Why isn’t air conditioning a thing here? Not one place I’ve been to has had it. I thought this was a tropical country? All you get (if you’re lucky) is a rinky dink little fan to try and circulate air around. Bah. The cold nights are the one thing I missed about home. Anyway, sorry for the idle chit chat. Not as much to report on today. Ahead of us was a long slog along the eastern coast, recently devastated by an earthquake, on our way to the former whaling town of Kaikoura. We made a brief stop at Pelorus Bridge where we partook in the universally enjoyed tradition of attempting to skip stones in the river, giving up when we couldn’t skip anything, then resorting to throwing the biggest rocks we could find. Okay I ... read more

To the surprise of nobody, closing a bar with some Scotsmen gave me a bit of a hangover. Not a horrible one, but one of those where you just don’t feel quite right all day. I had managed to forget about the blister on my foot last night, but I was abruptly reminded when I jumped down from the top bunk in the morning. Our journey today would take us to Wellington, New Zealand’s capital and a renowned “party city”. It was no coincidence we were staying here on a Friday. On the way we had a quick stop in Bulls. Not sure why they’d call the place that. A more apt name would be “Sheep” but that probably would have been a cliché. Also en route was the town of Taihape, which hosts an annual ... read more

Sam graciously dropped me off at the local train station so I could ride back downtown. After I mistakenly grabbed a Canadian $5 bill out of my wallet, the ticket counter man asked if the Canadian dollar was actually called the Loonie. I tried to explain that it was only the one dollar coin but I’m not sure he believed me. Perhaps we should start a petition to have “dollar” changed to “loonie”, same as the movement in Australia to change their currency to the “dollar-y-doo”. My tour was set to start just outside of a hotel by the wharf. I had about two and a half hours to kill once the train arrived so I was rather disappointed to hear that the hotel didn’t offer a bag check service unless you had stayed there the ... read more

My adventure begins at the chiropractor, as all truly great adventures do. I walked in for a pre-vacation adjustment of my old-man spine. After barely setting foot in the door a man sitting in the waiting room commented “so you’re going on a trip eh?” “Yeah!?” I said enthusiastically but with that upward inflection one uses when they’re confused. “You’re probably pretty confused” the man surmised, brilliantly. “Yes…” I said, panicking that this person was someone important from the office whom I’d met previously but had completely forgotten. “You were at the McKenzie Towne barber shop this Sunday talking about your trip. I was there too, in the chair across from you.” Well well, small world I suppose… watch as this same guy would be beside me on my flight. Speaking of flights, the first leg ... read more

Day 10 Victor to Kalispell As I mentioned previously, Ken suggested we leave at 6 this morning to make the most of our day. I attribute today’s success in Yellowstone National Park to this idea, but as I shall now demonstrate, implementation was a team effort. I volunteered to take the “futon” last night. I say “futon” because if it were a real futon, one could conceivably sleep on it. This was some sort of freak European couch that folded down into a flatter, less functional couch which the soul-less Scandinavian designers claimed you could sleep on. Ha. Sure. Maybe if you’re drunk or faced with the prospect of sleeping in cattle class on a 15 hour trans-Atlantic flight instead. Each section of this couch thing wasn’t overly comfortable to begin with and the sections were ... read more