Routine. Routine the great equaliser. The great smotherer of all things different. The inevitable steamroller of all the peaks of life. It’s what we hold to; it’s what we’ve come from, and what we’ll always return to. Routine and time. Time the great healer, time the memory fader, time the double edged sword, time the… ok enough of the cheesy philosophy, I don’t think it becomes me as of yet, I’m still too young and I don’t have a beard. But I think you know what I’m getting at. Two days back and it seems like I never left. Like the past six months was some feature movie I watched last night. Are we that desensitised or forgetful? That six months of adventure is just part of our routine entertainment? Or is that just blatant prosperity, that we take those … Read More
The closing scenes
How does that old saying go? ‘What goes around comes around?’ And so it was that after years of hustling, bargaining, and taking advantage of vulnerable motorcycle sellers in New Zealand, the exact same thing happened to me in Holland. I sold my bike. But being in the precarious position of wanting to fly home, and selling just when winter’s about to start, I got cleaned out with a steel wire brush. Ok maybe not that bad but at least a plastic bristled brush. Putting it in perspective it was only a few hundred dollars loss which isn’t bad for 8,500 km and six months of use. But I’m comparing the deal to my three other bikes I’ve owned in NZ where I actually made a profit when I sold them again. Which is a decidedly better position to be … Read More
Flying sardines and anti-jetlag
Long haul flights are not fun. That may sound like the understatement of the trip, but it must be said just in case you think I’m the type of traveller who defines ‘well travelled’ as the most amount of miles covered in the shortest amount of time. Flying really is a means to an end, unless of course something interesting happens while on board. The only thing that could have interested me on this particular trip would have been us having to make an emergency landing, in which case that may have been the end, not the means. Alas, this journey really was uneventful. Auckland to Sydney was the first leg, and then I had a brief respite from my flying cell. I took a train into the centre of the city and saw the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, … Read More