On this page, we’ll be tracking the progress on fundraising, as well as how many kilometers we’ve been riding to offset the donations being made to us through Team Diabetes.
GOALS REACHED – No data to share now….
GOALS REACHED – No data to share now….
I rode and trained lots…
Carl rode and trained too, but not as much as me 😉 !
10/03/08
Well folks, today has to rank as one of the greatest days of my entire trip so far. That’s saying quite a bit, because I’ve had 3 months of pretty great experiences to measure up against it. However, it was just one of those days when everything seemed to be going my way. I had a good night’s sleep, the weather was fantastic, and I just felt happy all around to be up here in the Mount Cook National Park. The plan for the day was to do some awesome hiking up in the mountains. I had planned just to head up to Mueller Hut and soak up the views there, but I also decided to tack on a summit by climbing up to Mount Olivier since I was already up there. After all, this was the first summit that Sir Edmund Hillary actually summited, so that should make for a pretty cool experience, right? Well it was, read on and check out the map.
Well, as I look at my last blog post, I see that it’s been just about two weeks! My how time flies! There’s been plenty of things happening in the last couple weeks, so I’ll likely try to jam a few new posts on right away to catch anyone up who’s been wondering what’s new. To the left, you can see a lovely picture of Parliament Hill as seen from the air. April 29 marked my father’s 65th birthday, and he drove all the way up from Westville, NS to celebrate with his family up here. Yup, he’s now officially a Senior Citizen in the eyes of the man. You wouldn’t think it to see him and hang out with him for a while. He’s still sharp as a whip, and has plenty of stories that definitely make my life seem pretty pedestrian by comparison. Just ask him some day about the 6 months he spent slogging through the jungles, attempting the first land crossing of the Darien Gap (see this great story about the Darien Gap) in an amphibious vehicle ( a DUKW to be precise), which promptly broke down, leaving his team to slog on by foot, till he got dyssentry, and on and on! I’ve told him on several occasions that he must write out his memoirs some day. If for nothing else than for my sheer enjoyment of it all. It’s cool to hear stories from your maker about their life experiences!
08/02/08
Hello friends from around the world. Today I made my way over Haast Pass, the lowest of the passes from west to east over the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Whew, it had some tough parts. Although the overall pass was only 564m, the first section was a killer, as everyone I encountered has agreed. I’m glad that I opted to do it in 2 days rather than only one, as now I can enjoy a leisurely ride in to Wanaka, and hopefully be there by mid-day. I’m hoping that once there, I can find a bar televising the Coast to Coast race, and I’ll then proceed to drink and cheer on all the local athletes rather than competing in it myself 🙂 I chose to play a bit of a tourist myself today, opting to do all the side trails on the way to Makarora, in order to break up my day and not finish off too early, which believe me, would be boring here in Makarora. Know what’s here? Nothing. Just the ‘resort’ I’m staying at, and a DOC information center, which I spent 40 minutes at already chatting about tracks around here. Anyway, read on for a bit more about the day and what it held for me. I also have a pile of pictures on the map for you to check out.
Howdy everyone out there. Quick post to send out a great big Happy Birthday to my favourite niece in the entire galaxy. Helena celebrated her fourth birthday yesterday, on the 13th of April! She’s been quite excited about the big event some time now. In fact, a couple months ago she was already telling me that I’d be invited to her party. Lucky me, right? Well I think so, given that not too many people were invited personally by her 🙂 Instead of having to deal with a big group of little people in the middle of a work week, parents Andrea and Patrick opted to throw a little party for her over the weekend, and it went swimmingly well. The weather definitely co-operated, and the venue was a great location for a group of wired youngsters. If you’d like to check out how that unfolded, you can have a look at a set of pictures I put up on flickr. Afterward, come on back for a quick re-cap of the day.
