Tag: NZ

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Working Hard

I know, I haven’t been posting much here, but it’s because I’ve been working hard. Honest.

Unfortunately Anna is a student these days, so I had to go out and find work. Find it I did, a little different to my usual line of work, with a small-medium sized New Zealand business. It’s been quite interesting so far, and with some fairly serious growth plans, it could be an interesting ride over the next few years.

It does mean commuting to work by car, something I’ve never done before. All the previous jobs I’ve had, I’ve walked (mostly), rode a bike, taken the bus, or maybe the train. But for once, I’m driving a car. Very strange. Everyone else is going the faux-eco-hippy route, I seem to be regressing.

But the other work that has been going on is, at long last, completing my PADI Divemaster certification. I did most of the work for this last year, but didn’t quite finish it before going on the road. But, at long last, after far too many dives in Lake Pupuke, and way too much time in the pool, I’ve finished!

Will be quite nice to go diving purely for the sake of diving, and not have to worry about passing this or that task, and only have to worry about cleaning and storing my gear, not rinsing out 15 wetsuits…

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Bike Touring

Lucky Escape

Last Saturday was a superb morning, clear skies, no winds, just a touch cool. Perfect for mountain biking. So, dog in tow, we headed out to Woodhill. Nice riding, things going well, just one problem – there had been quite a bit of rain over the previous days.

Came racing down the hill, up to a wooden obstacle that I’ve gone over before, going a bit fast, OK hit the brakes a touch, whoops, the wood’s wet, the bike slips out, and things all go horribly wrong.

Next thing I’m lying on the ground, the bike is several feet away, wheels spinning, Samson the dog is checking me over, and yet remarkably all my limbs are still working. A few minor bruises, a bit of a rest needed, then we go to set off. Hang on, the chainring doesn’t look right – should be it be in two pieces?

Not cheap to replace either, $135, since they only had an XT ring available. Could have been worse, could have been me snapped in two

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Family First

Last weekend, things got a bit busy around here. My older brother was competing in the Cure Kids Adventure Race. This coincided with a weekend featuring both my 3 year old niece’s and my father’s birthdays. Somehow this morphed into a family gathering, and next thing most of my family were descending on St Marys Bay.

Because my brothers, sister, and parents all live in different cities (and countries), it’s not often that we are all in the same place at the same time. Weddings and funerals it seems. Last time was not under the best of circumstances, but this time things were a fair sight better. More laughs this time:

With some people staying with Anna and I, and others staying nearby, we ended up with a full house on Saturday night – brothers and sister, with their partners and children, in-laws and out-laws, plus a few hangers-on. Rather good times, eating some good food, having a few drinks, etc. Turns out that having a game involving putting out candles with the palm of your hand is not the best idea, as one contestant can attest. But it was a good time, catching up with family.

The following morning, Anzac Day, we weren’t in the best shape for getting up to go to Dawn Parade. There’s always next year for that. But Nic and Dave put together a nice breakfast, followed by one proper photo of the lot of us:

House felt a bit empty by the time we finally got rid of the last of them…Oh and Nic got us a great present, which I’ll send photos of once we get it mounted and displayed – a destination roll from a 1980’s bus, showing various locations around the upper North Island. Very fashionable it turns out (I had no idea).

Oh and there will be some changes before the next blog post – I need to change to WordPress, will take a bit of mucking around to get things working. Hopefully all links will keep working.

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Chilling

I can’t say I’ve been overly stressing myself since I returned to New Zealand. Things have been very low key, no rushing around trying to find work, no running around the country, just taking it easy. The routine last week was something like: Get up, take dog for long leisurely walk, pick up paper on the way back along Ponsonby Rd, have a late breakfast, read the paper in the sunshine, ooh look it’s time for lunch…you get the idea. It does make it easy that I’ve got a fully set up house here, and it’s not like other times between trips, when I would be moving around, sleeping on couches.

It’s been nice to be home. One of the problems of moving around is that no matter where you are, you always seem to be missing somewhere else that you’ve been. But as I said before, this time I feel ready to be in New Zealand. Sunshine for the first week, along with catching up with friends and family certainly helped. Most importantly, I now have a steady supply of Vogels bread and peanut butter, not to mention wide distribution of superb meat pies.

Savings won’t last forever, so I will start actively seeking employment soon. Truly. Really. I will.

Oh and a special mention of Cascade Designs, the makers of Therm-a-Rest sleeping mats. My Prolite 4 had started delaminating, after hundreds of uses. But they have a lifetime warranty, and the local distributor honoured it. Sent it in, and they quickly sent out a replacement. New model too, same size and weight, but 20% warmer. Nice. The only thing that I’m annoyed about is that these are listed as $100USD on the US website, but locally sell for closer to $300NZD. Should be more like half that – dunno if it’s the distributor or the local retailers jacking up the prices.

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Bike Touring

Swansong

Before setting off on this trip, my father said that he thought this would be my swansong, my last trip of this kind. He was right, in a way. I don’t expect to do any more long solo trips, although that doesn’t mean my travelling days are over.

A couple of years ago, I wondered if I would be able to settle down, and do the house/dog/white picket fence thing. Well, it wasn’t to be – I couldn’t settle down at first.

How things have changed – most of those elements are now in place, and I expect to stay in the same city for at least the next three years. It doesn’t mean that I won’t be doing any more trips like this ever again, it just means they will be shorter trips over the next few years, and probably closer to home. I still want to ride across the USA, but it can wait a while. It will still be there in 3 years, it’s not going anywhere (no matter what the radicals might say). It will be a slightly different place then of course, but that’s neither here nor there.

And you know what? I’m happy about being home. More than that, I’m ready to be home, and settle for a while. If I hadn’t done this last leg, I would have wondered about it, wondered if I was doing the right thing in staying at home. It was probably a good thing that I chose Patagonia for this trip – because to be completely honest, I didn’t really enjoy it. Could have been a different story if I’d been back in China. Would I have wanted to come home from that?

I have thoroughly enjoyed riding around the UK though. It can be an underrated place, but if you’ve got the money, it’s a great place to ride around. Probably just as well I added this onto the end of the Patagonian trip, because it gave me quite a boost. It’s also one of the few places you can spend hours riding every day, and still gain weight, from all the beer and stodgy food.

Jan also pointed out one good thing about having completed my RTW circuit – I can now go anywhere, I’m not constrained by having to complete the loop – instead I can choose destinations on the basis of interest, not geography. We’ll see.

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3 in 3

Last weekend Wellington, this weekend Sydney, next weekend Santiago. After a paltry 2 flights in the last year, and not even leaving the country, I am at last moving again.

Kiwicon was on in Wellington. This was the third running of a computer security conference. We don’t get many conferences here, so it was heartening to see quality talks, attended by around 300 people. On a weekend no less. The $50 price tag might have helped this somewhat. A good range of talks – some of them way too technical for me, some covering things I know and do every day, and some just hitting the right spot. A good chance to catch up with a few people I know too – it’s a small industry here.

Next weekend is Sydney, for a cousin’s wedding. It will be a good opportunity to catch up with some spread out branches of the family. After Sydney, back to NZ for a couple of days before flying to Santiago. Only two more days of work to go too. I’ve moved out of my flat, everything’s packed up and I’m living out of (nb not in) a cardboard box.

Although I’ve packed up most of my stuff, it doesn’t mean that I’ve sorted out all my gear. I’ve been busy patching holes in my panniers, and sorting out other stuff. I think I’ve got everything I want; it’s now a matter of sorting through and working out what I actually need. Matt@Velo is going to hold an extra large bike box for me, so next week I’ll box it up, and pray that I don’t get hit with excess baggage charges. Could be marginal.

I’ve also started looking at some of my maps. I’ve got a couple of overlapping maps, and I’m a bit concerned about discrepancies between them. One has a road marked as a highway, the other as a “seasonal track.” At best the road will be a dirt road. One marks some roads as highways when I know that they are dirt roads. I should be able to get hold of some better maps when I’m in country anyway. These ones are just for planning. I’ve also found detailed maps for my GPS, from gps.com.ar. They are detailed, it remains to be seen if they are accurate.