Unfortunately Anna is a student these days, so I had to go out and find work. Find it I did, a little different to my usual line of work, with a small-medium sized New Zealand business. It’s been quite interesting so far, and with some fairly serious growth plans, it could be an interesting ride over the next few years.

It does mean commuting to work by car, something I’ve never done before. All the previous jobs I’ve had, I’ve walked (mostly), rode a bike, taken the bus, or maybe the train. But for once, I’m driving a car. Very strange. Everyone else is going the faux-eco-hippy route, I seem to be regressing.

But the other work that has been going on is, at long last, completing my PADI Divemaster certification. I did most of the work for this last year, but didn’t quite finish it before going on the road. But, at long last, after far too many dives in Lake Pupuke, and way too much time in the pool, I’ve finished!

Will be quite nice to go diving purely for the sake of diving, and not have to worry about passing this or that task, and only have to worry about cleaning and storing my gear, not rinsing out 15 wetsuits…

Came racing down the hill, up to a wooden obstacle that I’ve gone over before, going a bit fast, OK hit the brakes a touch, whoops, the wood’s wet, the bike slips out, and things all go horribly wrong.

Next thing I’m lying on the ground, the bike is several feet away, wheels spinning, Samson the dog is checking me over, and yet remarkably all my limbs are still working. A few minor bruises, a bit of a rest needed, then we go to set off. Hang on, the chainring doesn’t look right – should be it be in two pieces?

Not cheap to replace either, $135, since they only had an XT ring available. Could have been worse, could have been me snapped in two

Because my brothers, sister, and parents all live in different cities (and countries), it’s not often that we are all in the same place at the same time. Weddings and funerals it seems. Last time was not under the best of circumstances, but this time things were a fair sight better. More laughs this time:

From Auckland Miscellaneous

With some people staying with Anna and I, and others staying nearby, we ended up with a full house on Saturday night – brothers and sister, with their partners and children, in-laws and out-laws, plus a few hangers-on. Rather good times, eating some good food, having a few drinks, etc. Turns out that having a game involving putting out candles with the palm of your hand is not the best idea, as one contestant can attest. But it was a good time, catching up with family.

The following morning, Anzac Day, we weren’t in the best shape for getting up to go to Dawn Parade. There’s always next year for that. But Nic and Dave put together a nice breakfast, followed by one proper photo of the lot of us:

From Auckland Miscellaneous

House felt a bit empty by the time we finally got rid of the last of them…Oh and Nic got us a great present, which I’ll send photos of once we get it mounted and displayed – a destination roll from a 1980′s bus, showing various locations around the upper North Island. Very fashionable it turns out (I had no idea).

Oh and there will be some changes before the next blog post – I need to change to WordPress, will take a bit of mucking around to get things working. Hopefully all links will keep working.

It’s been nice to be home. One of the problems of moving around is that no matter where you are, you always seem to be missing somewhere else that you’ve been. But as I said before, this time I feel ready to be in New Zealand. Sunshine for the first week, along with catching up with friends and family certainly helped. Most importantly, I now have a steady supply of Vogels bread and peanut butter, not to mention wide distribution of superb meat pies.

Savings won’t last forever, so I will start actively seeking employment soon. Truly. Really. I will.

Oh and a special mention of Cascade Designs, the makers of Therm-a-Rest sleeping mats. My Prolite 4 had started delaminating, after hundreds of uses. But they have a lifetime warranty, and the local distributor honoured it. Sent it in, and they quickly sent out a replacement. New model too, same size and weight, but 20% warmer. Nice. The only thing that I’m annoyed about is that these are listed as $100USD on the US website, but locally sell for closer to $300NZD. Should be more like half that – dunno if it’s the distributor or the local retailers jacking up the prices.

A couple of years ago, I wondered if I would be able to settle down, and do the house/dog/white picket fence thing. Well, it wasn’t to be – I couldn’t settle down at first.

How things have changed – most of those elements are now in place, and I expect to stay in the same city for at least the next three years. It doesn’t mean that I won’t be doing any more trips like this ever again, it just means they will be shorter trips over the next few years, and probably closer to home. I still want to ride across the USA, but it can wait a while. It will still be there in 3 years, it’s not going anywhere (no matter what the radicals might say). It will be a slightly different place then of course, but that’s neither here nor there.

And you know what? I’m happy about being home. More than that, I’m ready to be home, and settle for a while. If I hadn’t done this last leg, I would have wondered about it, wondered if I was doing the right thing in staying at home. It was probably a good thing that I chose Patagonia for this trip – because to be completely honest, I didn’t really enjoy it. Could have been a different story if I’d been back in China. Would I have wanted to come home from that?

I have thoroughly enjoyed riding around the UK though. It can be an underrated place, but if you’ve got the money, it’s a great place to ride around. Probably just as well I added this onto the end of the Patagonian trip, because it gave me quite a boost. It’s also one of the few places you can spend hours riding every day, and still gain weight, from all the beer and stodgy food.

Jan also pointed out one good thing about having completed my RTW circuit – I can now go anywhere, I’m not constrained by having to complete the loop – instead I can choose destinations on the basis of interest, not geography. We’ll see.

Kiwicon was on in Wellington. This was the third running of a computer security conference. We don’t get many conferences here, so it was heartening to see quality talks, attended by around 300 people. On a weekend no less. The $50 price tag might have helped this somewhat. A good range of talks – some of them way too technical for me, some covering things I know and do every day, and some just hitting the right spot. A good chance to catch up with a few people I know too – it’s a small industry here.

Next weekend is Sydney, for a cousin’s wedding. It will be a good opportunity to catch up with some spread out branches of the family. After Sydney, back to NZ for a couple of days before flying to Santiago. Only two more days of work to go too. I’ve moved out of my flat, everything’s packed up and I’m living out of (nb not in) a cardboard box.

Although I’ve packed up most of my stuff, it doesn’t mean that I’ve sorted out all my gear. I’ve been busy patching holes in my panniers, and sorting out other stuff. I think I’ve got everything I want; it’s now a matter of sorting through and working out what I actually need. Matt@Velo is going to hold an extra large bike box for me, so next week I’ll box it up, and pray that I don’t get hit with excess baggage charges. Could be marginal.

I’ve also started looking at some of my maps. I’ve got a couple of overlapping maps, and I’m a bit concerned about discrepancies between them. One has a road marked as a highway, the other as a “seasonal track.” At best the road will be a dirt road. One marks some roads as highways when I know that they are dirt roads. I should be able to get hold of some better maps when I’m in country anyway. These ones are just for planning. I’ve also found detailed maps for my GPS, from gps.com.ar. They are detailed, it remains to be seen if they are accurate.

This year I’ve done some diving – 10 dives now – and people will of course think hey diving’s perfect if you’re deaf – you can’t talk underwater anyway! There is of course some truth in that. And of course you know about issues with equalisation when descend/ascend, and clearing your ears.

But what you don’t always know about is the aftereffects of the combination of water and pressure on your ears, and consequently your hearing. That water getting forced in there doesn’t really do it any favours, and so after diving you leave your hearing aids out, to let them dry out a bit. Not having your aids in, and having water in there makes you rather deaf – lucky it was good friends on the boat with me. It’s easier with voices that you’re familiar with. It does make you wary of joining conversations though, as you’re not sure if you’re missing things, or misinterpreting them.

We did a lot of diving that weekend at the Poor Knights, and it seemed to be too much, too deep, too soon for me. My ears were sore for a couple of days, and I felt a little more deaf than usual. Ronelle put me onto Vosol – a couple of drops in each ear in the evening. That helped a bit, but it’s not a cool look sitting around with toilet paper in your ears…Things weren’t quite right by the weekend though, so rather than exacerbate the problem, my advisor said I was better to give it a rest. So I’m going to have to wait until this weekend to try again – not too deep this time though.

On a completely different note – There is No Depression in New Zealand. I went out to Sale St Bar last night to catch up with some old university friends. The place was pretty busy, for a Wednesday night. It’s a big place, so that means quite a few people there. That place must be absolutely heaving on a Friday night, all the people who want to be seen out for a good time.

We drove up on Friday night, slept on the boat in the marina, then headed out on Saturday morning. Hanging around being monkeys seemed to be part of the pre-dive warmup:

A busy weekend followed, with four dives on Saturday, and two more on Sunday. I was only diving in a 5mm wetsuit, and with water temperatures around 15°, I was getting pretty cold and tired, so I sat out the third and last dive on the Sunday. We had some good dives though, doing things like navigation, going deep (26m), night diving (perhaps not my cup of tea), and probably my favourite, the naturalist. Basically for that you just went and looked at the fish, plants and animals. That’s more like what diving should be. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t suitable for doing a wreck dive on the way home, and indeed the trip back was a bit more interesting, but it was still good on the sheltered side of the islands.

I didn’t get home until 11pm on Sunday night, and was pretty well stuffed at work on Monday. No worries though, it was a really good weekend. Special mention to my Dive Master Tara, for looking after me, and getting me home safely. I’m not sure that drinking with your students the night before a deep dive is recommended practice though…

I don’t know how much more diving I’ll be able to fit in, as I’ve got lots of other things to do with my weekends, and I don’t know where I’d store the gear around my apartment, but I will be going out again this weekend, a bit closer to home, at Goat Island. Hopefully get a feed of scallops too.

And finally, here’s something you don’t do every day: get your ex girlfriend to help you write an ad for an Internet dating site. Hopefully I don’t come across as many odd sorts as she did. We’ll see how it works out. With a bit of luck, I’ll at least make a few new friends.

Just look at that speedo – a picture tells a thousand words. That speedo only goes to sleep mode if it doesn’t get used for two weeks – and it’s been a long time since I’ve done any serious riding on my tourer. No riding has also meant I haven’t felt like posting anything here, stretching the patience of you, dear reader.

For much has happened, and yet it is mostly of a domestic nature, and not exactly the sort the of thing that compares with riding across continents. I now have a permanent place to live (first time in over 18 months), a job, and the beginnings of a regular life. Perhaps it’s hard to understand if you have a regular life, but I’ve been struggling a bit with doing the routine thing. I’m not saying it’s bad, and one part of me is happy about knowing where I’ll be sleeping each night, but the feet do get itchy.

Perhaps it’s that I now have to fit into a routine that works around others. On the road, your needs are simple, and you can do whatever you please. Feel tired? Stop. Hungry? Eat. Had enough? Look for a place to camp, and stop. Raining? Stay in bed. Work of course means regular hours – it’s terribly inconvenient that way. Perhaps part of it is that I have friends in many different parts of the world now, and haven’t really established social networks here yet.

But I have made a commitment to staying in one place for at least 12 months, and so I shall. Being on the road is a good thing, and a place I want to be, but there are other times when you’re glad to be home, and close to your family. My father has recently been unwell, and it is times like these that you feel distance. Being only two hours drive down the road is a hell of a lot easier than being in the middle of China. Of course, one of the dirty little secrets of the world of the modern traveller is that you are never really more than 48 hours away from home, but that distance can still seem a very, very long way.

Over the last few months, I’ve met many people who’ve followed my trip, or heard about it from friends, and there are many questions. Some of them come up often, and I really do need to try and put them together in a summary post – I promise I’ll get onto it by the middle of next week.

There hasn’t been much touring riding going on over the last few months – it’s been mainly mountain biking, and not enough of it. Completely different style, on a light bike, throwing the bike around tight trails, getting covered in mud. Lots of fun, especially on the huge array of trails at Woodhill. I’m going to have to arrange some touring around New Zealand though – all the European cyclists seem to think it’s amazing here. Personally I think NZ drivers are too aggressive to make it a fully enjoyable experience, but I’ll give it a go over summer – it looks like the rain has finally stopped!

The last leg wasn’t the easiest I’ve ever done, but it was one of the most beautiful. I was in no real hurry, and so split it up over three days. I started out with an easy leg up to Waiwera, via Auckland’s North Shore. On the ferry to Devonport, I met a couple going out for a morning ride. 30 years ago they had travelled extensively, and talked about the problems they had found when they tried to settle down in New Zealand again. I think it must have been much harder then, when fewer people travelled, and it was difficult/expensive to keep in touch with people around the world. That’s not to say that things have changed that much though – the front page of Friday’s New Zealand Herald had a large article and photo about someone being assaulted by a hedgehog. There’s something reassuring about that being seen as the biggest story of the day in New Zealand.

Traffic wasn’t too bad along the East Coast Road, at least until Silverdale. Auckland is sometimes under-rated, but it was looking rather spectacular under a cool, clear late autumn sky. You can look out across the Hauraki Gulf, while riding through some of the greenest suburbs I’ve seen for a long time. No sign of drought here. I did really feel I was back in NZ when I ate my lunch sitting under a pohutakawa tree, beside a long sandy beach. Up and over the hill to Waiwera, where I spent several hours soaking in the hot pools. I went on all the slides and tubes, but it’s just not quite so much fun when you’re by yourself. No matter though.

Being Queen’s Birthday weekend, the road was pretty busy the next day, and slow going up a few tough climbs, with narrow/non-existent shoulders and too many cars. My parents met me at Wellsford, to provide some vehicle support. Pulling in to a nice river-side picnic area, and having picnic baskets full of food presented does take away from my hard man image a bit, I must admit. It did make life pretty easy, which was good since I had two punctures, within 15 km – one in each tyre! Considering I didn’t have any external punctures in all of Australia, this was a bit odd, and annoying. South of Wellsford, I turned off towards Mangawhai, and the riding improved dramatically. This is more like it, riding through green fields, with little traffic, on good roads. Much easier going to Mangawhai Heads, my last stop. I stayed at one of the most expensive places I’ve stayed in, and ate one of the most expensive meals of the trip, but it was all worth it. It was a little bit strange to think about it being my last night on the road, last time to find a hotel, last time to unpack the bags, last time to find food and a beer, last time…but we know that’s only for a while.

I had an extended support crew for my last day. My parents met me, and so did Suzie and her sister. Suzie was there the day I left London, so she saw me both start and finish. I was taking it fairly easy, with only around 60 km to cover. Dad joined me for the last leg into town, but we weren’t able to go straight home. After starting at a major landmark, the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, I had to finish at another – the Kensington Tavern. Soon after that we were rolling up the driveway, and home, to…I’m not sure…the next stage in my life anyway.

For now it’s just a matter of trying to get myself organised, and go through what’s left of my gear, and see what I left behind here. I probably won’t even want half the stuff I left here, although it was nice to pull on a pair of denim jeans, for the first time in over a year. I’m going to have to get a job sooner or later too, although for now I’m just enjoying taking it easy, and catching up with friends and relatives. And yes, I will get my photos sorted out shortly. Working on dialup at home makes it tough though!

In some ways it’s a little difficult to describe my feelings on completing this trip. Perhaps I need to think about it a bit over the next few weeks, to gain a little perspective. I shall post more over the coming weeks, a few summary posts, that sort of thing. For now, I just want to say thanks to all those who’ve supported me in some way along the road. Those who I met, and in some way enlivened the trip, and those who’ve been in touch, read the blog, and sent messages of encouragement – it really does mean a lot to me. Thank you.