Sitting in Nate’s in the Ottawa airport waiting for flight.
Last Canadian meal before beef time!
Dreary weather is looking in on us from the outside world. Overcast and the like.
I’m peering out at a robin’s-egg blue Air Canada plane at gate 17. Ours is next to it.
C-GJWO is our equipment. Airbus 319. Looks air-worthy. We’ve got about 1:15 till lift-off 0:45 till we board.
Update: there was a gate change, we were actually at Gate 15. Don’t know what the tail ID was. Sorry kev.
04/01/08
Hi everyone! Well, although in the strictest sense of the word today was a day off, the effort I put into my day made it anything but a true day off. Today, I decided to try my hand at some of the great mountain biking that surrounds Rotorua. On the plus side, I have now at least justified bringing my full suspension mountain bike with me to New Zealand. It was an amazing day on the trails, I’ll say that much. There were just so many of them, and in so many different grades of difficulty. If it weren’t for a certain minor medical condition, I’d consider staying an extra day just to do more biking on the sweet sweet singletrack around here. For a map showing where I went biking, along with a few pictures from the day, you know what to do. For more info, just read on.
Howdy all, Steve here, reporting from the Hostel Estoril in Buenos Aires. I’ve made an executive decision as to how I’ll keep you posted while we’re over here. Flash blogs. Meaning, just short little posts filling you in on the basics, and some of my thoughts. Hope you’ll understand my brevity. There are better things to do than write on a machine. But thankfully, for the time being, the hostel has hooked me up with free access to updated the blog. The posts will be pretty much straight translations from my notebook, where I’m organizing my thoughts. When I get back, I’ll update these with pictures too hopefully. On we go…
10/01/08 to 12/01/08
Good day to you all! Well, it’s been several days since I wrote a blog post, primarily because there was no way I was going to lug a computer around with me on the highest peaks of the North Island. Not that I’m not loyal to you all, it’s just that there wasn’t going to be any power anyway, and I really wanted to focus on the hiking and the sights. Let me tell you right off the bat, I was not disappointed in any way with my decision to spend 3 days in Tongariro National Park doing the Tongariro Northern Circuit with Ralph. I’m not sure how I can actually write a blog post that does any justice to my experiences in the past couple days. They are just so numerous and awe inspiring that it’s really one of those experiences you’d have to be there for. The pictures are probably the closest thing, and those will have to wait until I send a CD of the full-resolution pictures for Jody to post for everyone. It was just that good. In any case, you can for now check out two maps for days one and part of day two before the GPS batteries died. What follows are a few more of my thoughts on the experience, and what lies ahead for me.
For pictures from our trip to the Chilean border, click here. Howdy folks, your humble narrator Steve reporting in yet again from Mendoza. We´re just wrapping up our 3 day, 2 night stay here, and I thought I´d pop in and catch you up on the last couple days. In a little under 2 hours we´re all meeting up again, to head to the bus station and pile on to the overnight bus back to BsAs. It´s about a 13 hour ride, so we´ll be arriving at 8am. It´ll be our last day and night in Argentina, and I´m already getting sad to think about leaving all this greatness behind. However, my waistline will surely thank me, and I´m almost sure the rest of my trip-mates could use a break from my non-stop self 😉 (right, Sandy?). It´s been a great couple of days, even though we opted to skip out on the wine tours in this, the greatest Argentinian wine city. That´s not to say I haven´t embibed in a few bottles of white and red on the way. Mmm mmm, one of my favourite Bodegas has been Chandon, not sure if we can get it or not. I´m heading out to do a little shopping soon, but not till I tell you about (another) great bus trip we took yesterday. Read on.
