Bored. Snapped a few pics in the airport. 3 hour layovers in terminal 1 are toooo looong. Happily the Red Rocket supplies us with beer. 2 pints of Rickards – an outlandish $19 after tax and hefty tip (hey, I’m on vacation and happy). Looking forward to $3 bottles of Argentine Red!! Next up, the hung for Chester Cheetah’s Cheese Corn! Rumour has it that Nacho Libre is slotted for the next flight. THe Notebook is also on tap, but luckily, it’s later on so I won’t have to stay up.
Hi folks. I see you’re all back to read the next installment in my ongoing saga in New Zealand. Thanks. I’m happy to provide everyone with glimpses into my psyche and what I’m doing, why, and what it all means to me. This installment sees me biking from the Little Earth Hostel in Whangarei to the coastal town of Mangawhai Heads and the Coastal Cows Hostel. First thing I did before leaving this morning was to check whether or not the hostel would have room, so that I’d know whether or not I’d have to keep moving. Huzzah, they had room, so now I didn’t have to rush to get there early, but could just roll in when I rolled in. That makes a big difference to me, and came in handy today. Actually, the owner even said if he wasn’t here, just to let myself in. Well, as I write this, I’ve been here alone listening to tunes on the stereo, and working away, after having eaten. No owner has shown, but I showed two other couples around the place. Too funny. Anyway, on with my story of the day, and don’t forget to check the map 🙂
23/02/08
Welcome back to my world folks. Well, another day is in the bag, but I’m feeling great today! The ride from Te Anau to Tuatapere was over 100km, but I was happy the entire way today. The road was generally downhill, and there was a nice tailwind for most of the ride. I can’t stress enough just how nice that is. There was only one hill of any concern, a 200m climb called Jericho Hill. Apart from that, it was just undulating terrain the whole way. My little map is up and awaiting your inspection. along with some shots for the day. Overall, I didn’t take too many pictures, as the scenery was generally not that remarkable. It was nice, but nothing out of the ordinary or really different from what I’ve been seeing for a lot of the trip. Farmland and rolling fields with sheep and cows. Yippee. Read on for a little more detail on this great riding day.
A few months ago, Ms. ActiveSteve and I signed up to take our PADI Open Water course, with the hope that when and if we visited Saudi Arabia, we may get a chance to do some scuba diving in the red sea while visiting Jeddah. Well, I’m extremely happy to report that we did indeed get that chance, and it was phenomenal. Of course, we have very little real world experience to compare it to, but that’s besides the point. After all, how many other people got the chance to dive the coral reefs of the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia this New Year’s eve? Well, by my count, maybe 8 other people. That’s it. In the whole world! So, understandably, we were pretty stoked about it. So leads to this blog post, which will shed a little light on this most excellent adventure that Jody and I got to share together 🙂 For maximal enjoyment, I should also recommend that you check out the pictures that I’ve posted from the day on flickr. Ironically, the camera screen conked out early in the day, and without a viewfinder some of the framing may have been off, but it still took pictures thankfully. Looks like it’s time to take ‘er in to the shop again!
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.
