Preface: Rolling into the big wide world
Getting the clippers out for a buzzcut is one of my favourite pre-departure rituals. To me a clean-shaven head marks another beginning, a canvas for growing and going on adventures again. This Friday I leave Aotearoa for a four-month round-the-world trip to North America and Europe/the UK. The plan is to take my bike across to Vancouver and spend three months cycling in various parts of the Pacific Northwest in four stages: Vancouver Island, from Seattle to Portland via the Olympic Peninsula and coast, around southern Alaska, and then through the Rockies in British Columbia. In between I’ll stay with people I know, friends of friends, and maybe some trail angels. In Europe/the UK, I’ll travel with my sister to Scotland, Sweden and then hike in the Dolomites for a bit, before visiting my family in Germany. That’s the plan, anyway! How much of it happens remains to be seen, but I’m determined to see as much of these places as possible. Be safe and have fun — as long as those two things happen, I’m good.
Why now? And why on the bike? Over the past few years I've come to get to know Aotearoa pretty well, I reckon (thank you, Covid). Te Araroa can take all the credit for making me swoon for the long-form adventure genre. I’d never felt so free and autonomous before as when walking the length of the country, and yet so tiny in the unforgiving natural environments. While acknowledging there’s a whole iceberg of places I’m yet to visit in this wonderfully remote country, there’s also a sense of familiarity and comfort with having adventures in one’s own backyard. I’m ready for the new and scary and big and challenging. Walking and running are great, but so is cycling. This will be the longest I’ve ever cycled for in a row (more than four days) so I’m curious to see what that’ll be like…
So, with a gap between work and starting a PhD, I will set off to see the big wide world again. I see this trip as one big re-connection to family and place, a mix of returning to the familiar and soaking in the new. Exploring Canada in particular has been a dream for a while now, and life is for living. I won’t ever regret choosing adventure.
I’m nervous about many things. Travelling with a bike adds many logistical complexities and there are still la few unknowns of how I’ll get from point A to B to C etc. How far in advance do I need to book campgrounds? What is the standard of peanut butter in North America? What if I run out of money? What if I get injured? How will I feel about living amongst bears, cougars, elk, wolves and ticks? Coming from a place where the biggest wildlife threat is a bird who steals shoelaces, I anticipate a steep learning curve. I will miss home comforts, my family and my dog.
But things have a knack for working out, and so much is out of my control. As I write this, at 10.57pm in bed with half-packed bags surrounding me, I’m feeling a strange sense of calm about it all. Accepting the situation, and trusting that things do fall into place when you support them to. It’s a sense of it being the right time to spread my wings, just for a bit, before settling back here for the next chapter. To fill the cup.
I can’t wait to share the highs and lows of the trip with you through this blog again.
Be safe, and have fun — that goes for all of us!
