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.
06/02/08
So, what is Waitangi Day you ask? Well, it’s a national holiday here in New Zealand. Sort of like Canada Day, but not quite. There aren’t massive celebrations everywhere, but it is a significant date for Kiwis. This is the day the Treaty of Waitangi was signed by the queen, which recognized the land claims and rights of Maoris. Of course, things are still not settled for Maoris, so as a result, there is not much celebrating, but rather, a fair bit of protest on this day in certain parts of the country. However, it is still a federal holiday, which means food places all charge 15-20% extra if you want to eat. Ha ha. Guess I’ll be eating noodles and peanut butter sandwiches today! At any rate, I’m still in Fox Glacier township right now, enjoying an almost complete day off. My only activity was about 25km of biking and hiking, to check out the stunning views of the Southern Alps from here. The rest of the day is hopefully for laundry, Internet, phone calls, etc. etc. Yup, I’m resting and getting ready for the next few days. Read on and check out the map for a bit more info.
14/02/08
Wow, look at that kids, it’s St. Valentine’s Day! Well, I can’t say I’m doing anything romantic at all to mark the day, but rather, chose to hurtle myself over a canyon and fly through the same said canyon in a jet boat. Later on tonight, I believe my hosts and I will be doing somewhat of a pub crawl around Queenstown. Lucky for me, they don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day, so I’m not really intruding. Otherwise, I would’ve just found my own entertainment for the night elsewhere. Today is another pseudo-rest day, with the most I’m doing physically is walking to town and back to get shuttle buses. The legs are recovering nicely, and I think I’ll be back on track with another day like this. Lucky for me, that’s exactly how I planned it out! Hee hee. Anyway, for today, I put together a map showing where I did things, but they are not my typical biking maps. Read on, and check out the pics too.
20/02/08
Catchy title, don’t you think? Don’t worry too much though, the disaster wasn’t catastrophic, but it was certainly frustrating. Of course, you’ll have to read more of the post to find out what I’m talking about, as I don’t want to give it away just yet 😉 Today marked my return to the road by bike after a week of not cycling! Hard to believe isn’t it? Well, at least I was still quite active with my time, and had a very enjoyable time in Queenstown staying with Julia and Mark. Thanks a ton guys, it was awesome, especially our Valentines’ threesome! Ha ha. Get your head out of the gutters people, we just went out on the town and called it that. Anyway, I’m sure you’re all anxious to hear what my day had in store for me, aren’t you? My route today took me from Queenstown to a place called Mavora Lakes. Yeah, go ahead, try to find it on Google maps. I know it’s there, but I’m not sure it’ll show you a road. Luckily, you can see my route on the map if you care to, check out the pictures, and read on for more.
Hello again, and welcome to the wet, wild African adventures of ActiveSteve and Cantrailia! The blog post title pretty much sums up the entirety of what this post will be about, but when have you ever known me to keep things short and sweet? Of course I have a few more things to share with you about the day, so you’ll just have to read the whole thing anyway. To get you started, I of course once again urge you to check out the map that I made of the day’s trek, as well as the set of pictures posted over on flickr. When you are satisfied that you have an idea of what we as a group were up against for this particular leg of the journey come on back here and read the rest of the post.
