Stepping Stones

A pessimist rarely travels

Some friends got together for a trip ,and ,being slightly nutty ,after too many years in safe, lifetime contracts, deceided to sell up and do some serious damage to some rocks,while destroying three custom made tandems.

Present performance based on the fruit of many journeys may be of interest to the passer by extracts from 3 Cd's 'Cathedral to Clown'

Its not every day that one gets the chance to sell a violin worth a house,jump on a plane to some interesting off road plunge into a rainforest.

Single mountain bikes ,Tandems and wild camping ,albeit with toy 3/4 violins ( among other diverse instruments ) strapped over the tent bag,is one of the more elegant ( if unelectrified ) modes of perambulation.Our slowest grinds up loose rocks ,complete with lightening storms in British Colombia, "roads" built courtesy of the prison based cedar felling industry,gave us access to stuff that,according to the Cree Indians in that area had not been done on single mountain bikes,let alone tandems.The Crees around harrison lake(60kms N.E.of Vancouver) and Lilloet(300kms from same)were mellow and encouraging-because we were leg powered-without any back up vehicles.They made us feel welcome as we trundled over some very rough bits of mountainside that were still their hunting grounds.

Tea for Two in The Rough Stuff

ethnomusicology room

NEW ZEALAND sheep1.gif 10.36 K had been a comparitively gentle introduction to wild musical campings.The climate changes every 40kms,or so,micro-climates ranging from 12meters rain per year rainforests(S.W.South island) to deserts not 70km distant(central Otago-no clay in soil,water catchment deep under ground-result?Burnt Tussock, scorched mountains.We destroyed one six week old frame of our mountain tandem during 40 river crossings between Arrowtown and Macetown.A friendly mechanic tried to stiffen up the elastic behavoir of our frame(we had cycled most of the crossings)using a TIG welding machine that could fuse a village at peak hours.We carried on nevertheless.

Offroad-biking in New Zealand,The Dirt
A Tribute to some NZ Friends

AUSTRALIA was not the flat,treeless desert we had expected.How the eucaliptus forests could possibly be so green along the Blue Mountains Between Melbourne and Sydney took a little puzzling.Capillary action -sandstone mountains-keep the trees well watered even on 80ins per year.Pockets of low mist pockmarked the gullies as well,reminded me of scotland in summer.Some stretches were even greener than NZ seriously heavy rainfall sites.Meeting several new relatives(out of fourty)in and around Sydney was also a coming home to my half aussieness.

(The past meets the present)

The wildsof VIRGINIA were a little hard to spot through the 7km industrial hazeup in the Blue Ridge Mountains,and Northern Carolina was a bit swampy for die hard wild wimps like myself.The big joke was when we finished our 15000km world trip in the glens of Scotland we felt they were the most beautiful of all.

The following few pages contain the footprints that led from a couch potato clinging to security to a creative solution for aspiring risk takers.

We cannot claim to have fully finished our tour,but would welcome you to a story of humble beginnings,breathtaking gambles...

Wasnt it TS ELIOT who wrote that after a life long trip we come to a once familiar place-as if for the first time,so naked has the journey stripped us?Is this not also a journey of faith?

A Behind The Scenes Look

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