Welcome!

You have found the location for my Big Walkabout.

TL;DR:

  1. You can SUBSCRIBE to this page, and receive an email when I make a new post. Use the email newsletter box below to put in your email. Feel free to send this around to the folks I may have missed in my initial blast, and others who you think may be interested in following the adventure.

  2. Feel free to respond to the posts. I will be doing other things than checking email, but I would love to hear your thoughts or questions.

  3. The plan is to post as often as I can/want, so I have no fixed schedule. I would be super cool to have a post every week-ish, but no promises. There may be one, there may be ten, there may be more.

  4. This website is basically just an archive of old posts. Feel free to swing by and reference it, or if you are just arriving use these to catch up.

  5. The dev team is just me and I am not a developer, through Gemini has been giving me a few pointers. Any issues are my own, and I will do my best to fix them while on the road (ahhh, web development).

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So What is the Plan?

I am bikepacking New Zealand!

Bike packing is living off your bike while you ride around. It is almost exactly backpacking (what that one movie with that hiker girl was about ) but on a bike.

And there is a lot more difference, but that is basically it. Nor am I the person to come up with the idea. There is a whole Website devoted to bikepacking. So I am not the only person to do this.

Once I get there, the plan is to ride north, with all the pure vibes that implies. After I ride north I will be riding south. I have no route, no plan, very little itinerary, and no real intention to make one.

I think this may be the magic part of the trip - having the ability to serendipitously go with what I want to do next.

So What is a Walkabout?

In the Aboriginal Australian1 meaning, it is a wander away from the white society to go live traditionally in the bush.

I am not Aboriginal Australian (I am American from that countries south west), nor am I going to intentionally live away from “front country” society. But I will be going on a grand adventure to “go and see”, and live in a way different than my usual.

To me, a Walkabout is the kind of adventuring that sweeps you up with it. You go and put yourself into a position to be in front of something that is happening.

I am going solo, but I have no doubt I will have friends along the way. I am going without a plan, but suspect that the plan will gel, and become a clear path. I am writing, but spending the time to reflect as much as anything else.

Convinced?

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Footnotes2:

  1. Technically, a Walkabout, in the strict sense, is not kiwi at all, but rather Aboriginal Australian. There exists a very large difference between Kiwi’s and Aussies (as well as the Aboriginal of Australia and the Māori of New Zealand), but it seems from some Google-Fu that no equivalent to the “walkabout” exists in NZ slang, nor could I think of one in my own US slang. So for now, and likely forever, this will be my Big Walkabout. ↩︎

  2. Of course I am a footnotes guy! You can always find some commentary down here form me. Its my way to avoid editing, while still getting too many ideas across. ↩︎