef (which we'd driven through to get to Fox) and went for a massage and a hot tub at their new spa pools in the town. Sweet as! Our massage therapist was a Canadian lady who'd been living in glacier country for a few years now and got there by doing cycling tours. Did we ever have a lot to talk about!!

The next day we left Okarito, unfortunately unable to do the famous kayaking in the Okarito Lagoon - home of the white heron. We had hoped the rain would ease up, but instead it got heavier. Our drive north and then east was precarious at best. There was flooding along many roads (luckily this is commonplace enough that they have road signs to warn you so you know to expect to slow down and drive through the flooding in a safe manner). When we got to the highway that leads to Arthurs Pass (the famous pass we wished to cross over to Christchurch - and which Andrew had planned to ride on his bike, weather permitting of course), there was a road closure and the nice kiwi gentleman manning the closure informed us that there was a "slip" (i.e. a landslide) and a bridge was washed out. We had to do a detour. Luckily it was before the one place that the detour rejoined the pass and we didn't have to abort our plan. If it had been further up, a detour would have meant taking Lewis Pass (consult your map of NZ) further north and frankly, would have changed our plans altogether - cancelling a visit to Christchurch. At any rate, this did not happen and we simply added an hour to our drive and got to Arthurs Pass. It was a cool thing to see, but the views were not as dramatic as they would have been given a clear day. There was a lot of fog and mist and the rain was still coming down hard. Andrew, quite obviously, did not ride as it would have been quite dangerous. There were a few things which I cannot describe clearly enough, that divert the water from such rainfalls from the road on the pass. Here is a photo to more clearly explain:We arrived in Christchurch pretty tired from the trip and it was raining there too. It was quite chilly and I'd wished I brought some gloves to be honest. We had some nice Thai food though and relaxed in our little backpackers hoping for a change in the weather (which NZ is famous for - ever changing weather). The following morning we woke to the weather on the verge of clearing so we headed to a little town on the Banks Peninsula called Akaroa. This is a primarily French settlement, which is kind of neat for NZ. As the day went on the weather continued to improve, so much so that we decided that since we were taking the late ferry the following day we'd have enough time for a bike ride in the morning. And that's just what we did. The following morning we got up early, packed up, and headed out for a ride up Dyers Pass in Christchurch - quite the climb. Here is one photo of the view of the city from 2/3 of the way up (if you look closely you can see the mountains in the back):
We then went back to the backpackers and showered, changed, and headed off on our drive back up to Picton for our late-night ferry ride back to Wello. On the way we stopped in a really cute little town, famous for its whale-watching tours, Kaikoura. The drive was fantastic and the views out of this world. We drove up through the foothills and into the wine country of Marlborough. We had a really nice dinner in Blenheim, after touring its vineyards and quirky little spots. And then as night-time set in we got on the ferry, loaded onto the train deck (yep, where they would put the train cars if there were a train on board) and headed back to Wellington. Here is a nice shot of the city as we came into the harbour:
I feel like I'm leaving out so much. It's hard to post so long after doing many of the things on the trip. I hope to be more on top of the blogging on future trips so I can give more detail on each place. When we got back here yesterday the weather, as I mentioned, remained gorgeous so we headed out for a nice ride and then to a proper Kiwi BBQ at Lauren's house. It was fab!! Today we explored Te Papa since it was raining, as well as getting up to date on things we'd missed while traveling (like email etc). I have uploaded the first installment of photos from the south island trip. Will update you as more become available (if I don't run out of space on my web album!!!).

Well, I wish you all a very merry Christmas! It will certainly be a different one for me (it's not feeling much like Christmas right now). I will post more on what it's like to be here for the holiday season over the next couple of days. Until then - stay warm, and drink a rum and eggnog for me!

South Island - Marlborough Sounds

Greetings everyone!! We left Wellington on Friday morning, bright and early. A 6 AM wake-up, loaded the bikes and the backpack into our really cute (and slightly inadequate for the hills of the south island) car and headed down for the 7:15 AM ferry check-in. The ferry ride was great. Got heaps of photos to share. It was raining in Wello that day and as we entered the Queen Charlotte Sound at the south island the sun was shining and we were happy to arrive. The ferry docks in Picton. It's a cute little town and we had fush & chups (this is a kiwi joke on how they say this) at a little takeaway place and ate them on a park bench. A slight detour took us to Blenheim (won't go into why here) and unfortunately we were not on our way to our destination until well past 3:30 PM (the ferry landed at 11:30, so you can imagine that being well over 3 hours behind wasn't ideal). Finally returning to Picton and then up the Queen Charlotte Drive, we headed to Hopewell, a little "backpackers" where we planned to spend the next 3 days. I put this in quotes as this is kind of the cream of the crop of the NZ backpackers, and NZ backpackers are already miles and miles above hostels elsewhere in the world as it is. This little place is far, far off the beaten track. In fact, Andrew said it's the furthest off the beaten track he thinks he's ever been. The best way to get there is by water taxi, however with the bikes and such (and the fact that it costs something like $280 to take the water taxi from Picton), we elected to drive - as many other people do. It was a hell of a drive! All told, I think it took us 2.5 hours to drive about 65 km. No word of a lie! The roads are narrow and winding all along the coast of the sounds (to get to Kenepuru Sound) and at least 25 km of it is gravel (or unsealed as they call it here). Both of us had car sickness. Ugh! We had to take one good break partway through the trip to just sit for a few minutes. Hopewell is amazing! The place itself is stellar - kayaking and mountain biking were the two things we decided to try out while staying there. Then we also got a chance to laze in the hammocks, retreat to the hot tub that is on the ledge of the rocky shore of the water of the sound, and walk along the beach at low tide to collect oysters, which were so plentiful that each guest who went and collected them had heaps to share with everyone else. It's a small place (maybe 30 guests and it wasn't full yet this past weekend) so we got to know everyone who was visiting. It was very nice, very nice indeed.

We left the Marlborough Sounds yesterday in rain and headed to Nelson. We were so happy to get off the twisty road of the sounds. Nelson is a really great little town with lots to offer. So when we arrived yesterday, although it was raining quite hard, we still had a chance to walk around the main centre town area and take in a coffee at a local cafe. Today the weather cleared progressively and we went for a late-day ride. I left Andrew in a suburb called Richmond, where he joined a weekly bike race. I could have done the social ride, but I opted to have some alone time. The ride back was really nice. Tomorrow we hope the weather will cooperate for some more riding. Fingers crossed. Photos will have to wait til my return - but there will be plenty of really great shots! It truly is amazingly beautiful in the south.

A Visitor

Having actually gotten down to a small semblance of routine and just experiencing living and working and riding my bike down under, I haven't had a lot to post about that I thought would be of interest. I hope you all got a kick out of the video clips in the last post though!

This morning I'm off to pick up likely my one and only Canadian visitor, Andrew. He will be arriving in about an hour's time and I'm super psyched to have a visitor from home with whom I can share some of this experience, as well, we will be heading off for a trip to explore some more of this country! So I'm going on vacation again! Woo-hoo!

By way of a quick update though (for those of you who aren't connected with me through other means and would like to hear more): I have been settling in well here in Wello. I really like where I'm living - the location is very convenient, and I'm getting to know my flatmates. I got to go to my first kiwi BBQ last weekend with one of my flatmates and her friends. That was a lot of fun! The kiwi BBQ is a very important summer tradition. In fact, rather than turkey and stuffing (although many do partake), often the kiwis have a BBQ on Christmas. And lunch is usually the big meal of the day that day, not dinner per se. I've already been seeing Christmas trees up in people's houses (I spy through their windows as I ride my bike past - lol!) and the weirdest thing for me was when I was riding home last weekend I rode past the botanic gardens and they had an outdoor Christmas concert going on. It was really neat, but so surreal for me to be riding my bike in warm weather while passing "The First Noel" being sung. I've never been away from the snow and ice for Christmas before! Very weird feeling. I'm happy to have company from home for the holidays too. I know it will make me feel much less removed from it all.

So stay tuned, and while we're traveling in the coming weeks I will have to try to keep you updated on the new places I'll be visiting!

Turangi and beyond...

This will be my last post on travels for a little while, as I am now in the midst of setting up some semblance of a routine, living and working in NZ, instead of being a constant tourist. Can you believe it’s been 3 weeks since I left for the other side of the world? Time really does fly and I’m sure I will be home sooner than I’d almost like, but I will make the best of my time here. In the next few posts I’ll try to gather some of my thoughts for you on life here: from driving on the left side of the road, to un-insulated houses. I’ll give you a taste of the kiwi way of life and how it’s different from home.

Since I left Wellington and headed back to Auckland, I have been making my way back down to the south end of the north island. I stayed in Auckland for one night and then picked up a car (as they say here: I ‘hired’ a car) and finally picked up my bike which was being stored for me. It’s been so long since I’ve been riding! I think I might forget how!! I got a cute little rental and stuffed it full with my backpack, bike in box, and my suitcase (which had also been stored – it has mostly bike stuff in it along with a small sampling of work clothes). I hit the road. I almost went back to Raglan for a couple of days, as people I’d met there were still there hangin’ out and I liked the place so much, but I also wanted to see a bit more of the country so in the end I decided not to. For now I’ve skipped the tourist trap that is Rotorua. I think I will go see it at some point, as the acidic pools of water there are supposed to be quite the sight, but this time around I decided to take it easy. I made my way down to Turangi, at the bottom of Lake Taupo.

A side note on Taupo: I never thought to check it out as a potential place to live, even though they have a major cycling event there every November. It’s a road race around the lake: 160 km. Needless to say, when I went through the town I saw quite a few cyclists. I doubt, however, that Taupo would be the best choice of place to live, as I think I would run out of cycling routes and it’s not the best jumping off spot for more touring around NZ or abroad.

Turangi, at the bottom of Lake Taupo, is the place to stay when embarking on the Tongariro Crossing. This is a famous hike across the volcano in the national park of the same name. There are three peaks in the park: Tongariro, Ruapehu, and Ngauruhoe. The latter being the most conical, hence used as Mount Doom in the famous LOTR movies. I stayed at a great backpackers and just chilled out – in fact, I was offered a two-week job there running the place while the owner goes on vacation. I was tempted, but at the same time without a vehicle it would be quite isolating and I really wanted to get back to Wellington and get settled and on to the main purpose of my OE. I didn’t do the crossing this time, but I intend to go back to do it as it’s supposed to be really great! One afternoon I took in the geothermal pools in Turangi - very nice and super affordable ($8)! I drove out of the park on Saturday and made my way down to Plimmerton – a little town about 25 km outside of Wellington.

Saturday we ended up having a major storm system come through a good part of the north island. The crossing was inaccessible that day, as it was snowing in the mountains, and as I drove into the Rangipo Desert I listened to the radio warnings regarding driving on the highway that day, as there was a strong windstorm. I’ve never driven in a windstorm through a desert before – sand everywhere! As I continued down toward the western coast it got greyer and colder. I was wearing Capri pants when I left (even though it probably wasn’t really warm enough for it) and caved in and changed into my jeans in the car at a vegetable stand on the side of the highway. J I bought some veggies too! As the highway straddled the coast, I could see the waves crashing like mad into the shoreline. I was almost in the greater Wellington area when I found a radio station that was reporting gale-force winds and gusts of up to 140 kph. I held tightly onto the car door when I opened it upon my arrival at the backpackers in Plimmerton – didn’t want to lose the door to the wind!

The place I’ve been staying at here is beautiful! It faces a road that skirts the bay. On Sunday morning I sat in the lounge (that’s what they call the living room here) and watched the weekly sailboat race as I answered emails from some of you. Oh yes, and as the weather had changed from gale-force winds and rain to warm and sunny, I enviously watched the cyclists ride down the road and back out to Wellington, thinking that I will do that soon too. I spent some time looking at a few more flats Sunday afternoon and dropped my bike off at Lauren’s for safekeeping until I can move into my own flat. The two flats we saw weren’t right for me, both for different reasons. I thought I’d be staying at the YHA and continuing my search for the remainder of the week when I received a text from the people whose flat I visited last week with the good news that I could rent the room there if I’d like! This flat is in a great location and with two young professionals around my age. I’m stoked! I should be moving in there this week… will keep you posted on the move and, like I said, life in NZ.

More Photos

More photos are up - Raglan & Wellington. I should be adding to the Wellington photos as we go though. So check them out using the link on the right under the travel section. :)

Bay of Islands and Northland

So I'm a bit behind here, as I'm off to another place. Will have to blog about Raglan next time I get a chance. For now, this is what I did for the last week...

As I alluded to – I didn’t fully enjoy the city. I think it’s mostly due to the task-oriented week I had while there. To give it its due, Auckland is clean, has lots of good restaurants – particularly Asian food (yum!), easy enough to get around (although I encountered a few very nice bus drivers, the majority of them were not helpful and not very pleasant), and easy to get out of – which I did. I visited Kiwi Mike’s parents on the north shore. Now that’s a beautiful part of the ‘city’.

When I left on the bus on Saturday afternoon to head up north I was relieved to leave the buzz of the city. If you’ve traveled enough you can relate to the fact you will never be able to know how beautiful a place is through pictures. To know it is to experience it. I remember when I went to the Greek Islands I really wished I could capture the beauty for those back home – you just cannot capture the blueness of the water in the Aegean Sea. It’s not possible. There are many amazing places to see out there and unless you are there, you cannot fully appreciate it. It’s too bad we can’t upload our experience from our brain/our mind’s eye so others can really know it the way we did. The only thing I can really apologize for are the photos taken through the bus windows at high speeds. For the rest of the photos – you’ll have to make due with what I’ve tried to capture. Believe me – it’s more beautiful here than you can see from them. I took way too many trying to capture the one shot I believe you are all waiting for: rolling green hills and sheep! J Haha!! No, I’m not joking – I took many pasture shots trying to capture the sheep for you. I was delighted when I saw my first hill of sheep. They love being on top of the hills. But I digress as usual. You want to know about Northland I’m sure.

Northland – the northernmost area of NZ. The climate here is sub-tropical. The mornings and evenings (at this time of the year anyway) are quite cool. The afternoons are nice and warm – low twenties Celsius. I took the InterCity Bus from downtown Auckland (least expensive transportation mode in the country and quite reliable with very nice drivers) to Paihia in the Bay of Islands. Of note: across the bay from Paihia is a small town called Russell (which is accessible by ferry only) – it was the first national capital of the country. I stayed in Paihia at a little backpackers (that’s what they call hostels here) called The Mousetrap. It was a nice little spot on a long road that is filled with backpackers’ accommodations. I could see the bay from the veranda of the place and it was a 500 m walk to the beach. I was lucky enough to get upgraded to a twin share room instead of a dorm and my roommate was a young girl from York, England who was there scuba diving. She is on extended vacation down here and to Oz before returning home to look for work now that she’s done school. I spent three nights there and from there I took a one-day tour of the far north. This was a 12-hour, 500 km tour.

They picked a few of us up at our backpackers, along with other people from a few more stops around 7 AM (ugh – I know) and off we went. We first stopped very briefly at the Waipoua Kauri Forest. Since the trip was a bit rushed, I really did not learn anything about this forest, unfortunately. But I did appreciate the fern that grows here in NZ, which I learned is the symbol for the airline here. I took a cool photo of it, as I found it quite neat. Off we went to Ninety Mile Beach on the Aupori Peninsula. Ninety Mile Beach is actually 64 miles long, and it is officially designated as a highway, as I was told it was used as such in the past. At any rate, tour buses mostly drive up this beach, as it is dangerous to do so on your own. You can only drive the beach during low tide, and many a car that has attempted the drive has gotten stuck when the tide has come in on them. There are cars buried in the sand there. No company will insure you if you choose to drive it yourself. The bus we were on was a specially designed bus that was built on a truck engine, so the engine is in the front in order to be able to drive in such conditions. It was a rocky and fast drive for those 500 km. We had to leave the beach at the earlier exit point, as the tide was coming in and we would not make it to the exit 20 minutes up at Te Paki Stream (where apparently the driver has to negotiate 3 km of quicksand – this is where most cars have gotten stuck). An hour’s drive from the beach had us at these huge naturally shifting dunes where we went sand-boarding. Oh yes – down giant sand dunes, head first on a boogie board. It was unnerving at first laying on the board at the top of the dune but once I got going down, and my stomach came back down to its rightful place, it was super fun!! After this we headed off to another small volcanic sand beach where we ate lunch. After lunch we headed up to the northernmost point of NZ – Cape Reinga. This is a sacred place for the Maori people – it is where the spirits of the dead depart – leap off into the ocean. If you’ve checked out the photos you’ve also seen the lighthouse at Cape Reinga and the note that I made about the meeting of the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea at this point. By the way, I put my feet in both: Tasman Sea at Ninety Mile Beach, and Pacific Ocean at the small beach at our lunch stop. The sea was warmer – as expected. We stopped in a little fishing village, called Mangonui, on the way back for fish and chips (yum!) and got back into Paihia at 6:30 PM. OK. So it was 11.5 hours, not 12. Close enough. I was exhausted.

I’m back in the city again now to take care of a few more arrangements and then I’m off again for some more touring of the north island. I am itching to get settled, so I hope to do that sooner rather than later. One particular NZ treat that I’ve found: RJ’s natural licorice. I’ve bought it more than once now. Yes, they have both vegemite and marmite here – I have tried neither.

Spud Island

I've been off the computer for over a week now: on vacation. It was a really nice break. Quite busy though. Lots of riding. :) The weather was all over the place, but we managed to get rides in regardless. There were 11 of us and we rode most days all together. A few days we split into smaller groups or did individual rides. Visited my grandmother while on the island. Spent a day at the beach. Ate a lot of fish. Here are some photos. Perhaps I'll be inspired to write more later...

Golden Gate, Chinatown, and Cable Cars

Holy crow! My quads certainly made use of the strength training I did in the off-season today! More riding. This time I went downtown to the financial district, onto the Embarcadero (where all the piers begin) and took the bike lane down into the Fisherman's Wharf area, then on to Crissy Field, and up to the Golden Gate bridge, where I proceeded to ride across. It's a bit challenging, what with all of the pedestrian and inexperienced cyclist traffic, but I just reminded myself that I was on a leisurely ride and would want to stop for photo-ops anyway. No rush. That's exactly what I did. It was fun. I wasn't up for a long ride today, as I'd hoped to do. My legs maybe could have done it (not sure though, as the hills are pretty big on the other side of the bridge and I didn't have the right gears to do really hard hills), but my head wasn't in it. Nor was my saddle area. Should have brought my own saddle. Won't make that mistake again. Frankly, now that I've got a bike box, I likely won't travel without my own bike if I can help it again. One thing I learned with all of the steep hills here is that you really can't be truly confident riding someone else's bike. I made the best of it though and really did get some good exercise. Woke the body up from it's conference sleep, and I saw a lot of nice stuff that you don't see if you aren't on a bike.

After returning the bike I cabbed it back to the hotel so I could shower, change, and do some other interesting things. First thing I did was to walk down the street about 3 blocks away - Grant Street: Chinatown. It's the largest Chinatown in the world I think. I just happened upon a tea shop I'd found on-line before I left and was SO excited!!! Picked up some totally amazing stuff there. They were so helpful and professional. I got to taste some teas that I was looking at before buying them. Super fun!

On the other side of Chinatown is North Beach - little Italy. I hadn't really eaten much all day (another reason the long ride did not work out) and I seemed to have mindlessly wandered into a little place called Caffe Greco. I'm posting all of these links because these are places I would go back to and would recommend, so take note. :) I had a veggie panini and it hit the spot and didn't hurt the wallet. The guys there were really sweet. Well, as I said, everyone seems to be pretty darn sweet to me here. At any rate, I really stumbled upon a nice spot - the locals were all hangin' out here and stopping in for coffee and tiramisu.

After leaving there I decided I was close enough to walk to the crookedest street in the US (although this fact seems to be doubtful): Lombard Street. Not sure if this is correct either (and unfortunately I didn't take my garmin with me), but apparently it's a 27% grade. I climbed not only the street itself, but the almost as steep road to get to it (if it's 27%, then I'd hazard a guess that the road I had to walk 3 blocks up to get to it was between 20-25%). Once at the top I hopped on the Hyde-Powell cable car and took my first San Francisco cable car ride. I took a bunch of photos so I'll torture you with them later. That was fun. And again, all the people on the cable car were super nice and this other tourist showed me where to take a good shot of the people hanging off our car. When I got off the cable car at my stop I thanked the back end driver (there are two guys on the car - seems the one at the back is in charge of the back brakes - I asked him) and I hopped off and they all waved goodbye to me as they started to roll again.

Riding SF, etc.

Another crazy warm, beautiful day in SF. I wore sunscreen today. :) A bit of a rush this morning: up, shower, pancake breakfast (in anticipation of my bike ride today), packed up and reorganized, hopped into a cab, moved over to my accommodations for this evening and tomorrow. Super lucky: my room was ready! Got settled, changed into my cycling gear, reorganized again. Sheesh! Met Pip, the resident greeter here at the inn. Hopped into a cab to get to the bike rental shop. Picked up my bike. On my way. One of the pedals wasn't working and I couldn't get clipped in - not to mention that I took my mtb shoes so I could get off and walk around more easily, plus for some reason I didn't want to take my good shoes just in case. Who knows why I got that idea in my head, but whatever. At any rate, I think it's been 3 years since I last used those shoes and cleat system so I was rusty at finding where the cleat is to clip in AND the pedal wasn't working. Turned around, back to the shop. New pedals. On my way again. The ride could have been better if: I didn't feel like a sack of potatoes for the first hour (due to a lack of real physical activity for the past several days), and if I'd eaten more - I forgot/didn't have time/was too rushed to eat lunch. Scarfed down a luna bar but the hills were too challenging for an empty stomach. I needed food. Got lost many, many times, but once on Chestnut Street I found an abundance of little spots to grab something and ate a pita - at nearly 3:30 PM! Found my way back to the route. Rode it for a while. Was actually on track but then decided to cut it short at that point. Over 2 hours already and wanted to get back and shower and I had a couple of things I wanted to do before stores closed, etc, etc.

Tonight I went down to a bike shop that was supposed to sell Sheila Moon wear but I found they didn't. They had a lot of cool bikes though. I chatted with the guy there and he told me a route across the bridge that he said is way nicer than what I was going to do tomorrow. So if I can manage not to get myself lost again I'll try it out.

The people here are super nice. All the cabbies chat with you. And on the road other cyclists on the OTHER side of the road yell hi at me. ??? This happened several times. And I'm not riding the Colnago (I left her at home), so it can't be that. I'm just riding the plain old Giant rental. It's actually a decent bike, but I hope I don't regret not bringing my own saddle. Wasn't the most comfortable. Anyway... back to the cabbies. So in one of the cabs today the guy pointed out these two ladies walking up the road together wearing matching outfits with big, bright pink hats. He told me: "Those are the twins. I didn't know they were still alive." So I asked him about them. He said they are famous, so I googled them when I got back tonight. Here you go: Brown Twins. I saw them! Cool eh?? Too bad I was in a cab - could've taken their photo.

The Rock

Ahhh. Finally got some down time and started to see the city. This afternoon two of my colleagues and I went to Alcatraz. That was pretty cool. Did the audio tour thing. Learned quite a bit about it. It was first built as a military fort. It was a federal penitentiary from 1934-1963. Then in 1969 several Native American tribes occupied the island. I'm not totally sure of the whole history behind that, nor how long they stayed there. At any rate, today it's designated as a National Park. We learned about the couple of different prison escape attempts. I guess there were a few that actually did escape at one time and to this day nobody knows what happened - if they drowned or really got away. I took a bunch of photos and will post some when I get home.

It's really warm here - quite above normal. When we went out to the Rock today I hadn't thought to put sunscreen on, so guess who's a bit sunburned? It's so silly - I've got a pretty decent base with the cycling over the past 2 months, and yet, a few hours without sunscreen and my fair skin turns red. Geez! I did bring the stuff, so tomorrow when I go out on the bike I will most certainly be lathering myself in it. Well, trying my best to stay on EST, so I gotta hit the hay! More touring tomorrow. Can't wait to do it on two wheels. This body doesn't like walking so much - it hurts (feet, hip, knee - ouch!).

Always wear your helmet!

So far my weekend has not turned out as planned. I am, however, rolling with it. Not much else to do. I've been relaxing a lot - living up to the new nickname. ;) And learned from my massage therapist how to make homemade ice packs because I needed a few of them... I've been icing myself for almost 2 days straight now. Various sore spots. Namely: the outside of my left knee where the handlebars hit me; the inside of my right calf where the crossbar hit me; my neck from the whiplash; and my left hip.

So, what happened? Well, a double set of train tracks swallowed me up and spat me back out on my ride on Friday. :( Not exactly what we had in mind when we decided to do an 'epic' ride that day. So we only managed 107 km instead of the 130-ish we had planned. Oh well. Like Andrew said, "McGregor Lake isn't going anywhere." We'll just have to make plans to do it again. Except next time I have a feeling I'm going to be dismounting and walking across those tracks because I'm spooked by them now. I was too sore to ride today, so I really hope to do a medium-length ride with the group tomorrow. Fingers crossed that my aching body feels up to it.

And now, to give you a reason for the title of the post... my poor helmet went to helmet heaven on Friday. Just to show you the importance of always wearing one!!! You never know what might happen, so don't let vanity sway you (and you know who you are). Besides, today helmets are totally hot! Believe me, when those of us who ride a lot see those of you who don't wear helmets out there we cringe, we talk about it when we pass you, and we judge you. And on this count I will not apologize for judging someone about something. So what I'm saying is: you look stupid not wearing one.

-The Queen of Relax, aka Big Ring Bex ;)

Victoria

... Day that is. Yes, this coming Monday - a national holiday that celebrates the birthday of the cool chick who named our capital city and I guess, from what I skim-read on that link, is supposed to help us celebrate the birthdays all of our past and current monarchy.

At any rate, what it means for us here is an extra day off. And while we're at it, maybe some of us might decide to an extra-extra day off and make it a 4-day weekend! Ah, yes. My vacation patterns of last summer begin again. Woo-hoo! Have some super sweet riding plans... The bike is calling me. Gotta run.

Hope you are enjoying the JM songs I've added there to the playlist. I seem to be obsessed with him lately. It's all jag's fault! ;)

Merry Christmas

I found this a couple of years ago and went looking for it today again so I could post it. :) Voila!
The last day of work before the holidays is now behind me. I look forward to some R&R and some good training!!