Lachlan Yates - Year of the Fool

A ski trip to remember

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:20:00 -0700

(for accompanying photos, see http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150701600995244.700941.676350243&l=8a14657a30)

I bought a car.

I hate cars.

They pollute, they take up space, their steel and glass frames insulate the occupants in a bubble from their environment. They’ve contributed to the destruction of communities, and enabled the urban sprawl which blights the most beautiful of landscapes. Every day I see the rush hour images of thousands of cars, stationary, engines chugging while the sole occupant wonders what everyone else is disrupting his Very Important Journey. When motorists complain of traffic, they pull a cheap magic trick on themselves, the assistant being sawed in half, the rabbit in the hat; they fool themselves that they are stuck in traffic. Willfully, they ignore the fake box, the velvet curtain, the fact that they are stuck in traffic because they are the traffic.

Busses, trains, taxis, bikes, pedestrians, car poolers: take your gold star at reception. That lone motorist, you’re part of the problem. And no, that wider road that will take a larger number of cars into a fixed space, no, that’s not the solution. Your car, moving or parked, uses expensive real estate. For free.

Cars suck.

I hate cars.

But. In the reality of Sydney and Australia, access to a car seems currently to be a genuine need.

So I bought a car.

The one good thing I can think about cars, is that they are pretty freaking good at being able to carry adult toys to beautiful environs for an immersion in nature. There’s a certain irony there. And that irony was the primary reason I bought my 1999 Olympic edition Holden Vectra, or, Juan Antonio Samaranch, as I sometimes call him. Rather than transport from A to B, it provides the escape from A and B, driving up mountains, into the country, carrying tents, bikes, surfboards and now, skis.

And so begins our story. Munching on a hunk of meat carved off the impromptu roasting spit, my ex nemesis from a slightly more immature time, now friend, Charlie invited me on a ski trip.

“No thanks”, said I, using the excuse that I don’t have a proper job to be able to take expensive holidays from. “Can’t really afford it at the moment.” In addition to being savagely disappointing the vast majority of the time, the snow is prohibitively expensive in Australia. After snowboarding in the dry powder of Europe and Canada, I couldn’t’ afford it in more ways than one.

“Afford? We’re going backcountry. The only cost is petrol and food”, Charlie shot back.

I find it a sign of maturing maturity that I now attempt to talk myself out of holidays instead of in to them.

He continued.. “It’ll be awesome, 5 of us in Gus’s car” Gus, the fellow unemployed drifter, lends a knowing nod. “Down on Friday, back Wednesday night”.

But I had the ace. “I can’t ski”

“Ahh, you’re fit enough, you’ll be fine” replied Charlie, it was like listening to a recording of myself convincing some other sucker to do something dangerous.

“But the Tour. Le Tour de France starts that weekend. I can’t miss it”. Which is true, the whole of the year builds and falls away from mountainous crescendo in July of Alps and Pyrneness in Lachlanland.

“First 5 stages are flat, sprinters stages, you won’t be missing much”.

And that’s where I stopped arguing, if the tour de France couldn’t provide a good excuse, there’s not much else on this planet that could either. A few days of dithering and I sent the email indicating that I was in.

The trip started like any other. Supplies were bought, a dinner was had and we set off. Our team was Connie, Charlie’s girlfriend who was the recipient of Charles’s benovelence up in Coonamble. She was sick with the flu and thoughtful Charlie had reserved her a bit of the nice concrete in the open, sub zero carport. Julian McGee, a classic literature fan / school teacher hitherto unknown to me, but with a name that makes me still giggle. Charlie who seems to be a recurring figure in other’s crazy outdoor misadventures. Sarah, the girl with the peanut allergy that Gus and Charlie had just purchased a lot of nut contaminated food for. And Gus, who like me, lives with his parents, is unemployedish and has no real prospects.

Connie and Sarah off in one car, talking about dresses, soap operas and period pain With Gus. Jules and Charlie and I in the other, discussing the important moral issues of the day. Issues related to, but not only, the opening of beer bottles while driving with the seat belt buckle.

A misty drive along the Monaro and we were in Cooma at the slightly later hour of 2am, taking full advantage of the 24 hour ski hire. Up the hill to the picnic stop that would provide our camp for the night, the backend of Juan Antonino providing the warm bosom of sleep before the early morning sunrise above the clouds took us in and reminded us of that reason we leave the city. A reminder that’s always too shortly lived.

Sunrises. Who doesn't like them?

But, no time for niceties, we figured we wouldn’t need snow chains, but what the hell, while the bacon and egg rolls were cooking, we’d get ‘em just in case. And we were off, into the backcountry, using the 5 year old, hand scrawled directions on the back of a work printout as our guide. The road turned from highway, to a left onto a undulating road, to gravel, to dirt. Then some more dirt, bumpy dirt and then a massive hill of bumpy dirt, the downslope of which got me thinking that perhaps I should have been a little more obvious with my parents when angling for the use of their brand new 4wd.

We got down, the hill in the rear vision mirror looking suspiciously larger in reverse, thinking “Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it in 5 days” Looking forward, we had the immediate concerns of the world’s narrowest car bridge over the Gungarlan river. Passing with flying colours, we zipped up the hill to the first and shallower of two river crossings.

“What’s the deal with fording?” I asked, “Do I go at it full speed and just hammer across?” I said, joking, expecting the boring answer that always comes back in life of “slow and steady”.

“Um yeah, I guess so”.

Mental note: never ask for life advice from Charlie and Jules again.

And boom. We flew through the little creek. It had the same thrill as jumping in a puddle with gumboots on.

Over the hill and we came to the next river crossing. We stopped and surveyed it, a bit of knuckle gnawing going on; This one was much wider, 10-15 metres wide, but didn’t look too threatening with the trickle of snow melt bubbling over the river rocks. Gnawing over, indecision defeated, we hit it at a good speed again, feeling more like we were on a boat than in my little one previous lady driver car. Our journey seemed to last for longer than it should of. A pregnant pause. But wheels gripped, water was displaced and little Jaun made it up and out.

“Todos bien, Juan. Todos bien”.

Gus, driving with the windows down. That's confidence

Gus, with his decommissioned police wagon, made short work of the river, plowing through it like it was a student protest at a G8 summit. After the initial celebration of clearing the river, we spied snow on the hills nearby, boom! We were on!

After three attempts at a snow touched track, Juan gave up and took a snuggled park on the side of the road. We put the snow chains on in the unlikely event that a lot of snow fell and we had to get out, we could. After the exponential pfaff that 6 people can generate, we set off. Hiking up into the mountain range, skis strapped firmly to our packs, we wouldn’t be needing them right now. Instead we hiked up and over, up and up, over some fences until we hit a patch where there was slightly more snow than dirt. Skis were put on, and we plodded until we hit a plain with a slight downhill slope, a decent snow cover. The sky was big with a big blue cover, the speed and thrills of snowboarding easily satisfied in this moment on barely moving skis.

Skiing, at last!

And then the skis came off. We walked and climbed and then searched for a camp in the high winds that had come up around sunset. The perfect one was found. Or rather, we had found a perfect rock to have a massive fire behind. In fact, massive doesn’t really do the funeral pyre of several trees justice. It was an Epic fire. The rock had a dead tree sticking out from the base, which became our mission to burn down.

Charlie and the fire

The four litres of port that we were carrying were very quickly lightened from our packs and in depth discussions relating to the legalization of drugs, the awesome attractiveness of Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy, discussions of amputees in hotel bars, men with scars and the polarizing sexuality of Lyndsay Lohan raised argument and adoration until the previously steadfast tree quavered. Conversation stopped. The branches dropped again. Stuttering again and the tree fell into the fire as we hooted in agreement! Fire! Fire! Fire! Which promoted the question – what man doesn’t like making a fire? And conversely, why is it that women don’t seem to actively get the same joy of loading a fire? Important questions that I pondered for several seconds before passing out next to a snoring Jules.

With heavy heads, the next day was underway. Again with the skis off and the boots on for some more hiking. This wasn’t turning out to be much of a ski trip, but within an hour or two, we were above the ridgeline, carpets of white snow not too far away. Some slogging up hill and we were there, all skiing uphill in the ridgelines surrounding mount Jagungle. It was the real start of the trip and we were thankful for it.

Except that Charlie and Julian were dragging the chain, no doubt discussing Lindsay Lohan. We waited. And waited some more until it seemed something even more serious was going on. Gus skied down to investigate. When you hear the words “Oh, Shit!” screamed loud above the wind, something is up. Or out as the case was – Jules had broken his ski when crossing above a hole. Not just a little crack, it was snapped in two. Game over. Return to Go, do not collect $200.

Of course, when you have several sticks of good quality salami for lunch, such problems don’t seem so bad. And with each fatty morsel, it became obvious that we needed to get out, get to the cars and find some new skis and a new adventure to go on. An unavoidable shame, but life goes on when you have a pack full of good chocolate. And so we made our way down a barely snow covered mountain, my first attempt at going down hill on skis providing to be an exercise in frustration that had no equal. Reminiscent of building a fence and repeatedly hitting my thumb with a hammer, the droned words of “FAAAAARK” echoed out through the valley as I fell, got up, fell got up and fell and then fell before I could get up again. Learning to ski on a technical, tree filled, downhill with a massive pack on your back probably isn’t the most encouraging lesson one can invite. I wanted to be alone with my frustration, lest I tear someone else’s hair out. But after the most frustrating time in my life, we were again plodding out, and with some chocolate and whisky, I was now seeing the funny side of it.

And rather than get into the cars and drive out, late at night for a late night camp somewhere cold and windy, we arrived at an alpine hut. Complete with fireplace, benches and sleeping area, Cesjack’s hut provided a warm room for some good times. Our hangovers finally receeding, we ate like Kings and slept like Kings who sleep in sleeping bags in a cold Alpine hut while the wind and rain hammer hard on the tin roof.

An enjoyable walk out to the Cars started and finished without event. Given my relative proficiency with walking compared to skiing (31 odd years, vs 2 hours) I was happy to be getting my heels in dirt again, finding myself generally swearing a lot less than I had the previous day. Back at the cars, we tucked into lamingtons, enjoyed a beer and laughed at our misfortune. A broken ski! What else couuld happen?

Oh the casual hilarity of that moment. As if we knew what misfortune was….

The discussion of Correlation and Causation are one of the subjects I wished could be drilled into High School Students more. A good example of this is herbal (indeed, most) cold and flu medicine. We get sick, mostly unbeknown to us at the time, we generally progress back to our normal level of health in two weeks. It’s around the one week mark that we start recovery and progressively feel better. But that first week of sickness is hell and we load up on remedies. Some of these might alleviate the discomfort of symptoms, and after a couple of days, we start to see some improvement in our health. Thing is, we tend to take such actions around the 4-5 mark of our sickness. The relative improvement we see would have happened anyway, the regression to the mean of our general health. Nominally this is the case and this is largely a correlated effect between treatment and health. We were going to get better anyways, it just so happened that we started taking the herbal medicine around the same time we would have expected to get better. Because we’re humans and we like to believe in solutions, we often mistake the relationship as being a cause and effect. Ie. I take the medicine and the effect is that I get better. Of course, your mileage may vary, your cold might need real treatment and the real drugs might have some effect.

While the jury is most definitely out on the efficacy of cold and flu remedies and if we see a causal effect, or a correlated recovery, there are other good examples of causal relationships. One of these is rain. When it rains a lot, the effect is that rivers carry more water.

It was this relationship I pondered as we looked out over the now much wider and much deeper river that we had crossed on the way in. More rain = higher water levels. Higher water levels + cold weather + sleet = river impassable. River impassable = sitting in car, sipping on whisky. Indeed, when the water level reached over Charlie’s knee before he turned around, we were in for a wait, but given that it stopped raining a while ago, we figured that the waters would recede. So we waited. And waited. Turned the heater on and waited. Sipped whisky and waited.

Looking at the previously marked spot, the water was receding. Not by much.

We waited and waited some more.

The water receded some more. And we waited.

We checked the scrawled instructions again. Keep right (which was on the way in) on the river crossing. Getting out, I checked the depth of the alternate route through the river. It was much shallower. Deeper than when we came through originally, but encouraging to an impatient man.

We waited. It sleeted. The wind picked up and we waited.

“Fuck it, let’s do it”.

Jules and Charlie got out of the car. Everyone was primed to push in case we got stuck. I reversed a little, reved up, took a moment to make sure the doors were closed, waited, took a deep breath and then took off like a rocket. A sluggish rocket. A Sluggish rocket in the mud with the handbrake still on. Literally, the handbrake was still on. I reversed again, took a deep breath, made sure that the handbrake was off and took off. Sliding out a little into the pre corner I hit the water with speed, displacing a lot of water, but still ploughing through, the hot engine turning the cold water to steam as we boated through. It looked good, we were going to make it, we got to the shallow point of the river and I felt like Captain Nemo surfacing. We were going to make it! We were going to make it!

Another real life causal relationship is the relationship between a car’s engine and the speed of the wheels on the car. When the engine stops (and submerged under water in our case) the wheels stop as well. And there I was, in the river, in my car, with the engine stopped.

But I wasn’t alone and within seconds, I could see the underwear clad bare legs of my friends jump into the freezing river run over and start pushing me and my car. “Heave” came out the call as though it was a whale being pushed up the slip. There was movement, we rolled forward. We moved forward again, the engine got out of the water. The howls of cold water yelled as we move forward, I tried the ignition. Fail. I tried again. Splutter. I tried again. Splutter Splutter. They pushed, I tried and the Splutter turned to a spit and then a turn and then a cough. Juan Antonio lived! He breathed and he pulled himself the rest of the way out of the river!

The heat was cranked and people jumped inside. To warm up. White flesh turned pink in the icy water. We waited, warmed, laughed and clapped!

It was Gus’s turn. And rather than guess what was going through his head, I’ll just show the video:

Gus vs The River from Lachlan Yates on Vimeo.

We pushed and pushed. Felt the pain in our cold feet on the riverbed. Pushing and pushing, we made little difference. Juan Antonio’s slight, if corrupt, Olympic administrator’s frame was replaced with the bullish stature of a Donut eating cop who’d taken a shine to the new Krispy Kreme in the Penrith Panther’s carpark. He was not for the turning.

There was no starting the engine. We regouped in the warm of the car, leaving Gus to despondently wander around barefoot in the snow. This was not the result we had expected.

Weighing the options, we decided the best course of action was to the six of us and luggage into my car and drive out to get help. And swig the rest of the whisky. That was going to help. Well, I was worried that I’d be over the limit, but we wouldn’t have to worry about that until we got to the main road. Baby steps.

We laughed at our misfortune and trundled off down the road. Steak and chips was on the menu at the pub that we were going to stop at. Just a matter of getting this car with all this weight up and over the big hill we had driven in on. But no matter, that’s 5 people who can push, we’d be fine.

We rounded the corner to see the second river, the smaller, shallower one.

Except while the river was smaller, it was anything but shallower. Shit. It was starting to get dark, the storm was now really moving in. The sleet had turned to snow. Everyone got out to lighten the load. Gus fumbled for his shoes while I weighed my options.

I looked into the back seat. “What do you reckon, Gussy? Should I just go for it?”

Gus laughed. I’m not sure what kind of laugh it was.

“Fuck it. Let’s do it” I didn’t wait for him to get ready. I floored it, rounded the corner, hit the river at speed, watched the bonnet completely go underwater. Felt the car float up, lose contact with the road, fall back down, and heard the now too familiar sound of an engine dying underwater.

Perhaps my cavalier attitude was better suited to horses and not driving cars through rivers.

So there we were. Six of us. Two cars stuck and semi submerged in rivers, the sun setting, a wild storm chasing us and we were wet. Shit.

Shit.

At least now we didn’t have to worry about too many options before us. We had to camp here, now, eat some food and then think about it in the morning. I sat in the front seat as Gus passed me packs from inside the car, which I then passed out to Connie who was kneeling on the bonnet. Tents were readied. I looked at my poor metal friend in the river. Turning the ignition elicited a click of acknowledgement that I’d done something, but nothing more. That engine wasn’t starting anytime soon. It was stuck, we were stuck.

Reality is, that I didn’t feel too bad. Life always has a way of working this kind of thing out. I’ve been losing wallets in all corners of the globe for years now and the cosmos always has a way of bringing it back to me. I had temporary setbacks, but I haven’t actually lost a wallet since I was a teenager. And if there’s one man luckier than me in this world, it’s Angus Keenan. The guy could fall out of an aeroplane and somehow land in a pillow filled hot air balloon basket, captained by troupe of models who were complaining that they had too much beer and not enough men.

I’ll admit that I did start to get a little bit worried that our luck had run out. And then, through the dark, some headlights shone through the blizzard.

I wasn’t the least surprised to see a 4wd pull up on this one way street in the middle of nowhere, in a viscous storm, at 8pm on a Monday night. That was always going to happen, and of course he had a towing chain the back, and of course he was going to pull us out of the river. This is Gus and Me, we’re talking about here.

And that was that, a couple of hours later, our cars were out of the river, thanks to old man Roy. He had heard the forecasts for lots of snow and decided to make the trip up from Canberra to his lodge in the now aptly named Snowy Vale. We talked a little about our plans, but right now, it was good that our cars were out of the water. “Having our cars out of rivers is a good thing” I repeated myself. Further than that, we weren’t quite sure what we were going to do.

Gus and I walked back to camp in the storm, munched down on some dinner and I rested on Sarah’s bed in my wet gear. Life was good as Gus and I entertained ourselves with the Snake game on my Nokia.

A long sleepless night in a wet tent is good for reading books. Starting and Finishing Animal Farm, I opened the flap of the tent to see a white landscape. Snow all around this plain where scrub had previously been our friend. It was beautiful.

Our tent in the morning

It was beautifully rugged. By fortune rather than good planning, our car had broken down in the lee of a hill, out of the wind of the savage storm. We were being spared the worst of it, and by golly the worst of it was wild. Here’s a short clip of the morning, when it was nice and pleasant. I thought this strong at the time, but this was the calm storm before the Storm.

Snowy Mountains panorama from Lachlan Yates on Vimeo.

We were beautifully snowed in, for, even in the unlikely event my car would start, there would be no way we could drive it out now. Thankfully I didn’t have to ponder too long as Connie and Sarah cooked up breakfast and inhaled gas fumes in the back of the car. A fresh cup of coffee out in the snow makes everything seem okay. I mean, it was Woolworth’s Select Coffee, so it was okay. A single origin Yemeni would have made it better, but in this case, wankers can’t be choosers.

Not long after, Roy turned up with his friend Mick from the Lodge. Mick agreed that we were in a fairly significant spot of bother. We popped the hood to my car, tried to start it and they pushed, prodded and discussed the air filter, the starter, the distributor cap, the solenoid, pipes, tubes, batteries, fuel pump. I nodded in a knowingly attempt, knowing that while I can talk at length about the various types of English and Italian bicycle bottom bracket lengths, widths and threading, car engines are a bit of a mystery to me. One big on and off switch. And mine was currently firmly in the Off position.

Mick suggested that they get his truck and attempt to tow us out of the park. And he said this with the air of delight and old man with too many tools has. He probably had a winch that he’d been waiting years to use in anger, and dammit if this snow was going to get in his way. As Charlie remarked of their stubbornness and cavalier approach to fixing our problems:

“It was like looking in the mirror in 30 years time”

And off they went, skiing back up the mountain to their lodge, to get their truck, to pull us out. Two hours up, two hours back. Sarah, Jules and I sat in the car as Connie, Gus and Charlie skied up with them. I went for a cheeky ski practice, we read books, I ate half a block of cheese, we waited. 4 hours. 5 hours. 6 hours. It’s quite a long time in the cramped confines of a car trapped in the snow. We found a hidden bar of chocolate that perilously contained peanuts. Jules and I ate it, we hope Sarah wouldn’t die.

Eventually Gus and Connie turned up. They had skied off, but it was more than likely that the 4wd had got bogged down in the snow. We were going to ski up to the lodge and spend the night there. It was about an hour away, so we were on a mission. A hour of skiing in this weather and we’d be inside a nice lodge, a roaring fire and a nice cup of tea to boot.

We readied our things, I said a brief goodbye to Juan Antonio and we were off. Not wanting to slow the group down my clumsy skiing, I set off first, turned the corner and felt the full blast of a storm that had risen in intensity. I’ve seen my share of weather. I once got caught in a blizzard on the top of the Coquihalla pass and got snowed-in at the aptly named town of Hope in Canada. I suffered lashings of Hurricane Stan as it passed through Nicaragua. I even spent 5 years in London where it seemed that the sun never shon. But my god, I have never seen a storm like that afternoon. Such was the ferocity of the wind. Sarah, who was behind me, an experienced backcountry skier, literally got blown off her feet and into a ditch. The snow came in horizontally and stung. I reached a gate and waited for the others. Sarah was behind me, stocks in the air. When she got closer and realized it was Connie, and with a very curt German telling to, she told me off for getting ahead of the group. I thought about protesting my case, but at that moment, she reminded me of an angry school teacher. I endeavored to do better.

We regrouped and pushed on. It was now past 5pm and from our slow progress, it was obvious that we’d be doing the last bit of the journey in the dark.

Sarah wasn’t taking a back seat. “Gus, you’re sure you can find this place”

With a tone that implied a less than 100% assurance, he replied “Yeah”

She persisted “Gus, are you sure that, even in a whiteout, you can find this place”.

“Yep”.

In for a penny, in for a pound, we pressed on. Crossing a plain towards Gus’s stricken car, we were even more exposed to the growing storm. Words can’t really do the experience justice, suffice to say that I’d be happy never to have to deal with 80km/h winds in the snow again.

We pushed along the plain and up the next ridgeline. Deep snow around, it seemed hard to believe that we had all driven up here just a few days earlier. We reached the plateau to find the weather even worse. We weren’t panicking, but we were all wearing head torches now. Gus in the lead, then me, then Sarah, Jules and Connie. 5 light bulbs in the darkness, looking for a crazy looking tree that marked the turnoff for the lodge.

Though I was soaked to the bone, I could taste the tea and feel the warmth of the fire. Luxury was nary a bend or two away.

That the path didn’t look familiar to me at all was a little disconcerting. That the path didn’t look familiar to Gus or Connie, who had been through here two hours ago was even more so. We looked around. Gus did a quick scout around, leaving four headlamps in the snow.

We weren’t exactly lost. But we didn’t know where we were. We didn’t know where the turnoff to the lodge was. We could barely see the trees 3 metres away. It was time to make some hard decisions. We had to abadon hope of finding the turnoff and the lodge. We had to turn around and go back slightly down the hill, find a quiet spot and make camp. It was foolish to do anything else. We turned around in the deep powder snow and Gus headed off while I tripped, falling in the deep snow.

“Yo, stop” I yelled out, picking myself and my heavy back out of the quicksand-like powder.

I looked up to see everyone pushing on, they hadn’t heard me, they were leaving me. Truth be told, it probably wasn’t that perilous a situation, but this being my first time on skis, trapped in a snowdrift, in a blizzard, watching any experience nearby fade off in 4 lightbulbs, I was a little concerned.

“WAIT” I bellowed with a little more urgency. This time they heard me, thankfully they couldn’t hear my heart.

What the hell happened? When most of my friends and family are getting married, buying houses, having children, being grownup and responsible, I’m here. And this isn’t even fun anymore.

I struggled up and we pushed on down the hill.

Setting up camp was a logistical nightmare. The wind was strong and only got stronger. We built a snow wall to deflect the wind, we filled plastic bags with snow and buried them for guy ropes. Pegs were supplanted with upturned stocks, buried in the ground. Everything was wet. We clambered into two cramped tents, wet sleeping bags, wet clothes. We could hear buffeting winds coming from a while away. The trees at the base of the hill would thrash around, the wind would move up the hill, the thrash would reach a crescendo and the tent would shake as though tearing in two. Cooking was out of the question. A box of Rivita, a stick of Salami and some chocolate would have to be it. We were actually rationing our food now. Books being our only flat surface, we cut up on them. Laughing at things, laughing at our predicament, I joked the joke that we’d said a few times already. “Well, how bad could things get now” but this started to sound a little ominous. If things did get any worse, we’d be in some pretty serious trouble.

Salami a la paperback

And that was how we spent the night. Three sardines in a tent, when one of us rolled over, the other two were obliged. The tent shook, I barely slept a wink in that long dark night.

But even the longest, darkest, nights have a sunrise. And it was a surprised Charlie that was the voice outside the tent in the morning. He’d spent the night in the lodge, sat by the fire, and drank the tea that I’d been dreaming of. F*cker. Mick and Roy were not long off, remarked that they hadn’t seen a storm like this in the area since they build their lodge in 1989. All three amazed that we’d attempted to come up so late. It had been rather foolish.

The weather had dropped somewhat, still viscous, but a friendly type of viscous compared to the previous night. The sun was shining and we had a plan. Get to the top of Nimmo Hill, make a call to a guy called Mark and he would drive up some of the way to pick us up.

And there began our day of skiing. With packs lightened, headway was easy. I found picking up skiing to be quite easy when not trapped in the darkness and then wind at our back practically pushed us out of the park. We passed our cars, dead in the snow, and skied out. Climbing Nimmo Hill, we saw what destruction the storm had brought. Not only had trees been uprooted and strewn across the path, some of these great trees had been literally snapped in two above the ground. It was a short story of our weekend.

In that forest of snow gums, we had some peace and I felt more than a little love for our alpine region. The special silence that you get when snow falls in a forest, the stillness, the quiet, the peace.

Snowfalling in forests.

And that was that. Where smartphones ran out of batter and had no signal, the trusty Nokia made a phone call, Mark picked us up from where the snow level stopped and drove us to Cooma. Returning my boots, I walk around in socks. My nearest pair of shoes stuck behind a mountain of snow, lying wet in the boot of my car.

We had a beer, laughed at the rediculous of the situation. Laughing at the fact that our cars are still behind a mountain, the highest base since 1990 with more snow to come. Still Laughing. Still laughing at the fact that we don't know when we'll get them back.

Laughing. All the way to the bus stop.

A postcard from Xiamen

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 11:30:00 -0800

A jazz-muzak version of Feliz Navidad plays over the speakers in the brand new Starbucks of Xiamen, the first in Southern China. Located in a giant 4 storey building that overlooks the picturesque harbour, the entrance is lined with green carpet and flowers, tailings of the premier opening. Green coffee themed drinks line the counter, the queue stretching back scores of people. The carpet, the queues, the coffee, It's a complete absurdity. One that is not too out of place here in this huge mystery of a country. It's an absurdity that I'm here in the first place.

The belongings were packed and shipped, the flight booked, the goodbyes said for the 14th time. I was leaving London to go home to the beaches of sunny Sydney for Christmas. Heavy snow lined the streets of London, but my flight was on time, the tube was running and I was going to escape from this prison my home. A final goodbye was said and we all whirred off to the airport. We slowed, slowed further until we stopped. I panicked as much as the young girl who "needed to go wee-wees". I had left enough time, but I hadn't banked on the transport system failing. I hadn't banked on the 'once in 30 years' snowstorm collaborating with my travel plans.

The tube ran slowly and eventually did break, but not after an hour of silent communication and frustration. Hundreds of passengers bound for Heathrow were put out onto the streets of Hounslow east, all fighting to get on the half hourly local bus to the airport. Taxis were the stuff of dreams. Complete chaos, people crying in frustration, passengers slipping on the ice, the local off licence doing a roaring trade. Surveying the situation, I realised that there was no way I was going to make it to the airport any time soon and that I would be best off heading back home and getting a pint to raise the spirits. Following the chaos that started there, Heathrow closed for three days, 600,000 people missed flights and had to be rescheduled at the busiest airport on the busiest days of the year. Families slept on the floor of the terminal, Christmases were ruined. Life sucked, but at least I as in my reluctantly-adopted home city with my friends around.

After a brilliant family Christmas with Lars, where I was slightly afraid that people might have thought we were be a gay couple, I was rescheduled. I would fly to China to visit Jackson. My flight onwards had left without me, we would see what happened when I got there...

Xiamen is a picturesque island city of 2 million people. Water laps on its sandy beaches while the sky scrapers stand tall above the bustling streets. It's an island of prosperity surrounded by green mountains, where brand new bridges carry freeways out into the plains of factories that drive the economy that lays the foundations for the island. As we caught the bus out of town, featureless buildings stretched off in every direction. Spare space was either occupied by construction site of a new building or the demolition site of an older one. The factories's impressive size and span only matched by the rate of their decay. The business park that hosts Jackson's factory has the faded look of a building from the 70s, a far cry from the white-white walls that lined the streets there when it was opened 4 short years ago.

Jackson hosted me on a visit to his work, where they produce packaging for the Australian and New Zealand markets. Plastic gets rolled, heated, laminated, cut, boxed and packaged by a small staff happily working long hours. Happily, because work is plentiful and well paying, supporting both their families in villages and future dreams of prosperity. Red notices stand outside every factory door advertising vacancies. As the economy grows and wealth increases, it is harder and harder to find longer term workers, despite the relatively good pay. As the hundreds of employees make their way out to eat twice daily from the noodle stands, these red notices pile on top of each other, fighting, their announcements a trophy of the growth and progress of this area. It is here that China is not on the rise, it has risen and it has arrived.

McDonalds, KFC and PIzza Hut are the long standing staples of capitalisation expansion. They litter the streets here with their innocuous presence, their discarded wrappers quickly picked up in the same quantities local street food, both treated with equal indifference. Perhaps the same will be said in a few years of the Starbucks cups, but for now, they are a rareity, to be carried in the same way that shopping bags from designer stores are proudly carried and then reused.

The opening of this Starbucks, which coincided with my first day in the city, is another shout of this rise. In countries that didn't have an established cafe culture, coffee was just another drink. Starbucks turned it from a staple into a label, a luxury good that instead of being served black or white, with perhaps a bit of foam, now came as a personalised work of art, bearing little resemblance to its historical base, complete with a quintuple-barrelled name. The middle and upper classes surround in this building, drinking happily from their white paper cups. Phones beep and vibrate, in the room next to me a young child, not 4 years old, plays happily on his IPhone. Computers, modern clothes, stylish haircuts and designer glasses sit around me and walk through the city. Two university students sit across from me, giggling and smiling at my presence, but not with the same wide eyed amazement, desire or ruthlessness that might be encountered in other pars of Asia.

But for all the modernity, it does not take long to find the pre-rise China. Instead of glancing right to see the IPhone enabled child, I look straight ahead, out the window and onto a collection of ramshackle houses. The window frames sag and lines of old underwear hang out above broken street lamps. They present themselves as the gateway to the older shopping district. Where the Armani, Zara and Arsenal football club shops light the main street, a block of two away are the tea sops. Jade traders, the butchers with the wooden boards and hacking knives carving up the carcasses that hang behind them. Table lined with whole chickens, ducks and a random black bird that I cannot make head or tail out of. Crabs, clams and cockles are crowded into tanks and buckets. Fluffy rabbits await the chop next to mountains of tofu. The China that I had imagined lay in the shadows of the glass skyscrapers, busy under the tin roofs, fenced in by chicken wire.

Leaving the market, you pass the hair salons. Old Chinese women with their hair wrapped up, drawing back heavily on cigarettes that cloud the rooms with their smoke. Massage rooms pop up every so often, Men getting their backs prodded, their shoulders massaged, the dead skin of their feet filed off to collect in piles. The prostitutes beckon with a vocationally limited vocabulary. Leaving it all behind, I crossed the road and was almost run down by a communist era motorcycle with side-car, the traditional army green repainted with a glossy white finish, a metaphor you couldn't make up.

All that, a stones throw from this place that is driving me mad with the Christmas carols that are on repeat. I'm not sure if this is what Den Xiaoping envisaged, but I'm not sure even he could refuse a double tall caramel wet machiatto with cream.

A long time between drinks

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 10:33:00 -0800

It's the usual story:

Boy makes website, creates blog. Boy travels the world, filling blog with stories of other places. Boy stops travelling, stops writing. Website boring. Lachlan boring.

And so, a new one is created as a small holiday project.

More things to follow soon. Tales from China, Asia and the couch (whenever I get one).

The Bodhi Tree

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:00:00 -0800

We spied him out of the corner of our eye.

We were sitting down enjoying our well earned 5 o'clock beer in the garden of the Milano Hotel in Anuradhapura in Northern Sri Lanka. We had left the beaches and the pink tourists of the south coast behind and obtained our Indian travel visas. We' watched 'Avatar' at the cinema, laughing at the absurdly named planet 'Pandora' and the insultingly obvious mineral called 'unobtainium', cheering and clapping with the chaste, modest, local crowd as the two main characters kissed for the first time.

We'd had the third of our musketeers disappear into the smoke. A baby elephant had taken a shine to Jackson’s company and a desire to headbutt me in the dying sunlight of a big day. By chance we had wandered into a local cricket ground to watch some young kids play and in doing so, bumped into a coach that had convinced a young cricketer named Muttiah Muralitharan to give up fast bowling and batting at the age of 15 to take up spin bowling and become the greatest bowler of all time.

We had left Kandy behind, the town seemingly devoted to the storage of a tooth that once belonged to The Buddha, we'd seen the sun set and sun rise over the jaw droopingly beautiful Sigiriya – a thousand year old city and monastery built atop a massive boulder. We (or more correctly, 'I') had lamented on the fact that there seemed to be so few places where we could get a beer to end the day with. Bus upon rickety bus we had taken, overtaking on blind corners, an unwavering faith in reincarnation pushing the driver on to our destination.

Figure 1. Sigiriya.

We spied out him of the corner of our eye, carrying a cricket bat.

Game on!

We leapt out from our chairs and skipped down the drive to meet this young man of 8 years old. As is the case in Sri Lanka, within 30 seconds of leaving our beer behind, we had set up a wicket in the middle of the street and started a game of impromptu street cricket. Locals that walked past jumped into our game. Jackson talked up a storm, bowled hard at our wickets fashioned from a garden chair. Jackson batted confidently at the crease as the workers of the hotel railed down balls upon him. I with all the talent I could muster, couldn't bowl at all and when batting, struggled to hit the ball and when I did, very juniorly hit them for six, forcing us to search the front gardens of the surrounding houses.

A great game. I put my wallet down on the side of the road as we played the sunlight away.

All good travel stories require the loss of a wallet at some point. To further this point, I walked away from my wallet with a spring in my step, leaving it there to have its own travel adventure. We finished our beer, shared another one and went to our room to enjoy the luxury of watching Al Jazeera before heading out for a spot of dinner in the local roti house.

There was a knock on the door. My wallet! It had returned. For some reason, no matter how many times I leave my wallet somewhere, it always comes back to say hello to me. I put this good karma down to having been someone very nice in a past life. It was a welcome return and the three of us – Jackson, my wallet and I went into a great sleep in the warm air of Anuradhapura.

Waking up to have Jackson complain about more mosquito bites, 'Cheeky buggers' is what I said when I realised that the money in my wallet was now gone. Always finding the silver lining to a grey wallet cloud, the money I lost was clearly worth the inconvenience of having to replace the cards and identification contained within. It was when Jackson couldn't find the cash that I'd given him the previous night that something twigged. I actually had all my money the previous night after getting my wallet back. The only explanation was that while we had been sleeping, someone had come into our room and brazenly stolen the money from us. It didn't seem possible, but when we counted back our steps, the bedroom door had been ajar when we'd woken up and there was no other explanation. I should have felt a little violated that this had happened, but instead I had a cool anger that someone was trying to disrupt the good direction that my travels in Sri Lanka had been taking.

Robbed!

Figure 2: It was like playing the French in football

This was worse for Jackson. While I had already fallen in love with this beautiful little island of friendly people, he was still making up his mind whether he liked it or not. The thief had taken some money for us, but also made a significant withdrawal in the happiness account of Jackson's bank. We politely got angry with the hotel staff knowing that it would be to no avail – they had honestly returned my wallet earlier, full of cash. They felt terrible, we weren't happy and I was beginning to think that in my past life I mustn't have been as perfect as I thought I was. In a situation like this, there is very little you can do apart from hire some bikes and go for a bike ride.

And that's what we did. Like every single bike ride I've ever been on, the frustration and anger ebbed away little by little with every pedal stroke. We rode through town, over the railway and in the direction of a large dome shape of bricks. We thought that if we could get away without having to buy the $25 entry fee, we'd feel a little bit better about the money we lost. Sure, Anuradhapura was one of the great sites of the ancient world, several thousand years old and beautiful beyond belief, but if we were able to scam our way in for free, we were sure as hell going to try.

We checked the map. Got a little lost and ended up at a road that led to a set of gates that led to a Bodhi tree. The religious ignoramus that I am, I didn't know that the bodhi tree is the species of tree that the Buddha gained enlightenment under. In a nutshell, Buddha was a guy who lived in Northern India, had a wife and family, left them and went on the road. He thought about life a bit, and came up with a philosophy of living. H worked on being happy and content – not a bad life really. After a while, like Newton getting hit in the head with an apple, contentment came to the Buddha in the form of enlightenment, enlightenment found chilling out, sitting under the shade of a Bodhi tree. He did this about two and half thousand years ago and in the time since then, he’s attracted a lot of followers and years after his death he became a religion of sorts. Contrary to what I thought of with Buddhism, he wasn't Chinese and apart from a throng of attention seeking Hollywood actors, the great holders of the faith seem to live in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka – that tiny country you might have head of where 70% of the population of the country are Buddhists.

Looking in the guide book, the Bodhi tree in Anuradhapura is the oldest historically authenticated tree in the world, weighing in with a hefty two thousand years of monk maintained history behind it. Unbeknownst to us at the time, it is considered the most sacred Bodhi tree in the world, itself born from a cutting of the original tree that our friend Buddha gained his enlightenment.

'Walk in like you own the place' was my bit of advice to Jackson when we made our way up to the gate. Immediately we looked a bit stupid when we were told to take our shoes off – clearly if we'd owned the place, we would have done so already. Damn. The good news was that we didn't need to pay to get into this one and we walked barefoot up to the tree to see what all the people had come to see.

Score! We were making money!

We walked up to the front gate to see a golden Buddha sitting as though he was sitting under a tree, his expression of half smiling giving off the impression of total contentment. Well, if I was covered in gold and spent eternity sitting under a tree without a care in the world, I imagine that I would look pretty darn contented too. We snapped some photos, looked up into the branches of the tree and did some people watching on the crowds that had come to visit this bit of wood.

We rounded the corner and found somewhere to sit in the shade. We sat alone in the coarse sand, Jackson several metres to my right. The wind rustled through the heart shaped leaves of the tree, the warmth of the sun drenched gardens caressed us, the scent of the flowers laid out as an offering danced around us in the midday heat, the smoke of the burning incense wafting to and fro around us. To my left, a man stood in a small alcove chanting with the Buddha in a loud and searching voice. To my right, a woman and her daughters sang prayers softly. Layers upon layers of voices could be heard murmuring around us.

It was a serene calm of people sitting and praying in what seemed total peace. Words cannot describe the sheer beauty of the hour we must have spent in the sand.

The Real World™ of work, travel, commercialisation, modernity and progress didn't seem to make sense under the tree. All the thoughts of money being stolen, getting in for free and sarcastic quips about a religion based around tree and a 'dude' were lost. The idea of Enlightenment and Contentment made sense in a beautiful and perfect moment. And while I'm not about to convert to a religion that I don't really believe in, I don't think I will forget that moment as long as I walk this earth.

FIgure3. The Bodhi Tree

I'm not sure about a lot of things, but if there's one thing that I know about religion, is that after a few hours of it, it makes me hungry.

As such, we joyfully drifted off on our bikes for some food, returning to our ruin walking mission at the site of a big dome of bricks. The Buddhists call this style of pile of bricks a dagoda. The one we came across is called the Jetavanarama Dagoba. Built in the 3rd century AD, it stands at 70 metres tall, it's tall steeple now broken, taking it down from its original 100 metres of height. At the time of its construction, it would have been the third tallest structure in the world, only overshadowed by two piles of sandstone blocks in Egypt. That gives an indication of how impressive the ruins of Anuradhapura are. The ruins surrounding this temple housed 3000 monks and the sheer scale of the place is unbelievable. Jackson and I walked up to it. We were the only people within earshot. We had this magnificently magical structure all to ourselves. Unbelievable.

Eventually some local tourists came to pray at the temple and we took this as our cue to move on to another site. Spying an equally impressive, more modern white and gold dagoba through the trees we trundled off. Again we walked through to the temple unimpeded by tickets, everything was falling into place, the path before us was being laid out. We walked the path with happy and light feet, the path bringing us to a massive procession of worshippers. All dressed in white, their deeply brown limbs carried a length of orange fabric to the grounds of the temple. 150 people carrying a length of orange cotton into a temple, we followed them. With dozens of people chanting, the heavy smoke of the incense clouded the sky they carried the gift of cotton into the grounds. Was it a funeral? Was it a ceremony? Was this put on for the dozen or so European tourists that were there?

We followed the orange train around the huge white arc of the dome. The river of orange cloth came to rest in the arms of some waiting monks, beautifully dressed in robes of the same colour. A ceremony started, prayers were sung, candles were lit in memory. Jackson got to talking to one Grandmother and her family. They were from Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. 150 of them had got up at 3am that morning and made the long journey north. All funded by one quietly pious lady, they come up to Anuradhapura every year on January the 10th to show their respects and bring this length of cotton 365 metres long. We sat and watched as the resident monks and the men of the contingent jumped up on to a brick wall encircling the dagoda and wrapped the cotton around the circumfrence of the white dome. The orange of the cloth contrasting with the white of the dome and the brilliant blue of the afternoon sky.

She explained to us that this length of cotton would be used to make robes for Buddhist monks in the poorer temples of Sri Lanka, in villages where they couldn't afford to donate the cotton themselves. We sat with them, playing with the giggling granddaughters and their lotus flowers for a long time in the shade of the dagoba. Serenity.

We thanked them for their time, donned our shoes and left the temple, whiling away the last few hours of sunlight riding through ruins, looking at trees and grinning marvelously at the setting sun. Sri Lanka had shared its beauty with us.

We ended the day running barefoot through the streets in a heavy downpour of tropical rain. Life was beautiful.

Goodbye London, hello Colombo!

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:00:00 -0800

It looked like a war zone. We'd just passed through a checkpoint, getting a polite, yet rigorous pat down search. The building to the left had the windows on the second floor broken, men in military green sprawled around colonial office desks making orders, young soldiers with machine guns spaced no more than a few paces apart. On the right hand side of the road there was a row of buildings in various states of destruction. An old sweet shop, a men's clothing retailer, the signs and advertisements that you would expect to find on any main street in a country's capital. Ripped through the signs and buildings, the tears looked like the result of a bomb explosion, not so long passed.

Figure 1. The other Colombo

At the end of the street there was the clocktower. It looked like any vanilla clocktower that you might find in a British coastal town. The kind of clocktower that I would generally never think to make a journey to. But this wasn't any clocktower, it was one behind 3 security checkpoints, all guarded by smiling young men and women dressed in pleated green, sincere smiles all with access to guns, lots of guns, big guns and small guns.. guns!

We finally got to the clocktower, it was as bland as every other clocktower. But the fact that we took a step out of the busy markets of Pettah and made a jump through time through a severe civil war to see it had made the vanilla paint all the worthwhile. We tried to push our luck and get into the presidential palace to pay a visit, but that was far as two smiling travellers were able to go. Besides... the president wasn't in anyways, he was in the mountain town of Kandy.

The modern history of Sri Lanka is one littered with guns, suicide bombings and more recently, the brutal (if seemingly necessary) final defeat of the Tamil Tigers. It's one that will undoubtedly unfold more over the next few weeks.

So... There I was..

The beautiful people, snow storms and slow washing machines of London had conspired against me, and I had failed to do my one final task of packing up life. I had done the packing, all I needed to do was the storing - putting it all in a storage locker - the same storage locker that already contained the backpack I planned to take on my unplanned journey of the subcontinent. Turning up to Lars's house at 6am on my day of departure, I voicelessly thanked him for taking my stuff in and volunteering to put it in storage for me. (Even though I'm not sure he remembers me actually asking him to do this after several hours in the pub). I left and walked to the tube in a sick state. I coughed, wheezed and peered out of my swollen eyes through the falling snow. Finally making it onto the Piccadilly line, I passed out. Arriving at the airport I staggered through checkin, security and the throng of airport shops to wait for my flight.

I bought some lozenges, chocolate bars and water. Drinking a coffee, I immediately lost the lozenges, chocolate bars and water. I went to buy a newspaper, a few minutes later realizing that I'd lost the contents of my first shopping trip, yet had now somehow managed to accidentally shoplift another parcel of goods which contained some of what I'd just lost. Fortuitously, I made it onto the flight and passed out. After an unbearable last two hours of head cold induced pain, we descended into Colombo and Jackson was there to meet me at the airport.

I couldn't say a word, couldn't walk in a straight line and was like a dazed baboon after some slightly too ripe bananas. God knows what Jackson had thought about this poor excuse for a man.

Thankfully, we hopped in a taxi, Jackson blathered on about life, love and lost connections while I numbly nodded along in between seconds of sleep. It turns out that I wasn't the only one falling asleep. It turned out that our taxi driver wasn't expertly weaving in and out of traffic - he was dozing, wandering across the 3 lanes of 4am Colombo traffic like a man sleepily walking to the toilet at the end of the hallway.

He stopped, washed his face with cold water and to keep us alive, Jackson kept him awake by continually talking to him about cricket and the men with the guns. Driving us passed the scores of military riflemen stationed on the road, he finally delivered us to the Tropic Inn. It contained a bed. In this bed, I slept for the next 14 hours and Jackson probably talked to me as though I wasn't sleeping.

Finally awaking, I unpacked my shoulder bag to find that my thongs, my other pair of shorts, my hat and god knows what else I thought I packed were missing. And that was the start of the adventure in Sri Lanka.

We've had a few days wandering the humidly scented streets, markets and beaches of Colombo. Marvelling at how many soldiers there are there, gently sharing a laugh with the heavily decorated official who asked us where we were from and tried to extract a 200 rupee Christmas 'Gift' out of us.

Since then we've unsuccesfully looked for a backpack for me, I've recovered my voice, we found that the bar on the beach here is only too happy to serve us beer in the lifeguard's tower and that despite it being documented that Jesus loved a little tipple, apparently 'Out of respect Christmas' they won't serve alochol on Christmas day here. We've been photographed for the Indian bureaucracy, been offered sex from homeless boys, swum in the warm surf, wandered the train tracks hugging the coastline and disappointingly represented our nations in a cricket game with the locals.

So, that's Colombo so far, a hot city that has a history of violent terrorism, with lots of guns, lots of people and lots avenues to lots of little adventures

Next, we head to the hills of Kandy.

Slowing down

Mon, 28 May 2007 15:00:00 -0700

It's pretty easy to get stuck in a rush. Stuck in a rush for days, weeks, months, until it arrives at a point so natural that it's no longer a rush, it's just normal life.

8pm becomes a normal finish time from work, pubs become more familiar than the kitchen, breakfast becomes a decadent indulgence, you can't find time to fit seeing your friends in because you're too "busy" with other things. Months become weeks that fly by.

I ride to and from work everyday. The freedom, the movement, the singlness of the act, the races you find yourself taking. I love it and preach about it like a reborn evangelist.

But like a junkie, I've found to keep loving it, I've had to keep on pushing the boundaries. Gone are the days I used to balk at dodging incoming traffic to get a better position. Long past are the times I would give ways to cars because they're a lot heavier than me. Welcome heady days of adrenaline, danger, risk and a pretend life as a cycle courier. Hello to the view that traffic is nothing more than a moving mountain biking trail.

Figure 1. Someone living the dream

In recent times, I've been thinking about slowing down. Realising that the sketchy moves I've been pulling, I'll only be able to pull for a certain amount of time. Seeing those few accidents I've had recently could have quite easily ended up with me having more than a broken bike.

The other morning I was riding to work, deciding to take a different route to the normal one that I take. Figuring it was a nice day, I had an espresso in the sun before hopping on the bike, throwing some tunes in and flying along.

Over the Thames, in and around the busses, and up the dangerously blind shoulders. I notice that there seemed to be a slowing of the traffic.

I sccoted around the inside of a bus to get up a bit and sat a car stopped in the middle of the road.

Beneath the back of the car lay a man.

His legs bent the wrong way around a wheel. He's eyes glazed over, gazing blankly into the face of a man on a mobile who was calling the ambulance.

I noticed the pool of deep red blood circle around his head, eventually spilling over and forming a trickle towards the street gutter.

It was a surreal chaos, the driver of the car was distraught, the blood flowed and all the people waiting for the bus were just standing there and watching,.

I got off the bike and started to help out. There was nothing we could do for the injured man, so I calmed the driver, spoke to the guy on the phone and started directing traffic until the ambulance arrived. Some plumbers got out of their truck, surveyed the scene, propped his head up with a cloth and then deftly maneuvered their truck around the prone man, speeding off to their next job.

Surveying the scene, it looked as though the man had made a dash across the street to get to the bus stop, running into the path of the car he was trapped under. In a rush.

I left a short time after they lifted the car off him and started getting him ready for the ambulance. He was conscious as they loaded him into the stretcher.

I left the scene, not looking back, riding soberly up the vacant street. The sun, the espresso and the tunes had all left me, replaced with the thoughts of wine coloured trickles in the gutter.

Newsflash: Adam and I go to a gig

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 15:00:00 -0700

Doing something completely different for a change, Adam and I decided to go and see a band together at the Mean Fiddler in London.

Mixing it up a bit, we decided that we'd take in a punk band. We haven't done something like this since the last time we saw a punk band at the Mean Fiddler , which was well, weeks ago.

Figure 1. Red Stripe - the Mean Fiddler beer of choice

But this time was complete different, instead of seeing one of the greatest shows by one of the greatest punk bands out of Boston (which was the Bouncing Souls), we saw one of the greatest shows by one of the greates punk bands out of Southern California - Lagwagon.

We've even got photos to prove how much fun it was:

http://kransky.com/lachlan/pictures/20070416_lagwagon/

It snows in London

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 16:00:00 -0800

People complain about the weather in London, it's too hot, it's too cold, too wet, too smoggy, too...too.. too, well something or other.

Figure 1. Snow in London

I've experienced some bad weather in my time and London doesn't really cut it on the world scene. Which leads me to believe that people complain about the weather in London purely because they are in England. And in England, complaining about somethign rivals football and queueing as the national sport. What I will say about the weather here in London is that it's generally more bland than anything else. Not bitter enough to be harsh and never beautiful enough to be delightful - it's the vanilla ice cream of weather, the Prince Charles of extremities. Exceptional in the fact that it is so boring.

But this morning something different was upon us. A heavy blanket of snow coated London. And with housemate Christina waking us up at the ungodly hour of 6.30, we were treated to seeing it early on. Here are some shots of my house, the ride to work, and my nerd workmate Crafti and his snowman.

The photos of can be found at http://www.kransky.com/lachlan/pictures/20070124_London_In_Snow

London at Christmas

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 16:00:00 -0800

The Cointreau Challenge

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 16:00:00 -0800

Unexpected emotion

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 15:00:00 -0700

Ok, so it's been a long time between drinks for this blog.

The other day I was on the way to work and an article in the Guardian on the latest two months of killings in Iraq, which have been the bloodiest so far. Accompanying the article was a photo of a young girl, screaming in a hospital. Despite having seen these kinds of images on a daily basis, I was sickened.

I wrote to the paper, writing a letter I knew wouldn't get published, but it felt good to write regardless.

---

I'm an adult, born in the information age. I've watched television, seen movies, read newspapers, explored the Internet. I've seen more violence, more inhumanity and more horror than most war veterans. It's become an unfortunate reality that I've become desensitised to the majority of what goes on in the current world.

But after reading of death toll in Iraq, ("Civilian deaths soar to record high in Iraq"), I had this unusual sick feeling in my stomach. Revolted not just by the brutality of current events, but also by the fact that this is a crisis created by our elected officials. A crisis created for not one single concrete reason.

Knowing what we know now, to hear that these same officials, given the chance, would do the same again is unfathomable.

I have a message to all of those who would re-elect these people: You have blood on your hands.

I just hope it doesn't stain your armchair.

Some more pictures

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 15:00:00 -0700

I found my first roll of film from South America.

Figure 1. Me, enjoying the snow whilst hiking alone

New Pictures up

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 15:00:00 -0700

After finally having enough money in my pocket to get some film processed, I got the last two rolls of my trip developed and scanned into digital format. I've managed to lose one role somewhere in my piles of unorganised clutter, but I'm sure it will turn up eventually

Figure 1. Me saying cheers to you, on a glacier in Patagonia

The photos, of Chile, Argentina and Amsterdam can be found at http://www.kransky.com/lachlan/pictures/20060331_Argentina/

This place I now call my home today

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:00:00 -0800

It’s been almost a year since I started writing this travel journal. Usually, I sit down, think of something that has happened and let the words come out. This entry has been particularly hard - I think this is maybe the 10th time I’ve sat down to write this update. The words still aren’t flowing, but it’s time to write something.

Figure 1. My hand writing, on a beach somewhere on the west coast of the US

I guess the reason that I’m finding it so hard to write this, is the fact that I’m having a bit of trouble accepting the adventure is over.

The short story is that I’m now living in London. I have a bedroom. I have a job. I have a phone. I commute. I have friends. I make small talk about the weather.

Which is all pretty normal – that’s what life is usually about. But I’ve had a real challenge adjusting - despite having good friends and family around me, I’ve felt pretty lost at times. Which, considering that I spent the last year taking wrong turns, losing maps and not speaking the language, is kind of odd.

It all started a bit over a year ago when, for a number of reasons, I decided that I needed to shake my life up. In what seemed like the logical next step (and a good idea at the time), I proceeded to tell everyone I knew that I was going to cycle around the world. (Not that I’m a cyclist at all but I wasn’t going to let that get in the way of my plans). Eventually I told enough people about my little adventure that I had to do it.

And that’s where it started. And while I didn’t cycle the entire world - with a pair of hawaian shorts, a pair of boxers, some jeans, and two t-shirts - I’ve seen some amazing things. From the serene beauty of migrating killer whales outside my tent in the Gulf islands off the US, to the blood crazed vigilante mobs swarming around me in Guatemala, I saw, touched, tasted and felt completely different sides of life. I’ve done things I thought I would never do. I’ve looked into the mirror and asked myself why I was doing what I was doing. I spent time with some of the best people in the world. I made some awesome friends.

There were times when I found myself alone, crying in frustration. Times when I was the happiest person on earth. Times when I was so lost that I couldn’t feel anything at all.

Like a lot of people, I have a bit of a constantly evolving soundtrack to life. And even after my music was stolen from me at gunpoint, throughout the entire journey there were a couple of lines from one song that kept on playing in my head. By an outrageously cool ska/punk/Spanish/country/polka band from California called the Mad Caddies, the song is called “Leavin”.

 “Now, Looking back on all the days gone by I sit and wonder what it would be like if I never went away?

Would I see the world the way I do? The memories that brought me to this place that I now call my home today?”

Figure 2. The Mad Caddies rocking it out in Moombadoda, Botswana.

(Incidentally, the faded, torn brown shirt that is all my photos, is a Mad Caddies t-shirt)

So, while I’m living in here in grey, wintery London and while I’m sort of here for the money, and while I’m not entirely sure that I want to be here - home is a state of mind – a result of a whole bunch of stupid times that I’ve had in the last year. And even though where I’ve been and what I’ve done isn’t too different from what millions of other people do when they take time off, I’m loving home.

What does the future hold? A year ago I asked myself the same question, hoping that in a year’s time I would have a clearer answer. I guess I might try and work on that one now.

New Year's Eve in Amsterdam

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 13:00:00 -0800

So... there I was.

I was in London, celebrating Christmas with my sister Bronwyn, her boyfriend Paul and what seemed to be half of Ballarat. As situations were, I found myself staying with my sister's friend that I also went to high school with, Alison, and for the first time in a long long time, the morning after Christmas eve, I found myself sprawled in the bathroom, praying that my life would end.

The preservatives in the English beer aside, Christmas was great. After a 6 month break, I got to speak English full time, I got to talk to my family back in Australia, I ate some good food, watched a bunch of crap television and helped myself to as many free beers as my poor stomach could deal with.

But after living the life of an international man of danger, there was something missing. Sure, I was threatening my life – but the threat of a death brought on by too much kindness, clogged arteries and liver failure seemed too slow for my tastes, the adrenaline just wasn't there.

Enter Amsterdam.

Figure 1. A random picture that I found on the internet that mentions Amsterdam

For those in need of a geography lesson, Amsterdam is in the Netherlands, which is in Europe. And aside from having a bunch of Van Gogh pictures, most of you will have heard of it due to it's reputation as a place where hard drugs are readily available, prostitution is in-your-face legal and the local inhabitants are intent on riding bicycles around.

It's also the place where ex-housemates, ex-teammates and ex-friends Michael and Becca live. Whether it was the drugs, the porn or the bicycles that attracted them there, I don't know, but they've been living there for several years and have one of the rockingest apartments around.

Along for the adventure were Di and Dave (and when I say “along” I mean, they had planned this for months, and I crashed their plans right at the end), together with a supporting cast of Henrik, Marge, Michelle, Casey, Caroline, Fred, Franz and the girl who worked for Greenpeace. (Who, incidentally, made my fake life story of working for Greenpeace as an environmental journalist with an inheritance, untellable).

Suddenly, without a fake personality to impress upon people, New Years Eve started.

I like fireworks, I really do, but generally I find them pretty tedious things. Sure, they go up in the air, explode, every one sighs “ahhh”, and if you are with a girl, it's quite romantic. But like romance, after 5 minutes, I get pretty tired of the situation. As such, when I was told we were going to watch the fireworks in Amsterdam, I was a little less than impressed. In a town full of the aforementioned subjects which are usually illegal, we were going to waste our time hanging out like 13 year olds watching the harbour bridge light up. Yay.

But, as mentioned before, the Netherlands is one of those special places where the government challenges the population to be mature. No nanny state hand holding, you can do what ever you like. Along with wearing wooden shoes, enshrined in Dutch freedoms is the freedom to buy ridiculous amounts of fireworks on New Year's Eve.

Suddenly, watching the fireworks took on a new aspect. With Michael spending enough to keep that small fireworks making village in China rich, we didn't really watch the fireworks. We were part of the fireworks. We were at one with the fireworks.
Imagine walking through a city where it's probable that everyone is off with the drug induced fairies. Imagine that, tn this city, everyone has a big bag of fireworks. In this city, people light their fireworks and let them off in the middle of the street, in the middle of the footpath and in the middle of any crowded place they can find. In this city, people throw firecrackers at each other, aim roman candles like dueling pistols.

Imagine walking through this madness, hundreds of thousands of people acting like irresponsible kids. It's unbelievable. It's mind blowing. It's fun that's tailor made for me. And then, imagine that all of this craziness is a mere prelude to the main event.

From what I could tell, with bad Euro-trash-techno, laser lights and thick crowds, the official main event of NYE is in Dam square. With locals guiding us, we wisely skipped this in favour of Newmarkt square. Walking through small alleys, we arrived with mere minutes to spare before the countdown to New Year's Day. With no official presence, the countdown was conducted by a bunch of drunk girls from a second story apartment. As it was in dutch, I had to estimate when the New Year started.

Judging by the thousands of people that were around us, nobody seems to care too much about the countdown in the Netherlands.

To be fair, the thousands of people that were around us had more pressing things on their minds. Namely, avoiding certain death. On NYE, where there are thousands of people gathered in a square, there are tens of thousands of fireworks going off. Without organisation, people left, right and center are letting off rockets, throwing bungers at random people, firing off flares into the crowd and doing whatever else you do with serious fireworks.

Words cannot describe the complete anarchy and absolute mayhem of the situation.

Thousands of people formed a circle around the middle of the square where the most outrageous of outrageous fireworks were being ignited. In true, liberal Dutch fashion, once you push past a bunch of people, there is nothing to stop you walking through the circle. So, with Dave, Michael, Fred, Franz and some very strange men dancing over live crackers, we all found ourselves in the middle of a maelstrom.

You knew you were in for a treat when you saw some small Chinese guys bring a massive box into the circle and start fiddling. And you knew you were in for some danger when some giant Dutch guys grabbed the remainders of the box, lodge a rocket upside down in it, light it and run away from the impending explosion of wood, cardboard and gunpowder.

After deciding enough was enough, we started the walk to the club. Along more firecracker filled alleys we walked, past burning Christmas trees, avoiding an angry mob chanting for the death of a frame store owner.

You know how there are times when you learn things about yourself. I had one of them on NYE. I laid a rocket on the ground, aiming it up an alley with no people. As I bent down to light the fuse I had one of those moments of clarity. A moment where I realised that I was one of those guys who sometimes just takes things a little too far. This train of thought was still going as the rocket took off faster than anyone could have imagined down the previously empty alley which was now full of some people who had just left their apartment building.

It hit one of the men in the foot.

They danced on the ground to save their lives.

I ran like a coward.

The rocket didn't explode.

Everybody was safe.

I breathed a sigh of relief and now that I am outside Becca's slapping reach, I can safely tell the story.

The night continued in a bizarre fashion with us going to a club that was full of rockabilly gangsters, cheese and sausage platters, with the final band whipping the crowd into a frenzy with their 60s surf rock, complete with two drummers, masquerade masks, fezzes and the craziest of craziest instruments – a Theremin.

Finally the night ended in the morning with Michael, Fred, Franz and I getting jeered on by some leather clad bikies, burning a Christmas tree outside the police station, then sitting on the footpath outside their home enjoying the warmth of a burning fire and the crazy people that a burning fire on a footpath attracts.

Definitely one of the better New Year's Eves that I've had.

Suprise take II

Sun, 01 Jan 2006 13:00:00 -0800

It almost didn't happen, but here I sit in cloudy London after suprising my little sister for Christmas.

Figuring I should make up for a few things, the fact that I seem never to be able to say a nice word to her, the fact I thought she was eight years old for 5 years, the fact that I let her down by ditching here when she was in New York and the fact that I spent several years trying to convince her that she was adopted, I decided to show up to her friend's place unannounced.

Searching out her boyfriend's email address from a long discarded, bad brother form, never read, travel update, I set the plans in motion.

There was a slight problem when taking off from Buenos Aires, our plane broke.

Shit.

So, British Airways does what every incompetent company does. Keeps us in the dark, keep up waiting, put us up in some swanky hotel, create confusion and then scatter every passenger to the four winds. It wasn't until I was eating my pretzel on board my flight from Frankfurt that I was convinced I was going to make it.

But, long story short. I am here, just. The tube guards tried to stop me catching the train, but after 45 minutes of persistant arguing, seeing the supervisor, dismantling my bike, tying it together with string and hiding behind some columns, I was in Hammersmith, a day late, missing Adam, meeting up with the boyfriend, Paul, (or "the defacto", as I like to call him) and Alison, Bron's friend who I used to go to school with, finally finishing this long sentence with another comma, done.

Merry Christmas was said a day early, my arrival annouced to my sister by my yellow bike parked outside.... Tears, hugs, a nap and I am here.

Merry Christmas to all, a better entry to follow soon.

Fashion Sense

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 13:00:00 -0800

I've always considered myself a bit of a leader when it comes to fashion. Actually, I don't know why I say that, I've been wearing the same baggy shorts, skate shoes and t shirts for the last 10 years.

So, then again, maybe I don't know so much about fashion.

But one thing I do know.. My daggy orange cycling shirt, with my hawaiian shorts, is definitely not the fashion for the stylish young man in the very fashion concious city of Buenos Aires.

That said, while they may not be the clothes for picking up one of the millions of outrageously beautiful Argentinian women, they may be used differnt kinds of clubs.

While I was unable to raise even a look from these lovely women around me, in my day of walking around yesterday, there were more than a few extended stares from some men that were carrying man bags that were surrounded by other men.

And while I appreciate the attention, looking up and down my fine, supple, 27 year old, Australian body, I think it's time to buy some new clothes.

Recalled to life

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 13:00:00 -0800

The last little while, I've been reading Charles Dicken's "A tale of two cities". Never having Dickens forced upon me in high school, I have been savouring every single word of the book. One such section is where Doctor Manette is released from the Bastille prison, with his aide sending the message back to the bank "Recalled to life". And from there, starts a long story about the French revolution.

But I digress, after the bright lights of Puerto Natales had faded behind me, I found myself in the the town of El Calafate to see a glacier.

The Perito Moreno glacier, the fastest moving in the world, is a sight to behold. Massive shards of ice falling from the glacier, a monstous roar of nature filling the valley everytime.

I caught a boat across, donned a pair of crampons and walked around. It was great.

Sitting having a few drinks later on, I realised that there was a problem. I had just seen one of the most amazing spectacles nature has to offer and the best word I could summon to describe it was "great". After spending the last 8 months seeing amazing things day in, day out, the beauty of what I should have been seeing, was a little lost on me.

It's really quite a depressing thought to realise that the thought of a friend filled couch somtimes seems more appealing than tons of ice tumbling into glacier lakes.

To combat these thoughts, I spent 4 days hiking around the National Park of Glaciers, up in El Chalten. Spending most of my time, hiking around the bad boy mountain of Mount Fitzroy.

Figure 1. Mount Fitzroy.... bad boy if ever there was one

And that's how I spent the last little while. With Jamestown 2nd place winner for chocolate cakes in 1995, farmer Dave, we hiked around. We ate cheese and salami sandwhiches and I read my book.

The walking was nothing short of spectacular. Jaw dropping scenery from ever look. The Patagonian Andes on one side, the impressive pinnacles of rock, steeped in snow and ice. The dry, eroded desert of the desert on the other. It was amazing. The word "amazing" thankfully finding it's was back into my vocabularly.

On my final day I walked alone through the Pampas to a waterfall. Lying on a rock, reading my book in the sunlight, reading of the muderous rage, heroic acts of love and the inherent evil of total power, I was in heaven. I spent hours there in my peace.

Then, as I was walking back through the dry Andean Steppe, I thought to myself about where I was and what I was seeing. It was then it occurred to me that nothing more in this journey could compare to the perfect beauty that I was walking in. The dream was coming to a close, and sooner rather than later, I was going to be recalled to life.

So, after a few hours back in El Calafate, a chat with Aerolineas Argentinas, a rushed bag packing, a 4 hour flight, I had changed ends of the continent and I was in the back of a taxi in Beunos Aires talking to the driver about his boxing carreer and how he had boxed in Sydney in 81.

Look at me, busting out spanish all over the shop! I'm the best!

When I asked how many people lived in Buenos Aires, he told me that there were 35,000 taxis. "Interesting fact" I told myself, but how many people live in the city. The answer came again, 35,000 taxis. Looking at my confused face, he repeated it slowly... 35...thousand...taxis. I asked again....35....thousand......taxis.

Ok, so maybe my Spanish isn't as great as I was thinking it to be. I'm not the best.

So, here I am, in Buenos Aires. I'm not sure how long I will be here, as flights to London seemed to be jam packed at the moment. Maybe I will head to Uruguay to pass the time, laughing at their soccer team. Perhaps a bit of surfing in Brasil.

So the final word of this entry is that I have been recalled to life. I still have to work out where life is, and what it entails, but the guillotine is falling and I must flee.

The man in Hawaiian shorts goes by

Thu, 08 Dec 2005 13:00:00 -0800

So, I've done a fair bit of hiking in my time...

I still don't know why, I'm really not a huge fan of hiking. It's a whole bunch of hard work, and you see the country side at a pace that I generally find too slow. Give me a mountain bike and I'll see the same amount of stuff, still be breathless, but do it in one day. Regardless, I always seem to find myself in the middle of a hike somewhere, someplace, always looking forward to the end of it.

All of my hiking days have been done in a pair of shorts. If it gets a bit cold, I'll chuck a pair of thermal leggings on underneath. This is pretty much standard attire everywhere I've been in Australia.

I also have this belief that boardshorts kind of reflect a man´s character. You really only ever have one pair of boardies that you wear continually, and for whatever subconcious reason - they're the ones that you love.

And so it is, that I have a pair of Hawaian shorts. Ergo, when I go hiking, I wear these shorts. And since I inherited Shiresy's leggings when she left Guatemala, I wear them. They are green and black and yellow and stripey. Admittedly, they're pretty ugly.

But when I was walking the track, pretty much everyone stopped to either

a) comment on how much they like my shorts (this is actually pretty normal..)

b) Double take at me, walk past and then 10 metres away, have a giggle to themselves

c) From the moment they saw me, start laughing, make a whole bunch of jokes about it not being summer... All of which I heard before.... And continue laughing until they were out of earshot.

But that's just a little anecdote about the hike... Not really indicative of the hike at all.

The hike was nothing short of spectacular. And it's so hard to go through and describe how beautiful and amazing things like that are, so I won't really try.

I carried all my camping gear and enough food for 6 days, not really having a plan on how I was going to tackle the park. But eventually I got the map and the plan started to work itself out.

Day 1.

Caught the catamaran across the turquoise blue, glacier fed lake to my starting point. A beautiful start, even if I was trying hard to not look at the mountains, trying to keep it a suprise.

From there, I walked up to the Grey glacier, through stone gorges and through dense scrub. Beautiful. As soon as I got there, it started to rain and I had to take refuge in the aptly named "refugio" that was there.

When the storm eventually cleared, an Irish couple, a guy from holland (a netherlandier?) and I whiled away the night skipping stones on the lake, listening to the occaisional ice fall from the glacier).

Day 2.

I woke up to rain falling on my tent.

Actually, that's kind of incorrect. I woke up to snow falling on my tent.

And it really only stopped snowing for a few hours that day. Which actually ended up being quite nice. I spent the morning walking through the beech forests in the serenity that only snow falling can provide. Not a sound except for my footsteps.

Still in shorts and thermals, I marvelled at this place, at the start of summer, with snow falling. My marvel turned into dismay when the snowfall turned into a full blown blizzard. But some time drinking tea and it was all over and I was walking in bouts of sunshine and snowfall. (Unpredictable is the only word you can use to describe the weather patterns here. Blizzard, 10 minutes later and you are walking in sunshine, 10 minutes later you are getting blown apart by a gale, getting soaked in rain).

And as nice as the snow was, it sort of messed with my plans.. Turning my 4 day hike into a 5 day hike when the visibility was too bad to see one of the more spectacular parts.

Stupid Snow. I had a good time talking to an Alaskan, Mark, who had been hiking for 12 days, but stupid snow.

Day 3.

That stupid snow turned out to be not that stupid after all. Because, when I woke in the morning, I found nothing but blue skies and snow covered scenery.

Due to my camp's proximity to this and my early start, I was able to hike up through the Valle de Frances (the French Valley) with towering peaks on all sides of me. Alone. Silent apart from the crunching of pure white snow under my feet and the occaisonal avalanche fall started by the cracking glacier perched atop one of the peaks.

I eventually reached my target site, taking in the amazing site all around me, loving the fact that I was all alone. Pure serenity.

The day finished with me passing out in my tent from a crazy headache and a light walk to a campsite that was not too far away. I spent most of the afternoon walking up a gorge and exploring a waterfall, leaving the more wealthy "campers" to while away the nights inside their warm, cosy lodge.

Day 4.

The plan was to hike 8 hours to a camp that was at the base of the spectacular Torres del Paine. These 3 massive stacks of rock stand high in the sky, visible from everywehere. Given that the timelines for hiking had been pretty accurate so far (I had to do away with the usual, "look at the time, and divide in half"), I started early and walked well.

And stupidly found myself at my campsite at noon, around 5 hours ahead of schedule, just below my final target.

So, I figured, what the heck, I might as well do the hike in 4 days and proceeded to run up the mountain.

When I got to the top, I was a little disappointed to find dozens of day trippers, making a lot of noise, taking a lot of photos, sort of ruining the ambience. Not sort of... Compared to the other day of solitude and peace, it felt as though I was in a shopping mall. I hated it.

I spent 5 minutes hoping I would change my view, but still hated it and zipped down the mountain and finished the hike. Totallying around 30kms in that day.

I spent a few hours hanging out drinking coffee with a Spanish guy Antonio before getting back to the awesome hostel I was staying at. Erratic Rock, run by a couple of dudes from Oregon, was a great place to return to, hang out and chat. I even got to watch "Snatch" a second time, after spending 4 days giggling to myself.

Now I am in El Calafate, Argentina, to see a glacier.

From here who knows. It looks as though the bike is being put on the back burner now that I have found that more stuff needs to be replaced and that it's completely not suitable for riding the gravel roads here.

Not so bored anymore

Fri, 02 Dec 2005 13:00:00 -0800

Since being a little bored, I've toured near antartic waters, climbed snow capped mountains at the end of the world, spent hours on busses and have a plan for fixing this broken bike of mine.

Right now, I head for 4 days of hiking in the national park of Torres del Paine, where I will see these little bits of rock.

Figure 1. Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, Chile

Sure, I get a bit tired of this travelling gig, but I guess this is better than sitting in an office staring at a computer.

God I'm bored

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 13:00:00 -0800

Sure, a good bottle of wine here costs $1 and the people are nice... But god, I'm getting bored here. I'm rolling the dice to see whether or not I jet out of here and to my friends, abandoning this stupid travel thing.

Stand back, I'm Australian

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 13:00:00 -0800

I'm in Ushuaia, the southern most town in the world writing this email. Rather than some obscure outpost, the tax free nature of this town here in Argentina makes it seem like some upper class ski resort town, with every kind of tourist walking around decked out in Gore Tex. The fact that it is actually an upper class ski resort town greatly adds to this impression.

But I'm here after one of those usual fork in the road events. Punta Arenas was a big of a dog of a town, I needed to get out. I had a ticket to the Falkland Islands, but considering how cold it is here, how many boring things I've heard about the Falklands and the fact that my flight there disappeared off my itinerary, I decided not to go.

Instead, on a whim, I bought a ticket on the bus to this place Ushuaia. Not having a guidebook and not having much of a clue, I didn't really know what to expect. But it worked out pretty well, when I was on the bus, I made friends with two Irish dentists and their German friend (Rory, Ima and Tina respectively).

So, doing what you do when you are on a bus with two Irish dentists who are able to write prescriptions for themselves, when you're in the middle of nowhere in the Tierra del Feugo, I took the extra strength tablets of Valium they offered me and proceeded to cross two borders high as a kite. I vaguely remember getting in trouble for not having the right bits of paper and having the border guard get a bit angry with me, but god, after chowing down on those anti depressants, I felt so good that I was about to give him a hug.

Irish dentists being Irish dentists, German horseriders being German horseriders and me being me, we checked into a hostel and went out and celebrated my birthday for the 3rd time.

This time, it involved a lot more drinks in a lot more bars, finally culminating in us going to a local nightspot where a great band was playing.

Feeling that the band was missing just a little something, we all took turns on the bongo drums, fronting the band. Well, I say "took turns" but from photographic evidence, it looked very much like after 5 minutes that I had pushed everyone out of the way, playing them for hours on end. It was very much a case of "Stand back, I'm Australian, I'll take it from here". There was also photos of me with half of the bar, drinking whatever these crazy Argentinians were giving me before walking home in the sunny morning light of 7.00am

Anyways, that was that night, and we spent the next day recovering.

Then it was off to do some horseriding in some torrential rain, mud, sleet and snow. Given that I haven't ridden a horse in 15 years, I was a little nervous, but then I realised that I had this little blue thing in my back pocket. I don´t know why but for some reason, I had completely forgotten that I had an Australian passport, and thus again it was my national duty to assume that I am experienced in everything. Figuring that a horse is kind of like a furry mountain bike with four legs, I felt confident.

So, there I was, on my horse Poncho (who was most likely called something other than Poncho) and I laid down a challenge to race to the end. The group accepted; Tina, the girl who rides a horse 6 days as week and has done for 10 years, the American Katrina, who works for the Pentagon doing a job with maths that she can't tell us about, who also owns a horse back home, the Dentists were also there, along with some other Europeans, but I didn't see too much of them.

Well, I found that Poncho and I couldn't gallop as fast as Tina, but we made short work of the super nerd. A great time, even if the Dentists were a little scared by the crazy amounts of mud everywhere and we almost froze in the near zero temperatures.

But right now, I'm here in this town, looking to get out and I am stuck.

In the plane and bus travels down here, the back wheel of my bike has broken and I will need to get it replaced. A slight problem in the fact that there is no bike shop here.

Also a slight problem is that there is no bus anywhere for another few days, so I am going to have to entertain myself with something.

And despite the fun I am having, I'm getting a little tired of this travelling thing, I kind of miss a familiar couch to lie down on.

Thanks to all for the birthday wishes, they were warmly received.

Happy Birthday to me

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 13:00:00 -0800

So here I am.... At the far southern end of Chile, celebrating my 27th birthday alone with a couple of beers and some outrageously cold wind.

Still not sure exactly how I ended up here, and exactly why I´m here with a bike doing stupid things, but, I guess that´s life as a random character who sends drunk text messages.

Not much else to report, except that Waltzing Matilda just came on the radio. Bizarro.

But one thing that I should mention is that hiking buddies Diver Greg and Queso Viv threw me a suprise birthday party on our last night in Pana. A slice of cake with some sparklers and a squeaky toy baby, we watched the sun set on my favourite lake in the world. It was a great moment

In the next few days I will either head to the Falkland Islands, or head to Argentina to start cycling through the Tierra del Fuego (which translates as "Land of the fire", which is kind of ironic, considering it's pretty much all ice).

And Sheila, stop saying those things about me, you make me sound like a walking motivational poster.

Coming full circle

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 13:00:00 -0800

The other day, my Canadian brother, Gregg was telling me about his theory on life.

Rather than taking different forks in the road, he believes that life runs in a series of circles. You do something for a while, work hard at it, you go around and you reach some kind of conclusion. You come full circle and realise that it is time to move onto something else.

When I came here 3 months ago, it was after a big cycle tour of North America. The intention was to visit Nikki and Tania for a week then jet off to Chile to continue the rest of the adventure. It was after Tania left that I thought that I might as well go with Mike, Fee and Níkki and spend a couple of days extra in another town.

And now, sitting in this same town of Panajachel, it feels as though things have come full circle on this part of the trip. A one week stopover turned into a 3 month adventure through parts of Central America where I was lucky enough to have amazing experience after amazing experience come and slap me in the face.

And now, tonight, I`ll be sitting on the terrace of the hotel that Nikki and I first checked into, with two great friends, watching the sunset over this amazing lake where I have spent so much time and I will think of all the friends I made, all of the crazy turns in the road, all of the really bad times and thank my lucky stars that this happened to me.

Then, tomorrow at 6am, I will go to the airport with my bike where, after a period of a few days, I will find myself at the far southern tip of Chile.

There I will be, in a small town, speaking Spanish, celebrating my 27th birthday alone. Celebrating the start of a new and completely different circle, one that is promising to be an incredibly challenging one.

This Circle involves cycling north from Patagonia, taking the Andes and Antartic winds head on, and seeing how far I get. A Circle that I hope will resolve some questions that I keep asking myself.

Crazy Mayans, a god, a hike, a religous awakening and a football match

Thu, 17 Nov 2005 13:00:00 -0800

After the last few death defying days around Xela, it was time to take a step back and do things a bit calmer. Climbers Viv, Arnaud and I scaled the impressive 3,800 metre volcano Santa Maria. A beautiful view of gray clouds greeting us at the top. Our hike also made all the less impressive by the local Mayan women who did the same hike, in only a little more time, decked out in high heeled sandals, carrying lunch on their head and babies on their backs.

Those Crazy Mayans. Even crazier are their sulfur gas steam baths, where Greg and my pulses reached 140 just sitting down and doing nothing. Crazier still are the street bums, of which, one thought I was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, inviting me back to her penthouse (which was the courtyard of the bank) to make hot passionate love all night.

Craziness aside, there are a couple of things I do admire about the Mayans and their culture. Specifically, my friend and god, Maximon (or San Simeon as he is known by someone).

Figure 1. Maximon of Zunil, the last time when Sean and I passed through.

Nobody knows exactly how Maximon came around, a bridge between Mayan Gods and Catholothism, there are many different incarnations of him in small towns all around Guatemala. But my friend Maximon in Zunil is a store bought manequin dressed up in a suit, who looks like Michael Jackson. He sits in his chair, comfy in his sweet threads, sunglasses, gloves and walkking stick. There, he sits and you pretty much go up and ask him for whatever you want, lighting the correctly coloured candle.

What I like most about Maximon is that you aren't constrained to Judo-Christian wishes of peace, love and eternal happiness. Sure, you can buy candles which signify health, prosperity and luck. But you can also buy candles of death, money and lust. You don't like the fact that your neighbour just stole half of your corn crop? Pay a visit to Maximon, light a black candle, sit back and wait for his gravestone to be carved.

Similarly, if you want the cute girl at the end of the road to suddenly have an uncontrollable lusty passion for you and your machete, light another one and wait for her to cram herself next to you on the retired school buses.

Want money? Light a candle. Want power... ditto.. Want greed... ditto

Being able to wish for something that you actually want, now that's what I call my kind of religion.

A religion for modern times, and what's best about it, so casual it is, you actually go up, hug the man and whisper into his ear what you want. You can, judging by what was going on, also have a kung fu fight in the background if you want. A completely tactile religion. But, this comes with a word of caution... if you really want your wishes to come true, you should really buy Maximon a cigar and a bottle of the local firewater alcohol. They'll tip him back so he can drink it, and then he-ll smoke the cigar when you are lighting your candles.

A god who loves to drink and smoke with you! Now that's what I call my kind of religion

And so it was, after celebrating my Canadian brother from another mother, Gregg's birthday at the spectacular Aguas Amargas. Home of the hottest bath water you have ever seen. Where the secret special technique stops you from getting boiled. After nearly killing ourselves, whilst enjoying a few local Gallos, we paid a visit to the man.

And that's where I made my first mistake, I bought a white candle and wished for the health and safety of my family.

Stupid Lachlan, it was only a few days later that I realised my tragic mistake.

Needing to do something, Gregg, Viv and I booked ourselves into a hike. From Xela, down to Lake Attilan, we were going to be the first group of people to take on the hike since the devastating hurricanes that hit this region not so long ago. With the bailing of some 60 year old Dutch people who screamed blue murder at the idea of actually carrying their own luggage, the group of Turner "Chef Huck", Greg "Hugh Heffner" Buhs, VIv "Queso" Odermatt, Boogie "Boogie", Ricardo "Rikki Martin" and Lachlan "Gooch" Yates set out on our way.

Proving to be a pack of mountain eating machines, we ate up the terrain thrown to us, the biggest problem being how long we let our lunch time naps go for and how much Quetzaltecca we would drink in the breaks. (There was of course, the small problem of Gregg almost dying from a peanut allergy, but it was more funny than anything else - no treats for him).

In addition to watching him squirm, it was interesting (and shocking) to see how the hurricane had affected so many people. We walked past some small villages which had just been created by the helpful government. A helpful government that turned out to be not so helpful, because while their town was destroyed by the hurricane, they originally came from the tropical coast lines, making their living as traditional weavers, and are now settled on a mountain at 3000 metres, in the freezing cold, in gale force winds, with metal roofs and plastic sheets tied between posts constituting their homes. No walls, no weaving, no jobs, no farming and a whole bunch of people getting high altitude sun burn because after 1000s of years, their skin is adapted to living on the coast.

Brutal at times, the scenes were never sort of amazing. From every mountain having slides charred out of their faces to the rivers that were never more than a trickle, gouging out gorges 15 metres wide.

Our first night saw us turn into the town of Santa Catarina, to sleep in a powerless community centre, to the howls of the dogs outside. That night was also a special night, it was the night of the first World Cup Qualifying match against Uruguay. Being a proud Australian who has just partaking in some new religions, I did what everyone would do.

I constructed an alter to my favourite player Kevin "The Axeman" Muscat. With a picture of him and some candles, I knelt and prayed. And in what could not have been coincidence, at 5 minutes before game time, the church bells started wailing. It was going to be a good night, Kevin was going to come through and bring us home a 1-0 victory.

In a very Rocky MacGyver-esque manuever, we managed to boil a cup of tea using a licqour bottle, some candles and a cinderblock. In what says something about the night we had, that was the highlight.

Then the next day took us along more of the same, passed smiling kids who chased us down the paths, up treacherous landslides and then finally to the river which we were going to follow to get to our next destination, Santa Clara. During the hurricane the river had swelled to previously unseen levels, taking out vast swathes of the path with it. And because of this, well, we, along with our guide, got a bit lost. But after a bit of tooing and frooing, me almost punching our second guide Rikki Martin in the face for running out of water and drinking mine, we made it to the La Posada de Don Juan.

Figure 2. Some highland people from the Quetzaltrekkers website

Queztaltrekkers, the outfit that I walked with, is a non profit hiking company which gets western guides to come down, volunteer as guides for 3 months, with all the profits going to supporting a school for street kids, a dormitory, and other social projects. If you are planning on going to Guatemala, hook up with them, they're a great bunch of guys, doing some good things. La Posada de Don Juan is the home of the father of one of the guys who administers the dormitory, and it also turned out to be a church. In what seemed a touch of irony, we ate our dinner on church pews, listening to Rage Against the Machine´s "Killing in the name of" blaring on the stereo.

We left early in the morning to see the sun rise, the tranquility sort of spoiled by the brand new well that had been put in at the view point. But before too long we were down in San Pedro, eating some bread from our bread lady Johana, dreading checking the Internet for the results of the world cup qualifier and the CFL result for the Roughriders and the Alouettes.

And then I checked to find out not only was Kevin Muscat, the player I prayed to, not in the side, but we had lost in Montevideo, 1-0, thanks to that little prick Recoba. I was shocked, terrible memories of 4 years ago coming back.

Greg too was depressed, the Roughriders going down to their long time foes the Montreal Alouettes.

Whilst crying into my beer, I realised my mistake.

All the time I had hung out with Maximon, all I asked was for the saftey and health of my family. I didn't mention the Australian soccer team, and the thought of lighting a death candle for Uruguay didn't even cross my mind. OK, sure, the health of my family is important, but if I had the choice of them being incredibly sick for several weeks and us winning a qualifying match, it's a choice that I could make without too much thought.

Realising my mistake, I immediately sent some thoughts out to Maximon, trying to reverse the health candle and turn it into a luck candle for my friends Mark, Tony, Harry and the rest of the guys doing battle back in Sydney.

And in a religous awakening, things started to change. It turns out that there was a bar, in this small community which was going to be showing the game. I put some laundry in and when I came to pick it up, there was a sign from god resting on top of the pile.

Yes, on top of my nice, clean, fresh smelling laundry, there was a pair of knee high, bright orange, football socks.

Figure 3. A pair of orange socks, similar to those that were given to me by God.

Orange football socks? What could that mean? Then it hit me like a lit Maximon candle across the face - Orange, the colour of the Netherlands, the home country of our new coach "Aussie" Guus Hiddink. Maximon had sent me a sign that we were going to win - he sent me Guus's socks!

So, all I had to do now was sleep the night, avoid the score during the day and watch the replay at 5pm. Calculating that kickoff was going to be at 4am, I set my alarm so I could get up and wave my dish drying towel flag.

In what might be termed a literal "Religous Awakening", I woke up an hour before my alarm, realised that I had got the time difference wrong, and that the game was actually starting at 3am, the exact time I had woken up. Doing what every proud Kevin Muscat fearing fan of Australian Soccer would do, there dressed in my boxers, knee high Orange socks and my dish rag flag, I got up, jumped on Gregg's bed screaming "C'mon Aussie" before running next door to do the same to Vivianne.

I had a good feeling about the game. We were going to win, and with Kevin or no Kevin, we were going to the World Cup.

The prophecy given to me, rang true.

The whole time I watched the game in this small bar in the middle of Guatemala, I never doubted we were going to win. And while I may have lost some fingernails in the viewing, I left the pub being the happiest I have ever been after any sporting result. Definitely making up for the tears we shed four years ago.

Danger

Sat, 05 Nov 2005 13:00:00 -0800

I can´t remember exactly how old I was when I came up with the idea of changing my name, maybe I was around 16 or 18. The idea was to change my austere name of Lachlan Charles Gregory Yates to something more succinct, something that would get a laugh out of people at parties.

I was going to get rid of my middle names (named after the grandfathers I never met) and replace them with one. Via deed pole, I was going to become Lachlan "Danger" Yates. That way, I would be able to use the line "Danger is my middle name..... no really it is...". (this of course, was before the time of Austin Powers, and would have been funny, not lame)

It was going to be a bit of irony, for guy who grew up in a middle class area, went to a smart nerd kid school, where the most danger I faced was from the ovens of my job as a baker. (There are of course, the dangerous stories of surfing among dry rocks, years of getting beaten up at punk shows, jumping motorcycles of cliffs and cliffs in general, but I´m not letting them get in the way of a good story)

I was all set to go through with it until my mother said "You´re old enough to do what you want, but we would be very disappointed if you did".

God that word cuts like a knife. "Disappointment". Always enough to stop you doing anything.

But here I am in Guatemala and and I have had a gun at my head, underwater concussions, electrocutions and a hurricane on my tail. And after what happened in the last few days, I am left thinking that name change may have been closer to the mark than I care to have wished for.

Situation 1.

After the craziness of Todos Santos, Arnaud and I made our way down to Xela. He came down to start some more school, while I came down because I didn´t really have a better place to go.

After running into Dave, Jess, Brie, Vivianne and a guy called Tim who was friends with Sean, Arnaud and I decided that we needed to get a beer. Off to the shop we walked, me commenting on the fact that there seemed to be quite a few people just hanging around in the street, very odd for this place at this time of night. Hearing that there had been a few attacks in our area made me a little nervous, but we had an objective of drinking beer, and a few crazed robbers weren´t going to get in our way.

Beer in hand, we were walking back to our place when people started running from all directions. Dozens of people, carrying sticks, metal poles, bike chains, screamed down every avenue and street. I asked a guy what was going on, but he was so excited by something that him and his bike lock could only manage to spit out unintelligible Spanish in his running.

What they were running to was a mob of people. And I use mob in the correct sense of the word. In the middle of the mob was one guy, his face bloodied, surrounded by a bunch of Vigilantes.

Vigilantes, note the capital "V". The Vigilantes is the name of a sort of community watch program started by the men of Xela. Worried by the increased presence of gangs in their previously safe city, they wander the streets, dressed in balaclavas, carrying machetes and batons keeping the peace, letting the gangs and criminals know that they are not welcome. It´s an odd sight to be walking home at night, to see 8 men take up the entire road armed with weapons, wishing you a good night and safe journey. Part reassuring, part freakishly scary, it is what it is.

That night the Vigilantes had caught someone who had (allegedly, because there is no court in Vigilante justice) stolen a wallet off someone. Dozens of people surrounded this man, who had a fear in his eyes that I have not seen, nor care to see again. His face was bloodied with what would have been the pounding of dozens of people. Old women, young children, full grown men, all taking glee in the fact they could vent their frustrations in the form of primal violence. Primal violence with sticks, stones and metal objects.

It was a mob in the true sense of the word.

Arnaud, being a far more wiser man than me, insisted that we leave while the going was good. Being the only foreigners there, his reasoning was that Mobs being mobs, you never know what might happen next.

Yesterday, we found out what happened. After I guess more beatings, they doused the bloodied robber lying on the ground in petrol. Pressing the buzzer at what must have been death´s door, they had matches prepared when the police showed up and the crowed dispersed.

Situation 2.

Needing to get out and do some exercise, Arnaud and I had grand plans of hiking up the Volcan Santa Maria to view the active Volcan Santiuago. Needing to get up at 5am to get the best weather, this plan was soon abandoned when we arose from our freezing beds at the late hour of 8am.

Instead, the plan changed somewhat. After going to the Mennonite bakery that is only open 2 days a week for some donuts, we were going to go to the tourist agency and enquire on the state of some hot baths that I had previously been to. She told us that they were closed and that our backup plan of doing some hiking in the mountains of Zunil was not possible because of the hurricane.

Naturally, we ignored her advice and walked to the bus station, got sick of waiting for the bus and jumped in the back of a pickup truck. Riding along, we found that the hot baths were indeed open, but we decided to forgo the offer of a lift, choosing instead to hike up to the top of the ridge which towered over the road. From there the plan was to spend a few hours walking the ridge line, then descend and maybe take a bath afterwards.

We walked along the highway for a little while before we found a field of onions that looked to have a washed out path above it. We soon found that it wasn´t a path, but what they hell, in what turns out to be a recurring them we thought "we are this far into it, we might as well see where it goes". (Admittedly, this was 50metres into the hike, so going back wasn´t such a bad option).

An hour of whacking our way through uncleared mountain scrub, through cornfields and then again through some steep uncleared scrub we come across a path. A path! Joy to the world! A path!

We skip along (metaphorically, that is) the path and are soon met by some local Guatemalans. A man and maybe his two grandchildren of around 6 and 8 are up in the hills, carrying down a back full of sticks, freshly cut with their machetes. Coming from the way we are going, we stop for a chat and ask what is going on ahead.

"There´s no exit. You have to turn back"

"But we just want to go up to the summit, 100 metres above us."

"There is no exit."

Of course, we thought that they old man was crazy, and continued on. Naturally, before long we found the end of the path and there was no exit. Thinking that we were this far into it, we might as well continue, we bush whacked our way up hill, using a couple of sticks as machetes.

Before long we found another path... To easy! By this time the cloud came in and we couldn't see too much more, but we were that far into it, that we just had to continue. Skirting around some beautiful birds and even more beautiful views, we came to a section where directly below us we could see one of the locations of the mudslides that had hit Zunil. Destruction in the form of rubble 30metres wide and a half kilometre long had swept away at least a few houses, we can only imagine what happened to those inside. A brutal reminder of what has happened here in the last little while.

Soberly walking along, we came to the end of the paths, some massive volcanic cliffs overshadowing us, teasing us with the summit atop.

Skirting around the cliffs, we found another way up. In what turned out to be closer to mountaineering than hiking or climbing, Arnaud and I climbed up. Hammering our whacking sticks in like ice axes, shoving our feet into the impossibly loose dirt, we made steps with our feet, hoping to God the dirt would hold and wouldn´t throw us down the 30metre near vertical ravine we had climbed up.

In what turned out to be full on rock climbing, we discussed certain moves, used finger holes, matching techniques, opposite force to scale the dodgiest sections. We considered turning back but as always "we are this far into it, we might as well go all the way". The difference being that we were so committed in the climb that coming back down was most definitely the hardest route of the mountain, if in fact it was possible at all. (At least we hoped it was the hardest route down, we didn't know, since the clouds had come in and we couldn´t see anything else).

But the final story is, that despite a few dirt avalanches, we made it to the top. Scratched, bruised and more than a little jumped up, we had made it to the top. Enjoying some more fantastic Mennonite donuts, we decided that it was time to go down immediately. It was getting late, we didn´t have a route down, the clouds were here to stay and those ominous cliffs were somewhere below us.

It´s always a little bit unnerving when you start thinking about making contingency plans....Where to camp, how to weather the freezing night, rationing the food and water... It was a little scary that those worrying thoughts entered both our heads, but we were not telling the other, not wanting to make the situation any worse than it was.

So we made our way tentatively down. Arnaud leading the way, we had a rule "head for the trees", there's sure to be dirt there. We skirted around some cliffs, navigated the sliding dirt, all the way, looking the 20 metres visible ahead for some more large trees to follow in the increasingly steep descent, bush whacking our way the whole time.

I took over and it finally seemed as though we must have dodged the cliffs. An hour of downhill bush whacking and tumbling down later, I was getting a bit tired, it started to rain, and I was using my technique of falling downhill into unknown depths to clear bushes a little too often for my health.

Arnaud took the lead and within two metres, his MBA skills had found us a path. A path back to Zunil. Past the burning rubbish dump, past some bizaare string in the trees and through the town, blackened with soot we walked to the amazement of the locals. It looked as though they had never seen two bloodied, bruised, sooted, mud caked gringos come down from the hills before. Well, then again, maybe they hadn't - there certainly wasn't any evidence of humans in the places where we had been.

A hot bath later and we were back at home, enjoing a nice glass of wine, some cheese and salami.

Then I got violently sick, rolling around in pain on my bed while some crappy movie played on the television.

But that's all over, and today the only danger I am looking forward to is a nice glass of white over lunch.

But next week.... that's a whole new story.

El dia de todos santos (Or "the most bizarre thing I have ever seen")

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 13:00:00 -0800

November 1 is a sacred day for Catholics around the world. It´s known as All Saints day, the day that they get together and celebrate all saints, known an unknown. It Latin America "el dia de todos santos" is sometimes celebrated in conjunction with the day of the dead, where people come and celebrate the deaths of their family and loved ones.

In most of Guatemala, it is traditional to build a kite, go to a cemetery and fly it high in the air. While not directly related to this story, an amusing anecdote on these kites is that they are called "barriletas". This word, when exactly translates, comes to mean "little barrels". When looking up barriletas in the dictionary, you won't find kites as an alternate definition for these words. The only alternate definition is that of that famous little barrel which holds beer, yes, that little barrel we call a "keg". So you can imagine my surprise when I was told that thousands of people around Guatemala go to cemeteries to fly beer kegs in the air.

These crazy Guatemalans... Everyday there is something different to bring a smile, but it's getting to the stage that I am surprised less and less by the culture here.

But surprises being surprises, they creep up on you like a row of cohetes and explode in your face. And so starts my adventure with "el dia de todos santos en Todos Santos".

After successfully managing to change my flight out of Guatemala for the 5th time, I convinced some people from my Spanish school to come along with me and visit the town of Todos Santos, in the highlands of Guatemala.

At an altitude of 2,500 metres, huddled in a cloud dampened valley, it's a spectacularly beautiful place. The areas around Todos Santos were decimated during the 30 year civil war, but a proud people remain living traditional Mam Mayan lives, defiantly wearing their Traje traditional dress which would have had them killed not too long ago.

Figure 1. The men of Todos Santos, dressed in their Traje, on a day where they aren't drinking and sleeping in the mud.

Passing landslides, missing sections of road, policemen searching for the 18 highly dangerous escaped convicts, Jonathan (the guy with the glasses who fell asleep in the bar), Arnaud (the Canadian learning Spanish so he can party hard for a year in France getting his MBA), Regina (the New Yorker who had a pointed finger that would scare anyone) and Elizabeth (the slightly crazy New York actress that carried around a backpack stuffed with enough clothes for a fancy dress party) and I arrived in Todos Santos.

We came for a celebration of All Saints in the town named All Saints. As it turned out, el dia de todos santos de Todos Santos, had been waiting for us in the form of a famous horse race.

Figure 2. The town of Todos Santos, welcoming us.

After miraculously finding a hotel room, we went out to find ourselves surrounded by drunken men, wearing their stripey jeans, drinking themselves into a stupor, falling down in the wet, muddy streets. In what seemed to be a continuing trend, we spent the night with these drunken men, wearing their stripey jeans. We, and the dozens of Peace Corps volunteers, drank with them as they imbibed themselves into a stupor, falling asleep in the freezing cold mud leaving us revelling in the fact in act of drinking, the world has found a common language during celebrations.

It's good that we found a common language, because, as it turns out, our English was more useful our Spanish in the town. While the movies of Sylvester Stallone, Jean Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris have infiltrated society here, Spanish is yet to make a great foothole. With the first road coming to town not too long ago, the local Mam language, with all of it's crazy sounds still remains intact and dominant.

Languages aside, we left them babbling Rocky quotes into the mud as we treked past the makeshift jail, paid our respects to the locked up, and went back to sleep in the flea ridden beds of our hotel.

Figure 3. A town in the grip of a party. Looks fun, doesn't it?

Arising in the morning, we found not much had changed - the men of the town were still getting drunk and falling in the mud, but now, there was a select group of men doing the same thing, except that they were riding horses at the same time.

And so was our welcome to el dia de todos santos en Todos Santos.

All year, men in the village save up all their money so that they may rent a stallion to ride in the horse race which takes place during the day of October 1st. Dressed resplendently in many colours, brightly woven traditional materials were worn side by side with red tablecloths (and Eminem T Shits on the youth). Dressed beautifully, the men ride their frightened horses 200 metres along a dirt road lined by thousands of spectators. There, they turn around and ride the same distance back.

When arriving back at the start, they are offered a drink from the crowd, they down it, and start the race again, riding another 200 metres, turning around and drinking again.

Figure 4. A horse race from a few years ago, when sun existed in Todos Santos

And while it is called a horse race, it's unlike any race you will ever see. There is no score kept, there is no winner and the only rule is that when you fall of your horse because you are too drunk to sit up, you are out of the race. It´s a dangerous race and people die every year. In fact, it turns out that if someone doesn't die, it´s considered bad luck.

So, for countless hours, we stared and watched these drunken horsemen ride up and down this small track. We watched them drink the whole day, falling asleep on their steeds, falling off, trying to get back on and then falling in the mud, falling asleep in a drunken mess.

Word has it the festival started with the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th Century. Dressed like Gods, a hundred of them arrived, riding horses, possessing sticks that could kill a man at a hundred yards. In such a display of power, they scared, dazzled and amazed the local inhabitants. 400 years later, it is estimated that the locals celebrate the coming of God in these races, making it part of the traditional Catholic celebrations.

400 years later, the conquistadors have gone, but thousands of locals and a few dozen gringo tourists look on. We watch them fall off, fall asleep and fall in love. We even watch them strangle chickens atop their horses and hear stories of how later on, they strap fireworks to the chickens and light the fireworks mid ride, exploding the chickens in the air. All of this with what seems to be an inordinate number of locals holding video cameras, taping every moment.

It is without a doubt the most bizarre thing I have ever witnessed.

A few years ago, a Japanese woman was mistaken as a devil and beaten to death in the main square, years later a man died falling from his horse and last year another local man fell asleep under a truck, later getting run over in his drunken stupor. All of these deaths cheered in as ushering a year of good luck to the town and it's surrounding pueblos.

We left the town in the morning not knowing how the people of Todos Santos will fare with luck in the next year, but definitely knowing that we witnessed something that will stick with us for a long time.

These crazy Guatemalans.

Some more photos from travelling up

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 13:00:00 -0800

Sean, the crazy travelling Texan spent pretty much every single moment of our days together taking photos.

After weeks of calling him my personal photographer, I finally got around to putting his shots up on the web.

Figure 1. Lachlan, flying on the top of the world

Figure 2. Best buds on another top of the world

You
You can check out the shots on the pictures page, under the Travelling with Sean 1 and Travelling with Sean 2 pages.

On the crapper

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 12:00:00 -0700

If there is one thing that I have learned about Guatemalans it is that they love noise.

One more thing I´ve learnt from Guatemala is the drink Chelada, which is a divine mixture of beer, tabasco sauce, woirstishire (or however you spell it), lime juice, pepper and other spices. But like I said, that´s another thing all together.

Here, when a child has a birthday, it is tradtional to go down to the markets, buy a strip of firecrackers called cohetes (A long line of 200 small bungers) and at 5am, light them, throw them under their bed and watch the mayhem ensue.

The other day, it was one of my housemate´s birthdays. Jonathan, the taking a break businessman from Los Angeles, had turned 38. And like any good housemates, the Kiwi Jonathan (famous for sleeping the bar and travelling with a clothes iron), the German Andy (famous for his kung fu skills, army training, bullet wounds, salsa dancing and his ability to continually punch brick walls) and I (your intrepid traveller) decided we needed to be romans.

Rome being Guatemala, we went down to the markets and bought 4 strips of cohetes at roughly 50cents a pop. We bought them with the plan of letting them off at 5am to celebrate Jonathan´s 38th birthday.

But there was a snag, when I arose at 5am, I found that for some reason, he had locked is door. (I also had accidentally put the cohetes in the fridge next to the chicken and strawberries, but I didn´t know that at the time). Damn.... I had to go back to bed and regroup. "Regroup" - perhaps, a bad choice of words. I was alone in my bed, regrouping my plans, not regrouping the other guys.

Regrouping aside, over breakfast, our chance came smiling upon us in the form of Jonathan sitting on the toilet.

Sneaking into the shower in the next room, I carefully laid the cohetes on a shelf, next to a window which connected the two rooms. Then I lit the match, lit the cohetes and almost went deaf with the sound of 200 firecrackers going of at once in a small, acoustically perfect room.

I almost went deaf.... God knows how Jonathan dealt with it.

In the process, we burnt the shower curtain, marked the wall, made the little girl downstairs cry and then almost killed Jonathan with the noxious fumes which didn´t disapate. I honestly can say I have never heard anything so violently loud.

Imagine that. Sitting on the toilet, having some "alone" time, and suddenly the world comes down around you.

What a birthday gift!

I love these crazy Guatemalans.

On the bus

Sun, 23 Oct 2005 12:00:00 -0700

It's amazing how small gestures can mean so much.

I've written about the digging I've been doing in the last little while. For the last week or so, I've been taking Spanish classes in the morning and going digging in the afternoons. I don't think too much about my motivations behind the work, I'm not doing it to be thanked, get an ego stroke, or because of some great moral responsibility, I find I have been doing it mainly because the hard work is pretty enjoyable and it just feels right.

Anyways, after a particularly hard Saturday of digging with a bit of a hangover, I was in the back of the pickup, going back to town when tragedy struck. My treasured Sydney Garden Maintenance cap flew off my head and into the ditch whilst our ute continued to fly down the road. Stopping the ute, I got off to go look for it, thinking that I'd just catch the bus back into town.

Sure enough, I found my hat, started walking back to town and jumped on the first bus that was heading my way. Dirty like a madman, I stood up the front, the driver not letting me dirty the other passengers. I paid my fare and watched the familar corners turn in and around the bus.

I made way for an elderly Guatemalan woman so she could get off the bus, and when doing so, she smiled at me, said something and pushed some coins which ammounted to the bus fare into my hand, getting off before I could thank or give it back to her.

She would have known that the cost of the bus fare meant nothing to me, but she still gave me the money that would have paid for a large portion of her dinner.

Such a gesture, I almost cried.

But being an Australian male, it must have been some onions in the air, a bit of dirt in my eye, a medical condition or something else like that.

You can´t dig at night

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 12:00:00 -0700

Try as you might, you just can´t dig in the night.

As such, you really need to find something else to keep you busing during those dark hours between digs. And since my travelling companion, the Texan Sean (Who, incidentally, along with being obsessively late, having a loud snort, is the only person I have ever known to bring two pairs of thongs on an overseas holiday) had been threatening to leave for a week, that activity was naturally that which Australian´s are well known for.

Drinking.

Specifically, drinking and getting into bizarre situations.

One such adventure happened a few nights ago.

I can´t really recall why this night was chosen to the big farewell. With my luggage trapped in another town and my flight down to Chile in jeopardy, I was stuck in Guatemala. Sean still had a few days to go, Rachel had another day to hang around and get tired of Sean and I fighting for the ¨to:¨line in her emails. Jonathan was still wading deeply through reeds of Spanish grammar. Davo and Jess like the true Australian travelling bums they are, had all the time in the world. And Vivianne and Brie, well I guess we were too busy staring at their beautiful eyes to take notice of when they said they were going to leave.

But chosen it was, and the night got off to a not-so cracking pace. A couple of relaxed drinks around a plate of guacamole at our hotel was the first stop. And from relaxed, we went to a downright civilised situation with a glass or two of red wine along with our pizza.

Then continues what would have been a fairly normal Friday night out. There was a lot of drinking, there were more than a few stupid conversations, some random bottles of alcohol bought from the bar, Sean going crazy and seemingly picking a fight with me when I was throwing around one of his two pairs of thongs, a bunch of dancing in a crowded club, the spotting of Diver Greg through the crowd.

Fairly normal Friday night so far. A great Friday, but nothing really to write home about. Guatemala being Guatemala, the bar closes at the criminally early hour of 1am and we get shuffled out onto the street. And that is where the normal Friday night turns into something a little more out of the ordinary.

We are walking, ok that´s probably too kind.... We are "meandering" through the streets when we end up in an after hours bar. No one recalls exactly how we got there, but we´re there, and we are relishing the fact that we have the option to keep on killing brain cells with more drinks. Needless to say, we embrace the option with glee, because, really, who needs to remember where Uzbekistan is on the map.

And then suddenly we´ve killed enough of the brain that Kazakhstan goes, Tajikistan is long forgotten, and Pakistan is on the chopping block.

It´s time to go home whilst we can still recall where the Vatican city is.

We make a move for the door, only to be pushed back. We´re not allowed out.

"¿Por que no, señor?¨

"There´s a whole bunch of police outside and they´re going to arrest you, or arrest us. Just wait a while and they will leave"

Not believing him, I put my eye to the peep hole to see two utes (or pickup trucks, if you aren´t Australian) jammed packed full of our local policeman across the street. What a cracker!

This turns out not to be so much of a cracker, when two hours later, the whole bar is sitting in silence listening to the insistent knocking from the police on the door of the bar. With no end in sight, and us getting more sober by the minute, action is needed.

Stepping up to the plate was our favourite Swiss snowboarding instructor, surfer and masseuse, Vivianne, who lead Rachel and myself up the stairs, over the back wall, along a tall fence and down into someone else's back yard. There we scampered around, looking for a way out, hoping not to wake up the occupants who were sleeping not more than a few metres from us.

Over a few more fences and we are trying to climb another, much taller one. I lose a thong, we can´t get over and realise that our school girl giggles probably aren´t helping us in being silent and stealthy. We retreat back over the fences and into the bar to find everyone in the same position we left them, now with the bar owners walking around collecting money to bribe the police.

I've never bribed the police, so I was half keen to walk out and put a wad of cash into some corrupt officers hand and have a fun story to tell people. Vivianne, was probably not so keen on giving away her surfing money and led us out another route. Over the back wall, onto the roof of another hotel. While we took an easier option of a ladder down, we watched out fearless leader get tangled in a maze of plastic tubing, finally breaking it when getting to the floor. Then it was down the stairs, through a hallway and to a door that was locked.

We were screwed again.

That is, we were screwed until someone pushed Dave and Jess out of the way, and turned the knob on the door, opening us to freedom.

Vivianne and I run. Safely huddled behind a corner, we wait for the others.

For some God unknown reason, everyone else stays in the doorway. Sean is busy making as much noise as a drunken Texan can, Rachel has walked out the front door and Jonathon was fast asleep in a corner of the bar. Brie was slinking as silently as she always does. Dave was probably telling a story somewhere, whilst Jess was probably rolling her eyes at it.

But eventually, we all get out, get back to the hotel and make a bit too much noise.

Then it´s a day´s rest, we smack the crap out of Dave´s brilliant Spiderman pinata. The girls leave silently in the morning, Sean and I cry Rachel off, Dave and Jess leave to study in Xela. Sean leaves me the next morning and I´m suddenly alone battling the past tense of spanish whilst digging mud out of people´s houses, hoping that the flight that I missed down to Chile was able to get rescheduled.

Email problems

Sun, 16 Oct 2005 12:00:00 -0700

What's that saying about plumbers and their pipes always leaking?

Well, it turns out that my email has been down for the past week or so without me knowing. If you are currently offended that I didn't respond to your email, this is probably the reason why.

The perfect dig

Sat, 15 Oct 2005 12:00:00 -0700

Well, things are pretty much the same here. Things are getting slightly better for Guatemala, the ten towns around the lake where I was staying are still closed to tourists, so I have been stuck in Antigua for the last few days.

Here with the old time travelling team of Sean and Rachel, with some newcomers, the Oregonian Brie (how could you not like a girl named after a cheese), Swiss German masseuse Viviane and the ever present Brisbanites Jess and Davo. Being the hard workers that we are, we've spent the last few days donning gumboots and wife beaters, digging out some homes not too far from here.

Mud as high as our chins, in and around houses.

But working little by little, a whole bunch of international travellers have been digging and digging and digging. And in what seems like a monumental task, we're making some real progress, giving some houses back to their owners.

With the crying smiles of the people we are helping, It's satisfying work, but it is not without it's quirks, left turns, ups and downs. What is quite strange about the situation is, that of all the people working here, it seems to be solely the families of the affected houses and international travellers. The other people from the small town seem to be content, looking at us working. I´d like to think that if the same happened back in Australia, I'd pop next store and help those annoying neighbours out.

It's all very odd.

What I also find odd, is what seems to be my insatiable appetite for digging holes.

I'm always a little disappointed when quiting time rolls around. Even though my hands are ripped up and bleeding, I´m always looking forward to that next dig into the earth. There's nothing better than the feeling of a nice, smooth, yet powerful swing into the earth. When it slides in easy and you feel the weight of a nice mound of mud on it, there's a sensation of fulfilment. A sensation as though you are agonisingly close to the zen of a perfect dig.

But then the mud has to be put into the wheelbarrow. It's a good digger that gets a good deal of the earth into the barrow without spilling, but you can never get it all in, you spill a little or the shovel touches the barrow. So close but so far, that unattainable perfection nags at your mind.

Sighing slightly, feeling the sway of the burdened barrow, you are the man moving the mountain to Mohammad.

Then, with bleeding palms and a straining back, you aim for the next dig, hoping that you will find it. Hoping that you will feel it. You breathe in, searching of that smell of it, searching with the hope that zen will find you and reward you with the perfect dig.

Hurricane Stan

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 12:00:00 -0700

Since the last post detailing fun and adventure on the island of Utilla, Sean and I travelled through some dangerous cities, staying in hotels frequented by prostitutes, guarded by pimps with machetes. We saw a few small parts of Nicaragua before Hurricane Stan made life a bit hard for travelling. Constant and unending rain upon constant and unending rain.

It was really tough.

What we didn't realise was that at the same time we were crying into our beer about not being able to climb a volcano, hurricane Stan had hit Guatemala and the Chiapas reigon of Mexico with brutal force. While the disaster has been overshadowed in the news by the tragedies in Pakistan and important news about Paris Hilton, parts of Guatemala have been hit hard.

Hit hardest was the Lake Attilan reigon, where I have spent most of my time here. The place where I studied spanish, kicked around, got robbed, built a playground and made great friends was deluged with so much rain that the sides of the surrounding volcanoes started to slide. One mayan village that I had passed through on my bike was completely engulfed by such a slide. Completely burying and killing the entire population of around 600. A slide so bad that the government has declared the site a mass grave, not even bothering to recover bodies.

All of the villages around the lake were hit hard, the roads washed away, helicopters evacuating people and the army moving in and taking control. Even Panajachel, an established town, full of foriegners and foreign money is still under water and in pretty dire straits. An email from our friend Patty said this:

Hi LACHY
there are no cars nor trucks allowed in or out of
Pana. Bridges are seriously damaged and dangerous.
You can bring a truck down the mountain to the Solola
waterfall but after that you have to walk 4k into
Pana.
Four houses and swimming pool gone from LasManos.
School is still standing but half of the land is gone.
This is not a good place to be because the sanitation
plant washed out, and the garbage cannot be
removed...threats therefore of cholera and typhoid are
serious and real.
if you come make sure you have water and bleach and
all things to sanitize and protect your safety.

It kind of puts crying into your beer about not being able to climb a volcano into perspective.

As it stands, I was due to go down to Pana, pick up my bike and leave Guatemala for Chille on Monday. But thinking about it, it really doesn't feel right, so I´m sticking around, lending a hand and seeing what I can do. For how long, I guess we'll find out.

Right now, Sean and I are off to dig out a town that is just outside of our rich tourist haven of Guatemala.

No more crying into beer about holiday conviences when half of the towns that have given so much to us have lost thousands of lives.

Puts it all into perspective. doesn't it?

One day of diving in Utila

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 12:00:00 -0700

So, we're here now on the island of Utila in Honduras. Sean, Chris and I are certified divers (Chris and I secretly lying about our asthma, sneaking puffs before going into the water). While we've had a great time, it has not really been the religous awakening that so many people have when diving for the first time. For me, it was pretty much like every other time I've been in the water, except that I could breathe.

That said, we were lucky to be part of what our dive instructor termed "The best afternoon of diving you will ever have".

When it comes to diving, you see a lot of different animals. All different colours, shapes and sizes but one fish stands above them all, the holy grail of fish if you will. The Whale Shark.

Figure 1. A whale shark, the holiest of all fishes, kind of like Mecca (if Mecca was a fish and not a dry boring place)

It turns out that the island Utila is one of the world's best places to look for whale sharks. But being uncommon as they are, you still have to be pretty lucky. Stuart, our instructor has logged around 1000 dives here over a year and a half and seen them on 8 occasions. Other instructors had been there for 4 months without even getting close.

After doing our first open water dive, we were crusing off to the next site we saw some dolphins playing not to far away. And before you can say hello flipper, we were all off the boat, snorkels on, swimming with the dolpins. Trying to keep them interested with sommersaults and crazy noises, we splashed around in the blue waters of the carribean and hooted like soccer hooligans into the depths.

I guess the dolphins must have found Sean and I particularly interesting, because right between us, not one metre away, one of these rough toothed dolphins hurtled from the depths, came right in between us and jumped out of the ocean into the sky.

Figure 2. Dolphin Airlines

There were hoots all round, divers and dolphins alike. Before this, I had never really seen the big deal over dolphins. They had seemed just like every other fish, one that has a bit of fun, but still just a fish (or a mammal, if you're going to a nitpicker). But seeing them swimming there, wanting to be entertained by us, wanting a bit of fun, I saw them as cousins of us humans and it made me see the beauty in them. A couple of the dolphins must have seen the beauty too, because on the way back to the boat, whilst trying to entertain them, two of them ignored me and entertained themselves in an R18+ adults only, past 10.30pm kind of way. On an aside, apparently only dolphins, humans and monkeys have sex for pleasure. Those lucky dolphins.

Not long after, we rejoined the boat and again cruised off to the next site. That day being that day, we had not gone for more than a few minutes before we were all off in the water again, just missing the blue marlin swimming under the boat, but lucky enough to be swimming alongside two giant manta rays.

Figure 3. A Manta Ray, no relation to the current affairs host.

Not quite as amazing as the dolphins, but silently beautiful as it swam through the depths, flying as though it were a villian's spaceship out of a children's comic book. No funny noises, no jumping out of the water and no underwater sex this time, but it was interesting all the same.

The afternoon dragging on a lot longer than it should have, we set off for the next dive site again, it was time to do some more skills so we could get that all important bit of plastic with our photo on it.

As fortune would have it, not far of the boat we saw the beginnings of a tuna boil, a situation where thousands of bonita tuna come to the surface to feed. Whale sharks will quite often follow them around, eating the plankton near the tuna. Thinking this could be our chance, we all slide slowly into the water.

Success! Instructor Stu spots one a little way from the boat. Swimming fast along side him, the two of us are right next to this beautiful animal. Tons of animal flesh silently swimming through the bottomless seas. Magestic, beautiful and serene and though it was a smallish one (only around 6 amazing metres in length) I could definitely see why they are regarded as the highest prize.

Then looking across at Stu, he made the diver's signal for "Look over there, there is another one".

It had been a little scary seeing a 2 metre wide mouth right next to me, but I knew that I was going to be alright, I started looking for the other one...I'm Australian, aren't I?

The other Australian with us, Chris Lim (who it turns out was friends with some kids that my older sister and I grew up with), at the same time I had thought this, had popped above the water and had yelled (not that I had heard him) "Watch out Lachie, it's going to eat you!".

It was then that I switched my narrow field of vision across and saw the other whale shark. I saw my entire mask filled with the vision of the shark and it's mottled skin. It had swum the opposite direction to the other shark until I had been sandwiched between two of these amazing fish, two whale sharks, not more than 30cms on either side of me. I sat there, felt the water pulled by two of the biggest animals in the ocean and their silent swimming, I sat there, the guy who, up until now, had had a pathological fear of open water. Seeing one whale shark is a chance in a lifetime, seeing two is extremely rare and there I was, the only guy sitting in between two of them.

Absolutely amazing.

Perhaps getting a little spooked, the whale sharks soon dove down in the blue waters out of sight. Out of sight, but frozen in our memories.

We jumped back on the boat, elation in the eyes of all aboard who had seen the sharks. With everyone, the divers, the instructors, the captain uncontrollably grinning from ear to ear, it was pretty obvious that this was a once in a lifetime experience.

Photos from Guatemala now up

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 12:00:00 -0700

I finally got around to it and put the final photographs from Guatemala up.

They can be viewed in all their, last shots from the camera glory, on the pictures page.

Figure 1. The last shot taken from the camera

I´m still in two minds as to whether I should buy a new camera or not. I don´t really have the cash to spend, but at the same time, taking pictures is a fun way to remember all of these memories.

It´s also kind of fun travelling without anything worth stealing, I can travel to any sketchy place and not worry about a thing.

Volcanoes Ahoy!

Thu, 22 Sep 2005 12:00:00 -0700

The other day, I along with a bunch of others, hiked for two days and saw the sun rise over this Volcano. At 4,200 metres, it is highest point in Central America. Standing there above the clouds, at 5am, in the sub zero tempratures, sucking in the rare air, getting blown around by the winds, we took in the sun rise.

It was one of the most inspiring I have ever seen. Words can't describe it.

Figure 1. The view from Tajamulco. (Our sunrise was way better)

Tomorrow, I plan on going for a run and climbing this one. Aparently it's pretty easy, but still a good 3,700 metres in height.

Figure 2. The Volcan Agua. I previously mountain biked down it, this time it's personal, and on foot.

On Saturday, hopefully Sean will be in Antigua and we will climb a different one. I´m hoping that we will dodge the flying lava, survive and descend.

Figure 3. The view of Pacaya, the kind of Volcano you can only climb in a place like Guatemala, where your safety is of a secondary concern when compared to the money in your pocket.

Then, it´s a long bus ride to Honduras, I´ll break the rules, hoping I won´t have had an asthma attack and I'll be diving next to one of these.

Figure 4. A basking shark, kind of like when a dog goes swimming and makes a spelling mistake.

The house that Sean and Lachie built

Mon, 19 Sep 2005 12:00:00 -0700

I'm sitting here in Panajachel writing this as dozens of young kids, all dressed in white shirts and maroon pants march past in ceremony. It's a day of celebration. Not only is tomorrow the day where the whole of Guatemala shuts down and everyone parties for 4 days. Not only is today a celebration of the schools in the region and their amazing talents on amazingly loud drums. This celebration isn't just about overthrowing colonialism, the struggle for independence and the challenge of life. It's also a celebration of something truly amazing.

It's the day that Sean and I finished the cubby house we were building in the school Las Manos.

Ok, so maybe the celebrations aren't for both of us. And I hope that Guatemala gets its parade next year. But for the moment, the two of us are basking in a post building glow. Well, that's not entirely true, I am undoubtedly basking and poor Sean is currently busy dealing with some pretty horrendous diarrhea. But he´ll be basking soon.

Basking, what a weird word. It's kind of like the sound a dog makes when he mis-types a letter.

Figure 1. A dog mis-typing and barking, not basking

But I digress. As mentioned before, when I arrived back in Pana to visit Nikki, I became aware that she had volunteered my highly suspect services to Patty. And when I say highly suspect, I'm really distorting reality.

The last building project I remember undertaking was when Lisa bet me a case of beer that I couldn't build a table tennis table by a certain date. Knowing me, she correctly doubted my abilities; thinking the words coming out of my mouth were stronger that my lavender scented, keyboard tapping hands. That time, I was determined. Despite my co-worker Dave Zuk not being around to help, I figured I was on course. Like any big assignment, the best time to start is the day before it is due.

Pressure turns dirt into diamonds.

Pressure also turns square bits of wood into rhombi (or whatever the plural of 'rhombus´ is). Rhombi notwithstanding, I was sort of on track for a finish. A dodgy finish, sure. But that is pretty on par with every assignment I've produced without my mum's help. (My reports attest to the view that my schooling career peaked in year 5).

I'm digressing again, maybe it was the outrageously good cup of coffee I had before coming here. Anyways, the point is that I was on track for a finish. Then that night as I slept, the heavens opened up and Cammeray was drowned in a flood that hadn't been seen since the days of Noah. The garage was underwater and the hopes that I could turn my rhombi into a table tennis table drowned when the rhombi became so warped as to be unusable.

And that's how history recorded my last adventure with the hammer and nail. My project was destroyed by an "Act of God" (TM) .

(And like many insurance companies and their policies, since it was an act of God, I declared that I didn't have to pay up on the case of beer).

But that was the past. This is the present. I've done a lot of thinking about building in between then and now. I've even watched a few home improvement shows. Figuring this would help me out, and hoping that the years of holding poles up for my Dad would finally pay off, I accepted the challenge laid down by Patty.

And like any good challenge or assignment, I took a few days off, went to Guatemala City, saw a soccer game, did spanish school and generally kicked around doing everything but the said assignment.

But with Nikki gone and nothing else to keep me interested, I finally sat down and started the task at hand, staking out the ground for the foundations. Making sure that everything was nice and square. Laying the foundations is the most important bit. Fortunately, I had to lay them at the beginning while I was still enthused.

The local Guatemalan workers looked on in amazement as I spent a few hours measuring lengths, using Pythagoras's´ theorem, setting new stakes and stringing more lines before doing any actual digging. And given the number of odd shaped rooms I've slept in, I can imagine why they found it so mystifying. Usually they just throw down a bunch of cement blocks and hope for the best.

Then I dug four holes.

Holes for the posts. Or holes for the "postes" as we say in spanish.

It's kind of hard to make digging holes sound interesting, so I'll leave it at that. There was dirt in the ground, the after I finished digging, it wasn't there.

Then in what turned out to be a recurring theme, Rachel and Sean came around, we went out, drank a few beers, ate at our favourite taco restaurant, ate some pie from the famous lady on the street, drank some more beers and went to bed.

I think it was during one of these beers Sean made the fortuitous decision (fortuitous for me, not for him) to stay around and help out. Gotta love beer, throughout history it's started so many great things. Friendships, relationships, wars, karaoke and now, playground equipment.

What's not so great about beer is that it when you drink too much of it, it makes mixing cement really hard. Really really hard. But being the rock hard men that we are, Sean and I powered through until we filled the the fourth and final post.

Like digging holes, it's quite hard to make mixing cement sound interesting in a travel email. So rather than go into detail about that, it's better of to mention that after killing ourselves with beer and mixing cement, we did what any two rock hard builder men would do. We went down to the lake, swum out to a pontoon and drank some more beer.

Watching the storms roll in around us, we sipped the warm beer and then spent the next few hours laughing. First at ourselves and the stupid messes that is our lives, then at the local couples. Laughing because, one by one, they would walk the path next to the lake and spy a nice little make out spot. They'd venture down, so engrossed in each other that they didn't see us out on the water, nor the two young kids just over the top of the make out spot.

They would hide in the long grass, and do whatever couples do when they hide in long grass. Then the kids would run into the bushes and disturb the couple. The couple would then get dressed, embrace and walk away hand in hand.

Another couple would come to the make out spot, the kids would scare them. This repeated a few times.

Hours of fun for our simple minds.

Naturally, we finished up with more beer, tacos, pie, and more beers.

The next day started like the first. Two guys not really having any idea of what they were doing, making plans up on the spot.

"How big should we make it?"

(motioning to nipple height) "What about this?"

"sounds good, mark it out"

Then later,

"Man, this thing is kind of wobbly on the second story. What should we do?"

"What about chucking in a bit of wood there?"

"sounds good, nail it in"

"how is it now?"

"rock freaking solid. We're the best"

"Yeah us, we´re the best" (high five)

So at the end of day three we became aware of how freakishly massive our little cubby house had become. Two stories. 3.5 metres tall. 2 metres square. And as solid as a freaking rock. I kept on standing back, gazing at it and commenting "this thing is freaking massive, this thing is freaking massive".

And it was, standing taller than many of the existing buildings in the school. Standing a lot taller than the delinquent kids who were looking on at us when they should have been in class. (and when we say delinquent, we use the true sense of the word. Drug dealers, gang members and in the case of 14 year old Victor, bar owners)

So, to reward ourselves for another day of good work pretending we knew what we were doing, we finished up with beer on the second floor, tacos, more beer, pie, and more beers before heading to bed. Hoping that in the morning, the wood for the outside of the cabin would be delivered.

And delivered it was

And if we thought that the cabin was freaking massive at that point in time, when we saw the logs we were meant to be hammering onto the outside, we got an even bigger impression of how even freakishly massiver the thing was going to be.

Deciding that we wanted to head to another town that night we got up early and prepared for a long, hard day.

And if you've ever tried to saw fat logs with a blunt hand saw, drill holes with a drill that only works when you hold it upside down, hammer nails with a broken hammer you can appreciate how long and hard a 12 hour day can be.

And if you do that day after a night of beers it's even harder.

And if you do that with no idea of what you are doing, it's monumentally harder.

Like most days of sunlight, the sunlight eventually went and we had to stop work. Agonisingly close to the finish. Another 4 logs nailed, the roof put on and we were finished.

Time to celebrate!

Time for Sean to contract some outrageous stomach bug. Time for Lachlan to push things a little too far with alcohol and whatever else I ingested. Time for us to get lost, get scared by a taxi driver, time for Sean to throw up and time turn into bed feeling a lot worse for wear.

Then the rain came down. Buckets of the stuff. The likes of which, when I was lying in bed, I hadn't heard since that fateful day in Cammeray. (ok, I'm making that part up now, because it makes a nice story, but it was raining like the clappers... And if you're not Australian, the clappers is a lot).

Shit. We left all of the wood outside, not covered up, we didn't put the roof on.

It was the table tennis table all over again.

And because neither of us was in a walking state, we left the wood out to get wet, warp and destroy dozens of little kids dreams. Another act of God! Damn that interventionist God! Damn that vengeful God!

Rather than wake up, we both "stirred", stumbling rather than walking. We had reached the 5th camp on Everest, seeing the summit, but knowing it might just be out of reach.

But like Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, we had dream. It wasn't about us, it was about something bigger, something more important than mere mortal men.

It was about the dreams of children.

Figure 2. Our friends Ed and Tenzig

So we climbed on, hammering every step as though it might be our last. Hammering nails into wood as if they were pitons into walls of ice. Sawed the wet wood as though it was something on a mountain that needed sawing. We climbed and climbed, hammered and hammered until we were standing on the summit. The summit of our two storey cubby house. There was only one thing left to do.

Like those two great men before us, we needed to raise a flag.

And that we did, drilling in the last sheet of roofing to make the Guatemalan Flag.

Blue, white, blue.

In your face, God. We did it. We finished. 3 more bolts and we are finished!

That's probably when God said to himself "In my face? In my face? We'll see about that"

And shortly after, the drill broke, leaving us three roofing bolts short of victory. Turning it right side up, upside down, left, right, diagonal had no effect. Three freaking roofing bolts short

Stupid God.

But for all we care about, we were finished. Albeit, we hadn't made a slide and ran out of wood to make the all important ladder, but we were finished, even making tiny little benches for these tiny little kids and their tiny little dreams.

And so ends the story of my redemption in the building world and Sean's introduction to holding poles of wood for people who pretend to know more than he does.

And the pictures of the house:

Figure 3. The house, Patty, me, our cook Maria and Sean.

Figure 4. The side view of the house, including benches and temporary ladder

Figure 5. The back view of the house, me carrying work man tools.

Figure 6. The house, with God trying to melt our new plastic roof.

Stupid computers

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:00:00 -0700

Ok, it seemed that the website was so popular the other day that the contents of the tale of the house were lost into the ether.

It's back now, hopefully God will stop trying to smite me.

12 million chapins contra 11 gringos

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 12:00:00 -0700

12 million chapins
contra 11 gringos
Guate 1
Gringos 0

That's what the back of our mini bus said as we raced away from San Pedro to Guatemala City for one of Guatemala's qualifying matches for the world cup. Not that you really need it, but it translates as 12 million Guatemalans against 11 American Tourists, Guatemala 1, American Tourists 0.

What was rather amusing about our bus driver's anecdote was the fact that inside the minibus was 11 white skinned tourists who were much closer to gringos than the local guatemalans. So the joke was on him, or us, or someone.

Regardless, in between stopping 10,000 times for the weak bladdered Germans, Sean, Rachel and I drank cuba libres all the way to the second most dangerous city in the Americas. And because of a bit of a stuff up, I didn't have a ticket and needed to buy one from a scalper in this same city.

Which sounds incredibly dangerous, and it sort of is, but it worked out fine when the bus driver gave me his and went off in search of another one - leaving us all alone in a city gone mad with world cup fever.

Which also sounds quite dangerous but, fotuantely, by that stage of the night, in addition to being quite innebriated, all of the people in the bus had forked out 5 bucks to buy some imitation adidas Guatemalan uniforms. With all of us chanting "guate guate guate", some waved flags while Sean and I introduced the locals to the fine art of shotgunning beers.

Everything worked out well, and after disposing of anything that you could possibly throw at the opposing team (knives, bottles, flags, coins, cameras etc) we went into the stadium. Well, actually, we got searched, then walked through a gate, got searched again, got out tickets check, got searched again, got searched again, walked through a gate and got searched again, had our tickets checked again, got searched twice more and then we went into the stadium.

With no beer on sale inside the stadium, (Can you imagine it?) the crowd was a bit quieter than I had imagined. Their quietness, however, was made up for by the horrendous drummers next to us. It seems keeping a beat isn't important in guatemala. Fortunately, Sean, being Sean, stepped up to the plate, grabbed one of their drums and showed them how to do it.

Admittedly, he showed them that he worse than they were, but at least he gave it a shot.

Which is more than can be said for the Americans (whose quiet supporters were safely surrounded by their own razor wire fence). Needing a draw or a win to stay in the race for the third spot in the North and Central American confederation, Guate was on the attack the whole time.

With Mexican waves crashing around in a sea of blue and white, the struggle continued on. Incidentally, talking of waves, at the start of the game, we were introduced to the Guatemalan wave, where everyone sits down, holds onto the person in front of them, and rocks back and forth. It's quite a sight when you see 30,000 people doing the same thing.

Anyways, the game was a game and I won't bore anyone with the details, suffice to say the game followed through to an exciting, if scoreless 0-0 draw.

A good, if not great, result for the traditionally weak Guatemalan team. (Who made their lives harder by losing to the minnows of world futbol, Trinidad, a few days earlier).

Then we miracously made it back to the mini van, ate some traditional Guatemalan food in McDonalds (which, as an aside, I found suprisingly easy to do considering I had just finished reading the masterful "Fast Food Nation". Which details the horrific process in which fast food is developed in the US.)

And now I'm back in Pana. With her sad departure to the US, without Nikki to keep me company, I'm having to keep myself busy with this playground and the spanish lessons instead of laughing at her hand.

And thinking about the spanish, I think I might change schools after this one, because while I enjoyed my lessons, I feel I probably spent too much time listening to my new teachers views on radical left wing politics, beer and which country possesses the most beautiful women in the world.

And of couse the most beautiful women in the world either come from Australia or Estonia. Estonia because as Olivi said, "The women are beautiful and the men dress like dorks". Australia because some of women there have been silly enough to date me.

Never take advice from Nikki

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 12:00:00 -0700

In that last post, I mentioned how it was almost always a bad idea to take advice from me. Now I have learnt another important lesson, never take advice from Nikki.

After taking in the spectacular scenes of Tikal, some crazy inner tubing in Poptun, I made friends with Sean, the Texan, Kara, the girl from Leeds and Elin, the Sweede. (the nationality, not the vegetable). We all spent a couple of fun filled days on the carribean coast of Guatemala learning new and intricate handshakes from the Garifuna people.

I then convince Elin and Sean to come back with me to visit Nikki one last time before she heads off to other parts of the world. The attraction, apart from my personality, was the prospect of a crazy cross dressing party I had heard about.

On arriving back in Pana, I rocked up to the school where Nikki is staying to the knowledge that she had pretty much volunteered my services in designing and building a playground.

So, instead of doing another week of spanish school in Antigua and then going surfing in Nicaragua and despite the fact that I have never built anything like this by myself before, it looks as though I'll spend the next little while here building stuff, Ted and Kev style, before making some more plans that I won't follow through with.

The party ended up with all of us being the party, entertaining the other guests who just sat still and listened to the tinny radio. But we had fun regardless, and had even more fun watching Sean get continually harassed by the local sellers at the markets at Chichicastenango.

I'm off now to find myself a hard hat, so I can at least pretend to look as though I know what I'm doing

Never take advice from me

Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0700

Whenever someone asks me for advice (or more appropriately, when I give unsolicited advice), I generally like to follow it up with the cavaet of "Never take advice from me". It's a nice little disclaimer that lets me make an opinon but not be held accountable for it.

Anyways, I'm beginning to realise it's a truer statement than I like to imagine. I refer to todays festivities of inner tubing down a river.

Example 1.

When stopping for lunch, our guide was there and was wearing a gun prominently on his belt. Now being a fan of guns and their authenticiy, I asked him to get it out and show it to me. Another plastic gun. These crazy Guatemalans, the guides, the robbers, all carrying around fake guns. Well, the funny thing about this was the fact that will the gun was indeed plastic, it was anything but fake. It was, as my new Texan friend Pops told me, a Glock 9mm.

Figure 1. A Glock 9mm. A plastic gun that kills.

Conclusion 1. Never take advice on the authenticity of lethal firearms from me.

Example 2.

Yesterday, a bunch of weary travellers came into the hostel complaining of bumps, bruises, scrapes, scratches and dislocated knees from a morning of inner tubing on the near by river. Consider myself an expet in world politics and inner tubing, I wrote their complaints of as a bunch of talk from some limp wristed, cheese eating Europeans who've never walked across the road without waiting for the green man. I even made a couple of jokes about the optional attire of helmets that we all declined.

Pops and I were standing, waiting for out guide's ok before taking off on the next set of dangerous rapids. Watching a slight english girl, Jo, sail by, unable to get to shore, we jumped in and set off down the river.

I'm not sure exactly when I changed my opinon of the pleaded crys of the Europeans not to go. It could have been slightly before I flipped, went underwater and slammed my head into a rock, or it may have been slightly after, when I was still underwater, realising that I wasn't dead.

On a larger rapid I again went down and slammed my head into the rocks. How I don't have anything more than a slight concussion, I don't know. I think I have my fractured skull at age 6 months to thank for some extra calcification.

Another girl, Katie, was not so lucky. After cracking heads with Pops, she was well and truly seeing stars. And when she wasn't doing that, she was fighting back the urge to vomit. And after 30 mins of waiting in the river, she was able to walk out with the help of 4 people.

Figure 2. Typical Inner tubing life

Figure 3. What Inner tubing is not meant to look like

Conclusion 2. Never take advice on lethal hazards from me and jump blindly into a raging river.

Tikal

Sat, 27 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0700

When you are in Guatemala, everyone asks if you have been to Tikal. An ancient city that was covered in jungle until 50 years ago, It´s one of the must-see destinations. Kind of like the Opera House, The Harbour Bridge and Panfers World of Entertainment (and Krispy Kreeme). *

Figure 1. Tikal

Figure 2. Panfers World of Entertainment

Stupid comments aside, it is nothing short of majestic. And back with the stupid comments, it was a city of 90,000 people living atop a mountain, the ruling classes living in limestone quarters, spending their days lounging around sacrificing animals on top of the incredibly massive limestone pyramids.

And when they weren´t sacrificing animals, they were gazing at the night sky, becoming skilled astronomers. And when they weren´t doing that, they were looking at sunsets and sunrises, calculating an accurate calendar, and using the shadows cast by these sunsets to build more massive limestone pyramids where they could sacrifice more animals. And when they weren´t doing that, they were waiting for the one time a year that they could play this crazy ball game in an alley way in the middle of the most important part of the city. And then, when the game was over, the winning team would take all the treasure of the loosing team. Then the loosing team´s captain, walked to the top of one of these limestone pyramids and was sacrificed.

And this is the kicker - he wanted to get sacrificed!

It was some kind of honour to lie down under a rock and have them rip your heart out whilst it was still beating. Admittedly, he was high on something that the priests had given him (and we´re not talking communion wine here).

It takes a bit of understanding of the mayan culture to appreicate it: if he couldn´t win the ball game, the treasure, the respect and the virgins, he was atleast given the consolation prize of a, albeit respectful, painful death. The rest of the team just lost their virgins.

These crazy Mayans.

Right now I´m off to ponder their civilisation with a very civilised beer at the end of the pier here in El Ramate. Where the sunsets are amazing.

* How many times are you going to hear Tikal and Krispy Kreme mentioned in one sentence. Yeah me!

No guns this weekend

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0700

In what is a nice change of pace, the last few days haven´t involved anything resembling stress.

In going to a place that Mike recomended, Nikki and I packed up and started walking through the moonlight streets so that we could make our 5.00am bus. Destination: Guatemala city, then Coban, then the town of Lanquin, just outside of Semuc Champey.

Figure 1. The pools of Semuc Champey

Mike being Mike, he recomended us a place which was filled with beautiful people. Thatched roof houses situated on a raging river, we spent a couple of days taking in the advantages that good company and extremely cheap guatemalan beer provides.

You might have read in NIkki´s post that we spent a day in the caves and pools of Semuc Champey. And while the caves and pools were nothing short of spectacular, the absolute highlight of the day for me was the bus ride there.

After the torrential rain the night before, the very steep mud road was getting torn up by our minibus. (To be fair to the minibus, we had around 18 people packed into something that would seat 9 under australian law). Naturally most of the europeans and Israelis were pretty much useless in helping. And in cutting a long story short, 20 minutes later saw Nikki, myself, Jacque and Evanne sitting on the roof racks of the minibus while the driver went hell for leather. The local town people, including pure white robed nuns, all pushed the bus up the hill while the rest of the useless travellers looked on.

Figuring the top was a good a place as any to take in the journey, the four of us stayed up there and managed to survive the twists and turns of the driver trying to make up lost time. On more than a few occaisons I feared for my life, but I´m getting used to that.

The pools were gorgeous and the caves where spooky when we weren´t being held up by 13 girls in bikinis worrying about cracking their nails. At least Nikki, Bernhard and I were able to crack a few laughs looking at a newly married couple navigating the caves. The girl, who´s frown didn´t turn upside down the whole time, required her hand to be held, literally, every step of the way.

And if you ever seen a Israeli princess try and go down a wet ladder in a cave, in the near dark whilst holding onto her husbands hand while he himself was in water precariously balanced on rocks, holding their two lit candles, you´d understand why.

A day of relaxing later and we suddenly found ourselves riding on the back of a ute, surrounded by Brits and an abundance of inner tubes, finding ourselves on our way to a bat cave to do some inner tubing down the river.

And what an experience!

We started when dusk fell and the bats started to come out of their cave. On leaving the cave, they all screamed down either bank of the river. And when we got underway, the bats screamed around our heads, missing us by millimeters in their pursuit of whatever the pursuit of these bald flying mice is.

And once we escaped the laughs and good times of company, we each drifted down the river alone, watching the rotaing view of the black trees siloutted against the grey sky in moments of pure serenity whilst nature screamed by, unhurried, unknowing and unworried by our presence.

So here I sit in the city of Coban with Bernhard (The crazy German guy with crazy parasites in his belly), revelling in the fact that, after a call from here to a toll free number for telstra so that I could make a reverse charge call to my bank in Sydney, I can now use ATMs again!

The plan from here? Tomorrow I head to the ruins of Tikal for a few days. And from there, who knows? I´ll see which way the wind is blowing.

Finally, a note of thanks for those people who sent me a word or two. After a few days of being a bit shaken up, it was good to get them.

And those who didn´t say anything. Well, you just suck. Don´t be suprised to find yourself off my christmas card list when I actually make one.

The story continues

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0700

After having some translation done over the phone for me, it seemed that there was one more thing that I had to do in this continuing saga of guns and machetes. I had to get a picture of my camera and ipod so that in the off chance that they catch the guy who robbed me, they can identify my things.

Finally getting a print out, I boarded a boat and sped off for Santiago. I caught a taxi to the police station in the middle of the shanty town and waited while Diego was at home enjoying lunch and a siesta. (Mental note: when travelling in Central America, don't expect to get anything done in between 12 and 3)

When he saw me, he was obviously excited about something. He ushered me into his room and started telling me the latest developments. He told me that earlier on that day a guy had been going around the same path as me when he was assaulted by a man with a gun. This time the story was a bit different, the intended victim didn't like the gun in his face and in turn, pulled his own gun and shot the robber dead.

Wow.

Diego then left the room and soon returned with a big grin on his face carrying a camera. Not my camera unfortunately, but his. Turning it on, turning it around, he began to show me some pictures. The pictures where of the dead robber. With gleaming pride, he zoomed in on the photos to show me the robber's lungs hanging out of his chest. He showed me where the guy's intestines where hanging out. He gleefully rubbed his hands pressing next to show me where the robber's hand had almot been shot off. I don't know what kind of gun the intended victim was carrying, it was either a massive one, or he unloaded a whole clip into the guy. It was brutal.

They were the kind of pictures that you're satanic friend shows you in high school. The kind that make you a bit sick in the stomach.

And then Diego asks me if that was the man that attacked me. And it was hard to say. Firstly, the guy who robbed me was wearing a balaclava and different clothes. Secondly, the guy who robbed me was alive and wasn't lying on the ground, full of holes.

I then got sent to someone else I couldn't really understand to tell them what I had already told 5 people, saying goodbye to Diego and his friends as they were high fiving each other, looking at the same pictures on the computer screen.

Hopefully life will quieten down when I head for the lakes and rivers of Coban tomorrow morning.

Machetes and Life

Thu, 18 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0700

It's been a few days since I crossed the lake to go and get assaulted by a masked man with a gun and a machete.

The whole thing was a bit of a learning experience for me. Like I mentioned in the last post, I´ve always thought in the heat of the moment that I would prefer to roll with the punches than to stand still and challenge. In fact, hearing stories of people getting assaulted here in Central America, (including that of a Canadian who was fatally shot not so long ago), I always told myself that in the same position I would unquestionally hand over whatever I had.

So it is a bit of a shock to learn that when it came to the crunch, when I had a gun pointed at my face, I went on the offensive to work myself out of the situation. Even after having a machete swinging at my hands, I tried to cheat the robber out of my prized possesions.

I'm really only starting to realise now how incredibly stupid I was. I wrote the last entry with the same comic approach that I take to most of my life, and that may have undermined the seriousness of the situation. I learnt yesterday when I had someone acting as a translator for me, there had been numerous attacks around the lake in the not too distant past. Of the 20 people the police had suspected, most of them were in jail and at least a couple of them were dead. Shot dead by the police. I'm a little unsure of whether they were shot in prison, in gunfights when the police raided their homes, or both.

So it turns out that the gun that I said was plastic, probably was real.

So I might be without a camera and without music, but I have some important lessons under my belt, along with a pretty good story to tell. And as it turns out, there seems to be a decent chance of getting the camera back, I'll find out when I visit my friends at the police station in a few hours.

I must also give mention to the american guy, NPR reporter, travel photographer, Seatlle'ite Jake Warga. Who, when seeing me at the ferry dock trying to explain that the 10 queztals that the police chief had given me was all I had to buy the ticket home and the owner of the boat steadfastly refusing, gave me the rest of the money to get out of there.

So, at a time when I was determined to get out of this town of Panajachel, I have found myself even more entrenched. Awaiting the arrival of an ATM card I arranged 3 weeks ago, awaiting the restoration of internet services so I can visit the police again I have been spending my time here unwillingly working my way into Pana life.

Meeting a few of the local hippies, doing secret handshakes. Drinking with a heart broken egyptian-guatemalan ex wife who works for the united nations translating fishery documents, who seemed intent on showing me her wedding pictures on the eve of her birthday. Commiserating his aunt's death with an alcoholic, gerrman-guatemalan, world reknown horse trainer. Spending time with Patti, an ex sociology professor from chigaco who along with managing a new school and 10,000 other projects, is putting Nikki up. Meeting an unashamed Nazi who, when greeting you in his art gallery, greets you with a reich-style salute of a click of the heels while at the same time paradoxically revelling in the history of his famous guatemalan-german artist mother, Nan Cuz.

It seems that fate is, along with the masked robbers, the useless courier services, the fallen holiday plans, the new volunteer opportunities and old friends, conspiring to keep me in this town.

But I am determined to leave. Determined if only to avoid being one of those white people who sit in the cafes and lament that "I came here for a 3 week holiday and never left". Determined to leave so I don´t become one of the same people who lament that after living like kings here, they can't go back to the lives they left behind.

-------

If you're reading this, drop me a line, afer facing the machete, it would be nice to hear from you.

What a difference a day makes

Mon, 15 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0700

(apologies, again this passage contains profanity. I am sure you will understand the context when reading the story)

¨What a difference a day makes"

That's what I was thinking to myself when I was in the police station in Santiago, Attilan having a conversation with the bullet proof vested policeman who were wearing my sunglasses about the Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe and his monumental foot size. Despite my current predicament, I was in suprisingly good spirits. If I'd known the spanish word for the male apendage, I probably would have been joking about the size of Ian, his feet and his... well, I digress. Why was in the police station in the first place?

The short story is that I'd been robbed at gunpoint.

The long story is as follows.

Looking back at the previous entry I wrote on my journeys through Guatemala, it is pretty obvious that I was in a state of tension. I'm really not a guy who likes to sit still for too long, especially after spending the better part of the last few months on the saddle of the bike, pounding out the k´s moving from place to place.

After finishing Spanish school, I was still hanging around awaiting the arrival of an ATM card. Just doing nothing apart from hanging out with my Belgian friend Amaury and the erstwhile Nikki. I was really starting to go a bit crazy. Starting to spend too much time thinking about things that make me crazy.

So, today I decided that I'd do something a little different, get out on the road and get some exercise on the bike. Awesome plan. So after a breaky of pancakes I was on my way, catching the ferry across the lake to Santiago, Attilan where I was going to take on a 30km ride around a volcano to a town filled with pot smoking, bread eating, jewelrey making hippies.

As soon as I was out of the town I felt normal again. Back in the saddle, the wind in my hair, the sights of new destinations flashing before my eyes. The riding was pretty difficult. It was a dirt road and I was there on my road focussed touring bike, further entrenching in my mind the idea that Guatemala was not the place to be doing any serious touring. The kms were passing by nicely, I´d left all other people behind. Occaisonally saying good morning to the local men carrying firewood down the mountain, I was making some nice progress up the tricky hills.

Then my progress was interupted somewhat.

A man, jumped out of the bushes and scared the living crap out of me.

FUCK!!!

I fell off my bike. Looking up, I saw it was a man, wearing a balaclava, pointing a gun at me, yelling gibberish. And for some god-unknown reason, I was a little relieved to see that it was a man, wearing a balaclava, pointing a gun at me, yelling gibberish.

Then the thought crossed my mind, why the hell am I relieved to see a man wearing a balaclava, pointing a gun at me, yelling gibberish.

Then I stopped having a conversation in my head and started dealing with the situation at hand... the man wearing a balaclava, pointing a gun at me, yelling gibberish.

Now, I´ve never been a big one for fights. I've had a few in my time and have been pretty fortunate to either make the person look stupid enough that they stop, run away, or look at them with such disbelief that things work out. And for as long as I can remember, I have had the occaisonal dream where there is a robber in the house, but for some reason, I can´t speak.

For this, and the fact that I seem to be able get by without arguing with anybody but my mother and ex-housemate Colleen, I consider myself a very non-confrontational person.

So it kind of suprised me when, suddenly, with a gun pointed at my face, I started to get angry and argue.

I looked at his gun and maybe because it had some string on it, I looked at his gun and told him it was plastic. Walking towards him, yelling ¨Plastica... plastica¨ (I knew the word plastic from going to the markets, unfortunately, the spanish school didn't cover the word ¨gun¨ in class)

He was suddenly on the back foot, so I started saying ¨No tengo dinero, no tengo dinero¨ (I have no money, I have no money... which was pretty true, I was down to the last 50 quetzals that the Banco Nikko had given me).

Putting the gun behind his back, he now used his machete and started swinging at my hands, saying something I couldn't understand. So I walked to my bike, got my wallet and thrust it towards him, showing him that I had none.

He took what little I had and then moved his machete to the pannier bag that was attached to my bike. I told him there was nothing in there, and got the books out of there to prove it. ¨Libres, todos libres¨. Being a crafty man, who as wearing a balaclava, pointing a gun at me, yelling gibberish, he didn't believe me and soon found the uber expensive digital camera I was carrying, along with my ipod.

Damn.

I tried explaining that it was an old camera, but he had wisely stopped listening to me.

So he had all my stuff. And I don´t know how I did it, but I managed to convince him to let me take my digital memory card out of the camera. Sneakily at the same time trying to keep my ipod, failing at that task.

Then it was all over and he started yelling at me to go up the hill quickly and get out of there. I politely told him to fuck off and that I was going down the hill to the police station. ¨Rapido rapido¨ he screamed. In some moments of ultimately foolish stubborness, I took my time in clipping into my pedals, watching him as I started to roll down the hill.

Then, there was the one moment I was scared. I heard a clicking sound behind me and I suddenly had the realisation that this man had a gun and could be starting to fire a few rounds into my back. That clicking sound could be the beginning of the end of my short (if foolishly random) life.

fuck..fuck....fuck....

I turned around to confirm my fate, but only saw him scurrying into the bushes.

So, it was with a relief that I rolled the rest of the way into town, eventually found the police station and started a 3 hour ordeal of broken spanish trying to explain my situation. Watching the policemen don bullet proof vests, grab their machine guns and hop in the back of the truck, trying to find a guy.

The next few hours I spent waiting for ¨the man upstairs to come downstairs¨. Diego, who turned out to be a detective of sorts took me into his office and showed me some photos. An exact copy of the balaclava I had just seen. He explained that there was one man who was responsible for these types of attacks, one man and his five friends.

He then gave me his phone number, which I will call with the help of a translator and try and sort some more things out.

And here I sit, with Nikki next to me, about to go and eat a massive meal and drink another beer or two. Still thinking that this whole episode happened to someone else, thinking that it was some other psycho who started to pick a fight with a man who had a gun pointed at his head. Some other stupid idiot.

Tomorrow... well.... tomorrow I´ll write tomorrow´s perspective of me and the man, who was wearing a balaclava, pointing a gun at me, yelling gibberish.

Who´s putting out the garbage?

Sat, 13 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0700

So, someone the other day left a comment in regards to my last tale of leisurely life here in Guatemala. The message was "Who's putting out the garbage".

I'm not really sure what it was meant to mean... Was it a dig at me, for me kicking my heals up, for my consumption in a horrendously poor country, for my irrerevant comments in a place of such seriousness or was it a light hearted comment about something else. Regardless, it got me thinking about Guatemala, tourism, tourists and all of the details that make up those subjects.

Firstly, the question of who is putting out the trash. Cycling through North America I became acutely aware of how much rubbish one person produces when they live in a western nation. When I would pull into camp, I would have a bag of food to make dinner and breakfast with. Being environmentally sensitive, I tried as hard as I could to minimise waste. Regardless, when I packed my rubbish out in the morning, after two meals I was always a little angered as to how much waste one person makes, even when they are trying to tread lightly.

For the week here I have been at school, the difference is huge. All of my meals have been home cooked affairs. The vegetables, the meat, the tortillas have been fresh from the market up the street and the clapping hands of the ladies who stand in our hallway. No packaging, all grown locally in the fertile soils, mostly vegetarian. At school I have one book and a pen. I've recieved 3 sheets of paper from my teacher. As far as I can ascertain, in terms of rubbish, the only waste I can see is in toilet paper, bags of purified water and bottles of beer that we've drunk at night. And even the bottles are recycled.

It's a far cry from the mountains of waste that I was producing in North America and Australia.

So in answering the question literally, the mother of the house is putting out what little waste we produce.

But answering the question in a more metaphorical sense requires a look at tourism in Guatemala, the people touring and their motivations.

Guatemala is an interesting place, on the back of every woman the rich Mayan culture shines through in the forms of traditional dress. Guatemala is also dirt poor. Following 30 years of civil unrest and centuries of colonial rule, things are settling down enough that the people can focus on getting their country on track.

It's a hard task. 75% of people live below the povery line, with a wealthy minority controlling much of the natural resourse and much of the government.

Guatemala is a cheap place to travel, a really really cheap place to travel. And whatever motivation people have for coming here, it is undeniable that the pricetag is an attractive part of the package.

Here you´ll find communist warriors trying to set about revolution. You can´t help but wonder if they´re efforts would be better spent lobbying the powers that live in far more expensive cities.

You´ll find hippies dropping out of mainstream soctiety, dropping acid in the streets of San Pedro. Why here? Is there something special about this place, or is it the fact that they can get by quite comfortably without working, occaisonally getting some money wired from dad´s law office.

You'll find people working in the orphanages around here whilst they politely ignore the homelessness plague that exists on their own doorstep.

You'll find kids on spring break who find that they can drink cheap beer even though they are under 21.

You'll find rich tourists who balk at the idea of paying 50 cents to a local kid for a doll but then are offended when the locals ask for money when the same rich tourists in the same breath grab their camera from their bag.

And of course you'll find seemingly cynical Australian cyclists who came here because it was close enough to, yet far away enough from an ex-girlfriend that I could pretend that if she didn't want to see me, I was going there anyway for other reasons. And in terms of cynical rants from cynical australian cylists, this is a pretty good one. Maybe I´ve been pissed off one too many times by some do gooder who looks down on me because I'm being myself and not pretending that I'm some kind of freedom fighter.

Irrespective of my cynicsm there are a few important things to note.

1. Love it or hate it, tourism is vitally important to Guatemala at the moment. It brings money into a poor country that otherwise wouldn't have been there. Sure, they might be incredibly annoying and at times culturally insensitive, but the money they bring and the infrastructure that they expect benefit the local community in ways a new radical left wing faction of the socialist party can´t. It might be a side effect, but it's real.

2. The hatred of poverty is relative. In relative terms, Guatemalan´s are poor. Nobody has a street address to which they can post a letter. Nobody has a telephone. The toilet next to my bedroom will only flush in the morning because of the lack of water pressure in the afternoon. Their houses are slapped together affairs in which people live stacked upon one another. From a white picket fence, middle class, western viewpoint, these people's lives are terrible.

At the same time, I have never seen a group of people who are so loving towards one another. There´s the way that brothers and sisters hang off eachother with giggling smiles, there´s the way that parents smile when they give their kids hugs and kisses in the middle of the street. There´s the way random people will come up to me with my bike, wanting to me help out with the full knowledge that I am in a far greater position to help them.

With busses lovingly adorned in the brightest colours, weddings and funerals regularly taking up the whole street, festivals taking up every other weekend, school music blaring through the streets at every hour of the day, Guatemala is a vibrant place.

While they are monetarily poor, the Guatemalan's are rich in ways that many people I know can't imagine. Of course that sounds incredibly corny after such a acidic rant, but it's true.

Whoa, I'm glad that serious rant is off my chest and I can start speaking irreverently about the gay Zimbabwean I met who used to be a mormon missionary, taught in south central la, who converted to catholicsm only to be denied the preisthood, who also has an ex wife of 10 years who is now trying to get his el salvadorian boyfriend into the states., all the while loving living in Idiana.

Thu, 11 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0700

I thought I might give a bit of an update on how things are going here in Panajachel, Guatemala. Things are tough, really tough. To get an impression on how hard life is here for me, I thought I might walk you through my daily routine.

In the morning I regrettably get woken up by the masses of noise that exist here in Central America. Looking at the alarm clock, I go back to sleep for an hour. Then I get up and maybe read my spanish books for a little while, remembering a bit from the previous day's lessons.

Then at around 7.30 my belgian friend, Amaury, and I trundle off downstairs to eat the breakfast that has been prepared for us. We sit, chat and enjoy ourselves for about half an hour until we realise we are late for spanish school.

We walk out of the house (which doubles as a place where two ladies spend the entire day making tortillas) and down the road to the spanish school.

Now, I guess "school" is a word that conjures up bad images from our childhoods in Australia. What we are doing here could hardly be described as school. With one teacher to one student, we sit in a quiet garden and speak spanish for four hours. It's a mixture of me making jokes about myself and my countrymen and Gladys, my teacher, laughingly correcting them. We break for coffee a couple of times and before you can say tengo hambre, it's all over.

Then, as I am doing now, I write a few emails then Amaury' and I head off home for a spot of delicous lunch. And of course, when in rome, we nap for half an hour and it's ready to start the afternoon.

Amore' goes off to punish himself at school for another two hours whilst I idly do my homework before leaving the house to meet up with Nikki (who is working much harder at an artist's workshop). Then we go down to the spectacular lake Attilan, a lake formed in the crater of a number of volcanos, go for a swim in the special swimming spot, drinking a few beers, watching the sun go down.

Figure 1. Lake Attilan

By which time, it's time to head home for dinner with the family (which turns out to be just Amaury and I) where we sit and chat some more before going out to a local bar, having a few more drinks and chatting some more.

Yep... Life's tough.

Ami Tobin, who are you?

Sat, 06 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0700

Who are you exactly?

Sadly, it seems our time here in Antigua is wrapping up to a close. It's been a week filled with the hugs, smiles and laughs of old friends in new places.

On our last day as a group together, Mike, Fee, Tania, Nikki and I along with our new friends Jason and Paul employed the help of some local guides Juan and Erik and moutain biked down the side of Vulcan de Agua, one of the Volcanos that shadows Antigua.

Figure 1. Antigua with Vulcan de Agua in background

What a ride! Some challenging techincal sections that saw most of us ending up in the grassy banks of the single track. There were more than a few thrilling descents, flying through cornfields zooming past the grinny smiles of the farmers, avoiding the attacks of a rabid dog.

Tania and Nikki, are as close in injury as they are in travelling, with Tania lucky enough to take a large gash out of her leg and Nikki following up with a fairly massive brush with a forest of stinging nettle.

Then it was off to the rooftop of our hotel where we enjoyed an impromptu lunch of nachos, chips, chocolate and beer with our guides. Which we later followed up in the evening with the same crew in a different location doing the same thing.

As for now.... Tania is sadly back off to Australia, Mike and Fee are jetsetting back to Dallas, Nikki and I will be in Panachajel where I will stay with a local family and pretend to learn spanish and Nikki will stay with an Artist and do a lot more than pretend to learn some art.

It´s been a magical week.

Suprise

Thu, 04 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0700

So the suprise worked.

Tania was walking Nikki back from the bus stop to the hotel when they bumped into me eating a delicous cheesecake on the side of the road. (I´m not sure how I managed to squeeze the scenario of me eating a slice of cheesecake into the suprise - but I did it). She was more than a little suprised to see me, especially since she was dreading having to tell Tania the news that I was a spineless bastard who didn't want to see her and was avoiding Central America for that reason.

So instead of hanging out with one awesome girl, I now strut the streets flanked by two beautiful women. The local drunk men telling me how lucky I am.

Right now, the chicas are hanging out in a town a few hours from here whilst I occupy my time with a few things. In the last journal I mentioned that the roads around here weren't designed for a wallet loosing Australian. Well, I was thinking about that comment and I got to thinking "How foolish is it to take the journey a liittle safer and avoid the pitfalls of cycling around the mountainous reigon of Guatemala?¨

The answer, of course, is "Not very foolish at all".

As a consequence on my list of things to do today is

1) Organise a mountain bike tour of one of the local volcanos here

2) Enrol in a Spanish school so I can understand crazy salesmen

3) Plan my tour of the Sierra Madre, Gutaemala. A nice little 800km tour around the mountains of this region. Some topping over 4,000 metres. Not bad for a sea level dwelling asthmatic.

4) Buy a birthday cake for Nikki's suprise early birthday party tonight.

Those who know me know that I´m a little prone to exagerration. So, when I mentioned that I was touching down in third world Guatemala I didn´t mention that I was heading to the town of Antigua. Without knowing a thing about Central America, it seems pretty obvious that Antigua is a tourist hot spot, with all of the western luxuries that such a place provides. So, the travel experience so far, while fantastic in every respect, have come hand in hand with girls who match their eye shadow to the colour of the expensive shawl they just bought from the markets at the end of the street.

As such, while it is a good transition from North America to Central America, it´s definitely not what I'm expecting of my time here. A walk through dirtier working suburbs of this wealthy city yesterday told a truer story of life in Guatemala, the gritty reality of American foreign policy and the divide between rich and poor.

Run Lachie run

Mon, 01 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0700

What do you do when you get an email from a pretty girl asking you to come to Guatemala to celebrate your old housemate's birthday?

That was the question I had to ask myself when the email came in from Tania.. Of course, I quickly changed my tickets, told Nikki that I wasn't coming anywhere near guatemala and shortened my stay on the east coast of Canada to make my way down.

And now that Nikki is en route to Antigua, Guatemala, I can write about the crazy times that Guatemala provides without spoiling tonight's suprise.

Tania asked me the other day what the most exciting part of the trip had been so far. Apart from a few obvious memories, touching down in Guatemala city the other day was one of the most exciting. There I was, sitting next to a guy from Dallas who was coming to the city to adopt a child, we were pissing ourselves laughing at the stupid movie 'Hitch'. (It was particularly amusing since he and I were the only people with headphones watching the movie. The rest of the cabin must have heard silence punctuated with our girlish screams of laughter). Then the movie finished and we were suddenly touching down in Guatemala.

And I was touching down in a third world country, in the dark, not knowing a lick of the language, with a bike, a stack of luggage and the mission of finding my ex girlfriend in a town which was 50kms away.

Fast forward some cross-language laughs with the baggage people, a lot of waiting around, a shuttle, a norweigan couple and there I was enjoying a hug from a good friend in a very strange place. And soon enough, a beer made the strange place fade away.

Since then we've spent the days hanging out, shopping, relaxing and eating. Which is a bit of an experience in itself... It's the first place in the world that I've been that I can comfortably eat more than I can comfortably spend.

I'm not quite sure why they are called 'chicken busses', could be the fact that everything including chickens can be found on them, or it could be the dance they place with the other chicken busses when going around blind corners on the wrong side of the road at breakneck speeds that the driver can only estimate since the speedodometer has been broken for 30 years.

Regardless, we spent 3 hours on the busses to the mountainous town of Chici-something or other-alago. There we wandered the markets, wandered a cemetry, waded through a couple of bowls of chicken carcass soup and then watched me start bargaining with the shop owners in (until an hour ago) non-existant spanish.

There was a particularly funny moment when I got a bit cocky with my new found language skills and enquired as to the price of an ornately decorated pillow case. Upon further inspection, I though it looked pretty disgusting and there was no price that would make me want it. Taking my facial expression of disgust as a bargaining tactic, the store owner started bringing out his rock bottom prices. Realising I couldn't say "I don't like it", I quickly walked away from the store looking for safety in spanish speaking Tania. Then the store owner started chasing after me with even lower prices. Run from the store owner, run like the tourist wind, run lachie run.

I can say without a doubt it's the first time I've run away from a bargain.

Anyways. We're hanging out now in Antigua until NIkki gets here and I guess I'll think about making my next move. The ride in the chicken busses yesterday convinced me early on that the roads here, whilst nice and smooth in places, are not the place for a wallet losing Australian on a bike.

ps. Congratulations to the Australian team on their silver medal at worlds. I'm sorry I didn't have all your email addresses to wish you good luck.

pps. Lance, congratulations on the victory. You might be a bit of a dick, but you sure can ride a bike.

Photos and other stuff

Tue, 26 Jul 2005 12:00:00 -0700

I'm back in cloudy toronto after an accidental extra 30kms of cycling back from the airport in the rain. I'm definitely bringing the weather with me, wherever I go.

The good news is that after leaving Leo and Shirley I managed to get a fantastic (if way too short) visit to Gros Morne National Park in the west of Newfoundland.

It really was a flying visit, I arrived Friday night and started the 60km ride out from Deer Lake before I got lucky and a biker named Peege helped me out by giving me a lift half the way. The next morning I awoke to a moose stamping outside my tent at 5.30am. Remembering stories of people being trampled to death in their tents, I got out of there quick smart and made my way to the mountain.

And then I started to hike. Suprising myself at the briskness of my pace and my relative comfort, I picked up the pace even further and started to run up the debris fall, passing everyone on the way up with my super technical hawaiian boardshorts and old skate shoes.

Doing the walk in 4 hours, I still felt as though I had plenty of energy and rode the 60kms back to Deer Lake before camping in an ampitheatre.

Then it was coffee with Peege and a 9 hour bus ride back to St John's.

Whoa...

Anyways - the photos

http://kransky.com/lachlan/pictures/20050726_Shots_From_The_Rock/

(and yes, I still have my wallet)

Name this street

Tue, 26 Jul 2005 12:00:00 -0700

What street do you think this is? It was taken around 1942 in Sydney and is Leo's dad on leave during the war, we're trying to track down exactly which one it is.

I reckon it's George St, around where the smaller Gowings store is.

Home

Mon, 25 Jul 2005 12:00:00 -0700

A few years ago, when I decided to move to Vancouver, people warned me of the seemingly intolerable rain that it recieves.

When I arrived in town I made a few friends and asked them how they dealt with the weather. One guy said, "Sure, it rains a lot, but when the sun comes out, it's as if it never rained at all".

So I took in his words of advice, quietly snickering to myself "nice try, hippy.. You probably just smoke the days away when it rains". But sure enough, there was a period in the winter where it rained for 3 weeks straight. Clouds so thick that you only knew it was day outside because things were a little less grey. It started getting a bit depressing. Too warm for snow, to wet to do anything else. And then one day, bam, the sun came out. I walked down the street, chatted to everyone along the way, even had a wrestle with my favourite dog Shadow. The warmth of the sun drained away any memory I had of the 3 previous, depresesing weeks.

And so it was here.

I had a week of riding here and it was pretty miserable, lots of fog, lots of rain, lots of time alone in a tent. I was starting to go a bit mental, questioning why exactly I had taken the advice of a girl I met a few years ago to come here.

And then the some came out...

I was in Gander and the weather warmed up to the princely state of 33 degrees. I spent the night camped out on a small island, listening to the splashes of migrating salmon, watching one of the most beautiful sunsets ever, drinking a nice cold beer. It was as if it never rained at all.

The next day saw me pounding the road through searing 33 degree weather again. Finally I was back on home turf, rather than worrying about getting wet, all I was doing now was spending my time avoiding sunstroke. Sunstroke, which for the last few years as been the bane of my existance, was now a welcomed friend!

Before too long I was enjoying a nice iced cappucino at Tim Hortons, wondering how I was going to find Tonja's parents. The girls behind the counter told me I should probably ask the police officer. No problems, despite some inciting a brawl with police officers in Sydney before I left, I generally get on with them.

me: "Do you know where Range road is?"

police guy: "No, can't say that I do."

me: "that sucks"

police guy: "Who are you after"

me: "The Dwyers. Leo and Shirley"

police guy: "Shirl... no problem.. (gets out pen.. draws map)... there you go".

me: <amazed silence>... "thanks."

So, before too long I was knocking at the wrong door. Then knocking at the correct door, then introducing myself as the Australian, arriving a few days early. Then I was suddenly out on the porch, drinking a beer before getting in the car and driving to the local swimming hole to cool off. Sensational. The late night bbq in the dying sunset being the cherry on top of a glorious day.

But that was really only the beginning of good times in Lewisporte. The next day, with a small bit of organising, we were out on Ralph's (Tonja's grandfather) boat, taking in an afternoon on the bay. With weather that was ordered direclty from heaven, we zoomed out across the bay for Camel island. (Named for the local population of camels, or named because of the two humps on the island.) Leo and I hit the water, ripping mussels from the rocky sea bed to eat up at lunch. Within twenty minutes of wading aroundm, we soon had a full pot ready to go.

Then it was off to Rudder island,where, in the journey we saw a Minki whale breaching then finally swimming under the boat and a massive bald headed eagle, perched way atop some trees, swooping away from us when we got close. We arrived at some guy's cabin on Rudder Island. where we swam, cooked the mussles, had a campfire, made hotdogs, drank beer in the afternoon sunshine and I even managed to find a small cliff to climb and then jump off. With water so clear you'd think you were swimming in the sky, so warm that I felt I was back home in mid summer. I must have spent 3 hours in the water. It felt good to be home.

And like home, when you get gloriously hot, humid days, you also get a manic thunderstorm chasing you home. So, running away from the storm, Ralph engaging in a crazy race with a fisherman (who almost toppled into water crossing behind us) and we were back in the harbour, having the coast guard compliment us on our timing.

Some home made deep fried cod for dinner (or supper, or lunch, or tea, or whatever they call their meals over here) and it was the end of an amazing day.

Just quickly, the next was just as good, taking in the dizzying cliffs of Twillinggate - but I'm running out of cash here.

Falling

Mon, 18 Jul 2005 12:00:00 -0700

In the last entry I mentioned that I was pretty good at a few things. Things like riding a bike, talking to random people, pretending I'm a nerd, bodysurfing, ruining relationships - I'm all pretty good at. But I'm particularly good at loosing stuff. World class, in fact.

And now that a few days have passed, I've realised one other thing that I'm pretty freaking good at....

Falling on my feet.

So, there I was, on the other side of the world, without any money, no friends and suddenly in a whole bunch of trouble.

And then, thanks to the Taylor family, I was spending a few days in the back of a restaurant, drinking coffee with half of Green's harbour whilst I went about my business. Stopping occaisonally to have Cavell, Candian Darts Federation Hallf of Fame member, World Darts Championship competitor, force food down my throat. Making friends with the whole family; her daughter Verna, grand-daughter Tracy, son Dean, grand-son Noah, husband Graham, dog Mandy and cat called something I quickly forgot.

There was a major stuff up with my bank and Visa not communicating properly, but that was largely sorted out with some middle of the night phone calls with my friend Aniko at Visa. (In an amusing side-note, all of the emergency people at Visa and St George ended up knowing me by name.... "Oh, you're the Lachlan file are you?")

And before I knew it, I had a new Visa card headed to FedEx in St John's and I also, thanks to the brilliance of wire transfers, had $400 in my hot little hand.

Then as I was finally readying myself to leave and get on my way, I made a call to Tonja's parents, just to say that I might see them in a few days. It was then, that I got a message that the gas station which I had called twice already, had found my wallet where I told them it would be.

And after a quick 60kms on the bike, I was again whole. Admittedly not having a Visa card, but having everything else - including a full stomach of food that Cavell wouldn't let me pay for and some friends that I hope that I can repay somehow, someday.

And by some chance of fate you are in Newfoundland, make sure you go to Green's Harbour, find Taylor's Esso and Restaurant and say hi for me. (I don't think they're going anywhere, the gas station has been there 51 years and the restaurant 34).

You live, you learn and you learn that you shouldn't really worry about anything. It'll sort itself out and before long, you'll stop falling and end up on your feet.

Never a dull moment

Sat, 16 Jul 2005 12:00:00 -0700

When confronted with the 26 past years of idocy, foolishness and mayhem, my mother has generally responded with the same sighing words "Well, there's never a dull moment with Lachlan around is there?"

I thought of those words as I was eating some local fish and chips in the back of the small restaurant here in Green's harbour. I was there in the hot, humid kitchen, enjoying chatting with Cavell, her daughter Vera and her grand-daughter, Sophie. It seemed as though I had been there all day.

Well, that's kind of true. In fact, it was totally true. I had been there all day.

Now, I don't want to sound as though I'm a guy who is full of himself, but I reckon I'm pretty good at a lot of things. Most things I do, I end up being pretty good... Not the best, but pretty good. It really only occurred to me today that I am probably world class in a few things. It's not something I've thought too much before about, but you've got to admit - I am a man at the top of his game. What game, I hear you ask?

Losing stuff.

I am without a doubt, possibly the finest loser of things that you've ever met (or haven't met, if I don't know you).

But back to the restaurant for the moment. So there I was, enjoying a well deserved breakfast. It had been a hard morning, waking up to torrential rain slamming against my tent. I knew from the get-go that there was going to be a little pain in the day. Some chocolate earlier in the day had perked me up, but it was really the coffee and eggs that were putting smile on my face. It was needed, since I was wet, I'd just broken a spoke on my back wheel that I couldn't replace and it sounded as though the hub of my front wheel was starting to cark it.

So there, I was - smiling. The apparent loss of a wallet, which turned out to be far less apparent, and a far more like a real loss of the wallet wiped that smile off pretty quickly.

Not again. I haven't lost it again have I? Surely not...

Yep. No wallet. No cash. No cards. And I'm pretty much on the opposite side of the world. In a small town. No friends. The closest connection I have, is with a friend's parents who live 500kms away.

You can imagine how I felt when I went up and told the lady who served me that I had no way of paying and that I was in a serious amount of trouble. But, such is the kindness of the Newfoundland people, i was soon on their phone, calling the places I had last been. Calling all of the phone numbers that were in my wallet and before too long, riding in Cavell's car, looking for my wallet on the side of the road.

No luck.

I had to cancel my Visa card. Again. Great - at least another 2 days before I have a chance of seeing money. I can do that, I just won't eat.

Now, I just have to organise where I can get my card sent.

"What do you mean, my application was denied?" I asked desperately of the official on the other line of the replacement service.

"It turns out that you don't have $US1000 left on your card, and as such, Visa will not replace it."

And because I worked out an interesting pay deal with work, I don't really have any money left in any of my accounts to pay it off. All that money is coming through in a few days time. So I'm not really sure what I'm going to do. I can't even get Internet banking to work here.

"Never a dull moment with Lachlan around" - that's for sure.

More positive this time

Thu, 14 Jul 2005 12:00:00 -0700

Ok, that last entry (a few minutes ago) was overly negative.

So, rather than whinge, I'd like to send out some good wishes to some other Australians overseas. Robbie, Stewart, Cookie, Cadel, Brad, Michael and the rest of you crazy guys - if you're reading this (and I'm sure you are) - good luck with your travels in le Tour de France... you guys rock.

I'm getting sick of this

Thu, 14 Jul 2005 12:00:00 -0700

Everywhere I go, I talk to the locals. In pretty much every case I get a slightly different version of

"The weather was really nice here a couple of days ago. But it's good we're getting the rain - we need it."

Then sometimes I get a follow up line

"I guess we're making up for that last 3 months of unseasonally good weather we've had".

Let this be notice to the world. As I sit here, drenched to the bone, I am officially sick and tired of hearing these same sentences said over and over again. I'm also getting a bit tired of having everything constantly wet, and not being able to see what is going on around me. And I'm particularly sick of hearing that second sentence: No, I'm not making up for any good weather, I'm just getting wet, like I've done for pretty much every other day on this supposed "holiday".

Ok... Breathe... In.... Out... Think "Inner Peace"... In... Out...

In... Out...

Rocky Returns

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 12:00:00 -0700

Those of you who followed the adventures in Alaska a few years ago may be interested to know that Rocky MacGyver has rejoined the journey.

Rocky, the affable environmental journalist who manages to fix situations when needed, came along for the ride the other day. (For those not in the know, Rocky earlier fashioned a water bottle cap from a condom, cotton wool and strapping tape). In my haste to leave the States I left behind a couple of important things. 1) My Ipod charger and more importantly 2) The adapter for converting Australian plugs to US plugs.

Touching down on the Rock, I suddenly found myself with an empty battery on my camera and no way to charge it. Enter Rocky, armed with a leatherman and the location of a hardware store. After taking a gamble on the brown wire not the blue, we were both suddenly snapping away with a working camera.

But back to the story.

Newfoundland is without a doubt the friendliest place that I have ever been to. People will stop and talk to you at the drop of a hat, and when they find out that you are Australian, well, you get free home cooked meals, afternoon tea, hand made souvineers, invitations to bike races and more advice than you need. And that's all in the course of two days.

The people are so friendly and hospitable that it's actually becoming a bit of a problem. Whenever I stop, I find myself jibber jabbering with some local who wants to know where I'm from and why I'm here. I've told the story so many times now, that I'm having to change portions of it to keep myself interested. Anyways, like I said, it's becoming a problem because I'm spending too much time talking and not enough time riding - barely clocking 100kms a day.

It was one such time, when I was in a Tim Hortons in St John's, minding my own business, having a coffee and looking at my map - that I got informed of a place that was "the most beautiful place in all of the world". The guy who gave me the advice walked up and introduced himself, giving his name and address - neither of which I understood. (People from Newfoundland talk as though they were born in Ireland, live in Scotland and try to speak with American accents). Pointy out with his fat little fingers, the bottom end of the Southern Shore he widly exlaimed a place "The Drook" to be the most beautiful spot in the whole world.

And while I doubt that this guy has strayed too far from the Island here, it was a good a reason as any to go somewhere. So I headed South - going up the shore.

Along the way I stopped in for a coffee and ended up with a 2 hour chat, culminating with an invite to next years "Tour de Irish Loop". (it's a play on words with "Tour de France" - get it?) and the gossip on the whole region. The chat was good because unfortunately, the scenery wasn't really living up to the hype that I'd heard - largely because I was surrounded by a thick fog, through which, I couldn't see. Finding a campsite along the side of the road, I sat down for the night, getting eaten alive by some bugs and wondering exactly how I ended up there.

The next morning I awoke to even heavier fog and some nice, refreshing rain. And bugs, even more bugs. And no coffee, no coffee for 50kms! The chat with the grocery store owner and puffin souvineer made up partly, but it was the talk of sun that really put a smile on my face. And for a few moments when I was cycling through the beautifully barren moonscape around Chance Cove, I even felt some warmth on my back.

Beautiful for it's sparseness (sparcity?), it was like being on a different world. With windswept grasses going all the way to the horizon, it was the occaisonal Caribou crossing the road that reminded me exactly where I was.

And before too long I was at Portugal Cove south, the site of some portugeese settlement back in the day and the turn off to the Drook. With the heavy fog everywhere, I didn't like my chances of seeing the Drook in it's true light, but what the hell, I set off along the dirt road.

With the sounds of crashing waves to my right, invisible through the fog I pushed on. Rounding a few headlands I came to the Drook where, I kid you not, the Fog had formed a channel, leaving the bay of The Drook bathed in pure sunlight whilst the rest of the coast was still hidden. Enhancing the view of the bay were the pods of Humpback whales, just off shore, who were playing around. I made my way down to the rocky beach, eating some food and then lovingly falling asleep on a bed of warm pebbles.

And if this isn't the most beautiful place in the world, it sure is close.

Awaking from my slumber, I found the whole spectacular coastline lit up with sunshine, exposing some of the most breathtaking scenery I've laid my eyes on. With even more whales frolicking off shore, I quickly found the reason why I came here.

Then it was some more cycling through amazing terrain, some avoiding conversation, a hour long coffee with a grocery store owner before I camped down next to a lighthouse. Camped, as it turns out, thanks to my local friend Brian Butler (used to be a St Something or other from st somewhere or other), camped right next to the oldest rocks in North America.

Rocks where I jumped in and went for my first swim in the Atlantic. Rocks where I sat and watched the sun set. Rocks where I drank rye whisky and said a big cheers to Newfoundland.

On the rock

Sun, 10 Jul 2005 12:00:00 -0700

I have this thing that I do sometimes. When I'm in some way-out situation, in some beautiful place or in the midst of some great emotion, I like to take a mental photograph. Take a step back, frame the moment with a glimpse of what normal life usually entails, marvel at the glory of that shot and click - store the image away.

And so it happened last night.

So far, Newfoundland has turned out to be one amazing place to travel. Firstly, for some reason (it could only have been my irrestible boyish charm), I was upgraded to Business class even though, dressed in boardshorts and thongs, I was signifficantly out of place. Either way, the imported beers and scallop quiche went down a treat. A short nap later in my extra wide seat and it was 3.30am and we were touching down in St John's.

It took roughly 30 seconds for some locals to apprehend me, hear my story and start offering travel advice. It took me 30minutes to get myself out and on the road.

Click. There I was, massive grin painted across my face, riding my bike, at 4.00am, through the cool fog, along a highway in Newfoundland, destination unknown.

Destination unknown soon turned into Signal Hill, where, now encased in sleeping bag, I waited and then finally watched the sun to creep over the horizon. Alone, atop a rocky outcrop, on the furthest east bit of the North American continent.

Click.

And then, considering I'd been up since 5.00am the previous day, I crashed and slept for a few hours before the hikers started stomping around me. Some coffee and a few more chats later and suddenly Bill, the grandfather from Nova Scotia was driving me to Cape Spear, the eastern most point on Newfoundland, telling me stories of his daughter who was a nanny for the Prime minister. There, surrounded by white, I heard the call of a tanker's fog horn as I felt the cold ocean wind whip up the impossibly rocky coast.

Click.

And here I am, about to buy some food and fuel, and then head south along the South Coast of the Rock for destinations and adventure unknown.

It starts again

Fri, 08 Jul 2005 12:00:00 -0700

I've been laying low the last little while. Life has been showing me the summer in Toronto - a place which I had previously written off as a fairly boring place to live. In earlier times, I was here in the bitter cold of winter, seeing the life of an indoor nation. In the humid stickiness of summer, the city is alive with all kinds of craziness. From the at-times imposing barber-shop lined Jamacian neighbourhood that Giles and Karen live in, to the bum doing 24 hour Karaoke dowtown, it's definitely a city of contrasts. Back in a familair place and vibe, I've spent quite a few hours wiling the hours away downtown, weaving in and out of the crowded traffic. And now that I have a Visa card back in my posession - I've started spending money again.

Figure 1. Lachlan, armed and dangerous

And when I'm not doing that, I've been enjoying waking up late and watching the full coverage of le Tour de France.

And when I'm not doing that, I've been eating donuts and drinking coffee - successfully destroying any trace of those muscles that were starting to show through.

But, as the title says, it's starting again. The riding, the meeting people crazy people, the stupid situations all start again at 2.38am, when I touch down in Newfoundland. The plan from there is rather more sketchy. I have a map, some information, Tonja's relatives to mooch stuff off. and a vague idea of where I want to go.So, it's off into the unknown, where I'm looking forward to getting lost and seeing where that takes me.

Pictures now up

Tue, 05 Jul 2005 12:00:00 -0700

So I finally got around to it and uploaded a bunch of pictures and added some titles and descriptions to the ones that were already there.

I'm currently enjoying abusing the hospitality of Giles and Karen. Now that they have returned from Montreal, I've moved in from the concrete slab in the back yard to the basement where I'm lucky enough to be able to watch le tour every morning whilst I while away the hours waiting for Mr. Visa to give me a call.

I've already had two meals of dumplings and I'm looking to have a few more before I make the trek out east in a few days time.

The ups and downs of travelling

Sun, 03 Jul 2005 12:00:00 -0700

I got a bit of a suprise the other day when I found out that it was going to cost me $100US to take my bike on board my flight to Toronto. That's quite a bit of money, which, if I'm paying on every flight - was not an expense that I budgeted for. (Ok... I haven't budgeted a thing, I'm just hoping money will appear).

The good thing is that there is a way around paying it. When you rock up to the airport, bike between your legs, you just have to inform them that you've cancelled your ATM and Credit cards and there's absolutely no way you can pay the fee.

The bad news behind this approach is that you have to go through a fair bit of hell to get to this stage.

So there I was.. I had finished my ride and before too long, I was sitting on Tonja's back porch, drinking beer because I couldn't open her door with the key she'd left out for me. Fast forward a few hours (and a few beers) and Tonja and her brother were animatedly telling where I should go when I head out to Newfoundland - finally producing a map that I now have, but have no comprehension of what it all means.

Anyways, that's an aside to this story. The point being, despite hanging around with these awesome people, I was itching to get out of the states as soon as possible. The moons aligned, and there was the opportunity of going to Montreal with Karen and Giles if I could get there in time - All I had to do was change my flight for the following day.

Hight! I said my goodbyes and was off to the airport, dodging the LA traffic as I cycled through some city tunnels.

Low. I got to the check in, and apparently the agent had mistyped the date and I was booked for tomorrow. No Montreal. No amount of arguing with the supervisors was going to change the fact the plane was completely packed.

Low. I left the airport and found myself still in the airport.

Success! The this other cyclist showed me the way out of the airport.

Low ! He took me the completely wrong way and I got lost in some (at times) not so nice neighbourhoods

High! I had some panackes. I felt better about my incredibly frustrating failure.

Low. When taking all of my crap inside I realised that I'd lost my wallet.

Low. No money

Low. No credit cards.

Low. No easy way out of the states.

High. Cancelling my credit cards was reasonably easy

Low. Because of the 4th of July holiday, it was going to take 3 days to get a new card.

Low. I was just feeling down.

Low. Retracing my steps had no luck.

High. I found the number of the pancake place.

High. They had my wallet

High. Tonja whipped me around in a car to get it

High. Celebrated Canada day with a bunch of Canadians, loving the arguments over Raplh Klein and cars that I'd never heard of.

High. Eveything was sorted out. I could get cash with my ATM card since I didn't cancel it!

High. I apologised to the supervisor I had spoken to the day before, perhaps trying to get a bit of travel-karma back.

High. Yeah travel-karma

High. Got the box for my bike and packed it successfully.

Low. Found that the bank had cancelled my ATM card as well.

Low. No way to pay for bike transport.

Low. I almost resorted to (fake) tears to get my bike on board

High. One of the supervisors stepped in and did an override - I was on my way to Toronto.

High. I still had the $100 Canadian that I'd kept in my wallet.

High. The bus driver at the other end broke the rules and let me put my bike on the bus

High. I missed the last subway, but I was riding the city streets of Toronto at 2am, having drunk karaoke guys dedicate songs to me.

High. I got to Giles and Karen's place

Low... but not that low, because I was so high now.. I couldn't find the spare key that he was meant to have hidden in his bike helmet in his back shed.

High. Pitching tent on their driveway at 3am, amusing their chinese neighbours (who were up smoking)

High. Waking up to a blue skied Canadian summer morning.

And another high - going vintage shopping today - I found a pretty sweet new cycling outfit from 1987.

Hell looks a lot like L.A.

Thu, 30 Jun 2005 12:00:00 -0700

Well, it's done.

I've finished the first leg of my tour around the world. I bit the bullet and have finally finished my 3500km sojurn from Canada to Mexico.

I've learnt a bit about myself in the last few years and I guess I have two approaches to life. When something has to be done in life I either
a) Do a completely half-arsed job, hoping that "it'll sort itself out"
or
b) Take an extreme approach, commiting life and limb to the situation.

Generally, life coasts by on option a). And to be honest, it's always worked out pretty well. From the accidental university degree, to the accidental carreer, to having wonderful people turn up in my life. Good stuff seems to happen fairly regularly, without a great deal of effort.

This last few days have definitely been more leaning towards option b) days.

California is a pretty nice place. It's full of interesting people and is jam packed full of amazing scenery. But as nice as it was, I've spent the last little while pulling as many miles as I can, just to get this whole trip over and done with.

Yeah, so California is a great place but you know, once you get south of Santa Barbara, it all starts to turn into a scene from a hazed out movie about the appocalypse. Desert landscapes, millitary installations, constant sirens and unobstructed views of continuous 8 lane free ways.

So I left you, the avid reader, when I north of Santa Barbara, going to church. Where I had learnt a few lessons - specifically about buying food. From there I climbed the last major hill of the route, and then proceeded to enjoy the 11 mile descent into scenic Santa Barbara where I ate up big.

After awkwardly giving money to visit "The Queen of Missions", I ate up big again and decided to push the another 50 miles to a campground just outside of Los Angeles county.

I sort of got involved in a police/millitary car chase whilst looking at de-commisioned fighter aircraft and nuclear missiles. I really needed to go to the toilet as well, but given these guys had guns pointed at people, I decided that pissing on millitary property probably wasn't going to win me any friends and pushed on.

Pushed onto a flat tire. Damn... But no great problem, when it comes to changing tires - I might as well work in a Formula 1 pit stop, I'm so good. What it turns out that I'm not so good is rationing the tire repair patches and fresh tubes. I was looking at repairing the tube with two massive holes with the one small patch. Fortunately I had another tube with a slightly smaller hole, so I was in luck. Good thing, since the next bike store was 50 miles away.

Another thing that it turns out that I'm not so good at is learning from past mistakes. Specifically, the lesson that I supposedly learnt the night before about buying food. So after a few hours of riding on the freeway, waiting half an hour for a shower, I went to bed without dinner.

Needless to say, I was up early - my groaning stomach acting as a pretty good alarm clock. Quickly, I made my way into Malibu to recharge with the best recharging food that a body in need of recharging could use. Donuts.

From there, I navigated the ugly city of LA. And from that, there's not really a great deal to say. Sprawling masses of grey concrete, houses falling into the sea and oceans of exhaust spewing cars.

And before too long, after following the bike path that weaves along, in and out of the sand I found myself in Hermosa Beach, where dispite the US phone service again conspiring against me, I found myself at the amazing Newfoundler Tonja's place.

It was pretty early, and I tried to sit still, but I couldn't... I had to get this damn journey over and done with. Damn option b. So I formulated a plan. I was going to dump all non essential luggage on Tonja's back porch and haul as fast as I could down to the Mexican border lightweight.

Damn option b.

Before too long, I was screaming down the road to Huntington beach, the birthplace of surfing on the mainland of the US where I had booked the last bed in a hostel with a bunch of drunk irish and british packpackers drinking malt liqour. I hate hostels like that.

Anyways, it suited my purposes pretty well. With the drunkards coming in at all of the night, I never really got to sleep, which made it so much easier getting up at 5.30am for my last day of riding.

I was going to cover the last 200kms in one day and then catch the train back to LA.

200kms is a pretty long way.

On a bike, it's even further.

And it's further than I've ever ridden before. But since we're now on the option b road and it's the last day of the trip... It seems only fitting.

So, throught the industrial megoplex I flew. Through chemical factories. Past oil refineries. Along side the beach, picturesquely framed by oil drilling platforms. The country was ugly. The people were also pretty ugly too at times.

I almost got into a fight with a small, blond surfer dude in a rich suburb. Just because I ran into him. What a whinger.

Then it was through miles of low lying scrubland, past Nuclear power plants and through the beautiful, if hot and crowded city of San Diego.

20 miles to go. Empty water bottles. Empty stomach. I could quite easily stop and rectify these problems. But there was a train to catch. There was also this option b thing that I was doing.

The book that I've been using as a guide for this trip lists these last few days of riding as challenging and difficult because of the commuting within cities. But after spending many years mountain biking the hills around Sydney, and spending as many mountain biking the commute to work through the winding Sydney streets - it really wasn't that bad.

Sydney is without a doubt the least bike-friendly city I've ever been to. Riding in Sydney teaches you that stops signs are guidlines and red lights are your ticket to beat the rest of the traffic. The footpath is an oasis of clear grass where pedestrians are no more than trees you have to try and get around without hitting.

And the wrong side of the road? In Sydney, on a bike, there is no such thing - it's all a state of mind.

As such, I found the riding whilst visually draining, dovetailed nicely with the majority of my bike experience. Short sprints, technical turning, addrenaline - that's where I'm really at home.

With empty water bottles, empty stomachs (I'm a cow) and a very de-hyrdated body I raced to the finish line as though I was taking the downhill track at Oxford Falls.

And before too long, after crossing under and over massive freeways I was there.

Done.

You little ripper!

I hooted a big call to the sky, scaring the mexicans around me, who thought I was crazy. And I guess I am a bit. I still can't even remember how I got into this crazy trip.

So I did whatever anyone does when they are de-hyrdated to the max and have finished an athletic endevaour - I used my brake lever to crack my recently purchased longneck of Corona and I drank myself giddy.

Then as a celebration of my tour through America, I nipped over to KFC and ate more than several pieces that sweet stuff they call chicken. What better celebration of American culture, right?

Peace, not Peach

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 12:00:00 -0700

So you probably guess it already.. but that crucial line in the last post was meant to read "Peace be with you" (not "Peach be with you", as it read)

Thanks for pointing that out.

Stupid Lachlan (who is in LA now)

I went to church

Mon, 27 Jun 2005 12:00:00 -0700

So there I was...

I was pretty hot and sweaty after my ride from Pismo (Dismo) beach, inland, around the massive air force base to the town of Solvang - a town nestled up in the hills that has maintained it's rich Danish tradition in the form of numerous touristy shops and even more tacky architecture.

As I was leaving, I past one of the many missions that are dotted up and down the Californian coast. (Missions were the buildings of the Spanish attempt to convert the natives to catholiscm, killing them otherwise). Given that I'd past so many, I thought I might pop in and take a look at this one. I would also get the chance to digest some of the tasty treats I'd just injested.

So I walked up to the church and Sunday mass was due to start in 5 minutes... So, Heathen Lachlan thought "What the Hell?" (or something less sacreligous, given the circumstances) and dove right in, readings and song book in hand. Apart from a brief, private stint with christanity when I was accidentally sent to a church camp when I was 13, I've never spent any time in churches.

It turned out to be a "youth mass", one where they play rock music and sing the gospel along to that. And to be honest, there were quite a few times I found myself tapping along with my feet and fingers. I was really starting to enjoy this whole church thing - Catholics have been given such a bad rap. There were a few readings from the bible, none of which made any massive impression on what they were trying to get at.

Then it came to the end and the Father got up and read his passage. Matthew 10.37-42. And it was basically how the only real love comes from God. Which I guess is fair enough. But then he went on to say that giving up one's family and friends is sometimes a neccesary step to pursuing one's faith. Talk which sounded oddly familair of every cult I've ever heard of. He continued on, leaving no doubt that you should recieve your judgement not from personal or communal judgement, but from god (by way of the church).

And this probably describes how I feel about religion most of the time. I think it's a great thing to have some moral point, but to give up your own personal thought process to the belief that this man in a green robe above you knows better and will tell you so... It's that part I have a hard time swallowing or following.

But then it all came to an end, people drank wine and ate crackers. On a political stance, based on their behaivour in Africa, I didn't donate any money to the collection. And then it happened. The absolute best experiece in a church for me - ever.

Well, maybe this happens all the time... but after some rote repetitiions of what the Father was saying, everyone turned to the people next to them and started wishing them "Peach be with you".

Total strangers searched me out of the crowd and wished me peace. And they meant it. And I said it back. And I meant it too. And more and more strangers.

So much peace and goodwill, which is what I always imagine to be what matters when it comes to a faith.

Learning experiences all round.

And on a lighter note, the learning experience continued when I arrived into camp with no food apart from rice and a powerbar. Not even a drop of beer! I learnt from that one... Stop at the dodgy gas station 10 miles from camp.

Stupid Lachlan

Sat, 25 Jun 2005 12:00:00 -0700

I had a few awesome days hanging around in San Fran. Abusing the good hospitality of Erol, his sister and their flatmates, as well as Rob. I'm running out of time here so here is the short story.

Spent a day walking around chinatown
got a $6 haircut from a lady who didn't speak english
bumped into a music festival in san fran, saw some good swing bands.
got accosted by a cuban transsexual
saw the same cuban transsexual get beaten to a pulp by another guy
Gave a bum $6 for a shrink wrapped laptop computer
Laughed at myself for buying $6 worth of something that was most definitely a rip off
Laughed when laptop computer turned out to be coffee stained magaizines
hung out with rob
went to rob's place
was dazzled by the 3 motorbikes, 10 bicycles and millions of spare parts
made a whole bunch of missed calls
saw berkley
enjoyed oakland
spent a fair bit of time at Rob's art school
spent a bit of time in bars
worried if the guys buying me drinks were gay
walked around a lot
had a hangover
had a blast
said goodbye to friends
rode to santa cruz
slept next to hobos
rode through monterey
saw some cannery row that is apparently in some novel by some guy, John Steinbeck
spent time in Big Sur
met a punk turned history teacher Joel
talked teaching
talked about changing the world
talked politics
watched basketball
got free good (thank's joel)
rode 80 miles of Big Sur Hills
loved every minute of it
camped next to a freeway
met two hippies dave and debbie
Drank Dave and Debbie's coffee
Checked out thier Kombi campervan
started riding to Pismo beach
ian, the owner of the Big Sur Bar company pulled me over and gave me a couple of free bars. Better than Powerbar, Better than Clif Bar!
And am now sitting in Morro Bay, wondering why I decided to get back on my bike and complete the route to mexico.

Hope you are all doing well. And just in case the last posting gave you the idea that I was having a miserable time. That was the one bad day in a month of awesome, life changing and fun adventures.

Time to hop back on that bike, make it to LA and then fly off to Canada again. Stupid lachlan, not being able to stop riding the ride. Stopping in San Fran would have been fun! Stupid Lachlan

The most challenging day of my life

Mon, 20 Jun 2005 12:00:00 -0700

[Apologies: this passage contains some profanity, it was unfortunately required to leave it in to give a true sense of the circumstances]

The night before had been great. I'd rolled into camp after compressing two days into one, covering 150kms. A fairly decent feat considering this meant conquering the 2000ft Legget hill, miles and miles of tough terrain and the steepest grade on the pacific route. I'd enjoyed the night despite having to eat my emergency meal of noodles and rice with stry fry seasoning - I'd met up with Tyler, a crazy atheletic guy from Great Falls, Montana and busied myself enjoying a beer with Robert, the drugged out Tony Hawk lookalike trucker and George, another drunk german cycle tourer.

The night was clear and cold, the Pacific winds whipping through our campfire. Despite the lack of a shower, I was happy climbing into my bag - it had been a great day and tomorrow was going to great as well - a nice and easy 60 mile stretch down to Bodega Bay.

I awoke the next morning feeling slightly less than happy. It was 6am and there was a storm raging. Hammering winds from the south west driving horizontal rain into my tent. For the next 4 hours, it didn't let up and I knew that I was going to be in for a rough day.

Figure 1. Lachlan, in tent, with rain.

At 10.30, the driving rain slowed to just plain old rain. Simultaenously, Tyler, George and I started to make a run for it. Tony Hawk appeared to decide to spend the day in bed.

The next 20 or so miles to the next town Gualala, were the toughest I have ever ridden on a bike. The fierce headwind threw me around and with my crappy jacket, I was soaked to the bone. Soaked and wind worn, there was one gust of wind that knocked me off the road and almost off my bike. It was ugly, I shouted some obscenities into the wind such was my frustration. Words really can't accurately describe how hard that 20miles was. It broke me - the hills, the wind, the terrible road all added up to a morning of misery.

The only small consolation was that Tyler, who had pulled up to the same cafe 5 minutes before me, was having just a bad a time as me. An expensive breakfast later and we were both huddled around the smoker in the back of the cafe, invoking chuckles amoung the partons.

The break was a good move though, when we got out the weather had cleared up signifficantly. And although it was still raining and there was still a signifficant headwind, progress was much easier.

Mentally though, I started to crack a bit. My progress through Salt Point State park slowed to a crawl which I couldn't break out of. I tried listening to the music that had got me through hard times before and it annoyed me further. I think I was pretty dehydrated, which is easy to ignore when you are cold and wet. So I drank up and pushed on, crawling to Fort Ross - the site of a Russian settlement in the early 1800s. (So much you don't know about the west coast).

Figure 2. The fort.

The Fort was amazing, a little slice of history of which I had had no idea.

What was not amazing, and more chilling was the window of the coffee shop that I had stopped in in Fort Ross. (The shop pretty much was the town). A poster on the window was offering $10,000 reward for information relating to the Jenner double homicide - an unsolved case where two tourists from Ohio had been shot dead, in the head whilst camping on a secluded beach. No robbery, no rape, just killed it seemed for the joy of killing.

Great. Just what I needed, some psycho camper-killing nut to deal with as well as the weather.

10 miles to Jenner. Then 15 to Bodega bay. I can do this.

I had been warned about some hills before Jenner, some switchbacks that cut into the hills of the Californian coast. But looking at the elevation, they didn't seem insurmountable. At 500 ft, it would take a while, but the pain would be over shortly.

Never before have I underestimated something so severly. With my cycle computer now broken, I had no idea of what pace I was moving at or what distances I was covering. But the hills went on forever. Every turn I made I thought I had hit the summit, and then through the fog, I could see another section. The fog moved in and I couldn't see more than 20 metrest ahead of me, all I could here were the calls of lost, wandering cattle.

I stopped and finished my chocolate bar.

Demoralising.

I was trying to come up with a word to describe how the hills had treated me. I was amazed at the clarity that word provided for me. Demoralising. I was demoralised. I started to look at my own feelings. Trying to find something to drive me on. The warm embrace of a hot shower, the comfort of hot tea, a big glass of red wine - all material things that I have used to drive myself before - they all suddenly meant nothing. I looked to develop some anger, find some bogeyman, real or imagined that I could get angry at and use that as a force to push myself over the mountains. I couldn't find one. I tried to use an imagined hug of a loved one to get me going. Still nothing.

I couldn't feel a thing. No emotion. I couldn't feel the relief of stopping, I couldn't feel the pain of keeping going. I couldn't feel a fucking thing. I don't know why I kept on going. Maybe it was the fact that there was nowhere I could stop, maybe it was the fact that moving, however slow, had become part of my basic nature. I was cold, in all physical, mental and emotional connotations that word can take.

It all sounds so fucking melodramatic I told myself.. You're on a fucking bike ride. You're not dying.

So, cold as I was, I pushed on.

I reached the summit. Not to feel elation, not to feel relief, not to feel angry, sad or happy. I reached the summit not feeling a thing, just seeing a sea of white fog.

Figure 3. The summit

Figure 4. A broken man

From the summit, I started my 5 mile descent to Jenner. A descent made painful my the never ending fog that hid the dangers of bad roads and stopped cars.

Figure 5. The descent

Jenner, a one store town. Now famous for a murder. My highlight was taking a photo of a tree that was growing next to a dumpster.

Figure 6. A tree in Jenner

I was now very tired. It was 6.00pm and I still had another 15 miles to go. Tommy Rudonikis style, I started to slap myself around a bit. Trying to drive up some anger, get angry and get the ride over and done with. Get to Bodega, check into a motel and have a half an hour hot shower. I swore at myself, slapped myself, told myself to "Keep the momentum going.. It's all about the momentum. The fucking momentum". And I'd love to say that this worked, I told myself it was working, but in reality, I just kept on keeping on, plodding along, knowing that I would get there eventually, it was just a matter of time.

As I hit the last turns into the Bodega Bay Area, the sky along the horizon opened up. Some picture perfect clouds and blue sky were framed by menacing storm and fog. I was searching for a metaphor in the sky. It was one of those skies that after a hard day inspires you and reminds you that you are having a great time and that nature is beautiful in it's evil.

Figure 7. Some clouds on the horizon

Figure 8. Some more clouds on the horizon

Figure 9. Close up of some clouds on the horizon

And that's how I tried to view it - an inspiration. I really tried, I really really tried. I took 10 photos of myself trying to look happy in front of it, but as you can see, it wasn't working.

Figure 10. Lachlan trying to look inspired

Figure 11. Lachlan, trying to laugh at his lack of inspiration

So past the surfers, riding the storm and made my way into Bodega Bay to find somewhere to sleep. Bodega Bay, which looks big on the map -population 500 had no motels or any low cost accomodation. So I made my way to the campground to enjoy my wet tent and the lukewarm showers. Even an expensive Mexican meal and beer failed to put any kind of warmth in my heart.

I crawled into my suprisingly warm sleeping bag knowing that tomorrow was definitely going to be easier. All I had to do now was survive a sleepless night thinking about some double murderer.

And so ended the most physcally and mentally challenging day of my life. And as much as it hurt, in reality, I know that this one day is what I came on this trip for, and I am happier for it.

I'm not dead

Fri, 17 Jun 2005 12:00:00 -0700

I have just been without internet access.

Can't talk to much now - too expensive. But I will say one thing.

These last couple of days in Northern California have been the most physically and mentally demanding days I have ever been through. The only thing keeping me going was the fact that there was no place to stop.

I definitely found what I was looking for... and it wasn't pretty.

I'm just outside San Fransisco, hopefully I can find some internet there to post more.

Sunny Oregon

Tue, 07 Jun 2005 12:00:00 -0700

Oregon is the state in between Washington and California, on the west coast of the USA.

It rains a lot here.

It rains a lot.

When it rains, the winds come from the south, making headwinds for our heroes.

When you have big storms, there is lots of rain and lots of wind. It can make riding a bike nearly impossible.

Then sometimes it gets clear, lulling you into a false sense of security. Then it rains a lot again.

Mostly I don't mind the rain. I use "mostly" in a correct fashion. A lot of the time, I'm riding with a stupid grin, laughing at the headwinds whipping me around thinking to myself "Is that the best you've got?". And there are some, far fewer times, like yesterday when I decided to give up on the day where I almost break down in tears, where the rain comes in so hard it hurts.

(In the end, I didn't quit, because the campground was too expensive and it was too early in the day. And the day ended up being one of my best thanks to some spectacular scenery in the latter half of the day. In my journal, the word "conquered" was mentioned repeatedly)

In reality, you get used to being wet, but another thing that has made the rain bearable is the appearance of some other cyclists. There is the 70 year old couple from Germany, out here cycling from Whitehorse (Northern Canada, by way of ferry) to San Fransisco. There's also Paul, the incredibly unfit 59 year old high school teacher who is taking on a 3100 mile trek from Astoria to somewhere on the Missippi. There was some random dude who was on his way cycling from Santa Cruz to Alberta, paddling from there down to Florida, and then walking to Quebec (a 20 month journey). And there was Rob Kong, who became my partner in crime for a few days - mostly making fun of Paul.

Rob and I had a couple of days together. We cover a few miles, pull over, he'd smoke some weed, I'd take a shot of whisky. We'd cover a few more miles, I'd wait for him, we'd burn one. We'd make fun of Paul.

He had some great stories to tell, like firing bazookas in mainland China. Cycle touring in Montana. But after a while his stories grew a little thin, to the point he was without any segway, interupting the movie we were watching in a dodgy motel over some mexican take away(110kms in the driving rain, we deserved that comfy bed next to the crack heads) and telling me about the time he had a girlfriend who went on the pill and her cup size increased, motioning with his hands a jiggling action.

Rob's a great guy, but he was a bit slower than me and I eventually decided to leave him behind and set out into the wind with the company of my friend Ipod.

Last night I camped in the dunes in an Oregon state park.

Apparently the dunes are meant to be amazing, but when you grow up on the beach, they kind of look like slightly bigger versions of the annoying things you had to walk over to get to the beach when you were a kid. So, whilst they were interesting, my greatest memory of last night was finding the perfect campsite so that when it bucketed down, the pools of water would be around my tent, not underneath it.

Yeah camper Lachlan. I had a soaking tent, but it was nice and dry inside!

I had one unfortunate moment where I woke up in the middle of the night and needed to urinate, but it was raining cats and dogs. I decided to ignore it.

I can't ignore it.

But it's raining... I can ignore it.

I can't ignore it - can I piss from inside my tent?

No? Ignore it.

I can't ignore it. I can't ignore it.. There's a free water bottle, empty it and... ahhh.... sweet relief.

So I have two water bottles on my bike. The one I drink from, and the one called the piss bottle, which I try to avoid drinking from if at all possible.

So that's my life.

I think I'm about half way through this journey now, hitting San Fran in probably another 10 or so days. Much love to all, I'm sorry if I'm not replying to emails and comments, I still can't seem to get to computers that often.

Riders on the storm

Sat, 04 Jun 2005 12:00:00 -0700

There isn't a great deal to report, but since I just had my third big feed of the day before midday and there is free internet access at the library here in Tillamook, I'm tapping away. Still having problems with my email though... stupid email.

Actually, when I say that there isn't a great deal to report, I'm wrong.

The big news is that what Washington state lacked in terms of scenery, Oregon made up in one day.

In what was my first hiking side trip of the coast, I walked down to the as yet, unseen Oregon beaches. As I exited from the rainforest, the clouds had disappeared and I was walking along the untouched crescent beach, looking at the ocean weathered rock formations. So gorgeous it was, that I had to get naked and go for a swim. I could only hope that some of that was going to wear off on my lilly white buttocks.

The Oregon coast is everything that people told me about. Absolutely spectacular, with the road running along the coast, there has been ample time to check out the wind worn cliffs and rock sculptures.

Figure 1. Cannon Beach

I pulled into the campground to find a bunch more cyclists who are making similar treks to me. And there are even some old german tourists that are doing the same trip, but started in Alaska. Stupid old, fast riding Germans.

Today so far has been relatively slow, riding in the rain, but the scenery is about to turn good again with a scenic route around the 3 Capes Scenic Route.

Another thing - it bucketed down last night and now everything is wet.

Stupid rain.

The best pastry I've ever had

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 12:00:00 -0700

I've eaten a lot of bakery products in my time and I can honestly say that yesterday was one of the most memorable.

At the Pearl Bakery in Portland (around 12th and Burnside - I think ) I had an apricot danish whilst writing in my journal and finishing off my book. With a slight crust, the buttery pastry centered around an apricot. Lightly coated with what could only be fresh almond flakes, it was cooked to perfection and then glazed in an apricot and amertto mixture.

A definite tour de force.

I'm still trying to work out a way of getting these photos on line, but the computers here seem to be conspiring against me.

Hope you are all fine, drop me a line sometime and tell me what you are up to.

lachlan.out.

So Long, Astoria

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 12:00:00 -0700

Well, I didn't end up going surfing with Matt that day. For no good reason I was just hanging around, being a bit of an idiot. But when i
realised that it was too late and all I had to occupy my time was being pissed off about the ridiculous amount of mosquitoes around me,
I got really quite angry at myself. For the first time in the trip I was a little down. So, from then on, I decided that nothing was going to keep me back from those situations.

Right now I'm sitting in some schmicko arts college in Portland, where, after setting off all of their security alarms, I am using their free internet to contribute to the global unconscious.

So, Portland hey? How did I end up here?

Well, I left you, the faithful reader in Westport, Washington. Where I got a new (and now finished) book by Graham Greene - "The Human Factor". I mention this because I'm spending a fair bit of time by myself, I am chowing through novels. I was even inspired today to buy a book of Browning's poetry.

Then I read one of the poems, "Soliloquy of a Spanish Cloister", and I realised that I didn't like most of his stuff and went to the Wordsworth section to find that all his books are big. So no poetry for this man.

I also mention books because the last couple of days of riding have been, by and large, mostly boring.

I have been trying to keep them interesting though. I do this in a number of fashions.

I lose some vitally important thing (bike lock, pocketknife) and then work out how to deal with life without the said object.
Try and do interesting things, meet interesting people so I can write about them in my journal at the end of the day.
But most of all, I talk to myself.

On my way from Westport, I decided that I would hit the logging center of Raymond for my first break of the day. It was around 50kms of reasonably boring but easy riding through America's first timber forests. it certainly helped having a wind at my back. As I was nearing my half century, I started to relate my journey to an innings of cricket. There was Bill, Richie and Tony commenting on how this half century was scored by a man comfortable at the crease. Such fluid motion, such continuity, such focus - it was a man at the top of his game. The batsman had put in a Mark Waugh kind of a day and looked to follow through with a great afternoon session.

Unfortunately the afternoon session was cut short by bad weather and accommodation logistics, so both teams went in for Tea at the campground at the little town of Bay Center, formerly a great oystery. (And I use the word former with emphasis). It turned out to be a good move, because not only was I showering with hot water, I was able to pitch my tent under a shelter and stay dry while the storm around me unfolded.

What also unfolded, was how I had left my pocketknife at my last campsite, which made opening the tin of tuna for dinner significantly harder. And well, I really couldn't be bothered. So I ate oatmeal and jam sandwiches (and a large portion of Graham Greene) for dinner.

The next morning got off to a cracking start. The pitch had weathered well through the storm last night and out favourite batsman was loose and in the rythym (or however you spell that word with no vowels). But as the wind turned to come from the south, he was shaken a little. And, like Mark Waugh, started to shake mentally. The commentators were a bit worried. Tea was still a good 35kms off and already he was starting to look fatigued. Fatigued to the point where he considered throwing his bike into the Willapa bay.

Then after a couple of granola bars and a banana and a big shout into the voiceless forest, Steve Waugh came out to the crease, ready to grit it out, ready to keep an unsmiling glare into the wind, determined to hold them out.

As the half century was neared, the commentary team talked of how it had been a rough session for the Australians, how it almost looked over, but the captain (And apart from AB, he is the only other Australian captain) had come out and looked to have saved the day. A gritty innings, one of determination and strength - working every one of the singles, nothing fancy, just getting the job done. As testament for the mornings show, as he was getting his morning coffee, the lady who was serving found out about the journey and asked for an autograph.

(I kid you not - I signed a poster for her. The first person to do so. Yeah me, I'm a rockstar)

And if this show of unveiled adoration wasn't enough, Steve was rewarded with the first decent sight in the last few days, the national park at the very badly named Cape Disappointment.

Both of these things put that half smile on Steve's face and now that the need of grit had gone, he was free to play some beautiful stokes,
well on his way to a glorious innings, headed out on the road for the Oregon / Washington border and the town of Astoria.

Everything was smooth sailing, right into the mid point of the nervous nineties. Nervousness set in right at the start of the 4.5 mile long Astoria bridge, crossing the Columbia river. With no shoulder and one massive, long incline, there were explicit instructions to not stop anywhere.

Figure 1. The Astoria Bridge

In what was probably the scariest part of the trip so far, I was busy dicing with a 50cm shoulder as I looked in my rear vision mirror (yes I have one) and saw a fully laden logging truck hurtling towards me. I moved my hands to the most secure position, gripped hard and concentrated on holding my line.

The truck screamed past by my shoulder, not more than a foot or two away, it's vacuum sucking me in, but I concentrated, held tight, kept my line and kept on riding through the rough road over the even rougher ebbing Columbia. What a rush.

Astoria seemed pretty boring after that.

Sure, it might be the oldest settlement on the west coast of the US,and it might have some great sights, but the excitement doesn't
compare with near death. So, after some Clam Chowder (say "Chowder"...say "chowder") I said "So Long, Astoria" and was flying
off to another town, where I had booked the last room in the hostel, Seaside.

Such was the form shown that afternoon, people almost missed the turning of the century. With Trumper style grace, the century was reached in fine form.

A bed, the first in 8 nights, was the reward for such a princely innings. A queen bed no less. With fresh sheets.

And here I am in Portland, after catching a bus to cover the 90mile journey that is out of my way. It's a great town, really great vibe with an even greater bookstore. I've purchased a leatherman (from the home of leathermans) and am debating on whether I buy myself a very early birthday present of a new tent. I think I'm going to be needing it. As beautiful as the Oregon coast is, it's pretty wet here.

Hard Times make for Good Times

Mon, 30 May 2005 12:00:00 -0700

I'm a little wired, I'm onto my second 16oz espresso coffee in the small tourist town of Westport. I was planning on having one whilst checking my email and writing a log, but I got chatting to my new friend Matt, the owner of the surf shop next door about where we are going to go surfing this afternoon.

So I've got another one now and my fingers are so jittery that I can't type straight.

Apparently, despite Microsoft's presence being located in Washington state, the internet is yet to really take off here, and this is the first time I've seen a computer for about a week. In that past week, so much has happened that it's hard to believe that it's all happened.

After I broke the US Immigrations computer system, I was on board the ferry, on the way to San Juan Island. Getting on to the ferry, I met another cycle tourer - Craig Lamont. A scottish guy who is fanatical about bikes - races regularly in road races as well as cross country mountain biking. I've really got to stop making friends with people who are much better than I am on the bike, it kills me.

Anyways, it turned out that we pretty much had the same plan.. Eat pastries, drink coffee, cycle across the island to the park on the other side. And apart from the fact that he was a fairly decent cyclist, we seemed to get on all right. We made our way to the campground, right smack bang in front of a gorgeous vista. 270 degrees water views, with the Olympic mountain range to the left, Victoria straight ahead - and some fast moving water in between. What we later found out, was that fast moving water actually contained a stack of migrating killer whales - and after a bit of touring around - we sat down, had dinner, spending the sun lit evening hours chatting away spotting the beautiful orcas. He told me about his jobs of scuba diving instruction, ski tour operator and renovator, and I amused him with the usual crap that comes out of my mouth.

After San Juan, a couple of mechanical problems with the bike, some coffee and pastries, I was on another ferry, bidding goodbye to Craig, on my way to the island of Orcas. A 13 mile up hill ride later through some rolling meddows I found myself at the Moran State park, reasonably dehydrated and about to start my tradiition of a cold beer after my day of travel. I was considering the 5 mile vertical ascent to the top of mount Constitution, but given that I had killed myself already, I decided the beer was a better option.

I'm not sure whether it's me, or me and the combination of a bike, or the bike, but for some reason - people always want to speak to me. And so it was that I spent the night with Bob and Bonnie - an older couple from Virginia. (Ok, when I say "night" I mean, the hour in between me swimming in the lake and crashing in bed). In the morning when I was sharing their coffee, we continued where we left off, eating the trout that Bob had just caught in the mountain lake. In the end, I had to tear myself away and make a dash for the ferry.

An hour and a half of supreme tour de france riding later, I was aboard the ferry, with 5 minutes to spare. Yeah Lachlan - not knowing the schedule and still squeezing it to the last minute.

I hit Anacortes, got lost, got back on the right road, got lost again and then got back on track - making my way down the inland route of the Olympic peninsular. Water all around, Sunshine long into the night and hill after back breaking hill I found myself in the metropolis that was Oak Harbour. It was though I had in one moment stepped from the serenity of Washington state forests, with the busied inlets, deer to a never ending land of New Jersey themed strip malls. And it was hot. Really hot. And the endless cars and concrete weren't really helping. But I pushed on.

I pushed on and found that Oak harbour was an anomally, largely dedicated to the naval air base nearby, and I found myself in the serenity again. Ah... the serenity.

Another ferry ride later, I picked up my daily beer and made myself to my next campsite to meet Beck, the pawn shop owner / bike tourer. I had a nude swim in the Seattle bay, came out covered in jellyfish and sat down to a meal of good conversation and helpful tips.... When travelling in the states - fuel for the trusty Trangia is hard to come by - but got to any service station and they will have a fuel additive called "Heet" - get the red bottle - it's metho!

This cycle touring thing is awesome!

What is not awesome - is whta the next two days of riding turned out to be.

Long haul stretches through places with no point of interest.

The first day was through the oppresive heat, up and down hills the whole way. Into a steady headwind, which was at odds with what was meant to be a prevailling wind of North to South. It was hard.

But, like anything, hard times make for good. And when I sat down to my daily beer and dinner of pork, peppers and rice, I was entertained to a pod of killer whales teaching their pups how to hunt seal. It's hard to put into words just how amazing this experience was. To have these massive animals, not 50 metres from you, teaching their young life skills. I was beginning to think that this is normal in this part of the world, but the backed up traffic on the highway told a different story. The ranger, who I became friends with, gave me the run down on the 3rd generation pod, the two sisters, their young and their grandmother. Amazing.

Orcas - Amazing. Good Scenery - Amazing. The next day:135kms along a freeway where the listed highlights include a never completed nuclear reactor on a hillside - not so Amazing.

I rode through the slum lumber town of Aberdeen, birth place of Kurt Cobain. I spent 5 minutes there, felt the depression start to seep through my pores and made a quick getaway. Suddenly all of the music, the scene and the suicide start to make a bit of sense.

But now I'm here in Westport, a couple of days from the Oregon border, and I'm about to go and eat some seafood before tucking into some cold water surfing.

Life is good, it's hard at times, but life is definitely awesome!

--
Lachlan Yates
lachlan@kransky.com
now blogging on www.kransky.com/lachlan

The Journey Begins

Tue, 24 May 2005 12:00:00 -0700

I was hanging around in Vancouver, beginning to get a bit bored. It was raining, it wasn't stopping and there didn't look as though there was going to be a break for me to start the trip. But I had to set a date. But it kept raining, and the beers kept on flowing and it kept on raining. But I had to set a date.

Monday, the 23rd of May, that was going to be it... Avoid the crowds of the long weekend, brave the elements and cycle from Vancouver to Tsawwassen to catch a ferry to Victoria out on Vancouver Island.

I took off the jeans, squeezed myself into my new lyrca bike pants and cycled off into the Vancouver drizzle - heading for breakfast with Seppo, Alicia and Colin. 4 cups of coffee, 4 slices of french toast, bacon, maple syrup, potatoes, eggs, sausage, toast, more potatoes later and a few photos with good friends, I was ready to take that final leap into the unknown. At 1pm, the leap was later than expected, but massive cycle tour or no cycle tour, I'm not rushing a lazy breakfast.

The leap started in fairly inauspicious circumstances - I cycled down a dead end gravel footpath.

But soon enough I was out on the road, taking the scenic route via the University of British Columbia's endowment lands. With the Georgia Straight on my right, the forest on my left, the cool air whishing past, the sun came out. After weeks of rain - the sun came out, a smile creeped across my face and turned into a silly grin.

An unnecessary 20 mile (Apologies for using the scale of miles, but since everything in the US is done on miles, all my marks must follow accordingly) detour and I was flying through the industrial mecca that is Richmond on my way to Tsawwassen. This route wasn't in the book that I am using as a guide, but since I've done it so many times before I knew pretty much what I was getting myself into. What I didn't know, was that the tunnel that goes under the Fraser river is, along with being illegal, pretty much a suicide mission if you are on a bike.

But it was all right - it turned out that there was a shuttle service that would take me. A couple of hours later (I missed the first one, not knowing what it looked like) and I was aboard with another cyclist - Gunter a forensic engineer based out of Tsawwassen. He offered to show me a better route than the interstate highway, so after getting dropped off, we went for a cycle through some nice farmland. Gunter it turns out, was a competitive cyclist and with his carbon fibre racing bike, proceeded to push me and my 30kg of luggage to breaking point. The cracking pace of 28mph eventually slowed to a sluggish 14mph as I realised that Tsawwassen was actually a lot further than I had estimated and with a crazy cyclist combined with a decent headwind - it was actually a lot harder than I had anticipated.

Thankfully I eventually hobbled into the terminal, devoured a hot dog and fell asleep. I'd already done 75 miles on the bike and I still had another 20 to go when I it the island - far more than the 50 or so a day I was planning on starting with. Preparing myself for the ride down to Victoria I got talking to another cyclist, Nino, a trucker who drove around recycled paint for the government. He suggested that the fastest route down to Victoria involved getting my bike, putting in in the back of his car and driving down. And who was I, with sore legs at 8.45pm, to argue?

Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers. And thank goodness for the gracious BC weather, bringing to end a nervous week's worth of rain.

I'm now taking in the sunshine of Victoria, getting a few more supplies and preparing to hit the US tomorrow, catching a ferry to the San Juan Islands . Before heading down the Olympic peninsular, west of Seattle.

Giles and Karen get married

Sat, 21 May 2005 12:00:00 -0700

Guess who got married?

It was saturday, May 14th, and two very special people got married out on the beautiful Salt Spring island. It just so happened that Karen and Giles also had their wedding on the same day, sharing their love and taking part in a re-building of society's ideals that engagements should last less than 17 years.

I found two things to be quite special about the ceremony and they were both questions that were asked of the bride and groom. Firstly, mid way though the ceremony, the celebrant asked Karen, "Do you know of any lawful impediment that would prevent you getting married to Giles..." It was as if Giles had this nagging doubt that Karen had some dark secret about having a secret ex-husband lurking around somewhere and just needed a final qualification. Then again, the same question was asked of him, so maybe the distrust was mutual. I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to come to a conclusion.

The second thing that I found special about the wedding, was that they actually asked the question of the crowd "If anyone here sees reason for these two not to be wedded, speak now or forever hold your silence" . Now, I have been to a few weddings in my time, and I have always waited for this question to be asked. It never has been. I thought it was reserved for the day time soaps, with the arch-villian groom, virginal bride and the bound and gagged boyfriend in the cellar. But now, someone was asking that of me... There was no suspensful music that I could put a brooding look to, but by god, I came so close to saying something. Not because I wanted to stop the wedding, I cannot imagine two more awesome people getting married - but because, really, how often does that question get asked, and how often does some schmuck up the back take it upon himself to lighten the mood and crack a joke. Never.

And I was close. So close. So so close to saying something - but I let myself down. (There was also this small matter of me getting up next and reading an Irish blessing - and I figured that it would be hard to pull off doing both things at the wedding whilst already pushing the limits by wearing sneakers).

In the end, no one objected and the lovely couple got married. I wished them all the best in their new life asking `` may road may rise to meet you`` (whatever that is meant to mean, it sounds like the opposite of a blessing if you ask me).

The ceremony finished up, we went back to the hotel, past the old man frolicking naked with his son, to the ceremony and then on to the carpark where, much to Brenda's dislike, we all played a game of cricket. Then it was martinis all night long until we ended playing charades, trying to find movie titles with the word ``Sleep`` in them.

All in all, in a rare moment of honesty I will say that it was a beautiful weekend for two beautiful people starting the rest of their lives together. I was honoured that I was present at it.

I have some pictures up from the wedding and other events, you can look at them here

Phone calls and bike locks

Fri, 20 May 2005 12:00:00 -0700

"Hey there Lachie, it's Jill here. I just got a call from the bike doctor, they have your wallet"

"Hey, ahh.. it's Matthew, somebody from some bike store called, you left your wallet behind"

"Lachie.. it's Ryan here.."

"Ryan called me to tell you that you left your wallet at the store"

Yeah, so I went into my friends at the Bike Doctor in Vancouver to buy a lock and I walked out with so much less than that. Not only did I walk out without my wallet, I walked out without the brains which are meant to be in my head. It's the third time I've lost my wallet in the past 2 weeks, it's really not a good sign. But on the flipside, everytime my pockets have conspired against me, the good side of the world has shown through and I've been reunited with my cash.

In other, non wallet losing news, I've been doing a lot of preparations for the trip and it looks as though I'm going to push off this weekend.

Me and the Yellow Peril

Tue, 17 May 2005 12:00:00 -0700

Well, it had to happen eventually - I've fallen in love again.

This time, it's with some yellow aluminium tubing, and it's name is The Yellow Peril and we're going to go places.

For the bike nerds out there it's a hand made De Vinci bike (from Quebec) the Amsterdam. LX Mech, carbon forks and post, truative cranks, some dodgy tektro brakes and it's got a nice component of love in it.

That's me kissing my new beauty, dressed in half of my summer wardrobe at the place where I'm staying. Thanks to some unseasonably crappy weather, it looks as though I will probably leave around the end of this week when I've outstayed my welcome and get escorted from the premises. Then it's on to the San Juan Islands - then to Mexico!

The adventure begins

Mon, 09 May 2005 12:00:00 -0700

It was 4.15pm, the day before I was due to travel and I didn't have a ticket. I didn't have travel insurance. I didn't have the required vaccinations for the life threatening diseases that I was sure to encounter in my travels.

By 5.15pm all of these deficencies had been rectified and I was off to enjoy my last night in town by having a quiet couple of lemonades with some of the boys.

It was 10.20am, my flight had already started boarding and I was sitting down having a quiet rum with the family when I realised that I had to start my dash to the plane. A couple of quick goodbyes and I was off, running to make the gate. My run slowed to a molasses-like crawl when I hit the immigration desk. It then turned into a sprint again as I, tragic as it was, skipped past the duty free shops, got patted down by security and then casually sauntered onto the packed plane, the last one aboard.

The flight was fairly non-eventful and before long, I had made my connection to Dallas, where I was patiently waiting for the final leg of my flight to Vancouver. I decided that after not eating for 14 hours, it was time to get a snack. Utilising the ATM I proceeded to get out some money. Gotta love this world wide ATM system, you can rely on it for everything.

What you can't rely on, is Lachlan. Specifically, Lachlan removing his card from the ATM.

So I'm sitting here in sunny Vancouver, wondering exactly how I'm going to get around this current hurdle of not having any cash. And another thing which is making life a bit of a pain is that my email server has been out for the last 3 days and I have no access to my old email, and no list of anyone's email addresses.

As far as omens go for this trip, well, let's just say that I like to ignore omens.

It seems that my email is still not completely functional, so if you feel the need, you can also email me at lachlan.yates@gmail.com. I'm currently kicking back at the place that I used to l live at when I ran away from home the last time. It should be a week or so here, out to Giles and Karen's wedding, and then off into the sunset.

A set back

Mon, 02 May 2005 12:00:00 -0700

After a fun party, in which I sort of conquered my fear of head first diving of cliffs into unknown waters, I was kicking around down in harbord.

Not much was going on, so Mike and I decided to fill in the time with a bit of wrestling. We were scrapping pretty good, then I got a good hold of his legs and started to lift him. With me pulling up and him pushing down, there was a fair bit of strain on my back, (even my previously mentioned lats were beginning to tire of Mike's male model physicque crushing me), then there was a pop.

Then I was lying on the ground unable to move.

Then I got up and a few minutes later I couldn't walk.

Then I took it into perspective, it's not that serious, it's not as if I'm going to be cycling around the world or anything like that.

Damn..

Anyays, a couple of days to go before I catch the plane, I'm hoping a drive down to Canberra will sort it out.

I'm leaving on a jet plane

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 12:00:00 -0700

It finally happened. After months and months of waiting to find someone who was going to pick up the slack and organise my trip for me I was beginning to lose hope.

Then Rose, from sta travel entered my life and everything became simple. I told her vaguely where I wanted to be and she made up a few destinations for me. Perhaps instead of the title "travel agent" (or "girlfriend", which is what I was calling her) I should call her my "travel coach".

Anyways - I finally got the ticket and it's taking me to a couple of crazy places.

The destinations are as follows -
Sydney (Via LA and Dallas) to Vancouver - hang out then ride down to san fran.
San Francisco > Toronto - cycle from around there out to New Foundland
Toronto > Dallas - I've only bad things about Dallas, it's time to prove them wrong.
Dallas > Guatemala - then try and make my way to cuba from there
Guatemala > Miami > Santiago (chile) - cycle north a bit
Santiago > Punta Arenas (Far southern chile) - cycle around the tierra del fuego, see some penguins.
Punta Arenas > Falkland islands - drink some tea, see some penguins
Falkland Islands > Punta Arenas > Buenos Airies - put my german to use and talk to any dissident Nazis that might be hanging around.
Buenos Aires > Madrid > London - do whatever people do in London.
London > Kiev (Ukraine) - then try and hook my way through russia and into Kazakstan, then maybe into Kyrgyzstan.
Kiev > London > Oslo - discover my long and very lost Norweigan roots.
Oslo > bangkok > restaurant in bangkok > Sydney.

Phew.

Now, I've just go to get to the airport, but I'm sure somebody is going to organise that for me as well.

These boots weren't made for walking

Thu, 07 Apr 2005 12:00:00 -0700

For those not in the know, I'm about to go on a bit of an adventure.

It involves getting a bike, getting rid of pretty much everything else in my life and getting out on the open road.

And like everything in life. If you want to do something properly, you should do it with a beer before hand. So I'm having a little going away party. Saturday 30th of April in the afternoon around 2pm- little manly point a quiet barbeque, with some jumping off the cliff around the corner and then hopefully we'll get a plan and move on from there.

If I haven't blabbed to you about what I'm doing, it's all covered in as much detail as I know on a page on my website - www.kransky.com/lachlan/adventure. And because it's what the kids are doing nowadays - I've also set myself up with a blog at www.kransky.com/lachlan.

Anyways - if you're around and I haven't burnt any bridges in our friendship, it would be great to see you there. Bring some drink, food, swimmers (and by swimmers, I mean knee length baggy shorts) and a smile along. It may be the last time I see it for a while.*

* Of course, there's a very real chance that I'll choke on this and I'll be seeing you again all too soon - but you never know your luck

RSS feed is up now

Fri, 01 Apr 2005 13:00:00 -0800

So I've put the rss feed into the site.

So all of those techno-freaks out there can add me to their aggregators.

If you don't know what rss is, I would recomend you taking the time to find out, it's a very usefull little technology.

Worlds 2004 - Travel log 4 - New York New York

Sat, 03 Jul 2004 22:00:00 -0700

Being cultured men of the world and wanting to experience the local fare, good or bad, we naturally found ourselves in a German bar tucking into some expensive imported German beer. While the rain bucketed down outside, talk turned to our now growing list of casualties. Not only was our new found, star rookie severely injured and almost certainly out of the tournament, Mike and Steve were both carrying what seemed to be serious knee damage.

So after some talking between the captains, and a look at the rain, it was decided to call the game against New York and have a rest day instead.

Since we had the day off tomorrow, it seemed like it was a perfect opportunity to have a few drinks that night. Now – it’s pretty obvious that I like partying as much as the next person, but I didn’t agree with the decisions made that night.

Breaking with the humorous nature of this email, it’s going to sound pretty judgemental of me, but this was what I thought at the time and still do. If we were taking the day off tomorrow so we could have some rest, I didn’t see how going out the whole night, drinking ourselves into oblivion, not doing our bodies any favours and missing out on a night’s sleep was really going to help us. We had just lost three players to injury because we had been doing too much, and now our captains were leading the way in continuing that trend.

It’s fair to say that when I heard about the tales of people going out, drinking free tequila, staying up the whole night, passing out in Times Square and all manner of other drunk activities, I was not impressed. I was pissed. This whole air of professionalism that we were trying to put on seemed like a complete sham.

That aside, after some deep breaths in and out and a late night treat at the 24 hour bakery, we found ourselves in the comfort of Keri and Lars’s apartment. In the tradition of abusing family members for personal gain, Steve had landed us a sport at his cousin’s place – the place with the best sofa bed known to mankind.

The next morning was a bit of a surreal experience. Walking down to the diner to have some breakfast, we strolled the streets of this nicer neighbourhood of Brooklyn. The street was absolutely littered with police. Not just your average police, but ones with machine guns, armoured cars, face masks and bullet proof vests – all seemingly placed at 20 metre intervals.

And all the pedestrians walked by, accustomed to their presence.

Keri and Lars confirmed this attitude – “Since 9/11 – this stuff just happens now and then”. It’s hard to know how much of this is real police activity, or just an elevated police presence to give the citizens of New York the appearance of security. The idea of how a policeman with a gun on your street corner is going to stop a plane crashing into a building should be beyond most people.

Regardless – it’s an interesting situation to view from an outsider’s perspective. Conspiracy theories aside, it is easy to see how much societies adjust to new social norms, even when it seems as though those norms go against their societies’ very foundation. The current situation in America, finds you with armed police everywhere, a handy colour code terror alert system. , compulsory photographs at immigration, compulsory fingerprinting for certain nationalities., and an absurdity of law that is the PATRIOT act.

All these assurances of security would not be out of place in a World War II movie with a gruff German guard saying “Show me your paperz. Vere are your paperz?”

Unfortunately, seeing this display of control was not an uncommon experience during our day in New York and you just had to shake your head and laugh at the guys in blue who could kill you in a second.

Being tourists in New York, we decided to take in the sights. We had a look at the statue of liberty, which, in an irony that seems to be lost on a lot of people, was cordoned off. We saw disinterested tourists wearing Hawaiian shirts, took in the abstract beauty that is the Guggenheim museum, marvelled at the crap that was passing as art inside the Guggenheim ( I like art, but it was a disjointed collection of sculpture who’s value could debated).

There is also the pushy side to New York that we saw. The crazy taxis, the gruff people at the bagel house which didn’t speak English but got pissed with us for not being able to order, the crazy attitude of New Yorkers. For instance, we were standing, minding our own business looking into the crater that was once the World Trade Centre. A guy walked into me and pushed me around fairly hard. After a couple of weeks playing some aggressive defence in a non-contact sport, I was ready for some real action. “What the hell…” my mind boiled as I turned around to give this Seppo a well earned piece of my mind.

The Seppo who was about to feel my “trapped in a car with 4 guys for a week” wrath turned out to be the wolverine sideburn wearing ex-housemate and now Amsterdam-based friend Michael Cummings. Which was a shame; because it meant that he was pushing me as a joke.

He was in town visiting his brother who was going to university in up-state New York. Funny the people you meet ten thousand miles from home.

The day finished off with a catch up with our friend Tim (of 12 hours in New York fame) in his Brooklyn apartment, along with his girlfriend and several bottles of fine red-stuff from his wine shop.

We took a stroll up the street to get a few beers and were bathed in the glow of one of the best sunsets that I have been a part of. Thinking of the walk now brings back distant memories of our long shadows drawn up against the orange walled terrace houses, old guys hanging out on milk crates kicking the rest of the day away, run down shops littering the footpath, telephone lines criss-crossing the sky like heavy spider webs and more than anything else a quietness and mood of serenity that we hadn’t felt in a long time. The fact that we came to the busiest city in the world to find it, makes it that much more memorable.

And now that I’m looking at the photos that Sol took, I realised how good that wine must have been. The sunset looks pretty average.

A bit of chin wagging later and it was back to Lars and Keri’s place to eat some more cake from the 24 hour bakery. Well, sort of, it was back to Lars and Keri’s roof where we ate some cake and then threw the rest at passers by from 9 floors up. And before you think too ill of us, we do have a social conscience – we also tried throwing our rubbish in the dumpster across the street.

A well earned rest, then it was up to take in the majestic beauty that was Lars’s park of our mini van – right smack bang in front of their apartment block. It was the kind of park that, in New York, it would seem right to put a plaque in front of it and declare it your own personal monument to parking.

But we just got in and drove away.

Away- leaving the big smoke of New York for the green fields of Boston.

Worlds 2004 - Travel log 3 - Princeton University is full of pikes

Fri, 02 Jul 2004 22:00:00 -0700

Mercer County is the home of the longest running ultimate league in the world. And their rock hard, pothole riddle fields pay tribute to the kind of fields that ultimate has been played on in the last 30 odd years. These fields were the home of the team Pike, a youthful, athletic team from New Jersey. The game was a good one, with teams trading, with blocks and scores going either way. Eventually our patience paid off and we started to get and convert more breaks along the way. One of these breaks included Sacha’s injury timeout, which was definitely one of the less memorable points of the game. Unlike Mike, Sacha just sat quietly on the sideline. Looking over, it looked as though he had just slightly rolled his ankle and was sitting out the rest of the game. That slightly rolled ankle turned out to be a slightly rolled spiral fracture of tibia – definitely not the kind of injury that you want one week out from the world championships. Sacha’s words “I heard a crack and it’s not good” being one of the great understatements of tour.

Playing testament to the hardness of the fields, we sadly left the fields with not one, but two new injuries. In the first half of the game, Scamby caught the disc and landed hard, hurting his good knee. This has since been diagnosed as a stress fracture of the inferior patella pole. Damn those inferior patellas.

Despite the loss of Sacha’s non-weight bearing leg bone, and Scamby’s obviously inferior Patella, we ended up winning the game with a convincing score line, much to the dislike of some of their team members. But that’s the way life goes, and we were looking forward to sharing a beer with the Pike guys, sharing old ultimate stories, talking about world politics or perhaps just ogling breasts at the Hooters bar across the road.

As it turned out, the Pike guys were going to have a private team BBQ that we weren’t invited to. So we did what any self respecting Australians would do when they are in a foreign country, we invited ourselves along.

A left here, a left there, a right there, 15 minutes of driving through the dark countryside and we were there. The party was at some guy’s dad’s house, what wasn’t apparently obvious until we got there and parked the mini vans in around the water fountain in the driveway, was that this guy’s dad was the Dean of graduate studies at Princeton University.

Being accustomed to being entertained at such places, all of the guys took the experience of partying in a castle on one of the most prestigious universities in the United States in their stride. After being pinned by a Pike player and reluctantly spending considerable time discussing the existence of a porn industry in Australia, and the quality of porn produced if it did exist, many of us made our way to the bathroom. (To relieve our bladders of beer, not to relieve something that would have arisen as a result of the discussion on porn).

To get to the bathroom was pretty simple. Walk through the dining hall, go straight through the second door into the library, weave your way past the ancient musket that was used in the Battle of Princeton, walk through the reading room, across the floor of the music room and there it is, on your left.

Apparently there was an embalmed Native American warrior on the third floor that we didn’t get to see. And we took it all in our stride? Sure.

After being told to chip in and pay for the BBQ that we invited ourselves to, we hopped into our mini van, all simultaneously told Charlie to burn his Bob Dylan tape and started a trek back through the backwoods of New Jersey to stay at some guy’s house that Mike and I had been standing next to after the game.

We rolled up to Ruben’s families place at around midnight. Given that it was a Wednesday night it was a bit of a surprise to see his dad, Bailey come out to greet us. The last thing we wanted at that stage was a grumpy old father laying down the law to his son about inviting strangers back on a weeknight. To our surprise, he wasn’t the grumpy father that we feared.

“Guys come in, my wife is upstairs asleep, she’s leaving to go to Canada to go Dragon-boating at 4am, but there’s beds everywhere, make yourselves at home. I’m just going out to a party for a few hours, and then I’ll be back”.

So we put our stuff in the basement and looked at the home that Bailey and his wife had provided for their 3 boys. Past the big screen TV that was showing sports, down the stairs, wading through the video game consoles, we were told that we probably couldn’t use the air hockey table because it made a bit too much noise. The table tennis table around the corner in the next room? Sure that’s fine – just don’t fall down that hole at the back of the room – we don’t know what is down there.

With Swiss National Day-esque luck, we had found ourselves with the accommodation to beat all accommodation. A house that acted as a shrine to how teenage boys should live.

And what do teenage boys like to do more than anything else? Keeping your mind out of the gutter – the obvious answer is - Eat. In this respect, Chez Bailey maintained the shrine’s honour with breakfast the next morning.

“This is how it works guys. You sit down, you tell me what you want to eat, and I cook it for you”.

At the recommendation of the guys, Bacon Egg and Cheese sandwiches were the go. Now, as a man who likes his food more than most, I’m often one to exaggerate but a couple of pounds of bacon later. We then progressed onto what can only be described as the world’s best pancakes. A tour de force in breakfast cookery for boys.

That 1pm meeting with the team in New York was going to have to wait… We had a couple more hours of solid eating to do.

One of the most memorable moments of that day was when Isaac told us of how he would go to his friend’s place to stay the night and

“..come down for breakfast. And there would be, like, toast and butter on the table…. And I’d be ..like… Shut the hell up”…

Over breakfast, Ruben was preparing to go to a beach tournament that was happening that weekend. Recalling his best so-far moment of ultimate as being a high school tournament he went to in Canada were the soda fridge in their room was stocked up every night. I think we all silently laughed when we realised that he’d be spending the weekend with a couple of hundred older people who would take great pleasure in getting them drunk the whole time. Ruben… if you are out there, I hope you survived the weekend.

The time we spent in New Jersey was some of the best we had in the states. We met kids who were second generation ultimate players and we saw how there was a real, thriving community based around a plastic Frisbee left us with the real reason why we play. When you take away the cheerleaders, the exorbitant appearance fees, the performance enhancing drugs – you realise that it’s the love of friendship and competition that drives us all.

I think we all shed a silent tear when we rolled out of those leafy suburbs. I personally shed one of those silent tears when I realised that my wallet, which I had left on top of the car, was now bringing love, cash and credit to the inhabitants of the New Jersey Turnpike.

Stupid, lousy, Turnpike.

But there was no time for tears or sappy emotions. We were off to the big smoke… New York!

Worlds 2004 - Travel log 2- Washington Pigs

Thu, 01 Jul 2004 22:00:00 -0700

Despite all of the pre-flight madness, we all managed to get to Washington without too many more hitches. The flight was a bit of a revelation for me. I was seated next to Owen, the baron von Faff. For people that know me - there’s a few things that I personally don’t respond well to in this world. People chewing loudly, faffing, incessant punning and cauliflower are some of my more acute grievances.

Now, I like Owen as much as the next man, and to his credit, he isn’t a cauliflower. But in that four and a half hour plane journey I rediscovered some of the other traits that Owen is well known for.

Before too long we had touched down and were wrangling through the streets in our divided convoy of mini vans (Owen’s van of faffing, pun-makers strangely missing a passenger – Yates, L)

We then had our game against Electric Pig – one of the better teams from the east coast. The Feral boys had old scores to settle from world clubs in 2002. Personally, I was enjoying playing against a team that liked a bit of hacking on the mark. A bit of chop chop here, a bit of chop chop there, always makes for good times.

The game was played in conditions that the locals were used to; under the air cover of official helicopters flying to the white house. Given that it was only one helicopter at a time, based on the knowledge of the local players, it seemed that the secret service weren’t ferrying around our friend George W. It was more likely that his daughters were making a trip to the mall.

In spite of the ideology challenged, yet extremely lovely Bush daughters, we won the game in a convincing fashion. Hard fought, chippy and aggressive at times, it was just the game we needed so we wouldn’t slip into a post-Seattle success slumber.

After enjoying the smog induced sunset over DC, we went out and proceeded to drink at the local Frisbee clubs expense. Tom and Timae had an eating competition at taco bell – eventually both being outdone by Australian Ultimate’s pound for pound eating champion – Steve Campbell.

A drive across 14 state borders and we were luxuriously accommodated by an Electric Pig Patrick, his wife and their two beautiful border collies. After some Aussie ingenuity involving our bedroom, some sandals and a pedestal fan, a deep 11 hour sleep ensued. The morning after consisted of a breakfast of le Tour de France, some driving around in DC, getting Steve to pretend he was disabled so we could park in one of the glorious spots that only handicapped people know the beauty of and a quick tour of the Edison memorial. There was a glance at the dry pool of reflection (There’s a war on terror going on people: There’s no time for reflection in Washington DC), some photos of random people and we were out, hoofing it up to Philadelphia.

After a long drive we were treated to gloriously grey, drab and depressing cityscape of Philadelphia. With our entrance being flanked with a tropical assortment of chemical plants, car wreckers and petrol refining lots, we managed to resist the temptation to stop and sample the sights, heading straight to the fields, straight into the bad neighbourhoods of Philadelphia.

Straight into the bad neighbourhoods of America? Straight into a presumption of what life is like there? Straight into somebody’s ill-conceived notion of security? This is one of those moments that make you think about America, what kind of society it is and what kind of person you are. What makes a neighbourhood “bad”? Is it the over hyped stories of crime that get splashed across the overtly biased 5 o’clock news? Is it bad because it resembles a place that you’ve seen in a fictional movie that was based on the fears of a white middle class? In this neighbourhood we played in front of a sport and rec hall that seemed to be a real part of a real community.

Some kids came and asked if they could borrow our soccer ball, they gave it back after having an informal game at one end of our field. Some locals showed an interest in what was going on. Some punk kids busted into a restaurant we were in to tell us how much they thought the game rocked. I sure felt safer and more welcome there than this morning when we had eaten breakfast at an up-town mall, surrounded by gun carrying, uniformed pentagon staff.

Obviously nothing is perfect, but places, people and situations are almost never as bad as the road imagination leads you down.

As for imaginations and dreams, we had a bit of a set back that night. In our game against the team Philly Rage, Mike fell down after contesting a disc in the endzone. There he was lying on the ground, the promising rookie on the team, holding on to his knee, crying like a little girl whose pony tail just got pulled in a game of Saturday morning netball.

When he was still lying on the ground 5 minutes later, I felt a bit bad and thought to myself “maybe that crying like a little girl line was a bit harsh”. And when I saw he was indeed crying like a little girl, I felt even worse. Things weren’t looking so good for Mikey; he’d restrained the Posterior Cruciate Ligament that had kept him sidelined for the last couple of months. He sat on the sideline, knee under ice, watching us down the local team with an impressive score line win with a less than stellar performance. We finished the game tucking into the provided hearty local treats that went a fair way in explaining why America’s population has the highest rate of late onset diabetes in the world.

We were all invited back to Kareem’s place for a post game party. Kareem’s place – the house of countless rooms, 4 levels, 15 beds and 2 residents, the house that was won and lost in a poker game 20 years ago. Again the hospitality of our local hosts was outstanding and not only were we all put up for the night, we were all (except netball-Mike) left sipping some of the local brews of the region. The night was filled with talking to the Rage players about this, that and everything else. And when that wasn’t happening, we were being talked into submission by a fat woman whilst her daughter was being dominated into silence. Her advice for Mike’s knee – “Take a Tylenol”.

When Sol questioned her, he was promptly put in his place “I’ll see your M.D. and raise you a M.O.M” (Sol didn’t get it either, the translation lost in the spelling of “Mum”).

After he explained to her that the active ingredients inside Tylenol were not going to do anything for his knee, primarily due to the fact that Tylenol’s are used to treat fevers, he again was shot down. “Yes, but he’s got a fever in his knee, doesn’t he?

“Well, no, he doesn’t have a fever in his knee. There will be some heat, and that’s why we are using the ice, to keep the swelling down”

“Heat inside his knee? Sounds like a fever to me. Take a Tylenol honey”

Now, I was backing Sol on this one, but since I found out later in the trip that he didn’t know the correct surgical procedure for fashioning a vagina from a man’s penis – I’ve lost a great deal of faith in the good doctor. Maybe Mike’s recovery would have been speedier if he’d just taken a couple of Tylenols to ease that fever in his knee.

I’m not quite sure whether it was divine intervention or Sol realising that he might have stuffed up with the no Tylenol call, but as we casually drove around Philadelphia the next morning in search of the liberty bell and Philadelphia cheese-steaks, we “accidentally” found ourselves outside Dr Harry’s Occult and Spiritual shop. Citing a reason “Oh, I’d like to get something for Andy”, Sol, Ant, Scamby and I found ourselves inside, talking to Harry about getting some healing potions for Mike’s knee.

“Left knee or right?” Was the essential question that Harry asked and after getting the procedure for preparing the herbs (“no, you don’t have to stir clockwise, any way will do”) we were out on the sidewalk, pissing ourselves with laughter. We never ended up using the herbs, we lost them on the way to Finland. I hope who ever found that unmarked brown paper bag had a good time smoking them.

A couple of heart attack inducing Cheese steaks later (Cheese steak – a meal created by satan – kebab meat, a bread roll and a more than generous squeezing of Cheese Whiz – the cheese that comes from a can), we were on the road again, in search of the team Pike at one of the homes of ultimate – Mercer Country.

Worlds 2004 - Travel log 1- The Space Needle and I

Wed, 30 Jun 2004 22:00:00 -0700

Like all good stories. This one begins with a space needle.

And not just any space needle.. The space needle of space needles. The Seattle space needle.

It was 5.05 and I was 5 minutes late for my meet up with Mike. (Or 2 hours 5 minutes late for Sol and Roger who weren’t tuned into the same space needle frequency that we were). Walking through the streets of downtown Seattle, the needle was oasis-like, searing away on the horizon as a final haven of rest from the greyhound journey. My feet stumbled on every step, stuttering across the Seattle sidewalks, spitting out the final sour soul notes from their soles. They stalked, surreptitiously sliding this story into a strange swamp of alliteration with the letter ‘s’.

But I digress. The short story is that Mike and I met up at the space needle as planned with very little fuss. Even less fussier was the call we placed to our host and good friend Dean – ‘We’re at the space needle, how do we get to your place?” “Wait there, I’ll be there in 10 minutes to pick you up”. And in less than quarter of an hour, we were sitting at Dean and Marita’s place, relaxing on a couch whilst our other travelling companions, Anthony and Roger, mixed up a Pimms and lemonade.

After a serving of quality Mexican for dinner, we awoke to breakfast at the longshoreman’s daughter and started to prepare for a lunch of Pacific Northwest ultimate teams. Our guide pilot Dean towing our glider to the on ramp of the highway, cutting the tow rope he left us to fly like baby geese on our maiden voyage. We glided into the car park at exactly the right time.

To no great surprise. we were due to play against some great ultimate. Seattle’s sockeye was our first game as a full team. Sockeye, one of the world’s greats, is one of those teams that can beat any team on any given day. But that day was the day of the dingo and we beat them with a score line that I guess many of the team was not expecting. The whole team started thinking that maybe we were actually as good as we were hoping to be.

Next up was Portland’s Axe – another good competitor, but probably not Seattle’s equal. They sported a young looking team that we easily dispatched with. Got my first big block of the tour with a layout D, which was a good thing. When you’re playing a tour like the one we had lined up, it feels good to get off to a good start. I think most people that weekend went some way to achieving that good start and the confidence that it brings you.

After the Portland game everybody bar Mike and I tucked into their prepared lunches.

Panic set in. Who was looking after us? Who was going to step up and take responsibility for us? For a brief moment there were no wings to hide under, so we scavenged like seagulls and scratched up a meal full of cheese and scraps of bread. After playing the Canadian team, Furious George, it was obvious that after a lifetime of eating the stuff, you build up a tolerance to the stuff they call “Cheese” in North America.

As such, experience played its part and they beat our jetlagged arses and cheese-glued stomachs by a couple of points.

Notwithstanding the last game, which was a tired affair from both teams, it was certainly the start we were hoping for. We had beaten two teams that no other Australian team had seriously challenged before. It certainly gave us a feeling of self belief that we desperately needed if we were going to win the world championships.

Our good hosts Dean and Marita again failed to disappoint with a prepared meal on the rooftop of their apartment block with the Seattle sunset framing the end of a first great day on tour.

When travelling, it’s always good to put yourself in the local community and immerse your mind in the culture there. “When in Rome, do as Romans do”. As such, instead of climbing up a mountain like some of our culturally ignorant team-mates, the four of us did what any local would do and participated in a day of over-eating and consumer-whoring in downtown Seattle.

We took a tour of the historic part of the old town, quaintly named “niketown”. While it had now been converted into a shoe and clothing store, you could get a feel of what life was like back in the heyday of niketown. We were so moved by the history of the place, that we couldn’t help but give into the tourist urge and pickup a few souvenirs that took the form of football boots. It seems that most of the team, led by our team historian Tom, also shared the same historical interest in niketown and were only too happy to give a donation to ensure its preservation.

After watching an amazing human eating machine plow through his, his wife’s and his wife’s girlfriend’s lunch, I drank my iced coffee out of my boot and then we retired for the afternoon and watched the Australian movie Gallipoli. When the final credits started rolling, we were left wanting to kill any British person we knew. This was morally troublesome for Roger and Sol, who both have British girlfriends, so instead we soothed our souls with a bbq at Alex Nord’s new place, which was thankfully empty of any Brits. After watching Alex’s shotgun marriage to a half litre fosters can we left and went home for a brief sleep.

In the morning, after a fleeting glimpse of the ever present space needle, a slight worry with Mike getting strip searched, the stewardesses fawning over our green and gold shirts, the pilot holding the plane for the strip search-ees, a quick flight and we were suddenly on our way to Washington DC.

12 Hours in NYC

Thu, 04 Dec 2003 21:00:00 -0800

It all started with a session of Bikrams yoga.

Karen, Giles and I headed out for a session of Bikrams yoga at some place downtown. A fairly innocuous place, it looked simple enough, a nice way to unwind the stresses of the day. Heading up the stairs, taking off our shoes, the scent of chai tea served to calm and relax our work-weary bodies.

Heading into the reception area, we were greeted by two people. A casually dressed female, gently asking us to fill out the required forms and a slightly unnerving, androgynous looking young man clothed in what could only be described as camouflaged print old-style swimwear trunks. Immediately I knew we were in for something would be memorable, who knew that the roller coaster that this man started would still be carrying us in 3 days time.

Bikrams Yoga involves doing fairly standard yoga poses, focusing on stretching and balance. The difference between Bikrams and other variants of Yoga is that Bikrams is done in a room that hovers around the 40 degree mark.

Every pore of our bodies exuded sweat. Our bodies buckled under the pressure of bizarre and unnatural poses, all demonstrated to us by the camouflage-wearing swimsuit wearing girlboy . Our minds slowly going insane from the concentration required.

It was a war. We battled long and hard. Where weaker men and women would have died, our determination kept us with the pace Eventually we triumphed - a session completed and a shower deserved. Such a draining experience it was, speaking was not possible. Even through the pain of accidentally washing our genitals with tea-tree soap, Giles and I could not speak to each other.

The whole next day passed as if I was floating on air. Some work was done, some plans for the weekend made. When Karen arrived home, we cracked open a beer and discovered that the Yoga, and the extreme dehydration that it had promoted to us, caused us instantly to get drunk, thereby lessening our judgment.

"I'm thinking about going down to New York to visit my friend Tamie."
"Sounds like fun, I haven't been to New York for a long time"
"Want to come?"
"Why not - we just have to be back for work on Monday"
(NOTE: Noone can actually remember what we said, this is an estimation)

So we head to a party for Giles and Karen's team. After a few ales, some wrestling on the kitchen floor (which I won, despite having my head shoved though a kitchen cupboard door), many laughs with some good, and some now better friends the clock ticks around to 1.30am. Time to leave. We get in the car and start the drive to New York.

Stop: Toronto. We get Tim's phone number, some donuts and coffee from Tim Hortons. With Giles and Karen drunk and high in the car, the enormity of the task ahead of me struck home: The equivalent in Sydney terms is driving to the Gold Goast, and I was starting this after going to a party, in a country that I don't call home, in a city that I barely know, with two blabbering idiots who were less help than my right arse cheek. (I use the term blabbering idiots in the nice way possible of course).

Stop 3.30 am: Niagara Falls: Giles and I realise that it actually gets cold in the early hours of the morning and wearing next to nothing actually starts to hurt. We get back in, screaming.

Stop: 3.45am US Border. Immigration gives us grief. We get lost in the Border car park and can't find immigration. Eventually we get there, pay for our temporary visas "Sir, don't give me the money. Hold it in the air. Hold it in the air please sir." US Immigration - who knows where they come from? Where do they breed them? Crazy talk.

Stop: 4.30am Upstate New York: Burger King. Coffee. Chocolate Chip Cookies. Giles and Karen asleep.

Stop: 6.00am Some carpark outside some McDonalds somewhere. 5 minute sleep, more coffee, egg mcmuffins. Giles and Karen asleep.

Sun starts to break, the snow covered hills provide some nice scenery. A welcome contrast to the black of the last 5 hours.

Stop: 7:30am: I stop driving. Karen has probably sobered up enough to take over. Giles is still asleep.

Stop: around 9:00am: Not sure what happened, I was awake but memory is hazy. Giles wakes up and takes over driving. I grab the back seat and start a caffeine warped, over-tired half-sleep. Bizarre dreams that I can't really remember ensue.

Around 10.30 we start to enter the city of New York under Giles' command. *Insane* drivers, we almost die three times in quick succession.

Stop: 11am Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We think that Tim lives in a town that sounds something like "Williamsburg". After parking the car, using possibly the world's worst toilet, getting a shot of Fred (* If you don't know Fred, skip to the bottom) and I climbing into a Big Rig we sit down for breakfast at Kellogg's diner. More coffee, more fat. We make plans to go downtown, hang around and then attempt to catch up with Tamie and Tim. Phone calls to the respective parties yield no result. We board the subway, noting our starting location.

Stop: Macy's Christmas Window display. Cute displays of Muppets and other assorted characters.

Stop: Time's Square: Crazy place with televisions everywhere. The whole world screams "Consume". We get the feeling that everybody, probably even the bums squeezing us for money are tourists. Revel in our common stupidity: "We've come to a place to watch some big TVs only because lots of other people before us have come here to watch TVs. Consume"

Stop: Some Famous Christmas Tree Next to an Ice rink, perhaps the Rockefeller center. I threw my now tasteless gum in a near by Christmas bush, made sure to do it outside the view of the Police, Military, Military Police, Security Guards, Patriot Unit and other suitably concerned citizens - don't want to get shot just yet.

Stop: Central Park. For me, the nicest place in New York. Snow covered trees, horse drawn carriage rides, people ice skating, noisy kids having snow fights, us having snow fights, little kid who probably had ADD throwing a massive chunk of snow at his mothers face. We laughed. She didn't see the humour in it. We laughed more.

Stop: Grand Central Station: A massive point of connectivity for the rabbit warren-like New York subway. We attempt to call Tamie and Tim again. We don't get through. Karen and I decide that we need to sleep. Karen sleeps on the table whilst I, wearing Fred, sleep on the ground under a table Dreams of me being Emimen ensue - I'm a rockstar. I'm misunderstood. I'm a whole load of other things that I can't remember. Giles smiles to the concerned Police, Military, Military Police and Rail Security Guards as he makes our plans for the night. We wake up, attempt to call Tim and Tamie - fail again. More coffee, and we decide to go up the Empire State Building.

Stop Empire State Building: One of the last great terrorist targets in New York. I think that's how it should be billed, but as it doesn't seem to want for business I suspect my letter to the marketing manager will fall on deaf ears. Giles, Karen, Fred and I go through the necessary security checks, payments, advertisements, 17 elevators, prompts to consume before we get to the top. Old Chinese grandmother - you skipped the line twice - you know I'll find you one day - prepare for it, for we shall battle - and you will pay.

The view was amazing, city around you in all directions. Millions and Millions of people living their own lives, so many different stories to be heard, so many amazing things happening at the same time. It made me understand why so many people love this city and why it is so important to so many people. We took some photos, shot a nice snap for Fred and made our way down the fire escape to avoid using an extra elevator. Got another shot of Fred fighting a fire in the stairwell.

We get our act together and start heading for the comedy show that we plan to take in. Call Tim, fail to connect. Call Tamie, get in touch and speak for a few minutes and make loose plans. I get her friend's phone number.

Stop: Canal subway station. We end up on a subway platform that we want to take us to Chinatown for dinner. It looks suspiciously less tourist friendly than the others we have frequented. The smell of Urine hangs in the air, the cracked tiles and rusted pipes decorate the opposite wall. I look around. We are definitely the only tourists here - actually Giles and Karen are the only tourists - in Fred I'm a local everywhere. Two guys who look like they're packing a gun walk by, I give him a nod, he nods back, smiles and shows me a nice golden plate that he wearing where his top row of teeth would normally be. I attempt to take it in my stride.

We get on the train, it looks a lot more run down than all previous ones. We're definitely off the tourist track now. We miss out stop and end up in a place where no tourists hang out. We've missed the comedy show, we're hungry, semi-lost and I'm going through my own private world of sleep deprived, caffeined charged hurt.

To be honest with you, the whole subway experience started to freak me out a little. And although it sounds terrible - I didn't think I'd ever feel this way - we were the only white people, obviously tourists in a fairly run down part of town. It was a little scary. But then I realised that I was just buying into the whole media image of racial ghettos - these were just people. They dressed different, spoke a bit different, but they were the same as us. I suddenly felt secure, wasn't afraid to smile at other people on the train.

Hopefully this situation came out right in text, it's a hard thing to confront prejudices that you don't know you have and then be big enough to admit them. It was the most valuable experience that I had from the NYC trip, and one of my fonder memories from all my travels.

We try calling Tamie (now Josh) and get Kate - a wrong number. We try calling Tim. No answer. Story of the weekend.

Stop: Chinatown: We walk through Chinatown and eventually decide on a smoke filled Chinese restaurant that has some seriously crazy food on the menu. After such a long time without food - it's one of the best meals of our life. Admittedly Gile's choice sucked - but Karen and I topped out well. The duck, chicken and dumplings rival any that I've had before.

More walking around Chinatown, Little Italy, we see the "2002 World Championship Mullet".

I managed to perform all of my Christmas shopping in 3 minutes. I'm not going to spoil what I got the relevant family members - you'll find out soon enough.

Stop: Little Italy: More Coffee and Cheesecake that employed the world's rudest waiters. Coffee was bad and expensive. Cheesecake was tasty yet a little flat towards the end. Definitely not a Tour De Force. I felt like ripping his diamond studded earring off his ear. Giles and Karen liked him even less.

We leave the restaurant and realise that although that we should be jacked up with the shots of American Cocaine (read: Coffee) we just had, we were starting to fade. Called Tamie/Josh/Kate and Tim once more to no avail.

Stop: Williamsburg 11pm we make the decision to start the drive back to Toronto. On walking back to the car we spy a police vehicle. Another choice spot to get some action for Fred. Reaching inside the police vehicle, I open the door, brush away the broken glass and pretend to drive the thing. I classic shot that we only realised later could get me thrown in jail and deported. That makes it a classic shot!

I crash in the back of the car while Giles navigates us out of New York, we apparently have 3 or 4 more close shaves with death. I sleep through it all.

Stop: We stop to sleep somewhere - I didn't wake up to go back to sleep.

Stop: Some Garage 3.30am: I wake up and Giles and Karen go to sleep. I sleep more. For some reason, I wake up as we screeched out, as though we are being followed. To tired to care, I go to sleep.

Stop: Somewhere, Sometime: Karen starts to drive while Giles sleeps.

Stop: McDonalds, Somewhere Sometime: More coffee, more cookies. More Driving.

Stop: Dunkin Donuts, Somewhere, 6:00am: I stop with the intention of sleep for minutes. We sleep for an hour get up, have coffee, donuts and wonder why diabetes is such a major problem in the US.

More stops: Can't remember, even though I was driving.

Stop: Canadian Border. I'm getting out of the car to get my passport from the boot. We hold out two passports. Looking at us, ignoring the passports;
"Where are you guys from?"
"Toronto and Australia"
"Been to Canada before?"
"yep"
"Have a nice day"

He didn't check our passports, whether we were carrying crack, importing guns or running a child pornography ring. Love Canada.

Stop: Niagara Falls again: Got hassled for parking in a towaway zone, saw the falls in sunlight, got a nice photo of Fred.

Stop: Karen's parents place. We eat, sleep, dream dreams involving a leopard print Gore-Tex jacket and some woman who is chasing me. Wake afraid. Eat more. Leave.

Stop: Toronto. We are done, sit down watch a movie about Hockey in Alaska and realise the craziness of the last 36 hours. And decide to "Blame it on Bikrams"

For those who like brevity I've summarised the trip with some keywords:
Coffee
Donuts
Highway
Subway
Police
Consume
Subway
Enlightenment
Realisation
Fred
Comedy
Laughs
Friends
Spontaneity

Who / What is Fred?
Fred is a pair of coveralls / a boiler suit owned by a guy called Fred Guay from Langley Chrysler. Trotman (my current housemate) got me a pair for my birthday and they are traveling the world with me. The plan is to take shots of Fred around the world and mail them back to the real Fred. Fred is becoming a good excuse to do stupid things.

Travel Log 6 - Dude - you're naked

Mon, 05 May 2003 22:00:00 -0700

After recovering from both of my adventures along the Yukon and at the Red Dragon Chinese restaurant, it was time to leave Whitehorse again.

This time, the journey was to Haines, Alaska for the 11th Annual Craft Beer and Home Brew Festival. Well, that was the plan at least, devised in the half an hour that I had before the one bus to Skagway left.

Being the only passenger, I chatted with Murray the driver along the scenic route to Skagway. With a bit of chatting with an Australian couple and a frantic run around the streets later, I was on board the ferry to Haines.

The journey was overcast and raining. Some said that the views weren't what they could have been - but it was the Alaska that I had imagined. The grey mist hanging low in the steep cliffs, the wind and rain lashing the decks of the ship, for an hour I stood watching the cliffs pass by, getting whipped by the wind and rain, smiling a stupid grin - taking a thousand mental photographs.

It was raining in Haines too.

And it didn't stop raining...

...the whole time I was there.

But in the end, I didn't mind - I had a great book to read and I ended up hanging around with a bunch of amazing people who I probably wouldn't have met if I was hiking in the alleged near-by mountains.

There was retired Richard, the geriatric cyclists, the resigned magistrate, the jackass pilot, the generous Mark. (All great people, who'll you'll find in the other part of this story - the Characters).

-----

And then there was the beer festival.

Hundreds of beers for the sampling, crazy Alaskans and Yukoners for the meeting and a bluegrass band for the dancing. It went as most beer festivals do - you drink a lot, talk a bunch of crap, meet some interesting people and then stagger somewhere else.

My staggering companion was Dana, a girl I met playing ultimate up here who proclaimed, as she was preparing me a tasty dinner of noodles on her now blazing camp stove, that;

"... you're not a real Canadian unless you can set up a camp stove when you're drunk and have sex in a canoe".

Given that I'd seen the former and had been assured of the latter - (and had assumed she'd meant that the tasks didn’t need to be performed simultaneously) it was good to hang out with a real Candinavian again.

Some more funny stories around the campfire, more drinking and it was about time to walk the long walk home in the rain. More than a few folk tunes later I ended up in bed, perhaps kicking Richard in the process.

----

And after a long 8 hour walk around the small town, it was time to board the ferry to Juneau. To make a long story short - I got off the ferry, walked a couple of miles in the rain to the campground, camped illegally, got woken up continuously by the drunk teenagers, their death metal, girly screams and dirt bikes, woke up, hitched a ride with a grandma, then a computer software guy (who bought me a coffee) and attempted to check into the Nazi youth hostel.

Apparently turning up at the ungodly hour of 9.30am was a bad thing to do. So I stashed the pack and set out for a walk up the nearby mountain.

This time, good sense set in and I stopped myself before committing myself to the 10 hour hike along the ridges of Mt Juneau, settling instead for a scenic walk up to a Granite bowl. Towering peaks, roaring rivers and a bunch of marmots were the order of the day.

I checked into the odd hostel, walked down to my room, past the old fat naked guy at the washing machine, sorted out some of my washing and dumped the rest of my stuff in the room.

What was that? "an old, fat, naked guy". Yep, and he stood there - the entire wash cycle!!!!! - I still can't get the image out of my mind - I spent the whole evening saying to myself "Dude - you're naked. Naked!"

Well, I was saying this until a bit later on… I popped down to the waterfront to enjoy a sundae and watch the sun hover in the mountains. I sat down on a bench, over the hill from a trio of guys (one dressed in women's underwear and a wig) performing Broadway show tunes and grinned to myself, chuckling at the absurdity of the situation.

My smiles apparently went in the direction of Brownie - a Native Alaskan who'd just stolen a bottle of Black Velvet from his work. We chatted for a while and before long, he, I and his buddy (who's name I never did catch) starting doing shots. We were having a great little time, talking about hunting, living in Alaska, living in Australia.. blah blah blah.

And then Brownie's buddy's girlfriend turns up and the fun starts… Brownie's buddy starts acting a little weird, and his girlfriend also starts getting weird. "Whatever” I though “I'll just have a few laughs with them, that'll smooth everything over". So I joke around a bit and Buddy's girlfriend seems to be enjoying herself a little bit more.

Then Brownie's buddy gets his cigarette, flips it around and stubs it out on his tongue.

"Dude - you just put that cigarette out on your tongue.”

“Dude. A cigarette. On your tongue. That's hardcore. Dude.."

I said (and kept repeating to myself, now replacing the “Dude – you’re naked” line)

Then his girlfriend piped up with an explanation "He's just trying to show off. You see I have a thing for guys with blue eyes and white hair, and he's jealous that I find you attractive".

This is the kind of time Luke Mellor would jump in and say "Back the fucking truck up... what was that?". But I just sat there and thought, aside from the fact my eyes don’t have a definite colour, and my hair isn’t white, "this guy just put out a cigarette on his tongue to intimidate me - wow, that's hardcore".

So I did a few more shots, told a few more jokes in an attempt to smooth the waters over.

It didn't work so well and Brownie's buddy and his girlfriend started having the mother of all domestic disputes, right next to me.

"What - you look at girls all the time - can't I look occasionally?"

"huh, mumble"

"Is that all you've got to say? I pay the bills, I put up with all your shit, I look after you, you're family hates me, and you go nuts when I start looking at this guy..."

"mumble"

Shout Shout Shout.

Mumble

Shout Shout etc..

And so the argument went on for another 20-30 minutes. By this time, Brownie and I had moved a small distance away and restarted our conversations. A few more shots and I decided it was time to beat a stealthy retreat - before either Brownie's buddy beat me up, or worse, his girlfriend made a move...

-----

Around the breakfast table the next morning I found myself surrounded by not only the old, fat, naked dude (clothed) but a bunch of Australians (Chelsea, Heather and Kevin) and others who were catching the ferry from Juneau to Seward (a journey which I had considered, but decided against in favour of more hiking in the Southeast).

Needless to say, it was another sign from the Travel Gods, and in 10 seconds, I changed my plans and decided to catch the Ferry with them to as far as Valdez. A mere 32 hours on the ocean.

So, the next morning I made my way to the Mendenhall Glacier, not half surprised to be surrounded by hundreds of less than impressed tourists. “I though it was going to be bigger” “I’m hungry” “My Wheelchair’s broken” etc. Whingers.

There I met an older couple from Seattle, making there 20-30th journey to Alaska, their first on a cruise ship. Getting a ticket for 25% of the normal price – they thought it would be a fun trip.

They hated it, the tourism, the thin veneer of travel in the journey, the constant consumerism. After a bit of a chat with them, his wife offering me a lift into town, the husband saying that they were going the other way, I went to the bathroom (nee toilet) and came back to find them in a heated discussion on the same subject.

Not wanting to cause any more fights than I already had, I beat a quick retreat to a bus stop and in a mad rush, made it back to the hostel, and onto the ferry.

And that journey deserves an entry unto itself.

Travel Log 5 - Life Lessons

Sun, 04 May 2003 22:00:00 -0700

So there I was, in the small town of Carmacks, population 450, talking to the guy at the supermarket about how there are several ATMs in town, but most never have any money in them.

Why not? Well nobody really knows. And nobody seems to care.

So I joined him for breakfast to talk about the ATM conundrum and life in Carmacks. Over one of the best plates of eggs and sausages I've had, Jay told me how he'd ended up here.

A Yellowknife local, he'd hitch-hiked back and forth across Canada twice and decided that he wanted to head to Dawson City. Stopping in Carmacks, he spent his last $10 on some food.

Talking to his (now) good friend Tom, he landed a job at the supermarket and has fallen in love with this small, out of the way, town.

Tom, now sporting a black eye from a weekend of drinking in Dawson, pretty much had the same way of ending up here. A High Prairie local, he'd been on his way to Dawson when he got suckered into this town.

Funny how they both just fell into the town. They think it's the one of the best places in the world and, after listening to them rave about it, I'd have to agree with them.

They offered to take me out for a hike to get drunk, stoned and watch the sunlight fall between the two mountains. But a roll of dice said that I had to hitchhike back to Whitehorse, to return all of the gear that I had borrowed.

So I said goodbye to my new found friends, wrote some postcards outside the gas station, and then waited for two hours. I talked to Rob, an old miner who now owned the gas station and was landscaping for his new restaraunt. A funny man with a lot of funny stories to tell.

Eventually I hopped into a truck with a French-Canadian septic tank excavator. I'm not sure what his name was, but Rocky the environmental journalist (he wasn't scottish today) had a bunch of laughs on the 2 hour drive back to Whitehorse.

Some of the conversations:

Rocky: "So, what are you up to tonight?"

Dude (in a heavy french canadian accent): "Well.... I'm going to go home, drink some beer, drink some wine and then make love."

Dude: "And you, Rocky?"

Rocky: "Well, I was planning on doing the same, probably minus the love part".

With him having to chain smoke his guts out before getting back to his non-smoking girlfriend, I mentioned how suprised I was at how many pretty girls lived in Whitehorse.

Dude: "Hey Hey - about your age too - you should get some acion tonight"..

Rocky: "Yeah, well we see how we go - I've got other things to think about.."

Dude: "Rocky - never, ever turn down some tail. For any reason"

After this valuable peice of advice, his rickety old truck ran out of petrol a couple of hundred metres from the petrol station and we rolled up next to the pump. His lucky day! So I bought him a lottery ticket, he won $2, did some engine repairs and we kicked off again.

He eventually dropped me off in Whitehorse and after our goodbyes he started to drive off. Apparently he had a flash of inspiration and he stopped his truck, opened the door and said:

"Rocky - I have two bits of advice for you:

1. Never turn down a peice of tail. For any reason.

2. The women, with sex - they like it (pumping his fist vigoursly) hard ... ho ho ho!!!"

So that was that - two valuable life lessons learnt, I was back in Whitehorse. And after some Chinese food that has given me dyssentry, I'm planning to push off to Haines, Alaska tonight to partake in a Beer Festival.

Travel Log 4 - Alone

Sat, 03 May 2003 22:00:00 -0700

The way I see it - there's a few different types of being alone.

There's the kind of alone where nobody understands what you are going through and you seem adrift, alone in your own little world of thoughts and emotions. Being alone in you're own world.

There's the kind of alone where you're in a crowd of people, that you want to communicate with but, or whatever reason, can't. Being alone in a crowd.

And then there's the kind of alone where you are geographically alone. With no one around for miles and miles, with no one to see, to talk to, to remind you of a human world. Being alone in the wilderness.

This last type is the kind of alone that I experienced on the Teslin and Yukon rivers for four long, physically and mentally challenging days.

Last week I was at a bit of a loose end and on a whim I decided that I needed to do a Kayaking trip along some of the mighty rivers here in the Yukon. Hiring a kayak, buying a map and ignoring all matter of good sense I decided on kayaking the Teslin and Yukon rivers, from Johnson's Crossing to Carmacks. A distance of about 350kms.

Now that it's all done and finished - I'm beginning to question why I did it at all.

After reading a book that Trotman gave me named "The Dice Man" and talking to my good friend AM, I've come to the conclusion that each of us has multiple inner personalities that are always trying to bust out. It's our dominant persona that keeps them in check and absorbs them. From amy time on the river, I’ve come to realise the other man inside me – Rockafella MacGyver. He’s a pretty headless Scottish journalist who lives on the spur of the moment, can always get himself out of a squeeze but is never thinking of the future or of the consequences of his actions.

It was Rocky who started this trip and then left Lachlan to clean up the mess and actually go through with it.

Day 1.

An old time Yukoner, Harris, his wife, Linda and their powder puff lap dog picked me up at around 6.30am to give me a lift down to Johnson’s crossing while they where on their way down to Grande Prairie. The thermometer read a chilly –5 C when I arrived at my starting destination and after a long, frustrating exercise of getting all of my dry bags into the kayak I eventually pushed off into the flat, calm waters of Johnson’s Crossing. And despite being warned that the first 50kms of the journey would be a fairly long, boring, slog through very still waters, I was excited, excited to be seeing some beautiful mountains surrounding me as I was paddling through the crisp morning air.

This excitement and wonder turned to general concern for my safety after I fell into the near freezing waters when getting out of my Kayak for lunch. In the event of this, Jonathan had warned me to get out, start a fire and get warm as soon as possible. Initially thinking this was going to be overkill, when I did actually get wet – I was scared, cold and worried. Fortunately for me the sun was out and I was able to find a place out of the wind where I could change my wet clothes and warm up again.

It was a stupid mistake of mine – but one that was a valuable wake up call. No one would be on the river for at least another few weeks, and people would only start worrying if I didn’t show up to Carmacks in 8 days time. Being by myself – I couldn’t afford to screw up like that again.

I was alone.

After many more hours of paddling through this beautiful remote wilderness, I eventually pulled into a campsite. After getting chased out of it by something big and scary, I left and found another one. At 9pm I settled in, made a fire, ate some food, wrote some postcards and promptly fell asleep.

Day 2.

I wasn’t able to get started as early as I had anticipated and after breaking camp I was paddling at around 10.30. Things were working well – my clothes weren’t too wet and I was making some good progress along the river.

I stopped for some lunch and made my next big mistake of the trip. There was a bit of excess peanut butter on my pocket knife and in the process of cleaning it, I sliced a deep, but fortunately clean cut into my left thumb.

Shit.

It bled... and bled. And kept on bleeding.

Despite the best efforts of those around me (Jonathan, Laura, Scott) it was here that I realized that my first aid kit consisting of pain killers, rum, caffeine tablets and crappy athletic tape was somewhat inadequate.

But MacGyver came to the rescue and after applying pressure, cleaning my wound with the Rum that I brought along for the trip, I tore up a pair of my boxers and used them with the strapping tape to tape the wound up.

It was here that I realized that the greatest danger to myself wasn’t the bears, the moose or the river. It was me who was the greatest danger to myself.

I wouldn’t say I was scared at this point, I just fully realised the gravity of the situation I was in. Hundreds of kilometers from help, two serious accidents under my belt and 3-4 days of paddling ahead of me. I was alone. I needed to be smart. Something that neither Rocky nor Lachlan are really good at.

So instead of paddling around on the river in a daze, I started to set targets, notice currents and observe the environment around me. Reading and Singing all the words to “And the band played Waltzing Matilda” I achieved a camp at Milson’s landing. I was proud of the day’s efforts – even if I stopped paddling much later than I really wanted.

I’d covered about a 100kms during the day. Despite my thumb which was still gushing blood, I’d set a hard to reach goal and attained it. I went to bed a happy, if a little cold, man.

(a second reading of this sentence makes me into a "little cold, man" perhaps this is an accurate reflection?)

Day 3.

The day got off to a bad start, with me having to pack and then unpack and then repack all of my gear, looking for my watch. I eventually found it and then when filling up the water bladder – the cap fell out of my hands, into the creek and out of sight.

Shit.

Fortunately, MacGyver showed up and I was able to fashion a plug for the bladder out of a condom, the cotton wool that was in the painkillers container and some strapping tape.

(I’ll leave it to the reader to wonder why there was a condom in my first aid kit when I knew I was going to be going on a solo 5-8 day kayaking trip)

After this repair effort I was feeling mighty chuffed with myself, but knowing my head was up in the clouds, I decided to take it easy that day and try to avoid as much trouble as possible.

After a few hours I pulled into Hootlingua, the site of an old trade route village where the Teslin and Yukon rivers meet. There I had some lunch in the sun, had a cup of tea, did a bit of fishing, got naked in the sunshine and walked around the historic ruins (clothed). With a smile on my face and a far more positive outlook than from my previous two lunches I got on my way for my next camp. I had planned a short day where I only covered about 60kms, but I felt in control and confident.

I spent the evening at the camp, sipping of Jamaican rum, surrounded by ice on the shoreline, watching the sun set into the beautiful Yukon horizon, listening to the loud and unidentifiable noises of the bush around me. With time to ponder anything and everything it was a truly magical experience.

Alone and with a smile on my face.

Day 4.

With a medium sized day ahead of me, I managed to get everything organised well and got off to an early start. I was making some pretty good time in the now fairly boring surroundings of the arid Yukon moonscape.

With me now officially recognizing Rockafella MacGyver as the other person along for the trip, I had someone to talk to. Admittedly I had a hard time understanding his thick, Glaswegian, Scottish accent at times – but we had some good arguments.

“I’m Rocky – I’m the likable, friendly person all your friends like. You’re just my bitch who works 8 hours a day to provide me with play money.”

“Stop saying that – I’m an interesting person, people like me”

“Don’t be fookin stupid Lachlan, you’re a boring, useless, average-looking, computer-nerd twat. Face it – I’m the only interesting part of you.”

“But you’re just all impulse and no follow through – you’re a joke. You need to get some responsibility”

“That’s just like you, Fook – I wish I could get away from you, I can’t believe I hang around with you”

And so on and so forth….

Then the wind picked up and slowed my progress a great deal. With me continuously belting out my 8 minute version of “And the Band played waltzing Matilda”, “Waltzing Matilda” and “Bound for South Australia” I pushed on for as long as I could, eventually stopping at the 50 mile mark for some lunch, getting some much needed shelter from the howling wind.

With a bumblebee buzzing around me and the fear of getting some kind of hideous allergic reaction to its sting, I tried to swat it with my camelback tube. I got rid of the bee, but in the process knocked my peanut butter into the mud.

Shit. Well – not really, it was kinda funny actually – I started pissing myself. Rocky was laughing too.

I got in and started paddling into the wind again, stopping at Little Salmon Village as a potential camp at the 35 mile mark. Thinking that 35 miles was still a long way to paddle the next day, on a day that I wanted to finish as early as possible, I decided to push on a little further. The weather was starting to close in and I didn't want to have to paddle too far in bad weather the next day.

Thinking as I was paddling “Hey, you know – I could have done this in four days”, I got pretty angry with myself, thinking “Could have, should have, would have. Didn’t.”.

It’s always so easy to say in hindsight that “I could have” done this and that, but the reality of it is that you didn’t, and once you’re finished you can’t change that. You copped out. You’re a joke. You’re a loser.

With this thought driving through my mind I paddled the next 35 miles into a strong headwind pretty much non-stop and after 14 hours of paddling that day I pulled into my final destination of Carmacks at around midnight.

Then I had to lug all of my gear up to a non-existent service station, moving as much as possible to fight off the cold that was starting to set in. Realising that I wasn’t going to find the service station I stashed the gear by someone’s house, sculled a Yukon Gold, ate a strip of beef jerky and checked into a hotel room where I had one of the most rewarding showers of my life.

MacGyver made some oatmeal in the coffee maker, I ate it and promptly fell asleep.

Doing the trip in 4 days isn’t a major achievement. While at the height of the season, when the flow is high, most people will do it in 6-8 days, others will race the same trip in around 20-30 hours. But the fact that I was the first person to do it that season, alone, when the flow is around 10% of what it gets to, completely unprepared, having a few accidents, with pretty much no experience but a lot of determination, made me proud of what I achieved.

For Lachlan and Rocky, it was high fives all around.

That said – what I did in those 4 days was reckless and fairly irresponsible. I “sort of” neglected to mention my complete lack of experience to the kayak guy and to Jonathan, both of whom tried their utmost to make sure I was safe. Without the extra gear and advice that Jonathan provided, I probably would have been in a bit more trouble and I’m not sure how it would have ended up, so I’m greatly indebted to both of them.

But I’m here, so is Rocky and we’re having the time of our lives. Living, loving, learning and taking it all in our stride.

Travel Log 3 - Elvis Lives

Fri, 02 May 2003 22:00:00 -0700

So you might not have heard. Elvis is alive and well, living in the Yukon.

So – he may have been abducted by aliens and returned down to earth, toured the insides of a few mental institutions, been in trouble with every police station from Dawson to Vancouver, sued the Canadian government – but he’s here – and they just made a movie about him. “The Elvis Project”.

Although I missed the showing of the movie, I was able to catch up with Elvis in the streets of Whitehorse and bathe in his kingly glow. And after playing a bit of ultimate here, I attended the official “Elvis Project” after-party at the Capital hotel, where I was able to hang out with Elvis and Elvis fans alike.

Of course, we had to wait in line for half an hour while the small town bouncer, who looked barely old enough to drink, let alone handle himself in a fight, gave us some attitude at the door. Fortunately the time passed relatively quickly with my new found line friend, Michael, constantly urging Brad (the bouncer) to “Suck my balls, come on – lick em. Suck my balls”, all the while, gyrating his crotch under the gold chain that was keeping us out of the fine establishment. *

So after a few Yukon Golds, a smoke alongside the Yukon river, watching a Beaver, trying to break up a fight, a dinner of Potato Chips, Beef Jerky and Yoghurt, I again settled into bed – and it was still light out at 1am.

And after a day of shopping and packing I’m now prepared for my 8 day paddle along the Teslin river. From what I’ve been able to gather, I’ll be the first person to do it this season, so I’m a little excited and scared about the whole thing at the same time. I’ve been assured that the river will be mostly clear, but I’ve got to watch out for some ice falls, shallow bars, the odd moose and bear.

And in other news, I’ve printed some lyrics out so I can start singing actual songs. Reading the lyrics to “And the band played waltzing matilda” made me almost cry, but after a stiff chorus of “Bound For South Australia”, I’m ready to take on anything.

Well – If I don’t write here in the next little while, you’ll know something serious has happened to me.

* Such a fine establishment that it keeps a 56 year old mummified cat, that they found during renovations, under glass at the bar.

Travel Log 2 - Smoking in Whitehorse, hiking in Alaska

Thu, 01 May 2003 22:00:00 -0700

So there I was...

Sitting in the chambers of the Whitehorse City Council. Surrounded by the esteemed councillors Dukey Connelly, Doug Graham, Dave Austin, Dave Stockdale and the young moron Samson Hartland.

The cause was city By-Law 2003-15 - the anti smoking by-law seeking to ban smoking in indoor places. And I was there, living out my bar profession of being a journalist - taking notes, getting quotes, developing an angle..

Despite the Samson "stupid question" Hartland making an ass of himself, it was a very civil meeting. My first ever city council meeting - and what a place to do it in - Whitehorse, YK, Canada.

After debating the pros and cons of smoking in public, a few cleansing ales with Jonathan, Laura and Marcus, a suprisingly good sleep under the still-light skies, I borrowed Jonathan's shitbox Toyota Terccel and headed off for Skagway, Alaksa.

The drive there was unlike any I've been on. Once I worked out how to get the key in and out of the ignition the scenery at every turn took my breath away - from the towering peaks snow capped peaks all around, to the frozen lakes of Fraser, from the barren desert of Carcross to the lush rainforest of lower Skagway - the drive was one of complete contrast and unparralled beauty.

After a quick chat to a girl from Minnesota, a coffee and bagel later I was hiking my way up to Upper Dewey lakes. A lot of steep hiking later I found myself tramping through the spring snow - what a treat! To be in such a beautiful place, touching the white, fluffy snow! Life is good!

An hour later, the magic of hiking though waist deep wet snow was turning into a bit of a chore. And when the clouds came in and I was surrounded in a small snow-storm I began to question the wisdom in attempting a hike a month before it came into season.

Had I been with someone else, logic probably would have prevailed and the idea of hiking in unfamilar terrority, in the snow, wearing shorts with a storm closing in was not a good one. But since I was by myself the "what are you? a quitter? chicken? what's a little bit of snow?" thoughts took over and I pressed on to the hut.

Fortunately for me there was a blanket there which I was able to warm myself up with before eating the rest of my chocolate, reading the messages and identity cards of those who had been there before me.

Getting down from the hike was suprisingly easy - rolling in the snow may not be considered a classic walking technique, but it worked well for me.

Since I left the pepper spray in the car, I had to warn off bears with the singing of some Australian folk tunes. The fact that I only knew 2-3 lines of "And the Band played Waltzing Matilda" and "Bound for South Australia" should have at least puzzled them, if my off key singing didn't make them cringe enough.

After a couple of beers, some time watching the eagles outside my campsite, I settled off to sleep under the still bright Northern Canada sky.

The next morning I awoke to the calling of hundreds of large sea birds outside my tent. Not a bad way to wake up to the sunlight, but when the sun rises at 5am, the novelty wore off.

Picking up a hitchiker, Akeith, on my way back into town I found out how much the local enconomy relied upon the 5 large cruise ships that had docked in Skagway. The rich, Middle Aged tourists' money bumps the town's population up from 800 in the winter to 3000 in the summer (mostly young workers).

In Skagway, it's like walking through a middle aged mosh pit. The streets are so full of tourists, that walking on the footpaths makes for harder work than the actual hikes. Video cameras, shopping bags, walking sticks make for boulders on the way to the coffee shop.

Eventually I was able to get out and start my ascent of AB mountain - a nice 5000ft mountain just next to the city.

Again I went off singing into the wilderness and again I got stuck hiking up through the snow. Fortunately it was cold enough that the snow was not melting and I was able to pack it quite nicely up to the top. Having a snack on a ridgeline I was startled by a massive brown and gold eagle which popped up right next to me, soaring on the strong winds, in front of me and out over the valley. I sat and watched him in awe and until my teeth started chattering.

I packed on and again got caught in a snowstorm. Fortunately it was just high winds and poor visibility, so it didn't restrict my movements to much. Again, I probably should have turned back, but it wasn't that much further.

I eventually got to the top, made it back down and lived for the spectacular drive home.

All in all a great place to go hiking and a great place to do some thinking about what I've done and what I'm doing.

Where to from here?

Hopefully a 6 day canoe trip to Dawson City - but we'll see how we go.

Travel Log 1 - Hope I don't get eaten by a moose

Wed, 30 Apr 2003 22:00:00 -0700

So - I'm officially on holidays.

As for my plans, I might have spread a rumour that I was planning on buying a motorbike and driving up to far North Canada.

The idea was

1. Buy a motorbike

2. Insure it

3. Insure myself

4. Learn how to ride the said motorbike

5. Ride to the Yukon/Alaska.

And I was all set to do it. On Saturday, I rocked up to a guy's place and looked at the motorbike he was selling. I noticed a little sticker on the dash which read:

"Remember, You Are Mortal"

After reading that and hearing the tales of the previous owner falling off the same motorbike several times, I decided that it was a sign from God and that I'd be better off getting up there some other way.

So I'm leaving my eventual demise to the truck drivers that will be picking me up when I'm hitchhiking. Hopefully the accent will turn them off and they'll be able to resist my alluring charms.

So that's what I'm doing. But I've noticed that, due to the SARS outbreak, flights to Toronto are at an all time low. So hopefully I'll be able to tempt death at least once on my travels.