Uncategorized – Page 5 – Solo Female Cycling Around The World

DANIEL

’Daniel my brother you are older then me… Do you still feel the pain of the scars that won’t heal?…..Oh and I can see Daniel waving good-bye…..’ Elton John, 1972

I am squatting cross legged on the warm cement; my sun drenched shoulders are leaning against the shop window. Pandemic the Magic Nautical Bicycle is patiently perched up against a phone booth waiting to make our phone call to a man who is looking for crew for his 55 ft yacht sailing to Indonesia in a few weeks. My eyes squint into the tropical sun. A gentle bear of a man dressed in just spent the night in the park oversized earth beaten clothes, Italian leather bare feet, 3 days drunk and stumbling with a one foot goes in front of the other concentration, approaches.

The man reaches the spot in which I am sitting, spills down the wall and lands hands first in my lap, his two huge hands cup my circular thigh. He is using my leg as a crash pad like a helicopter short on fuel in the midst of an emergency landing. I quickly scoot over to a more appropriate distance and stick out my hand and chuckle a big hello, how y’a doing? I can immediate tell that this man has been sleeping on the streets for some time and is no toddler to high noon drunkenness. But even with all the sad despair in which his stumbles there is something about him that I trust and like. I introduce myself, my hand at a full arms reach and he does the same. My tiny hand immediately disappears in the shake of his giant strong paw. His name is hard to understand because of the distracting stench of stale booze and slurring babbling effect that strong liquor has on folks, turns out, after a few tries that his name is Daniel. He is aboriginal, from the area and says he doesn’t really hope or dream for anything although he does hope for a good life. Says he drinks because he would be too bored if he didn’t. As he looks me straight in the eye I can see that he only has one good eye. The white glow of a cataract clouds his left eye from seeing the beauty in this world.

As the Saturday tourist shopping crowd filters by they quickly divert their eyes from Daniel. I can’t really blame them. If anyone locks eye with Daniel he shouts out, hey baby come over and say hello, and then his loud jovial laugh bombs through the serene weekend shopping area like fireworks burning at the fuse. I joked with Daniel that he wasn’t having any luck with the ladies. He just slouches over, his eyes focusing on opposite eyebrows from the weight of this life’s hardships.

I stood up and said I need to make a call and head towards Pandemic the Magic Nautical Bicycle to check the time and use the phone booth. Daniel says he will wait for me but I know he won’t remember and will be on his way in search of a cup of something. I saw Daniel the next day but as often happens with folks who are trading life for liquor he doesn’t remember me and sunders by.

The Hoe Down

Celestial The Navigator has come a couple of thousand cycle miles or so to try out her sea legs!

A special thanks to the Williams family for putting one of my posters in their shop window and for being so much fun to hang out with!

THE HOE DOWN

I am camped under a cliff on the warm shores of the sea in Darwin, Australia; the moon is almost full and even at night the tropical heat radiates off of the ocean blue green salty sea. I awaken with a sudden stinging startling surprise; call the police I shout out into the balmy moonlit glow of the interior of my little tent, a glowing luminescence so intense it is like sleeping inside a florescent bulb. “Call the police they are trying to take me alive”, I shout.

My legs are bleeding, my back is taffy sticky from sweat, my chest is thumping. Like a fireman who has just emerged from the flames I look down and see blood. Little droplets speckle my legs from toe to thigh. What has happened I think to myself? I search around for my headlight to investigate. I brush the sleep boogers from my eyes and as the glow of the headlight brightens the tent I see tiny squirmy black dots, sand flies, they are everywhere. And like cowboys at a hoe down, they are throwing back the pints of blood with a furious thirst and parched for more.

I light some tobacco, not to smoke it but to fill the tent with smoke in order to cloud their vision and their little minds. “Sand flies blinded by smoke and leave town…news at eleven” I can see the headlines now! Or perhaps the headline could read “Hundreds of sand flies found intoxicated on the outskirts of town playing miniature violins and searching for a new location for the annual sand fly hoe down”. Yeah, that would look good on the front page of Sunday’s newspaper.

After the invasion of sand flies and way past last call at the sand fly hoe down, I reoccupy my tent and I lie there trying not to itch my already bleeding legs and smile. I smile while thinking about what a wonderful little town I have found in Darwin, Australia. Indonesia is only 600 nautical miles away, across the ocean I am camped on. After having met half the population of Darwin and littering cyclist looking for a crew position on a sailing yacht heading for Indonesia posters all over town, I smile with a knowing hopefulness that someone will either tell someone who will tell someone who will tell someone or else someone will see a cyclist looking for…poster. Therefore, me, Pandemic the Magic Nautical Bicycle and turtle Celestial The Navigator will be sailing across the beautiful blue green ocean and be able to be on our way soon enough.

Freak Show at the Incognito Karmic Insect Parade

Notice the swollen eyes…shortly after the bug parade marched on my face!

Incognito…notice the mark on my lower lip shortly after I extracted my bicycle peddle from my droopy swollen lower lip!

When the ants go marching in, when the ants go marching in…….the music resonates with a rhythmic buzz as the stomp of their six saintly buggy feet echoes through the brisk air as Pandemic the magic bicycle awakes for another day of riding in the mountains. I grimace my face that could serve as a great purposeful attraction at the local circus side show. I now resemble a circus mongoloid rolling freak show push peddling great mighty legs in search of drinkable water in the Southern Alps Mountains. In fact, the only things functioning with any degree of beauty this morning are my legs and my sunglasses, the perfect disguise for the swollen mess of my newly found mongoloid face and obese eye lids. Can eye lids gain weight from too much cheese and cycling? Can Down syndrome be acquired overnight? I ponder as I peddle wearing sunglasses incognito uphill towards the glacier region of New Zealand. I have been feeling guilty for several days because after having lost my bottle of environmentally friendly white gas I have been burning petrol in my camp stove.

It has been pretty cold at night so I have been cooking in the vestibule of the tent and the fumes have gotten a bit intense like sleeping on the engine of a tractor under repair. If the environment had a karmic army it would have to be made up of acrobatic bugs that have been sent to me while I sleep to perform circus acts on my face as retribution for destroying yet another ozone layer. The environmentally friendly karmic bug parade has pillaged my face while I slept out in the cold while sniffing an old tractor engine. My thighs continue to ponder the additional weight of my obese eye lids cheek bones and lips as I push peddle over rolling hills north up the west coast.

My face feels very strange like it belongs in the museum of mongoloid bug art.I wish I had a picture of myself or a mirror so I can look at myself and see the creative work of the karmic bug parade that has spend the night marching over the ridges and plateaus that encompass my eye lids, cheeks bones and lips.Peddling up these hills is a challenge but nothing compared to the hard work it must have been for the troop of acrobatic circus bugs to perform on the hilly surface of my face.

As the bicycle skids to halt I suddenly realize that I had gotten my bicycle peddle stuck in my swollen droopy lower lip.When the dust settles and after spending 15 minutes extracting my bicycle peddle from my lip I realize that I COULD see myself.I dig my camera out of the saddle bag and snap a few pictures of myself to take a better look at the chosen facial path of the karmic bug parade.

Bugger! There is definitely something wrong with my face. I throw on my sunglasses and peddle on for the day, buzzing with happiness to be incognito and disappointed there isn’t a circus freak show hiring mongoloid cyclists at the top of one of these hills. The nice thing about travelling the world is people don’t know what you are supposed to look like so you can pretty much look as nutty or buggy as you want and people assume that perhaps you have just been dealt a poor hand of cards for this lifetime, cards which include obese eyelids and outrageously chubby lips. Three more days of peddling a few extra kilos of obese eye lids up and down rolling hills and a glacier and a shop appear in the distant mountainous hills. I replenish my stove with environmentally friendly white gas with the hope of gaining back some karmic environmental points. My eyelids shed the extra pounds and return to their slender size and I am grateful the karmic acrobatic bug parade has finally received different marching orders and left this beautiful glaciated town to join another cyclist’s circus freak show.

Pavarotti The Musical Magic Bicycle

This evening I am sitting in my wet frosty tent crossed legged inside my sleeping bag with my bike light torch in my mouth. My rained soaked figureless gloves are challenged to keep my fingers warm enough to type. I am also typing this really fast because my computer battery is frozen and about to grind to a quick frozen halt. It has been drizzling with rain daily and freezing up at night since Invercargill at the bottom of the south Island of New Zealand. Each morning my frosty tent and super warm sleeping bag beckons me to dream another dream.

Today I cycled along a dirt road that dead ends on the water on the south side of Queenstown. Mountains have been hugging me all day as I scribble Pandemic round and round down the dirt path. Listening to music has become my crutch and my cycling rhythm has become more of a dance. A dance that will no doubt eventually lead me into crashing into a ditch but for now with a captive listening audience of many cows and sheep, I sing and dance on, happy to be finally heading north to warmer climates before the onset of a rainy cold winter.

This is the New Zealand I had imagined. A spectacular mountainous backdrop highlighted by rivers, the picturesque perfect location for my opera debut. The road was washed out today in two places. The first river crossing Pandemic and I rolled and splashed through the trickling brook in a rhythmic tango while singing to my new tunes. The second river crossing was beckoning to take me and Pavarotti the musical magic bicycle for a cold wet last dance. Therefore I removed my dancing shoes and pushed Pavarotti the musical magic bicycle through the water, the current peculated with a crisp sopranos’ harmonic good morning. This road has quickly become one of my all time favorites. I did not see anyone for about 70 kilometers and at the end of the Congo line I found a restored early 1900’s steamer boat to transport me across the Lakes into Queenstown. The snow is accumulating up high on the mountains and every other person I have met in Queenstown is waiting to go skiing. It is time to Macarena my way to the north western side of the Southern Alps mountain range before Pavarotti the musical magic bicycle and I bellow ourselves into a ditch while peddling and singing in an ice storm.

Moo moo on a midget! (May 2 ’09)

How do I get out of this town? I have been through more roundabouts or circular galaxies of confusion then I can keep track of. I am starting to think the powers at be are playing a really good joke on my sense of direction. I finally stopped Pandemic my magic bicycle and asked a construction worker how I head up the coast of Wales. I didn’t mention that the roundabouts were about to make me start crying out of frustration. Keeping the ocean on my left really shouldn’t be that hard should it? The ocean is huge, a person of average intelligence with a college degree should really be able to follow something that big. Granted my degree is in sociology which is just a really good excuse to daydream for 4 years about visiting other world cultures but still following an ocean really shouldn’t be this hard. Should it? The construction worker I asked for directions looked at my bewildered frozen face and loaded down bicycle and said I would have to go through 5 roundabouts, take three left and then head through five used to be lights now sign posts and that would be put me on the main coast road. Ok, I thought laughing to myself at how ridiculous it sounded, 5 roundabouts, 3 lefts and 5 used to be lights now signs posts. Got it, thanks! And so I peddled around the cute little town one more time.

I started thinking I might just be spending the rest of day circling around this cute little town. The next person I found to ask for directions was Noel Fitzpatrick, a Irish man living in Wales working as an engineer for local parks. I told him I was trying to cycle to Ireland, he didn’t think I should be heading all that way without a reflective vest so he gave me his vest, right off of his back. Noel, a big hearted Irish man and I joked that I looked dazzling in a reflective dress. Noel’s vest is size x-large men’s and since I more of a xx-small female it drapes over me like a moo moo on a midget heading down the red carpet. I am grateful that Noel was so thoughtful to have gifted me with such a fine reflective dress, complete with a piece of string to fashion as a belt. That’s twice the amount of reflective material for the motorists to see, that’s double fashionably safe.

After admiring my newly acquired safety inspired garment I mentioned to Noel that I was having a little trouble with the roundabouts. And as much as I do enjoy circles, I talk in circles, think in circles and even built a circular house back in Alaska, I still could not quite figure out how to cycle out of town. That’s cycle not circle out of town. Noel laughed and bellowed out peddle like hell and follow me. He then hoped in his truck, Pandemic the magic bicycle and I peddled behind. We drove over a large grassy residential green area crossed a road and through another residential park. We stopped at a tall wooden fence and then Noel jumped out of his truck and picked up my heavy loaded bicycle lifted it over the fence and onto the busy road. He then pointed to the roundabout sign and said follow that road. Ahh, I felt a deep grateful sigh of relief that the roundabouts that had been consuming my world all morning were rapidly coming to an end. I peddled towards the roundabout sign, a beacon of hope and possibility, the world’s best sign, the sign of all signs, the mackdaddy of the signs and off I peddled out of town in my safety dress. By the end of the day I was following the bluest rockiest northern Atlantic coast line I have ever seen. And I was exquisitely dressed for the occasion to bout.

The coast of Wales is described as one of the most beautiful in the world. And this time around they weren’t just talking. It is completely true. It is late winter early spring, there are very few folks outside in the weather and there is a constant trickle of freezing rain which doesn’t matter because each rain drop reflects off of the ocean like a crystal prism of freedom. A beautiful sense of freedom that can be obtained from cycling for 100km(66miles) a day,6 days a week north towards Fishguard, Wales through the freezing rain in a sexy safety dress.

Cheers! Archive Post 4/30/09

I feel like an arthritic old lady at the moldy age of 37 with a humped back from years of calcium deprivation and hard work in the fields. Hard work in the fields would of conditioned me a bit better for this voyage. With every push of the peddle, I am reminded that peddling a bicycle is nothing like reading about it. My neck is conditioned to being propped up by pillows a sufficient position for reading. The same great reading neck is freaking out with the new found angle of grinning ear to ear over Pandemic’s bicycles handle bars as I head north into the icy breeze. The throbbing of my neck and shoulders is occasionally replaced by the late winter icy temperature of the ocean air. The freezing rain might have bothered me if I wasn’t so intent on making it across the big old bridge I have been grinning at for the last 2 hours.

I hadn’t realized there are two bridges to Wales. A fact I might of realized if I had of stopped smiling long enough to buy a map of the area. The old bridge is 40km or 23 miles further down the potholed latent neighborhood road. Bicycles are not allowed over the new bridge, I was to find out on approach. It is a good thing there is a rich history of bicycle travel in England because everyone within sweating distance seemed to already know that I was not going to be able to cycle over the new bridge. I am told by the sweat soaked helpful crowd to continue on another 40km/23 miles. My throbbing neck doesn’t like this idea but my frozen smiling face peddled on, head strong into the freezing wind and rain towards the Old Bridge.

As the wind blows me backwards instead of forward over the long bridge to Wales my thoughts are replaced by the sense of accomplished that I had actually cycled to Wales. Despite the seemingly gale force winds blowing me the wrong direction over the bridge, overwhelmed, I couldn’t help but pause and while holding down my hat in the wind, peer through tears at the ocean view from on top of the bridge and know that what lie ahead would be worthy of proverbial toast.

The toast may be that I had actually made it Wales or that my favorite adventure cycling book no longer had any appeal or more importantly that I could no longer remember the aching feeling of being 4 1/2 months into my final dark cold isolating winter of Alaska. I had peddled out of England across a huge international bridge, through freezing rain and a seemingly near gale force head wind. The Pandemic, my magic bicycle and I have made it to Wales.

Rain Snot Dirt

Another rain drenched frozen booger splatters me in the face as I splash down the hill. I am dodging snot, dirt and freezing rain pellets. The late autumn rain is so intense it has gotten ridiculous. So ridiculous and cold it is humorous to try to be out here. So this is what the shop keeper meant this morning when he said the weather was coming in. The locals are laughing AT me until I start laughing and then they laugh with me. Some cars just honk and give the thumbs up others just laugh as they pass by. I try to avoid such fun interactions only because if I stop peddling my body shivers into a deep freeze. The only thing stopping me from carrying on is that I can’t see through the rain, snot and dirt. The triplets of inclement weather are interfering with my visibility and lady like appearance. This is my new definition of inclement.

I finally call it a day and cycle into a campground.I feel like a used wet Kleenex tissue tattered and torn from over use, the kind you can only find in the rubbish.On top of being really disgusting, wet and cold I am hungry.7 huge tacos, a bag of popcorn, a chocolate bar, 1.5 litres of orange flavored water and then 2 lamb chops, a bowl of green beans and a plate of rice later I lift my drooling floppy mouth, breath, sigh,breath and think ok what can I eat next?

3 more tacos,2 cups of hot chocolate, ice cream, a cheese roll (grilled cheese sandwich), a handful of cashews and raisons, some yogurt and some cookies I breath, sigh, breath. I may be the first person in the history of cycling in the Catlins, New Zealand to become morbidly obese while cycling into the oncoming rainy winter. Until I pop a tire or split my pant zipper I don’t think I will worry too much about it. More rain is predicted for tomorrow and a hole lot more eating my way to the morbidly obese benchmark! After all it is important to have goals!

Nice Earrings Buddy!

The numbered earrings are a medallion warn proudly for how many cyclists she has taken out!

They have even built themselves bovine mobile carts so they can keep up. They were feeling a bit jealous of all the speedy cyclists!

Holy Cow!!! I mean who stands in the road and doesn’t move when there is a bicycle bombing down a hill straight at you? The answer to that is cows do. In South East Asia chickens, pigs and cows team up and block the roads to cyclists trying to pass. But you can’t really blame the animal folk in South East Asia, with the language barrier and all it is to be expected. The farm animals of SE Asia don’t believe in birth control so there are a lot of baby farm animals blocking the road to cyclists in that part of the world.

I have never really felt that bad for eating cows. In fact I had steak for dinner tonight. After all New Zealand beef is world renowned for it’s quality due to the free range farming practices. However, after cycling through an obstacle course of free range cows on a rural road on my way to the coastal city of Dunedin today cow seems to be heavily on my mind. I can’t say I understand cows; I am not so sure there is all that much going on upstairs. If you look really deep in their eyes I don’t think they all that bright. I guess that’s why people eat them. I am generally skived out thinking about eating dog or horse because they are animals of great intelligence. But a lot of people don’t mind eating cows because they are a few flanks short of a kabob.

The trucks on the north Island of New Zealand proved to be quite the obstacle on my cycle south from the Auckland airport and were freely given the right of way. No cyclist in their right mind is going to take on a triple length logging truck. But having to push my magic bicycle through cows because they don’t quite get it is something I wasn’t expecting. At first I just carried on and peddled through the bovine crowd but the problem with that is they get spooked and try to run into you. I swear they are saying to each other you go left and I’ll go right that’ll get her to push the bicycle and slow down. I also tried mooing at them and making fun of their earrings but they just looked at me like I was weird or something. So steak it was for dinner tonight in the coastal city of Dunedin, home of the yellowed eye penguins. A delicious steak dinner, a peace keeping and safety measure for cyclists around the world!

Insecticide and The Great Famine

I have been eating a lot of bugs today while cycling into the wind. It feels like I was peddling through a asteroid bug field. I wonder what the caloric value of insects is? I have been losing weight lately. Bug eating is something I have developed quite the palette for. Today’s diet consisted of mostly sand flies. Although, a giant bumble bee collided into my sunglasses, he looked kind of fuzzy and I bet if I had tasted him he would have had a weird texture to him. On the plus side he was a lot bigger then the sand flies which might of made him more filling. Back in Alaska eating mosquitoes was often unavoidable, they are known as Alaska’s state bird because there are so many of them flying around. But don’t tell Loretta The Chicken that, her feathers would be ruffled to be compared to such a little insect.

In Thailand insects are a delicacy. They look like cockroaches and are served either boiled or fried. In an attempt to be socialable with a new Thai friend I had met in the market we split a kilo of crunchy fried bugs. With my eyes closed they tasted like popcorn and have a certain salty pop when I crunched them within my teeth. I didn’t really want to think about it or open my eyes but I think the crunch must have been their little insect backs. Umm umm good!

I was peddling my way into the wind and through the insect show into the small town of Otematata when the bug eating began. The Town of Otematata when pronounced sounds like the song from the movie the Lion King, Hakuna Matata. I have been singing the song Hakuna Matata in my head over and over all day while peddling through picturesque rolling hills. The Lion King’s hit song, well hit song in my head that is, means no worries…. for the rest of your days, a worry free philosophy…. After having song the song in my head on repeat for 90km (60 miles), I am now thoroughly convinced that the village of Otematata will provide a “no worries” cycling experience. I know there will be plenty of snacks involved, that’s for sure. Hakuna Matata!

Tomorrow I cycle out towards the coast to camp out and look for penguins. I have been told that the stout little fellas are very hesitant to come to shore if they see any movement. They can’t waddle very fast so they are a bit shy about being on the center stage out of the water. Tomorrow while peddling I will have to cook up a stealth camouflaging plan in order to hide out and wait for the penguins to waddle in from the ocean. Thinking up a master camouflaging plan should be a great way to replace the song Hakuna Matata from waddling around in my head. Hakuna Matata!

Dyslexic Wonderland!

Down under in New Zealand in the lower hemisphere, the stars sparkle with a gesturing ass over tea kettle come hither. After having spent 9 years in Alaska, the land of darkness and minimum pollution, I have become accustomed to looking up at the clear stars. Looking up at the stars here is like looking down from on top of them. They are upside down. For instance, the North American big dipper that normally looks like a big dipping spoon looks like a hat, the kind of hat that Davey Crochet would wear, furry with a long beavers tail. The little dipper looks like Davey Crochet’s raccoon hat smaller twin sister. The stars are so bright in NZ that they spread their internal glow the same proximity as a freshly squashed road killed carcass.

The brightest planets are the deeply colored stars which can mostly be found in the left hand part of the sky in North America.In the lower hemisphere they are located in the right hand part of the sky.When the new moon looks like a tiny slice of cheese, the section showing is to the left not to the right as in the northern hemisphere.I met a very jovial man last week who was visiting New Zealand from Alaska.He was convinced after drinking too much New Zealand wine and perhaps smoking who knows what that while looking up at the sky he was looking at a different galaxy.It is the same galaxy down under but completely flipped ass over tea kettle, tangled up into a dyslexic wonderland.

When flushing the toilet due to the gravitational pull the water circles downward to the left counter clockwise and not the right. Sometimes I flush the toilet 5 times like a toddler just to watch it swirl again and again or until someone else enters the public washroom and reminds me that New Zealand is a country that believes in the conservation of water. Flushing the toilet never seems to get old and it is always nice to procrastinate getting back to cycling.

Today after dismounting the magic bicycle after a 103 km (67 mile) beautiful bicycle ride I walked through Geraldine, the village in the foothills of the Southern Alps mountain range, the range that runs down the center of the South Island of New Zealand. Crossing the colloquial street on foot is an activity that requires a helmet. Looking left then right and not right then left is something I have been taking for granted for far too long. That or perhaps I have developed dyslexia and it is flaring up all of a sudden.

The car steering wheels are on the right hand side of the car, the motorists drive on the left hand side of the road and exit the vehicle to the left as well. It makes it interesting when cycling by parked cars and often there is a near ass over kettle incident of me and the magic bicycle getting nailed by a opening car door. Prior to garnishing my helmet to cross the street on foot, the closest near miss while cycling was today. I quickly swerved the magic bicycle around a parked car and avoided the projectile of a car door and started laughing. The woman was so startled she hopped back into the driver seat of her car. I apologized and waived but she still looked a little frazzled. I was laughing because no one got hurt and because perhaps we should all be wearing helmets at all times on a day like today.