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Showing posts from October, 2013

Respecting Our Elders

Many moons ago I set out on an adventure to bike around New Zealand. Looking back all these years later, I realize how Lewis and Clark it was of me to set off by myself to such unknown territory on a bike I had not ridden all that much with a tool kit I had barely touched. Such is the naivety of youth that allows us to head off on such an adventure without any second thoughts about the "what ifs". Two days into my expedition, having  consulted  my "Cycle Touring in the North Island of New Zealand" book, I left the small village of Kaitaia to ride up to Cape Reinga, the northern most point on the island. Surrounded by beach and water on all sides, I envisioned paradise. What I had not envisioned was the condition of the road out to Cape Reinga. As I poured over this book in the weeks leading up to my departure, I often came over the words "sealed" and "unsealed" as descriptions for roads. I figured that unsealed roads were probably just a lit