Headwind, Hills and a Town Too Far

"Take a break bro'", came a call from the side of the road.  I turned to see that the shout had come from a Maori, who was leaning casually against the side of his car, taking in the view of the bay and ocean below.  There were no such pleasures for me.  I was tired.  In fact, I was pretty much finished and I guessed it must have been apparent, as I struggled to keep the pedals turning as I reached the crest of yet another hill.  How much longer could I keep this going and how many more kilometres did my legs have in them?  I was about to find out, but all I wanted to do at that moment was to get off the bike and lie down to rest.  The only problem?  This was not an option.

What had started out as a pleasant day of cycling had quickly degenerated into an afternoon of pain, despair and desperation.  I had broken camp and hit the road out of Ruakaka around 9:30am, knowing that I had around 28km to roll along State Highway 1, up to Whangerei.  With the exception of the occasional articulated logging trucks that thundered past me, so close that they threatened to blow me off the road on the left, or to suck me under their wheels to the right, everything went easily.  My legs felt strong and I pounded out the kilometres in easy rhythm, taking the hills in my stride and whizzing down the other side with a huge grin, that threatened to rip my face in two.

Whangerei came and went with a brief stop at an i-Site (tourist information) to book myself into a campsite in the historic town of Russell, which was to be my destination for the day, and an obligatory coffee stop, which ended up wasting time since I cycled around the city in search of a suitable cafe.  It's not that I am particularly fussy about my coffee, it was that I needed a cafe where I could lock the bike up right outside on the pavement, so it was in view and easy keep an eye on.

By my calculations and the use of Google maps, I believed Russell to be a further 60km up the road and the way I was feeling, this was easily achievable, despite setting a total of 90km riding distance for myself.  That would be the furthest I had ever cycled in a single day and I felt it to be ambitious, especially as this was to be only my third day on the road.  But I had ridden 85km from Warkworth to Ruakaka fairly easily, so I felt comfortable that this ride to Russell was within my ability.  About 8km north out from Whangerei, after a couple of stops to check my map and ask directions, I turned right off State Highway 1 and headed east, onto Old Russell Road.

At first it was good to be away from the heavy and fast moving traffic and I enjoyed a ride through a valley, alongside a small river, that wound its way by the side of the road.  I started to notice that the wind, which had hardly been evident so far, began to gust into my face and would not let up.  As any cyclist will tell you, wind is both the biggest blessing and the most evil of curses on a ride, depending on whether it is at your back, or blowing into your front.  With the panniers sticking out the sides of my bike, and the bike frame being a little small for me, it was not easy to find any suitable aerodynamic position to minimise the affects of the wind.  At this point, I still felt comfortable, strong enough to deal with the wind and happy to be rolling along through some beautiful and wild countryside and nature.

Shortly though, as I approached the coast, the terrain changed and became hilly.  I commenced a series of hot uphill rides, as the relentless sun beat down upon me, followed by short, fast descents, with the incessant headwind ever present in my face.  I was headed to the coast at Helena Bay and from there, I would follow the coastal road around the beaches and bays of the upper north island.  I firmly believed that this coastal road would be fairly flat and would hold to sea level for most of the way.  On the map, Helena Bay seemed like a good spot to stop for lunch and perhaps a coffee/snack refuel and I eagerly looked forward to it.

At the top of Helena Bay hill sits a cafe, aptly named The Gallery and Cafe Helena Bay Hill.  I pulled into the gravel driveway and stopped.  The driveway was steep and with the deep gravel, I felt it was not suitable for a heavily laden touring bicycle and I did not want to get off the push the bike down and then back up again, so I decided to pass this cafe by and to stop at the next one, that was sure to be down the bottom of the hill, in the bay itself.  I set off again and enjoyed some glorious, high speed descending down Helena Bay hill, on a road that twisted and turned.  This was exhilarating riding and of course, for me, I was the lone break away rider, leading the stage, descending one of the Hors category French Alps, in a mountain stage of the Tour de France.  I don't know what the car behind me thought, as I swept around the bends at high speed, leaning the bike over this way and that, cutting across the road, looking ahead and around bends for on-coming cars, but I did not care.  This was wild, this was freedom and this is what living was all about.

At the bottom of the hill my smile faded quickly.  Helena Bay was no more than a collection of a few private houses and the bay and beach itself.  No cafe, no shop, no ice-cream van, nothing.  My water was dangerously low and I needed to refill my drinks bottles.  I decided to have lunch anyway, and I enjoyed my sandwiches, sitting on a picnic table, looking out across the ocean.  Behind me, I spied a family in their living room, so I knocked on the door and asked for water, which they were more than happy to provide.

I set off again and the coast road was not how I had imagined it to be at all.  It was one short, steep hill after another.  If you cycle, you will know that the amount of energy spent going uphill cannot be recovered in a short down hill that follows.  You need time between hills to recover, for the muscles in the legs to work themselves out and for the oxygen to replenish them again.  I could get no respite.  There was no flat road.  It was simply up, down, then up again.  And all the while, when I began a downhill section, the incessant headwind blew into my face, slowing me down, sapping my energy reserves further.  I quickly began to suffer.  This was no longer pleasant riding.  I was head down, focused solely on keeping going.  What views there were this day went largely unnoticed.  If my Maori friend had not shouted from the side of the road, I would not have seen him.  It needed to be all about the cycling, I had to get to Russell because I now knew that between where I was and Russell, there was nothing else, there would be no place to replenish and rest.

All the while I was cycling, I would glance at my cycle computer and count down the kilometres.  Each kilometre cycled meant one less ahead of me and soon, despite the tough conditions, I began to close in on my estimate of the distance and I began to feel a sense of relief.  Russell should have been within 15km and it was now that I was to experience the first of a series of bad moments.  As I came past a junction with a minor road, I read the signpost that pointed in the direction of Russell.  Written there, in white letters, it stated Russell 46km.  This could not be.  That would make my ride 136km rather than the 90km I had planned.  This was devastating news and my morale dropped.  Shortly after this, I ran out of water for a second time.  With no chance of cafes or shops, this was perhaps the most dangerous thing to happen.  Not only did I still have some distance to cover, it was a hot day too and with that ever present wind, I knew I would dehydrate rapidly.  That was a worrying prospect.  Water is literally life.

As if these things were not bad enough, soon afterwards I hit what is known as the 'wall', the feeling that occurs when your body can do no more.  It happened to me as I began my ascent of yet another hill.  It was not only a physical wall that I hit, it was a mental one as well, seeing another hill before me, in the exhausted state I was in, was demoralising.  My spirits dropped and I was left with no other option than to pull over on the side of the road, climb off the bike and to push.  It was only day three on the road and I was pushing the bike already.  This was not how it was supposed to be, this was not the dream that I had cooked up in my imagination.  Now I felt not only the true weight of my bike, I also felt the real heaviness of my attempt to cycle around New Zealand.  I began to feel desperate, that I needed to get to Russell at all costs.  I could feel an emotion building inside, not quite panic, but something that I was not used to feeling.  I didn't want to admit to it, I couldn't admit to it, but I was close to being out of control and I am never out of control.  Here I was though, out of my depth and alone on the road.

As I pushed my bike up that first hill, struggling with the weight the wanted to roll backwards downhill, an elderly man came walking down towards me.  We both stopped to exchange some words and it transpired that he was 76 years of age and was New Zealand national champion at distance running for his age group, and had been out making sure he kept in shape.  I asked him about my chances for obtaining water and how the road ahead was likely to be?  "Your best bet around here is rain water, but I don't know where you'd find some", he said.  "There's winery a bit further up the road you might try.  You could come to my house, but its 6km back the way you've come and I don't think you'll be wanting to do that."  Too right I didn't.  And the road ahead?  "There's a few more hills to come I'm afraid.  At least two or three more as steep as this one and some others too."  I tried not to show it, but this was not what I wanted to hear.  We said our goodbyes and continued in our own directions.  I felt deflated and I knew I was in real trouble.  Even if I wanted to stop and make camp for the night, with no water, that was just not an option I could contemplate.  I had to push on.

Luck was a little on my side and soon enough, I chanced upon a private residence where I was again able to ask for water. Good job too since I eventually came by the winery and it was closed.  With water, I rationalised that even if I were to walk the last 20km to Russell, I could still make it.  Sure, it would take me a long time, but it was at least an option.  Each time I came to a hill, I had to climb off the bike and push.  I felt as though I had let myself down, that I had been foolish to even think that I could achieve this tour of New Zealand.  At the top of each hill, I swung back into the saddle and let myself roll down, not even having the strength nor energy to push on the pedals.  I would roll along any flat sections before getting off again to push up yet another hill.  In this way, I kept going.  Slowly but surely the kilometres ticked off.  When I hit 130km for the day, I felt reinvigorated in spirit.  That was some achievement.  When I considered the weight of the bike, my lack of any serious training for this adventure, the headwind and the hills, then it was quite remarkable that I had been able to cycle that kind of distance.

And then I was rolling into Russell.  With some great joy and relief, I found my campsite and I hurried pitched the tent before I would even consider stopping to rest.  My spirits lifted and my tiredness evaporated.  Later that evening, I reflected on my day.  Sure, it had been tough, but it had taught me a valuable lesson, that I needed to understand my route in more detail and that I needed to know that I could obtain or carry enough water for each section that I rode.  But one thing stood out more than any other to me.  I had cycled 136km with a heavily loaded touring bicycle in hard conditions.  I was a little shaken by my experience but there remained a thought that would not escape me.  Maybe, just maybe I can actually do this.

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It Was Never Meant To Rain

When I came up with the idea of cycle touring New Zealand, I painted a perfect, idyllic picture in my mind.  It was one where I cycled easily and with carefree abandon, along flat roads, lined with beautiful and stunning scenery.  I would meet other cyclists, swap stories and snippets of information.  We'd share some of the road, a coffee or beer, and all the while, overhead, a blue sky and a golden sun.  It was never meant to rain.

Yesterday had been a free day.  I had decided that I wanted to give myself the chance to recover from day one on the road and also to allow my head cold an improved chance of leaving me.  The cold is not heavy by any means, but as I toil up hill, becoming short of breath, I can feel its energy sapping affect.  If I have the next three months on the road, taking one extra day to shift this annoying ailment was surely worthwhile.  I used the day to my advantage, visiting the i-Site (official New Zealand tourist information) and clarifying that the coastal route that I had planned to take was actually not possible, due to the long sections of unsealed road.  The woman at the desk advised me against it.  That means that for now at least, I am stuck with the state highway (SH1N) and the heavy and fast traffic that uses it.  Not ideal at all, but there is no other option, at least not on the section from Warkworth to Wellsford.  At Wellsford, I have an option to take a right turn off the highway and head onto the quieter sealed back roads through to Waipu and beyond to Whangarei, and it is an option I will happily take.

Boats nestled at Sandspit

I spent a few hours in the morning making the short ride out to Matakana, a small village a few kilometres from Warkworth, where I stopped off at the Black Dog Cafe, which was doing a great trade on all of the Sunday day trippers out for a ride.  One coffee later and I headed on over to check out Sandspit, on my loop back to Warkworth.  Sandspit was stunning.  My jaw dropped open on rounding the bend and seeing it for the first time.  Crystal clear water, lined with golden sand beaches and dense, lush, green bush all around.  This moment defined perfectly the reason I chose to come back to New Zealand.  I cycled out onto the spit and marvelled at my surroundings.  I felt alive, at peace, and I felt a giddy sense of happiness that plainly showed, as a beaming smile spread across my face.

900 year old Kauri tree

In the afternoon, I took a short bike ride out to the Warkworth and District Museum, so that I could go and check out the 900 year old Kauri tree that grows there.  Kauri trees are the largest native tree that grow in New Zealand and they were once found in great abundance.  Unfortunately, since the arrival of European settlers in the 19th century, they were felled in great numbers for use as timber in building and ship construction.  Not as large as its North American cousin, the Giant Sequioa, the sight of a Kauri tree still makes an impressive sight in its own right.  I laid a hand on the bark of the trunk and I attempted to listen to its pulse of life, to what it might have to say.  I offered my own thanks to the tree, and gave a thank you to nature also.

There is a free bush walk through the native bush at the museum and I took the opportunity to submerge myself under the canopy of the foliage and into the gloom of cool, dense forest, emerging after some thirty minutes of strolling, back into the bright late afternoon sun.

And so to this morning.  Rising with the alarm, I made good my preparations for departure.  Shower, breakfast, coffee, surf the web, and dress.  I looked out the window to grey skies and they pleased me.  My forearms are still a little sore from the sunburn incurred on my first day on the road, and I was grateful for some cooler temperatures and respite from the blazing sun.  I packed everything away into my panniers before opening the front door of my unit, so that I could wheel out the bike and load it outside.  But what was that I could hear on the corrugated roof of the veranda?  Pitter-patter, pitter-patter.  Much to my horror, I discovered that a light rain was falling.  This was not in the plan.  Certainly not on the day when I was determined to pitch my tent and make camp for the first time.

I went to find Carol and Dave, the British ex-pat couple that managed the motel.  "She's set in for the day", said Dave, "it's the cyclone that been affecting the islands (Pacific islands) and it's coming down from the north.  Supposed to get worse before it gets better."  This was not good.  I looked at the surface of the swimming pool as droplets of rain dive bombed into it, making hundreds of tiny splashes and sending rings racing outwards.  I did not want to spend another day in Warkworth.  Yesterday had already been a luxury and I had only managed one day of cycling, and now here I was, confronted with taking two days off from the road.  This was hardly the glorious start I had imagined.  But I am also a pragmatic person and I knew that to head north from Warkworth would take me into a rural area before I arrived at Whangarei.  Whangarei itself was too far to try, my aim had been to head for the coastal settlement of Waipu, and if I felt up to it, then on as far a Ruakaka.  Each of these places had a campsite I could try for the night.  Away from there, there would be very little in the way of motels and guesthouses, and I was also aware that this was peak holiday season.  Did I want to try to pitch my tent outside for the first time with the threat of a cyclonic weather system on top of me?  Did I want to cycle wet all day, this early in my journey?  No.  No way, no chance, no how.

Perhaps what I discovered today is that I am a comfort adventurer.  I prefer to think of it in those terms, rather than to think that I am a coward, that I don't have the backbone for this adventurous larking about.  I'm here after all, I'm already in an adventure, which ever way I look at it.  Why make it any harder or more difficult than it needs to be, especially so early on?  I figured that there was still plenty of time for hardships on the road, it was just that today did not need to be one.  So, one day of cycling, two days off.  That's a luxury I cannot afford.  Tomorrow, I'm determined to be on the road, I'm going to make that happen.  For now though, I'll take a short stroll down town and find me a nice cafe, where I can sit and read Treasure Island and dream of adventure from the comfort of a snug armchair.

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Hills, Smiles, Sunburn And The Leg's Are Good

Yesterday, as I cycled the 68km north from Auckland to Warkworth, I experienced a moment of epiphany.  I was cycling up yet another hill, this one both longer and with a steeper gradient than the others I had already encountered.  What occurred to me was nothing, if it was not the most blindingly obvious fact that I had subconsciously known all along.  In a split second moment of comprehension, that thought became a living reality.  I do not have a choice, I must keep going.

In the morning, shortly after 10am, I began my journey.  It seemed that everyone in the apartment hotel was trying to leave at exactly the same time and I had waited patiently as the doors of each elevator pinged open, revealing an already full compartment, with no chance of taking my fully loaded bike and I down to the lobby, so that I could check out.  After five or six full elevators had trundled down from the upper floors, each one seemingly more full than the one before, I hit upon a canny idea and pressed the up button.  I figured that elevators coming up were more likely to be empty - I was right.

It was all down hill from the hotel to the ferry terminal and a good job too.  Not only did I have my full panniers, I also needed to carry a large pack on my back containing those items that I would not be taking on my tour, which I was to drop off at the bike shop on my way through.  The rain and strong winds that had gusted the day before had thankfully abated and I freewheeled downhill under broken cloud and blue skies.  From the back of the ferry, I watched Auckland recede into the distance and I said a quiet goodbye.  How would I be feeling the next time I came this way?  Pack dropped off with Megan at Auckland Cycles and after some ribbing from her and her assistant about the amount of weight I was carrying ("but I need my laptop"), I wheeled the bike out of the ferry terminal building, straddled the crossbar, slipped my right foot inside of its toeclip, and pushed off with my left leg.  My trip had begun in earnest.

Twenty five minutes later and feeling like the kid who had dropped a quarter and found twenty dollars, I was sitting having a coffee in Takapuna.  Everything had been easy, the bike felt good, well balanced and I was feeling ecstatic, almost giddy with the happiness of being on the road at last.  I wanted to take this first day easy and although I had maintained a good level of general fitness, I was not in the best physical conditioning for cycling long distances.  A late morning, congratulatory coffee seemed the order of the day, and sitting outside on the pavement in the warm sunshine, I called my parents to test my Skype connection on my newly acquired smartphone, and to share in my moment of joy.

Pushing on, I began to leave the suburbs of northern Auckland behind and the road opened up.  This was what it was all about!  I was afforded stunning vistas across the water and out to Waiheke Island.  Up and down rises and falls in the road I pedalled and I felt energised and electric.  Each time I came to an uphill section, I worried that my legs were going to give out, but they didn't.  In fact, they felt strong and I began to give thanks for the gym work I had put in over the Christmas period back in England, and for the hours of riding under severe heat and humidity, up the sharp inclines of the coastal roads in Costa Rica.  I could not help myself from smiling and, with each new incredible view of the New Zealand scenery, I broke out into a beaming grin and laughed.  I was doing it.  I was living my dream.

At a distance of around 30km, I stopped for lunch and a coffee refuelling in Orewa, a lovely beach town, bustling with locals and tourists, all out enjoying the sun, that had now become quite hot.  I had forgotten the intensity of the New Zealand sunshine.  It is one thing to be out in 35C temperatures and sun in Costa Rica, but quite another to feel the sun in New Zealand, even at low temperatures.  It burns.  Or rather, it shines and you burn.  I could feel it on my arms a little and on my upper lip that was beginning to dry out.  No matter, I had no choice but to continue and to push on for Warkworth, which I was sure lay only a further 10 or 20kms up the road at most.  I leaned over to the cafe table next to me and asked them.  "Ah yeah, 30 or 40k's I'd say."  What?  Surely not, couldn't be.  I felt a little crest fallen.  I could feel myself tiring slightly and the thought of another 40kms in this heat was a lot.  Not the easy first day I had envisaged at all.

Think of New Zealand and you possibly picture the stunning mountain scenery, that gave such an incredible and beautiful natural backdrop to the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies.  That's all down in the south, on South Island.  I was heading north, towards the upper tip of the north island.  I had figured it was fairly flat this way.  Out of Orewa, the more serious hills began.  After I crested each one, I hoped to spy Warkworth laying down at the bottom, and each time I was wrong.  I sat on the saddle and I pumped and I pushed.  On one hill, about half way up, I pushed the level to drop down a gear, so that I could spin the pedals more easily.  With a gut wrenching feeling of dismay, almost bordering on panic, I realised I had no where to go.  It was either this gear or get off and walk.  I never walk.  Not ever.  I dug in, turned the pedals, found a rhythm, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, over and over.  That rhythm consumed me, it needed to.  It kept me going and as the road began to level out towards the top, I looked up and turned my head to the side.  I smiled.  I had been so caught up in getting over the hill, I had forgotten why I was doing this.  The views were great reward for my efforts.  Of course, if you go up, logic says that you must go down again and on the seat of a bicycle, arms and legs tucked in, butt pushed backwards, head down low over the bars, you not only go down, you fly.  I hit speeds of over 60km/h as I rocketed down, sweeping around bends, staying in the middle of the road, going as fast as the cars behind me.  Exhilaration and joy supreme.

But I did begin to fear that I could not make too many more of these ascents.  Not on my first day.  Perhaps I had bitten off more than I could chew?  Perhaps I had been over ambitious with my plans and distances?  I was worried that through the night (assuming I ever reached Warkworth), my legs would stiffen terribly and I would be in some difficulties the next day.  I was now on flat road, close to the coastline, winding around bend after bend.  I stared at my cycle computer 65km covered, 66, 67, and then it came into view and I felt a sense of accomplishment and a huge sense of relief.  Warkworth.  I had finally made it.  Day one was over, I was on my way.

~ ~ ~

I decided to spend an extra day in Warkworth and take a look around.  It's a very picturesque town and I feel I owe it to myself as a reward.  One point to note is that on waking this morning, there is no stiffness in my legs, no aches, no pains, no nothing.  Quite remarkably, they feel good.  Tomorrow I'll test them out again, as I continue my journey north.

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Tomorrow Is Just Another Day

Tomorrow is just another day.  That's how it always is, that's how it's always going to be.  But occasionally there are some days that are different, when something special occurs.  For me, tomorrow is going to be that day.  Tomorrow is bringing with it the excitement of beginning a new adventure and with that, comes the inescapable daunting prospect of living for the next three months with everything I need strapped to a bicycle, as I pedal my way around the incredible scenic beauty, that is New Zealand.

I've been here for five days already.  Forget the first two, they were wiped out by an overpowering dose of jet lag and the lack of sleep that comes from flying half way around the world.  Not to mention the emotional turmoils of leaving family and friends behind once more.  It doesn't matter how many times I do it, that part never gets any easier.  During the last few days of any stay back in England, I go through a number of goodbyes with various people, each one gets harder, until there comes the finality of that last goodbye, the toughest one of all.  Flying is good for the soul though.  From the moment that I begin to head through departures and I step through the first passport and boarding pass inspection point, my head readjusts, I shake off the emotion, I enter a new frame of mind.  The goodbyes are now over and in their place comes the new and the always present sense of excitement that comes from travelling.  From looking back, I now turn forward, to the present and to the future and the hope of what might be, and the thought of what the unknown may bring.

On Wednesday morning, I strolled the short walk through downtown Auckland and caught the Devonport ferry across the harbour.  From out on the water, I was awarded glorious views of New Zealand's largest and most cosmopolitan city.  I'd never seen it from this vantage point before and it is one I recommend heartily to any traveller to these shores.  For the small fee of $11 NZD return, it is money surely well spent, as is a morning exploring and having a coffee in Devonport.  For me, Devonport was my destination as I was heading there to collect my rental bicycle from Auckland Cycles.  I cannot say why, but I found myself to be nervous about doing this and I think I gave Megan, the owner, the impression that I was a bumbling fool, a veritable Mr Bean.

The bike I have for the first part of my tour is an Avanti Circa.  It's a sport bike that has been fitted with racks and panniers to convert it into a touring model.  I'll have it for three weeks before I swap it in for a proper Cannondale touring bike.  It is my hope that the Avanti will see me through my tour of Northland and all the way up to Cape Reinga, before returning to Auckland on 3 February.  The frame is a little on the small side for me and if my cranks are in the horizontal position, the front wheel knocks against my feet if I turn it too sharply.  Still, that's not exactly a major problem, as long as I remember to shift my pedal position before making any sharp turns.  The bike came with panniers on the front and back, tool kit under the seat, two water bottle cages, a lock, and a helmet, as the wearing of cycle helmets is compulsory here in New Zealand.

I've used this week to pick up essential small bits and pieces that I think I will need for the trip.  I pretty much had everything covered but I decided I would prefer to eat and drink out of lightweight plastic, rather than the metallic of my cooking pots.  One item that I have not purchased is specialised shoes for cycling.  I have debated that around and around with myself, and I was going to opt for a pair of robust walking shoes that I could utilise both on and off the bike.  But after looking around for something suitable, I decided that I would cycle the way I cycled in Costa Rica, in my Converse sneakers.  For sure, Converse shoes are not ideal for cycling, but I'm used to them and I like them.  I figured a little bit of style could go a long way when accompanied by a pair of Lycra shorts.

One other item of note that I have been trying to figure out was how to carry additional water for cooking and washing.  I can only carry 1.5 litres on the bike (I rejected purchasing specialist water bottles in favour of a reusable mineral water bottle and saved heaps in the bargain) and this amount is just not enough for making overnight wild camps away from water supplies.  The idea I came up with was to purchase a Platypus style bladder and store that in a small backpack on the bike.  When it gets to mid to late afternoon, I plan on filling up the bladder and carrying it on my back inside of the backpack.  The beauty of this solution is A) that when not in use there is very little size to worry about and hardly any additional weight to carry, and B) I am able to carry up to 3 litres of additional water.  Having a small backpack with me is also useful for shopping and other expeditions I might need to make.  I have no idea how practical this is going to be until I am able to road test it, so I might yet be looking for an alternative.

Today, I've finalised the packing into the panniers and tested out securing the tent.  In incredibly gusty winds, more akin to being down in Wellington, I headed out in the early evening to test run the fully loaded bike.  A short five minute ride way was the Auckland Domain, and it was to there that I headed, some what nervously, as I exited the hotel apartments for the first time.  Once on the road, even in the gusting winds that threatened to push me under the wheels of one of the many buses that overtook me, I felt stable and at ease.  The balance of the bike felt pretty good, as I had ensured as much as possible by hand and guess work, that each one of the left and right pannier sets weighed approximately the same.  I was even able to stand on the pedals and sway the bike from left to right for assisting with spinning the pedals, something I had thought not possible on a fully loaded touring bike.  

Everything was set and ready.  All that remained was to pack the last few items into the panniers the next morning (wash kit, laptop, food essentials), get a good nights sleep, and then in the morning, it would begin.  The bike was ready, but how ready was I to begin this adventure?

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The Purpose Of My Life?

It's another hot, humid and sunny afternoon in Costa Rica.  I'm out on my bike, pedalling along the quiet roads, enjoying the rhythm of the ride, going no where in particular, content to be sitting on the saddle and to feel the cooling wind that tries to resist my passing.  I'm smiling, feeling carefree and happy, knowing that life at this moment is good.  A thought creeps into my mind. What if I were to do this everyday, to cycle from one place to another, my life on the bike and on the road?  To cycle and to travel, a long held dream that has reawakened in my heart.  Could I do that?

That was a day during October 2013.  I can remember the moment well, but not the date on which it occurred.  I was on the road between the village of Brasilito and the town of Huacas.  Three months later and I'm on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, sitting inside a rented apartment in Auckland, strewn across the living room floor are cycle clothing and camping equipment, and downstairs in the garage, hanging on a bike rack on the wall, is my rented touring bicycle.  That vague idea which had come to me, that resurgence of a once held dream, that longing to travel and to carry my life with me, the need for adventure and to push myself into the unknown, it has all become a waking reality.  It has become my purpose in life.

I get asked often about my life. What I am doing?  What I am going to do?  Why I do what I do?  I have attempted to explain it the best that I can.  I've attempted and I've failed.  After all, it makes no rational nor logical sense does it?  In the last eight years, my journey has taken me all around the world and I have experienced many things, the like of which I thought I could experience only in a book or on film.  I've tried my hand at certain things: I learned to dive and became a dive master; I worked as a project co-ordinator in telecommunications; I walked the streets as a funds collector for a charity; I enrolled at university and became a full-time student; I became a scuba diving instructor; I self published a couple of books.  My journey has taken me through seventeen different countries, in some of which I have enjoyed extended stays and called home for a while.  And now, I am beginning a bicycle tour.  What is going on?

Let me come back to something I wrote in an earlier paragraph: my purpose in life.  I don't have one.  At least, that is, I don't have one in the conventional sense.  As a man, it is my firm belief that my purpose in life is to become a husband, a father, and to raise my own family.  Due to circumstances, this has never happened for me and I drifted through my life searching for something that would fill the void that fatherhood left.  My career filled that gap for many years and I put all my effort and much of my free time into it.  If I was busy at work, then I could never have any time to think about the vacuum that existed away from it.  To be brutally honest, my life outside of work was empty of meaning.  What I did and who I was at the office came to define me.

But there was always something else lurking there.  A vagueness that was almost discernible through the foggy haze but not quite.  As if each time I reached out a hand to grasp hold of it, it pulled back and way from my outstretched fingers.  I thought it was elusive and I believed this until a chance meeting with a colleague (now a dear friend) who forced me to confront my true feelings.  Even then, I was reluctant to give credence to my thinking.  Like so many other people who have held similar thoughts, I shied away from it because it just didn't seem the right way, it wasn't the way that we are taught is correct, it went against conventional thinking and wisdom.

I was searching for some type of purpose in my life and I was not finding that purpose in what I did.  No amount of numbers on a spreadsheet, no amount of promotions at work, no matter what my salary, these gave me no sense of who I truly was as a person.  My life was bereft of meaning.  The epiphany moment occurred around the time of my thirty fifth birthday.  It was then that I came to the realisation that I was living the life of a married man, a family man, and that I was still single.  Why then, did I need to live that life, a life that could not give me my true purpose?  It no longer made any sense to me.  Instead, it seemed to me that the best thing I could do, was to do something different, and to seek a purpose in life for myself.  To go out into the unknown and to look for meaning in the life around me.  And if I was not to discover that purpose in my life, then at least I would have experienced something more, at least I would have taken a chance on life, and not lived out my existence sitting at a desk in front of a laptop screen, and always wondering if there was something more.

     

To answer the question of why do I do what I do, there would seem to be one clear answer - it gives me a purpose in life.  I must continue to live out my dreams until such time that I find the other purpose that I seek.  I truly believe that one day I will find that other elusive part of my life, but until then, I cannot sit and wait for it to come to me.  I must strive to fulfill my dreams, I must write a destiny for myself and if it comes to it, I want to know that when I look back upon my days, when I revisit the history of my life, that I did not sit idly by waiting.  I want to smile and to know that I stood up, that I walked out onto my path, and that I went in search of my purpose.  To try is all that truly matters.

~ ~ ~

It was not my intention to write this post today.  That is often how it happens though.  I set out with an idea of what I want to write and the moment that I let myself go, in the instant that my soul opens itself up, the real need to express myself comes to life.  This is why I enjoy writing and find it so very therapeutic.  I write for myself and in doing so, it is my absolute hope that my readers find something for themselves nestled within the words ~ Andy.

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My Life In 30Kg

The wind comes in gusts again and again.  I can hear it howling outside, as it races across the moor, carrying with it sheets of rain that hammer against the glass of my hotel window.  Out there, just a stone's throw across the road, lies the vast, barren wastelands of Dartmoor.  Inhospitable and wild, it's an empty, desolate place of rock, boggy marsh, babbling streams and tussocks of grass.  To know that it is a place where trees refuse to grow says much about it.  Winter on the moor, that's definitely not the place to be, so what am I doing here?

Inside the relative comfort of my hotel room, strewn out all across the floor, is my entire life.  I came here, down to the edge of Dartmoor, to stay in a cheap motel, specifically with the intention of organising my belongings.  It was a two pronged approach.  Firstly, staying at my parents house, sleeping on the living room floor, gave me no space whatsoever and I very much needed space to spread everything out.  Being a visual person, I needed to look upon my gear for my up-coming cycle tour of New Zealand, to pitch my tent (which I successfully accomplished using the bed as my base), to test my old sleeping bag with my new sleeping bag liner, and to ensure that I had everything that I needed.  It was my first chance to combine the old with the new, to finally merge all of my adventurous life into one single, unified kit.  The second need, and of equal, if not greater importance, was to examine everything that I own and to downsize and streamline yet again.

People have a way of accumulating things. I'm no different in that respect, although I have tried hard to limit my accumulations throughout my entire life.  I cannot explain why, but even as a child, I never liked to have clutter and too many things around me.  Perhaps, even back then, I felt the weight of it holding me down, keeping me in a place, when all I yearned for was the freedom to go and to leave whenever I wished it.  Eight years ago, I was doing exactly the same as now, going through the first and the hardest downsizing, only back then, I had an apartment full of possessions accumulated over thirty five years of life, items that I had firmly believed absolutely necessary to my life.

The way I have always approached possessions can perhaps be best summed up with a kettle.  That's not very sexy is it, but there it is.  A kettle.  I had the same kettle for fifteen years.  I'd had it since I had set up home with my first girlfriend at the age of twenty.  It worked, it did exactly what it was supposed to do, and it had never, not even once, let me down.  It was functional, it boiled water, exactly what a kettle is supposed to do.  It never occurred to me to change it.  I saw absolutely no reason to do so.  I came under intense pressure to change that kettle during those fifteen years and I resisted.  Why though?  Was I just being stubborn about it, or was there something far deeper going on?

The truth is that I have never been materialistic.  (Yes, okay, I admit I did once waste a lot of money on a flashy sports car, but that same car put a smile on my face every time I looked at it, I grinned like an idiotic monkey every time I turned the key and I heard the 5.0 litre V8 engine fire into life, and I never regretted owning it, nor the expense that went with that ownership - not even once.)  Possessions and ownership have never held much sway over me.  The process of downsizing actually came as a relief to me.  I was able to rid myself of this baggage that weighed me down, that held me in one place, and that took away my freedom.  That first time was the hardest.  Subsequent downsizing, or corrections as I now think of them, are much easier and completely necessary if I am to continue to lead the life that I wish to lead.  This is a rather difficult idea for some people to comprehend, since ownership and increasing our material wealth is what capitalism is all about and what society tells us to do.  Someone who does the opposite, someone who rejects what is at the core of our modern, economy led society, they must be crazy - right?

Well, if I am crazy, then I am happy to be crazy, because being crazy has given me a head full of the most wonderful memories and experiences, and allowed me to meet some of the most amazing and inspiring people.  I could never have achieved that if I had maintained my previous lifestyle.  I remember one day looking at the books on my book shelf and feeling proud to see all of these important novels that I had read.  I thought it made me the person who I was, I saw them as defining my life.  How naive I was!  How could I think that what I owned was more important that what I was inside, more important than my heart and my soul?  Besides which, what did it matter if I owned the book I had read, or if I had borrowed it?  I had still read and enjoyed the book in either case, and people still saw the same person in front of them.  I associated the ownership of the item as part of the experience and I found that ownership gave me joy and a sense of well-being, albeit a short term one that never lasted more than a few days or weeks at most.  I had never realised or known back then that life is simply an experience, and it is the experience of life that brings the greatest joys and the memories that will last an eternity.  How could I possibly have known it?  Only by casting aside that old life was I able to discover the secret, to find enlightenment, and to experience the epiphanies that would come from being free.

Now, in this hotel room, I have been driven to downsize once more.  It is the first time in over two years that I am with all of my worldly possessions.  During that time, some of my non-essential items such as winter clothing, important documents and sentimental items, have sat in a suitcase in my parents attic.  My thinking has been that if I do not think of a thing, if I find no reason to look at it, to touch it, nor to hold it, then it has no purpose in my life.  I have to be tough about it, I am driven to be ruthless in that regard.  I have given away and discarded much of what I once thought of as, with Gollum like reasoning, being precious to me.  The truth for me at least, is that my possessions allow me to live my life, the life that I want to create, rather than my need to live to sustain my possessions.  I am very cold about it.  Only certain, irreplaceable items make the cut.  Old letters from deceased family members, my travel journals, certain photographs (soon to be digitised), some greetings cards that hold sentimental value.  Other than important documents that I must keep for legal reasons, nothing else remains.   

30 kilograms or 66 pounds.  That is the checked baggage allowance with Emirates airlines, with whom I am flying to New Zealand.  It sounds like a lot, but it is not.  Not when it is necessary for me to carry around the 16kg of scuba diving equipment, necessary for my being able to work as a dive instructor.  That doesn't leave very much for anything else.  With the purpose of my trip to New Zealand being a cycle tour, I need to pack a tent, sleeping bag and other camping equipment, as well as specific items for cycling I have never needed to carry previously.  It is going to be tight.  With no scales, I don't yet know how I have done.  My guess is that I am still over the allowance.  I know that I will need to leave behind two small backpacks with my parents - those are the legal documents and sentimental items.  That's all I wish to leave behind. I've contacted someone about scanning my old printed photographs, that will reduce the size and weight some more.  I've been in the local library and I've scanned some of the teaching materials that I need.  I have some other papers that I will scan this week and then discard.  Every little helps.      

Life it seems, at least this modern life, requires us to keep certain papers, to maintain a fixed address.  I would like to be completely free but that, I know, is not possible.  Bank accounts and credit cards allow me to travel, they make life easier and for that, I must pay the price with a little of my freedom.  Besides which, there are certain items that I would hate to lose, that are irreplaceable in the emotional value that they hold.  I must have something to pass on down the line, something of my family and my past.  I don't have children yet, but I firmly believe that I will, and when that day comes, well then I believe I might just need to have a life that weighs more than 30kg and fills more space than one large backpack and one medium sized suitcase.  Until then, I'm flying as free as I'm able.

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What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

That's the question that has come to my mind over the last few days.  What have I gotten myself into?  Now I think about it, and I was thinking about it on my walk over here to the cafe, perhaps the question is not so much what, but rather why?  Why have I gotten myself into this situation?  I guess before we could begin to answer the question, it is necessary to define the subject matter.

It's Sunday 29 December.  This means that I am now less than two weeks away from my embarkation on my next adventure.  Thirteen days more and I will once again leave England after yet another short stay, a stay that is either too long or too short - I can never quite decide which - and I'll head off to New Zealand to begin my cycle tour adventure.  In less than three weeks, I should be on the road, spinning those pedals that turn the cranks that turn the wheels, that will speed me along the roads.  Exciting isn't it?  A dream realised.  Surely this is the epitome of what life is all about.  Throwing oneself into the unknown and the challenge of never being sure of what each day will bring.  It does not matter how many times I have done this now, each time the departure date approaches, and for some reason that tick to thirteen days seems to be the event trigger more than any other, I begin to grow concerned, I start to fret about what it is that I am doing, and why I am going to do it.

I believe it is the same for everyone.  No matter what they will tell you, no matter how gung-ho and cock sure they appear to be, I have little doubt that underneath there lies a swirling, tumultuous flow of worry, a constant and raging stream of concerns, that are held in check only by the dam of outer calmness.  Columbus, Cook, Scott, Shackleton, Earhart, Hilary, Armstrong (of the Neil variety), Yeager, Baumgartner and any one else you may wish to include in such exulted company, I can guarantee that although they may have appeared to be the perfect picture of composed, mill pond surface calmness, below that exterior lurked the questions, the fears, the doubts, and the constant nagging of why am I doing this and what have I gotten myself into?

It's only natural.  I know that.  I also know that it is going to be okay.  My own adventure is nothing compared to some, but it is my own adventure, my own decision to step outside of my comfort zone, to go off in exploration and in search, to confront my fears, to extend myself, to find out who I am, to know what mettle lurks under my flesh.  No matter how seemingly small and insignificant your own adventure may appear to some, to the person at the centre of that story, it is the greatest undertaking in the history of humanity.  Imagine for a moment a person who suffers from acute agoraphobia.  To this person, even opening the front door of their house can seem the most daunting decision to take, let alone stepping across the threshold and leaving the secure confines of their home.

Road To Nowhere by Talking Heads has just begun to play on the sound system of cafe.  Is it coincidence that I happen to love this song?  Doesn't road to nowhere sum up my journey, all of our journeys?  We're walking our paths, thinking that we are headed some place special, striving to get to a certain point, mulling over decisions that we believe to be of the utmost importance, but in reality, we're all headed to exactly the same place, no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try.  That may lead you to ask, well then, why bother at all?  And the answer to that my friend is that it is the journey that is the making, it is the space between two places and the manner in which we cross that space that counts.  It is that crossing between points that generates experiences and memories and those are the very things that define us, that change us, that allow us to discover who we are, who we were truly meant to be.  It is the crossing of this distance, no matter how great, no matter how small, that reveals our inner truth and shows us the true path.

Oddly enough, the thought generated by that song has answered the questions hasn't it?  What did I get myself into and why have I gotten myself into it?  Answer: because if I do not, then I will never know my answer.  If I do not, I will never grow my soul.  If I do not, I will never experience the magic that is created when a person goes off in search of adventure and daring.  If I do not, I will reach the end of my days and I will wonder what could have been.  If I do not, I will be left with a regret, knowing full well that I had the means necessary to achieve my dreams and I chose an early death instead.  And why would anyone chose an early death when there is so much life out there, within your grasp, when all you have to do is to stretch out an arm, reach out with your finger tips and grab a hold?  I choose to grasp onto life.  I choose to see the miracles and the magic of a life lived.  And just as Renton said at the end of Trainspotting, "Choose life." Amen Renton, amen.

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The Boxing Day Miracles

There are some days which are almost too perfect to be true.  These are the days when every element combines to create magical moment after magical moment.  A day when it feels as though miracles are occurring all around and the air is full of hope, happiness and expectation.  Today it seems, was destined to be one such day.

I cannot say why such days occur.  All I can tell you is that they do.  It was as though my inner feelings were reflected in perfect symmetry by the material world that surrounded me.  The day started well.  The winter sun was shining in a sky bereft of a single cloud, and although that sun is only a few days past its most distant from the Northern Hemisphere, there was a warmth in those rays, that hurtled towards the Earth at the speed of light, to strike at this particular spot on the planet, basking my parents home town in all of its radiant glory.  That is enough to make me feel a deep and profound sense of happiness well up from within.  That is enough to make me smile on the inside.  That is enough to know that there is goodness in the universe.

My parents home town of Bognor Regis is fortunate enough to benefit from some great feats of Victorian ingenuity and foresight.  The best of these is the promenade that runs parallel to the sea, and stretches for a distance of some 2.5 miles, from the western end of the town's reaches at Aldwick, to its eastern most at Felpham.  This is where Victorians would flock to the coast to take in the medicinal air of the sea.  Today, it was no different.  People of all types, all shapes, all sizes, all nationalities, all religions flocked to the promenade, to walk alongside the ocean, to enjoy the rays of sun, and to take in some fresh sea air.  Perhaps it was the time of year, it was the day after Christmas after all (the day known as Boxing Day in England), or perhaps it was just that for three days before today, England had been suffering from continual bouts of strong winds and rain and very little glimpses of  the sun, but whatever it was, there was something magical that hung in the air, that swirled in and around the people.

Bognor Regis Promenade circa 1934

© Standard.co.uk

It was this something magical that created a common bond between everyone.  Whether they were as aware of it as I was, I could not tell, but one thing was certain, each one of us who walked along the promenade did so with souls that were joined together with one single purpose.  We combined the energy of our hearts and we became one people.  I felt it.  To me, it was palpable.  I could discern the mystical lines of energy and I am sure that if I wished it, I could have reached out my hand and grasped at individual strands.  These were the fibres of an ancient, primeval energy, that joined together in unison to create a force whose whole was far greater than the sum of each individual strand.  As I walked along the promenade on this day, I knew that I was witnessing a miracle, I was part of the magic, I was contributor and witness both.  I could not help but to smile and to laugh and to engage with those that I saw.  I wanted everyone to know that I was there, that I was with them and that I too was part of the miracle that was taking place all around.

Later in the day, I walked with my parents and my sister across the South Downs of southern England, across the fields clogged with mud and puddles, footprints and hoof prints mixed in an almost indistinguishable mess.  We were walking in the hills, near to the village of Slindon, West Sussex.  It was one of those afternoons.  Did I know that further magic was in the air as I spoke with my father and mentioned how amazing it would be to see some wild deer running free across the fields?  How could I have known?  I am not, as far as I am aware, gifted (cursed?) with foresight.  However, this area of the South Downs is populated by deer and although it is not exactly rare to see deer, it is not a particularly common occurrence either.  Wild deer tend to shy away from humans.

At the top of one particular hill sits Nore Folly, an odd looking structure built in the mid eighteenth century.  A folly is an oddity of its time.  It was a non-functional structure, often built in the Gothic style by the land owners of the day as a show of wealth.  Our path today took us to the top of this hill and up to the folly itself. At the sight of the folly, we were afforded glorious views out across the flat lands of the flood plains, that stretch from the base of the hills, all the way to the line of the coast, some five miles as the crow flies.  The waters of the English Channel appeared to be in flame and were almost too bright to look upon, as they reflected the late afternoon sun.

Nore Folly at Slindon

 © dailytelepgraph.co.uk

Looking down the hill to our left, across the furrows of the ploughed winter fields bare of crop, down to the dell below, there was a movement.  Bounding from the cover of trees came a deer, then another, leaping across the fields, moving ever further away, until they abruptly changed direction and swung around to head up the field and straight towards our position.  This would have been enough to confirm the magic of the day, but there was to be more.  Two deer became three, became four, then five, six, seven, eight!  The first two deer, perhaps braver than the rest, had been followed a few bounds behind by a further six deers, all of whom were now bounding their way up the hill and straight towards us!  Eight wild deer raced past us, cold air vapourising from their nostrils, leaving us standing silently in spellbound rapture.

This had truly been a day when magic was created.  Or perhaps that magic continues to exist all around us every single moment of every single day.  Only our cluttered lives, our rushing from one place to another, our cocooned lifestyles, that have become ever more disconnected from the natural world, perhaps it is these things that prevent us from experiencing this magic on a daily basis.  When we unplug, when we allow ourselves the time to experience and to enjoy nature, then the possibilities for magic are created.  Step outside of your door, take a walk, open your heart and your soul, and allow yourself to breathe in the magic.  Let your eyes see the world as it truly is, a world that is full of miracles, just waiting for you.

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The End Is Only The Beginning

The end is really only the beginning.  That's certainly one way to look at it.  As one moment ends, we find ourselves already in the midst of another.  Countless millions of moments that together make up a life story.  One moment is all it takes to change the world, to alter the path of destiny.  One moment, one opportunity, one life.  It always comes down to that one single moment, a point at which your future is being decided, even if you are not aware of the consequences that surround you, of the swirling mass of possibilities that are lining up, taking order, falling into place.  And on we go, oblivious, until with hindsight, we look back down the road, and there, basking in all its glory, finally revealed to even the most blinkered of eyes, is that one pivotal moment that shook your world, that altered the course of your destiny and that brought you to the point at which you are now.  Sitting in a cafe in a seaside town in England, on a cold, wet, and dreary December day, staring out of the window at all of the activity in the street outside.

My time in Costa Rica has ended.  In fact, it was over on 5 December, as the plane hurtled down the runway of San Jose airport, as the wings lifted with the air velocity and pressure differential, and the wheels touched Costa Rican tarmac for the last time that day.  Airborne and with it, my future changed, it shifted.  Plans that had been made started to become a reality, thoughts, electronic pulses stored in my brain, turned into tangible occurrences.  This journey across the Caribbean and Atlantic oceans represented both an ending and a beginning.  This is life.

In death comes life.  Perhaps, with it being the day before Christmas, my thoughts turn to Jesus, which makes me think of the Resurrection.  "In death, I become life." (I just Googled that phrase in the belief that someone must have said it before, but my search brings forth no such findings.  So, I am taking it as my own creation.)  In other words, I must die before life comes again.  That is the way of our dreams.  We realise one dream and that dream must end before another can come to fruition. 

I have died many times in my life, I have experienced many endings.  With each cycle, I have changed, perhaps imperceptibly so, but I know that the person who began this odyssey into the unknown is not the same person who sits here in this cafe today.  How could I be?  I have seen and experienced too much.  I have opened myself up, I have given myself over to life, to the possibilities of something more, I have witnessed miracles, known people and cultures, suffered, cried, loved, and laughed.  Every thing and every person I have ever had contact with is some how now inside of me.  Maybe this is how we grow as people?  We internalise everything with which we come into contact and every emotion with which we experience.  We take a part of it all, a part of life and we bring that within.  At the same time, we are imparting something of ourselves to each person, to each experience.  Our soul is nourished and in turn nourishes those who we meet.  With each experience, we leave behind a trace of our soul, a signature that lasts an eternity, intrinsically linked to the time, to the place and to the participants.

Maybe what I am talking about today is the soul of life.  What if all of life shared a single soul?  One elemental force that linked every thing to every thing else.  People, animals, birds, fish, trees, shrubs, grasses, oceans, rivers, rocks, mountains, sand, clouds, rain, sun, moon, stars, air, Earth.  It's all of life in perfect balance, the soul is one, it is whole.  It leads me to something I have written before, "I am in everything and everything is in me."  I am in no doubt that when Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), what he was referring to was that every single one of us has the power within us.  In the heart lies the truth.  In the heart lies the way.  In the heart lies the life.  It is in our hearts that the power to become all that we were born to be is to be found.

Well, as always, I begin to write, unsure of where I will go and something always comes.  The flow of the mind is often a surprise to me and that is why I love to sit in a cafe and write.  This will probably be my last post of 2013 and I look forward to continuing the journey in 2014.  I hope that you will stay with me as we each travel down our own unique path.  It all begins again on 1 January. A turning of the page. A new chapter to be written.  An ending and a beginning.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to you all.

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Forced Changes Bring New Light

I've been spending the last few days working intensively on my plans for the New Zealand bike tour.  Time is passing very quickly and, as is usual, the closer a date nears, the faster it seems that time propels you towards it.  My aim has been to ensure that the majority of the planning phase was completed before I head back to England in early December.  I have never planned for an adventure of this nature and magnitude before and although I have made a great deal of research and progress with my own plans, there is one nagging question that is a constant companion to me: what have I missed? 

Planning for an adventure is not easy.  That is how I wish to think of this latest chapter in my life story, an adventure.  It is the adventure that I have longed for all of my life.  When I think on it, it reminds me of my first foray into travelling and backpacking.  Eight years ago (is it really so long ago already?), when I headed off to Thailand with my partner, I had no idea what I was doing.  Due to various physical and psychological reasons, I had not prepared for the trip as I should have done and as a consequence, and I stumbled blindly in the dark, feeling afraid, overwhelmed and lost for the first two or three weeks, until I began to find my feet and come to terms with it all.  It was a truly horrible and daunting experience, and not one that I ever wish to repeat.  Preparation is key and cannot be underestimated. 

Despite having to deal with the aftermath of the 'bomb' that was dropped on me (please see my previous post entitled Broken Promises and a Change of Plans) and all that went with it, I have made some great progress in my planning endeavours.  The ripples of that shock spread far and wide and affected almost all of my entire planning.  The only part of the planning left unscathed was my route plan for the South Island.   I have been extremely fortunate though and despite this setback, I have managed to rectify everything.  I've see it as rather fortuitous in some ways.  I am now able to begin my cycle tour nineteen days earlier, which means I'll be cycling for a greater part of the New Zealand summer, which more importantly means that I'll now avoid the need for cycling in the midst of a Kiwi autumn.  The bottom line: more sun, more warmth, and in theory at least, less rain.

The on-coming autumn was the major factor in my decision to begin my original tour route in the South Island, starting at Picton, and to finishing in the north in Auckland.  I designed it in this way to ensure that I would complete the most southerly part of the ride before the cold Antarctic winds began sweeping up from the south, bringing their icy blasts.  As I am picking up my rental bike in Auckland, this meant jumping on a train with the bike and panniers, heading straight down to Wellington, and making the ferry crossing of the Cook Strait, over to Picton.  This is now avoided and I'll begin my tour, by pedalling away from Auckland.

This South Island first plan was far from ideal as it meant heading back up from Wellington to Auckland, with huge zigzags cutting across the country, so that I could take in all of the places that I wish to see.  With the revised route, I'll cycle down the west side of North Island to Wellington, and then after my South Island section is complete, I'll head back up mostly on the east side to finish in Auckland.

Not everything has been as I would have wished though.  With the new start date forced on me, I contacted Cycle Auckland to see if I could rent the Cannondale 2 earlier.  The medium frame Cannondale was not available until 3 February at the earliest.  Despite the dropped bomb, I actually saw this as my first major stumbling block - funny how the mind works.  In its place, they were able to offer a Scott Sportster, but I knew from my research, that this was not a true touring bike.  Then those great people at Cycle Auckland came up with another suggestion.  They would hold both a Scott Sportster (medium) and a Cannondale 2 (large) for me and I could take which ever of the two suited me best.  They also suggested that I make a short tour of the Northland area first, so that I could switch over to the medium Cannondale on my way back through Auckland before I headed south.  Initially, I was not too keen on this plan but I could see nothing else for it.

I had always envisioned myself beginning my tour by pedalling away from civilisation and out on to the open roads, where I would find myself and discover just exactly what cycle touring is all about.  Now, I would have to leave Auckland only to return again, effectively breaking up my tour.  But, after some thought, I made this work for me.  The North Land region of New Zealand is home to the Bay of Islands, a place I have only previously seen in photographs and not visited.  And the Bay of Islands is the jump of point for scuba diving the Poor Knight Islands, one of the greatest dive sites of the world's oceans (Jacques Cousteau had it in his top ten).  Why then not build in a few days stop at Paihia, dive the Poor Knights and tick off one of the places from my personal bucket list of dive locations?  Perfect.  There is always a silver lining, the trick to finding it is to stop focusing on what is past and has gone wrong, and, with a mind clear of negativity, to look at what is and what will be.

The Bay of Islands (Lonely Planet images)

I've also spent these last days researching tents. Who knew how time consuming and complicated that was going to be!  It is my plan to spend as much time sleeping in a tent as is possible.  For a trip of three months, it is not financially viable for me to spend each night in a hostel, motel, or hotel bed.  The tent will more than pay for itself.  The nature of cycle touring New Zealand means that I will find myself in some very rural areas where locating accommodation would not be possible.  Even with all of the best planning, something will inevitably go wrong, and I could find myself stuck in the middle of nowhere as night begins to fall.  I must have a contingency plan for this possibility. Perhaps though, the main reason why I am taking a tent, is to make this a real adventure.  It has to be this way.  It was always going to be this way.  Wherever I am able, I plan on some wild camping, that is unofficial tent pitching on public or private land that has not been designated an official camping site.  I know that partly this will be out of necessity, but also, there is this voice inside of me that has always yearned for adventure and for the chance to roam free.

I have decided to write a separate post about the range of tents on offer and how I narrowed down the choices and made my selection.  It is quite bewildering how many types, manufacturers and differing opinions are out there.  I am also giving some thought to whether I begin a separate blog site for my cycle tour (Cycling The One True Path) or I continue to write here.  This blog is about life on the path and I do not wish to dilute it with posts about more mundane matters such as bicycles and tents.  But the path is the path, right?  The jury is still out on this one.

What I have learned over the last weeks is that setbacks will always occur, they are inevitable.  When we hold a vision for our future, a dream in our minds, and something goes wrong, this is an opportunity.  Here is a chance to test your mettle and your resolve.  A dream formed in the heart with strands from the fibres of your soul, that's a dream that can never die.  From each setback, we learn.  When we learn, we grow.  As we grow, so too do we evolve.  As we evolve, then we walk the path, our one true path, the path that takes us to the light of ourselves.  And that is the light of love.   

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Broken Promises And A Change Of Plans

Never before have I experienced a betrayal of my trust, kindness and openness, which has left me feeling both stupid and foolish, as I have in the last days.  To say I'm flummoxed would be putting it mildly.  It has not only affected me on an emotional level, it affects all of my plans for New Zealand.  I've been left needing to make cancellations and re-bookings, and to rearrange my plans and itinerary accordingly, incurring some inevitable financial loss.  But what of the cost to my heart and my ability to openly trust in people?  Is that a far greater price that I am going to pay?

Everything happened in a whirlwind.  We met, we connected and we began the process of getting to know each other.  Very quickly, we fell into talking openly and candidly about our lives and our past experiences.  It was clear that we shared much in common, in particular a love of travel and the way that we viewed life, and the more that we became acquainted and got to know each other, I couldn't help but wonder how bizarre it was that we could possibly be so alike.  It was as if this woman was my twin, my mirror image in character, thought and life experience.  This was the basis on which we decided to meet again, to become travel companions, and after much discussion of possible destinations, New Zealand was agreed on as our destination.

Very quickly, everything was set, the plans were made and the itinerary worked out.  Between us, all of the key components were booked.  Transportation: buses, ferry, and car rental.  Accommodation: hotels, motels and campsites.  Activities: hiking, swimming with wild dolphins, skydiving, kayaking, ice climbing.  All of it was reserved.  Despite being separated by both time and distance, it had been an easy process to put together, making use of internet messaging, email and Skype calls, each one of us progressing an item while the other slept.  More evidence of our compatibility.  This was going to be an epic adventure, a dream trip and this time, I neither of us would be making it alone.

Then, completely abruptly and with no warning, it stopped.  One day, everything was fine and then it wasn't.  One day we were in communication, discussing through messages which type of sleeping bag would be most suitable, and then nothing.  Not even the crackle of static.  Just absolute silence.  A silence that lasted for two weeks.  No explanation, no word, nothing.  It was as though she had fallen off the face of the planet.  I attempted to make contact, to make sure that she was okay, that nothing sinister had occurred, but there was no response.  I grew concerned, who wouldn't?  She was living and working in one of the world's most dangerous countries.  Anything could have happened to her.  After two weeks of this silence, I wrote another email asking that she could please let me know she was okay, and if she could also let me know if our planned trip to New Zealand was on or off?  Finally I received an email response.  It contained one word: Off.

It is hard to fathom what has happened and I am not going to try.  I have some ideas but to try to rationalise this and make sense of it is a waste of time.  I will find no answer, I will never know.  The facts are the facts.  I do not believe it is healthy for me to try to figure this out.  The old me would have done exactly that.  I would have languished in the hurt, sorrow, self-pity and self-loathing.  I would have replayed conversations and actions over and over and I would have looked for signs and hidden meanings in them.  I would have clung on in desperation to the past, burying my fingers in its cracks, feeling the need to hold on to all that once was, as if to let go, would be to fall into a void of nothingness, in which I would lose myself.

Even during the two weeks of silence, I was surprised at my relative calmness.  I've experienced this wall of silence before, I've known women who have raised protective barriers around themselves, shutting out their heart, keeping it from becoming hurt.  When this happened, I would become like a caged animal, prowling, snarling, testing for weaknesses, not understanding why the bars prevented me from reaching my goal.  It would frustrate me, cause anger, and it would drive me a little insane.  The longer it continued, the more focused on it I would become.  This time there was none of that.  I'm not suggesting the silence was for those same reasons, but whatever the cause of it, the affect is the same.  I did not overreact, I just let things be, content to continue with my life, making the plans for my cycle tour of New Zealand, working my last days in Costa Rica, carrying on with my life.  The times that I did reach out and try to make contact, were from a genuine concern for her safety.     

What have I learned from all of this?  That is what I look for now.  It is more important that I take from this episode of my life some lesson and meaning for my life, than it is to spend time looking back at what might have been.  Perhaps that is the first of my realisations.  I no longer dwell in the past.  Since I began my true journey and since setting out my thoughts in this blog, I am more focused on the present moment and in what lies ahead.  My days of looking backwards are gone.  The past brought me to now, but it is in the now that I am able to make a difference, a difference that will affect my future to come.  The focus needs to be on now, this moment in which I exist, and by living that moment, I take one more step along my path.  Only the dead reside in the past because they have no future.

In that past, I would have looked for an action that I took, some words that I had spoken, even some words that I had left unsaid, and I would have felt at fault for what had happened, as if in some way, I was to blame.  But how could it be my fault and even more than that, why should it be my fault?  Every person has free will.  Every person is an extremely complex mix of experiences, emotions and inherited traits.  I am no different, just as you are no different.  If someone goes quiet and introspective, that doesn't mean that I am the cause of it.  If someone stops communicating and disappears, it is not my fault.  I have spent far too much of my life in the belief that I am no good and as a result of this, I have assumed myself to be the cause of every problem, every moment of silence, every pause in conversation, every miscommunication, every misunderstanding.  And I'll take this thought further.  If someone is not interested in me, if someone does not love me in the way that I love them, then that cannot be my fault either.  All I can be is myself.  It is either a right match or it is not.  It has never been, nor will it ever be, a fault on my part. 

That is what I have learned, but where does all of this leave me and my own plans?  I am still going ahead with my cycle tour of New Zealand.  That has not changed, it was always my own adventure and as such, will remain my own adventure.  I need to make changes in light of what has happened to dates and times, and to my planned route.  Everything has been affected by what has happened.  The details will follow in a new post shortly.  My immediate focus has needed to be on fixing the mess that was created by the broken promise of someone that I trusted.  That done, I can turn my attention back to bringing my dream into reality.  A dream that was always about me, a bike and the road.

I'll finish this post with one last thought.  It is a vow for life, a vow that I make now, and for each day that is to come:-

"I do not need someone else to make my life complete.  I do not need the love of another to make me whole.  For I am love.  I was born perfect and I shall remain perfect.  Since I already walk my path with love, I do not walk my path to seek love.  I walk my path to seek life.  And it is in life that I shall find all that I wish." ~ Andrew M.Smith

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Sorry Lance, It Really Is About The Bike

The bike.  That's pretty important, right?  How can a cycle tour go ahead without a bike?  I don't have one.  That is to say, I don't own one, not right now, and I don't plan on buying one for my cycle tour of New Zealand.  I found some very good people who do have bikes though, and they are willing to let me have one - in exchange for a small fee of course.

Rental.  That's the way I've decided to go.  At least for New Zealand.  Why?  The major factor in the rent or buy decision is that I have never before in my life made a cycle tour.  I have some idea of what to expect, gleaned from the books that I have read by other cyclists that have made around the world (Mark Beaumont) and cross continental trips.  I am also a keen and experienced cyclist in my own right, I am extremely comfortable on a bicycle, I've never been fazed by traffic, and I have thousands of miles of road and trails under my wheels.  None of my experience qualifies me to judge how I am going to be feeling when I spend my first night alone by the side of the road, spend an entire day cycling in rain or a niggling head wind, or how I will feel when something goes wrong and I am miles away from the nearest help.  A day trip does not pose the same kind of problems.  Taking everything with me, heading down isolated roads (which is an absolute must in my opinion if I am to truly experience a place), being alone, just me, the bike, and the constant whirring of the wheels as they spin under me.  I am prepared for the possibility that this will not be for me, that I will cut short the tour and head back to Auckland early, with tail between my legs.  I have to be prepared for that, which is why renting the bike makes imminent sense.

A secondary factor is my transitory lifestyle.  This means that I have a need to keep ownership of possessions to a minimum.  I move around - a lot - and I have no permanent physical residence.  Whenever I go to a new place, almost everything that I own comes with me.  The only thing I leave behind is one smallish suitcase that I store in my parents attic, and which contains my most sentimental treasures, those items from which I am unable to part.  If I were to purchase a bike in New Zealand, the question arises of what I would do with it once I reach the end of my trip?  Unless the cycle tour bug grabs me, I will have no choice but to sell it.  It would not be practical to take it with me, onwards to my next destination because that could mean an island in the middle of the ocean, where there are no paved roads.  Not only that, but getting off and on public transport with a bike, a bag of scuba diving equipment and a backpack would not be feasible.  Then there is the transportation of the bike of which to think.  That could cost me additional baggage fees with the airlines, not to mention the need to package the bike each time for transportation.  It really makes no sense to purchase a bike, not unless I decide that cycle touring is going to become my next big adventure, and in which case, then I would purchase only after I complete my tour of New Zealand

I decided I would rent a Cannondale Touring 2 bike from the guys at Cycle Auckland.  I read some reviews of the Cannondale and it seems to be a good and solid, mid-level bike, that should do the job just fine.

Cannondale Touring 2

My chosen ride

I'll be pretty much utilising sealed (tarmac) road surfaces, so this level of bike should be cope adequately.  I selected Cycle Auckland because I immediately liked their response to my initial enquiry, which gave me a good feeling.  I've since been e-mailing back and forth, asking what I am sure are pretty annoying and obvious questions, and they have been amazing to deal with.  After I decided to go ahead and make the rental, I hit a snag when my credit card payment failed to process due to security issues, because I am currently outside of the UK where my card was issued.  The guys at Cycle Auckland said no problem, we'll hold the bike until you get back to the UK (which will be in another month).  That's a brilliant service which gave me complete peace of mind. 

I'll need to rent a full set of panniers, both front and back, which Cycle Auckland will also supply.  The panniers they provide are waterproof, but I'll not take any chances and I'll make sure that I also take some dry bags to slip inside the panniers.  Another decision to be made is which type of shoe/pedal combination to use.  I've used both the ski type snap in, where the special cycle shoe has a cleat on the bottom that snaps into the pedal, and I have used traditional toe clips.  From a cycling perspective, there is no question that the cleat style is preferable, but again, I have to consider whether I wish to purchase special shoes whose only purpose is for a cycle tour.  But then again 4,800 miles, 76 days...  Wait a sec.  If my calculations are correct (average 85 RPM x 60 minutes x 5 hours x 76 days), that equates to around 2 million turns of the pedals!  I think the speak shoe and clip in is the way to go here.

Now that the bike is organised and the route planned out, my focus shifts to clothing options (sexy lycra!) and the other pieces of equipment I'll need to take with me.  The plan is to camp as much as possible, which means I'll need to carry a tent, a stove and cooking utensils, a sleeping bag and a ground mat.  Water is another big consideration.  The bike comes with three bottle racks but I'll need an extra supply for cooking and emergencies.  There is certainly a lot to think about! 

This is why New Zealand makes a great place to begin my first major tour. It is a modern, civilised and English speaking country, and a country with which I am already familiar.  Although some sections of my ride will be very rural and isolated, I am sure I can find someone to assist me in any sticky situations that may arise.  And if not?  I guess that's all part of the adventure.  Right..?

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