Today was a *great* day – for me anyway.

A 96k day, of which I rode 65 (40+ miles), average speed 13.2mph. For the first time this tour we got a chilly early morning start, and were rewarded with a tailwind – a cyclist’s best friend. This was Irena’s longest ride ever – she hopped on about 1/3 of the way through our 90k (58 miles?), while Patricia drove. We took a lunch stop in the delightful and really lovely tourist town of Robe, right on the ocean at a beautiful sweeping inlet point, with towering Norfolk Island pines everywhere along the shoreline. Then I FINALLY got my first crack at driving on the left-hand side of the road. It only took me 15 minutes to figure out how to get the truck/jeep (manual shift) in reverse , and after that I had no problems (we have been here now over 3 weeks, so it doesn’t seem so strange any more). (more…)

Besides going *away* from our destination, one story of this day was flat tires.

Given the head winds of yesterday, we drove all the way (126k) to our next stop, checked in, and then started our ride back. The first part of the ride back (from Kingston SE to McGrath Flats along the Coorong Preserve National Park) was boring, and dodgy – along a fairly busy road with no shoulder for the first 7 miles or so. And just as we hit the shouldered part, Patricia had a flat tire. The valve had pulled away from the tire when it was pumped up this morning. Jim’s Aussie pump doesn’t work well with our threaded tube valves, and pulling the pump off seems to destroy the valve connection to the tube. AND, unfortunately, we cannot get compressed air for another day or so – no bike shops in these little town. (more…)

We are now on our own, the four of us. Last night when we arrived, the B&B owner warned us of tri-corner thorns when we told her we had ridden our bikes the 1/2 mile from the paved road on the dirt/gravel to the B&B (something a really serious road-cyclist would *never* do!) Sure enough, Jim had a flat, and then we blew out a tube pumping up, so our start was a bit late. Jim and Irena took off 30 minutes ahead of Patricia and I and parked the jeep at Wellington, where we would take the ferry across the famous Murray River – about 23 miles away, and rode back to meet us.

Meanwhile, Patricia and I *carried* our bikes the 1/2 mile back to the road (nervous of a flat and no air to pump a new tube – we FORGOT to get compressed air canisters! – that was a tough walk for Pat on her bad toe). It took us 58 minutes to meet up with them on the road, 11 miles out into a fierce headwind – I think about 30mph. It took them only 30 minutes to meet us, 12 miles back, with a huge tailwind of course! (more…)

We’re off, headed for Melbourne, 1000K/660 miles away, at about 8:45 am – Jim, Patricia and I – with Irena and Marty driving the jeep, through NE Adelaide (at sea level), and then up into the Mount Lofty Range. As we rode (me sometimes as slow as 2mph!), I thought of my cousin Bob, who is a road cyclist and mountain biker, and often rides up into the front range outside of Denver, just for fun! Pat had badly stubbed her toe (maybe even broken it) the previous morning, and it was all black and blue and swollen; but she was determined to ride up the mountains, and luckily, it was much better riding than walking. (more…)

When we arrived around noon from Sydney back on the 25th, after spending the day shopping and packing for our trip into the Outback, Karen, Phil and Marty drove us north along the coast to Semaphore for fish and chips. The sand of the Spencer Gulf is the *softest* I have ever experienced – like walking in baking soda, or talcum powder! (more…)

Today we drove back into the Lands, to Ernabella, where Jim and Karen and the boys spent a great deal of time – it was the ‘base’ of their work. I finally found a piece of art there that ‘called’ to me, and only afterwards found out that the artist is a “daughter�? of Karen’s. Aboriginal people relate to each other and everyone strictly, and only, by family structure. So Karen and Jim were ‘adopted’ by a ‘family’, and thereafter were considered sister, or brother, or mother, or daughter, or aunt, or niece, etc., and that relationship endures forever.

We spent our last night bush-camping in Ichinpiri, a lovely spot just below a beautiful rock waterhole, which we explored the next morning.

Friday night we stayed in a campground in a tiny campground cabin in Yulara (the resort town that was moved just outside the national park), and Patricia and I opted to sleep on the nearby grassy lawn in our swags. We then got up for an *early* hike through the Valley of the Winds in Kata Juta, which means “many heads�? in Pitjantjatjara language. There are 36 rock mounds over 35 hectares of land. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, but I have a few photos from Phil. This is a mysteriously beautiful place (more…)

The next morning Karen cooked the grubs (called Maku) crispy in butter, and Patricia and I each tasted two segments. We both wished our stomachs had felt better, because they were delicious – a bit like buttered popcorn and hard boiled egg.

Then we headed off to see if we could find the “Surveyor General’s Corner” the marker of the corner of Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territories. Karen had gotten a “mud map” from a friend in the village, and she and Phil (a retired Army Lt. Col.) had some lively discussions over which map would be better to use to find it. (more…)

Wednesday night we spent camped out in the desert not too far from some kind of decaying animal. There is a plague of camels in the center right now and they come into the communities looking for water and then die. We didn’t actually see a dead one near our camp and didn’t smell it until after dinner when the wind changed direction. Tim said “Nevermind, you won’t smell it after you go to sleep,” and he was right. (more…)

One of the quintessential days of our trip was the first Wednesday. We had been camping for two nights at that point and it had been really hot – each day got over 100 but on Thursday it was about 110. The villages had lots of people in them because they were getting organized to go out bush for “men’s business”. There were people driving around everywhere and then they would sit in their cars for a while and then drive around again; all very excited and worked-up. (more…)

Hello from the RED CENTER!

But I’ll back up for a minute…

Sydney is beautiful – I have named it the City of Bays and Beaches. We walked all over, rode buses, two-level trains, and took the ferry, saw flying foxes (HUGE bat-like things with fox faces) in the botanical garden, and swam in several beaches, thanks to my friend Socs, who was a *lovely* host. We have pretty much decided to get back there a little earlier to see more – the weather is like DC in summer: hot and humid. (more…)

Socs, my friend from QIQ and Hyperion was a lovely host, along with his wife Caroline. They took us to the beach for a picnic lunch, and then Socs took us beach hopping. The next day we took a bus to the ferry (they live on the North Shore) over to walk around The Rocks, past the Opera House, through the Botanical Gardens (where we saw flying foxes – huge bat-like things hanging by the thousands from the trees), through Potts Point, then Kings Cross, then took a two-level subway train to Bondi Beach for dinner at Sobo with my friends from hiking the volcano in New Zealand. Whew! (more…)

I can hardly believe it – Patricia and I are leaving in 7 days (Tuesday 20 Feb) for 6 weeks in Australia! This will indeed be the trip of a lifetime. Thanks to Patricia’s months of planning, our trip has 4 parts, plus 5 days of Sydney sightseeing.

Part 1: Karen (my Newkirk sister-‘out’-law) is taking us and 9 others (including Marty – younger son, my nephew, age 23) from Adelaide into the Outback for 10 days. She has done *amazing* work on this portion, excited to have a great reason to go back to visit her and my brother Jim’s old friends and colleagues from the years they lived and worked in the Pitjantjatjara Lands. We will camp most nights, under the stars, often not far from an Aboriginal community, sleeping in swags. (more…)

Last Friday, Patricia and I met in Denver two days early (she went to take care of the Stolper girls, while I was on my way to the ESRI Conference in San Diego) to go hiking in our beloved childhood playground, RMNP. We had planned to backpack and enjoy the stars at night, but could not get a campsite, and decided we were not quite ready for backcounty camping yet. So, we did a day-hike on Saturday, leaving Stolpers at about 5:30 am and heading towards Estes Park via the “Peak-to-Peak Highway” (72 and 7), and enjoyed a beautiful sunrise and a fantastic drive on an empty 2-lane road through curvy, steep mountains. (We actually lived on the Peak-to-Peak when we were very small, in Rollinsville, where I went to kindergarten in a 4-room schoolhouse.) (more…)

Last weekend I went to San Diego to Dave & Susie’s for Amanda’s wedding – Amanda was lovely, the wedding was beautiful, and Charlie is a sweetheart – enjoy the photos under “Family Fotos”!

Finally, we are backpackers again!

Patricia and I have been talking about backpacking for over 2 years, and we finally put our feet where our talk has been. (We each did a little in high school and college.) This past Monday, we headed for West Virginia, for the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area, an amazing place.

Lester and I have driven through there at least twice for short hikes while visiting Canaan Valley, and loved it, poking around the beautiful rocky ridge cliffs on the edge of the wilderness along FS road 75. The scenery feels very alpine, like Colorado above timberline. (more…)

Well, we are truly “empty nesters” now – Caryn graduated from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs with a degree in Applied Mathematics last weekend, and it was sure fun to watch her, proud and glad to be done. The next day, we went up to Pikes Peak – my first time in many years. Be sure to check out the photos of our graduate and the mountain, under “Family Fotos”!

The photo now above is my own of Mitre Peak in Milford Sound, and is one of my best. Thank you Andrea, for getting it loaded! I have *finally* finished expanding the Milford Track post with more detail, and loading and annotating all of my New Zealand photos, including from the Habitat build and the Tongariro volcano crossing – there are a LOT of photos, so I hope you can just enjoy them as you have time. I took about 1700, and I think about 40 are really good and/or representative – see the ‘Top Forty’ album if you want a quick glimpse. I have about 140 real favorites from the whole trip. And here is a map of my journey (click twice on it for a good full-screen view).

I flew into NZ via Auckland and then directly on to Christchurch for one night. The green leg is my bus trip to Mt. Cook, where I stayed for 2 nights. The blue line is my bus trip to Queenstown, where I stayed for 2 nights, then the orange is the Milford Track guided walk (5 nights), returning to Queenstown for 1 night. The pink line is our car/bus trip via Fox Glacier (just above Haast) all the way north to Nelson – that took 2 days, with the overnight in Fox Glacier and 1 night in Nelson. Then I flew back to Auckland for the Habitat build (12 nights). Then the bright blue line is the GV team’s van trip to Waitomo Caves near Otorohanga (1 night) then on to Taupo and Rotorua (2 nights). The red line is my bus trip to Tongariro National Park where I stayed for 3 nights, and the yellow line is my train trip back to Auckland to fly home.

I have also heavily edited the Milford Track entry from March 2 with many details of that absolutely amazing adventure – it was definitely the highlight of my trip, with Tongariro close behind (since my camera was broken, I found some great photos on the internet). The Milford album also has the most photos by far, and I think they tell the story of our 5-day adventure pretty well.

If any of you missed some of the early posts of my trip and want to read from the beginning, just click on New Zealand on the right and you will see them all – the earliest dates are at the bottom. And I recommend opening up a second browser window for the photos related to the post so you can see what I am talking about as you read. But most of all, THANKS FOR READING!

Hard to believe, but I am HOME now. And my last two days in “Godzone” were as full as any other. For my last morning in Tongariro National Park, my delightful and very gracious hosts at the Tongariro Crossing Lodge, Sharee and Steve Fawlk, took me into Whakapapa Village where I headed off on a 2.5 hour walk to Taranaki Falls, about 6km. It is in between Mt. Ngaruhoe (Mt. Doom) and Mt. Ruapehu, so the views of the perfectly shaped cone of Mt. Ngaruhoe were wonderful… I kept a close eye on it to see if the summit would peek through the clouds, but except for one small corner, it was not to happen. But the rest of the scenery was still worth it. (more…)

This morning (barely :)), one of the lodge owners here took me up to the Whakapapa Ski Field on the Mt. Ruapehu volcano. Some of you may remember it… this is the one that erupted in 1995-1996, and there were photos on the internet of people skiing while the mountain is erupting behind and above them (I have been looking but haven’t yet found them)! So yes, it is another active volcano. All of the volcanoes in the park today were shrouded in clouds, but even though I dressed pretty well (thermal shirt, vest, raincoat, gloves, and headband), I had on thin capri pants and only ankle socks, so my lower legs were bare. (more…)

Hi all – I DID the Tongariro Crossing today! And I was able to view and walk right past Mt. Doom (Mt. Ngauruhoe) – you can hike to the top, but it was just too much of a side trip… as it was, the 17 km (10.5 mile) hike took me nearly 9 hours. It was about 2600 (800 meters) feet up, and 3800 feet (1150 meters) down, and the landscape was absolutely stunning. I am so sorry I could not take photos – it felt like being on another planet. (more…)

Rotorua is a beautiful city in the heart of the volcanic region of the north island – I wish I could have taken more photos of it. But it does have a stinky sulphur smell about it – didn’t really bother me, but it does a lot of folks, even though they say you get used to it.

Here is a beautiful, true story whose history is part of Rotorua, and that we heard at the Maori village on Thursday night: Hinemoa was a young woman who lived on the western shores of Rotorua, and Tutanekai lived on Mokoia Island, a large island in the middle of the lake. (more…)

Thursday early morning we all headed out in a van hosted by Adventure Specialities, a NZ non-profit group whose mission is to work with at-risk kids and families. Our destination was Waitomo Caves, toward the central west of the North Island, about 4 hours’ drive. We made it about 1/4 mile and the engine overheated, so we spent a little over an hour waiting for a replacement van, on the grassy portion between freeway ramps! (more…)

Today was our last day, and I will …sort of… miss it! 🙂 It has been hard work, and it has been really great to be able to switch work sites, though I *did* get tired and sore from painting. Today I was at the experimental house site most of the day, but it was quite hot and I am coming down with a cold and I found myself losing steam so I bugged out the last couple hours and went back to painting – out of the sun. (more…)

My *sweet* little camera is broken. I am so bummed. I think what happened is that something was dropped on it, or it was (unknowingly) stepped on! I pulled it out tonight to take a group shot at dinner, and found an exotic-looking black flower on permanent display with delicate lines through it. (more…)