Sorry about the last post you got, it’s been a while since I’ve been blogging so a bit rusty. I have written a massive blog post about the documentary getting all emotional and thanking everyone, and talking about the experience, but I’m still writing it. I’ll try and post it soonish, or maybe I won’t get around to it as I’m under the pump writing this book that has to be off to the editor by the end of the month!
Anyway, I just wanted to get the documentary trailer up for you my blog followers to see as we released it today. Sit back, get a beer/coffee and enjoy this inner thigh rub of a teaser.
Well it’s a sunny Nelson Tuesday, I’m sitting outside at a café. I’m meant to be writing my book, but I was feeling a blog post instead.
So what’s been up?
Last week I was reading the local paper and read an article about a school leaver named Niall whose off to Darwin to volunteer for 6 months. It just so happened he was one of the students sitting in the school hall a couple of years ago when I gave one of my speeches. It was from this speech and following my blog that he says he gained the inspiration of his own goal “to help less fortunate children in at least one country in every continent (excluding Antarctica for obvious reasons)”. Darwin is the first step in his goal.
I got in contact with Niall and met up at the start of the week and tried to impart some working the world knowledge, like this little gem: don’t hop into a stranger’s car in the middle of a notoriously dangerous African city!
It was good to meet up with him and relive how it was for me when I was about to set off on my little adventure. I reckon that inspiration goes both ways eh.
It was also good as I’m giving a presentation at the end of the month about “boy’s achievement”, so I’ve been busy reading a bunch about those crazy little creatures that are adolescent boys and trying to remember back to those times.
So hows life for this big boy? Well, my New Year’s resolution “to get FAT” is going well with 2 kgs added to my post Africa malnourished cycling skeleton.
Apart from that, initially it was a bit of a bumpy ride back into reality to be truthful. I suppose after any big goal, there is always going to be a come down, and add to that all that happened last year with some pretty major changes, I found it hard.
But now I’m really appreciating being back in my hometown while I get my book written. I’m loving spending time with mates and some quality family time with my awesome parents. Dad always offers plenty of entertainment, like this little story. Dad goes to his car and has forgotten his car keys so goes upstairs to get them out of the cutlery draw, gets back to his car and goes to open it but he’s holding a dessert spoon!
I feel rather lucky that I get to call this beautiful country home and the people that live here my countrymen. It’s feeling right being home, I never thought it would after so much travel, but it does which is relieving especially with last year when everything was so up in the air. These days I’m all about getting as much nature time as possible. There are plenty of hikes planned and I’ve just bought a mountain bike and a car – yes an actual asset that can’t be put in a back pack or checked in at the airport!
I’m excited about the year ahead that I’m dedicating to speaking and seeing New Zealand. I’m back home in Nelson writing the book and preparing my presentation. Then in March it’s down to Wanaka to work on the Bikes for Africa documentary with Sich. Come April I’ll probably be in Auckland as I get the book all finished up and off to the editor.
Then for the rest of the year I’ll be focusing on my speaking. I’ll pop the mountain bike on the back of the car, pack the tent and stove, some hiking gear and head off on a NZ speaking road trip. I can’t explain how much I want to explore my home now that I’ve explored the world. Between some corporate speaking gigs the aim will be to inspire the kiwi 16-25 year olds and help them answer that question of “What am I going to do?”
Then I’ll look to put some roots down at the end of the year, which will probably be in Queenstown or more realistically, Auckland. And by roots that will probably just mean , renting a room to store my gear ready for the launch of the book in November and a manic crazy year of speaking and inspiring. Then after that, we’ll see what happens with these little seeds of ideas floating around in my head, but I don’t think I’ve quite got the adventure out of the system yet…………..;)
So that’s that folks. I hope the New Year treating you all well.
Nuthin But Love Hap
PS Here’s an article (Hap happy to end world quest) from today’s Nelson Mail on my goal. The print article was way better as had some cool photos included, but you get the idea. Good job Russ.
These are my photos capturing my time spent cycling through the warm heart of Africa. Unfortunately I don’t have many blog posts from Malawi as the four I had were lost when my laptop was stolen. There was one interesting blog post about getting hit by a dead flying chicken! Seriously I was cycling a long, this car came around a corner at 100km/hr, hit this chicken that then went flying (in regards to speed not flapping) across the road and smacked straight into my torso! As a villager ran to pick it up for dinner, I kept cycling and thought “I just got hit by a dead flying chicken!”
When the kids weren’t shouting “Mzungu give me”, they were inquisitive little critters. At times I would have a road side sleep and wake up with 20 kids circling me, but they always kept at a distance until they felt safe. My little trick I loved to play was opening up one of my panniers like in the above photo. All the kids would move in closer craning their necks to see what was in side. Then I would suddenly shout “BOO!” On one particular occasion I did this beside a ditch and one poor little fella went arse over tit down a ditch. Everybody including the elders sitting outside the mud hut were in hysterics as well the hairy Mzungu. The little fella luckily also saw the funny side.
I really appreciated finding a spot all to myself where I didn’t have a crowd of people sitting two metres away e watching the freak show that was in town.
Stopping off at one of the many road side chip stands. As usual getting a lot of attention from the friendly folk.
I lived off these wood fired chip stands. Super greasy and oily chips with lots of salt for about 30 cents. Carbs and calories, just what the doctor ordered.
This to you is just a whole bunch of cars lined up. And you are right, it is. But this is a 143 car queue at the petrol station! The funny thing was that there was no petrol at the petrol station, but a rumour that a truck was going to go there. There was a major crisis in Malawi, a lack of foreign currency meant they were unable to buy petrol. You can imgine the crippling effect this had on the economy. Most petrol statons were ghostly buildings with people having to buy petrol on the black market that was smuggled in from neighbouring countries. I had to buy a litre of petrol for my cooker and was told US$9 a litre, of which I declined. I ended up finding some in another town for $4.
Setting up my tent in a friendly locals front yard who I met whilst buying tomatoes in a small road side town.
Friendly strangers who showered me with generosity. I have never eaten so much, they treated me to a feast fit for a king. I actually felt like throwing up.
Most days I would cycle through lots of these little small towns, crackly music blasting from the speakers, chickens everywhere, fly covered raw meat hanging up, people sitting around and wall to wall shops selling all sorts of stuff for everyday life.
Finally arriving on the shores of Lake Malawi. This was the moment I had been cycling towards since the start.
I had heard about Kandi beach, a camping ground an overland truck driver had told me about. After a 120km day I turned off at a busy little roadside market with the sun getting lower in the sky. I cycled down a non descript sandy dirt road through villages to some big gates. The security guard opened up the gates and I cycled in and my goodness me it just so happened I had arrived in paradise! I went straight to the bar got a beer, walked to the beach, peeled my clothes and dived into the warm water.
Yep it’s hard to believe that the above photo is taken in a land locked African country. As you can imagine my 1 night turned into 6 nights and it was there along with 7 other overland trucks to watch the All Blacks beat the French in the rugby world cup final. Oh and somewhere on that beach is my cell phone.
Views like this whilst cycling along the lake make it pretty easy to keep on pedalling.
End of the trip, 2,550km ticked off. I locked my bike to a tree in Northern Malawi and did a 3 day chicken bus mission up to Tanzania’s Mt Kilimanjaro for my 30th birthday!
HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A SUPER AWESOME NEW YEAR.
I personally loved Zambia. It is described as the “real Africa”, where as Namibia is described as “Africa for beginners”. Zambia doesn’t have as much tourism, tourists usually just go to Victoria Falls then sometimes drive the 6 hours straight to South Luanga National Park before leaving. But on a bike, I had no choice but to cycle, and I took back roads. It was a tough time for me, as I was obviously alone and the memories of the break up still rather fresh. I had no contact with foreigners, there was no tourist infrastructure. But the beauty of this is that you end up sleeping in some interesting spots, in school class rooms, on the side of the road, in abandoned hotels, in villages, roadside truck stops etc. But it are these moments I will remember, the challenges. I loved the Zambians, great people, and yes it does have the sense of the real Africa, where things just don’t work and things aren’t polished, it’s Africa, raw, refreshing and friendly.
This photo for me sums up road side Africa, people walking in the sandy pot holed dirt. I took it at a boarder town between Zimbabwe and Zambia while I was trying to find out from locals where the road to Chongwe was (which by the way they told me didn’t exist).
Probably a crappy photo due to shading. But this is a common sight all through Africa. Ladies carrying stuff on their heads, fire wood, bananas, water, petrol, washing, basically anything.
This was the road to Chongwe. This is the sight of my first major crash. My front wheel hit a golf ball sized stone and I ate some gravel. A grazed knee was the result.
Flies. Luckily I had done a year working in the outback, so this was a bit of a walk in the park compared to there. But the reason I crashed above was because I was trying to out run the little buggers. They won.
Since I had no map or guide book, I never knew how far I had to go or what the terrain to Chongwe was like, but it was hills and mountains. This was little video with commentary shows how it was. Pushing my bike up and stopping every 10 metres to get my breath. This hill was the site of my leopard encounter. The whole time I was on this road I didn’t see any vehicle.
After having not seen people for what seemed like eternity, therefore being extremely worried as people were my life line to water, I spotted these guys in this dried up river bed. I was so happy to see people, god knows what they were doing here as it was literally in the middle of nowhere. But after my previous night with the leopard, and getting low on water, and worried about not knowing what lay ahead of me, or how far I had to go, it was refreshing and calming to see people. Even though they didn’t speak english.
This stagnated pool of water in the dried up river bed was the first bit of water I had seen in 24 horus and was where the guys in the previous photo had got their water. I asked if it was drinkable, they nodded, I wasn’t convinced especially as one of their drinking containers still bore the sticker of it’s previous life “batery acid”. But I filled up as a last resort.
Charcoal, it’s a big industry for village people all through the countires I cycled through. But it is devastating the deforestation that occurs, and this photos depcits it. Around all the villages is usually a tree grave yard, stumps littering what would have been forest. The sad part is that one of these sacks sells for a couple of bucks. But you can’t blame these people, they have nothing, and at the end of the day they need money to eat.
Local ladies outside the typical roadside restaurant where I would stop for my lunch. This usually consisted of goat and ensema (it changes name depending what country you are in) which is a white porridgey glug that is made from ground maize mixed with water. You eat it with your hands, it’s cheap, it fills you up although it has no nutritional value and best of all you are out of the midday sun.
This photo has a lot going on. This is your common scene in Zambia I would come across every 20kms or so. A water pump where I could get water, and a market behind the bricked wall where I could get my rice, tomatoes and onions for dinner.
Taking a rest.
Africa is home to crappy looking shops all selling exactly the same as the shop next to them but they have amazingly entertaining shop names with semi inspirational messages. I only wish I had started taking photos of them all. Anyway, I stopped off at the ‘Struggle shopping centre’. I like their quote on the right hand pillar “Survival. Never lose hope guys”.
At the struggle shopping centre I had one of those special travel moments. I sat here laughing with these guys as they taught me their local language and we listened to the music that one of the guys was selling at his cassette tape stall. These guys were so friendly and I wasn’t treated like a Mzungu which you really do appreciate. They didn’t ask for anything or give me the story of how life was hard and if I could pay for them to go to school. In fact after sitting and laughing with them for 40 minutes, he gave me a small bag of bubble gum for my bike ride. Which to them is a lot, he wouldn’t let me leave without taking it. I pedalled away smiling.
This road I loved, hills with gentle gradients, not bad to cycle up, but great for going down, and good roads.
It was getting bloody hot by this part of the trip. A lunch time road side stop. I did a lot of reading while cycling.
My truck with the African truck in the back ground.
Fancy seeing you here. Trevor was my hometown doctor growing up in NZ. Him and his wife Helen were working at a mission hospital in Zambia. After 2 weeks of cycling by myself through Zambia, it was great to see familiar faces. Great hospitality for the 5 days I spent with them, just what the doctor ordered you could say.
What I had feared cycling past on my bicycle.
Animals, it is the thing I love about Africa.
Bikes. The poor man’s truck.
The amount of things you see carried on bikes in Africa never ceases to amaze, families, live pigs, 120 litres of petrol, firewood stacked over the riders head, four crates of coke etc etc.. I wish I could have got more footage, but it’s always the way, when you get your camera out you never see anything.
The local beer truck. Classic! The locals leave their 20 litre beer containers on the side of the road. Like the milkman of yesteryear the beer truck comes and fills them up. The beer does not taste like the beer we know, think strong fermented rough textured vegetation in a glass.
I know I’m meant to be going cold turkey on the blog posts so I focus on the book. But like a true blogaholic, just one more, well actually I’m going to put up three more posts.
I was thinking that my blog was looking rather bland as when I left the bike shop I never uploaded any photos due to the internet being ridiculously slow – when I could find it.
So, I have put some photos and videos up of my bike ride from Namibia to Malawi. These I hope will help to put a few pictures to the blog posts you have read over the past 4 months. To follow this blog post will be Zambia and Malawi. This blog post is of my cycle through the top of Zimbabwe and ferry on Lake Kariba. Here we go, ho ho ho.
Entering Zimbabwe from Botswana. This was the place where I was about to enter a game reserve. Everybody telling me I would be killed if I rode through it. But with anything you weigh up the risks, it is a game reserve, but it’s not a famous one like neighbouring Chobe that has a reputation of having a high density of animals. I was going to ride the 70km game park at midday when animal activity was at its lowest and it’s a big reserve, so you would be unlucky to come across something that wanted to eat you. Although when talking with the locals they told me that it was home to all the same animals that can kill you as everywhre else. Then speaking with an overland truck driver that night I told how he had seen a lion kill whilst driving the same road. All I know is that it was the fastest 70km’s I cycled of the whole trip. The only dangerous animals I came close to were elephants and buffalo (It’s surpirsing how something so big can be hidden until you’re right upon it. Check out my blog post of cycling that 70kms.
Victoria Falls (a very small insignificant part) in the background. I took the cheap option as Mandy and I had already visited the Falls from the Zambia side previously. I had heard about a track you could go down on the Zimbabwe side that led you down into conyon, and was free. Obviously from the photo you can see that you don’t actually get to see the falls, but it was a amazing, no one around, hanging out in this little rock pool below one of the natural seven wonders of the world.
A road side table in Zimbabwe, I’m feeling rooted, this photo sums it up for me. This was the day I was feeling sick, diareaha, headaches etc, but I had to cycle to make my ferry.
A day or two after the above photo, feeling better, feeling amazing actually at this point. I had turned off the main road enroute to get the Lake Kariba ferry. It was the first time of my trip where I had entered hills. I had the road all to myself, going up was tough but flying down the hills I would be shouting woooohoooooo like a little kid jumping in puddles.
As it had been the dry season most rivers beds were dry, but this river valley still had water, it felt like an oasis, and I had it all to myself. I was really tempted to go for a swim, but since I had already had enough wildlife encounters I didn’t want to take the risk with crocodiles, instead I just took in the silence and beauty of the valley.
Like many nights on the trip, the sun was setting and I needed somewhere to camp. I spotted some nice looking mud huts and approached them. I asked Mariam above if I could put my tent up, she said no problems. Behind the hut in the background was the scene of my naked bath whilst talking with Mariam’s extremely drunk husband who came home after a Sunday of boozing.
Sunset on the Lake Kariba ferry. STUNNING. Absolutely loved it, the ferry stopped off in the middle of the lake where it was too deep for Crocs and hippos and we went swimming. The passengers slept on the deck under the stars. Just spectacular.
An elephant paying my tent and bike a visit on the shores of Lake Kariba. Bloody glad I wasn’t inside this time. Luckily it gets a fright when the tent fly pings up. Check out the short video (a bit of wind noise but I didn’t want to go back to the tent to get the external mic, but I think you will forgiveme)
The last couple of years everyone has been asking me the same question, and for that matter I have been asking myself? What’s Hap going to do next? What crazy transcontinental goal will he set himself to do before 40? To get married and have a child in every continent? To collect the unemployment benefit in every continent?
No, for me it is a lot simpler. I set myself the working the world goal to see the world, to live my 20′s with no regrets, to live my dream. I have lived that dream, I have scratched that itch, and my god what a trip it has been! It’s time for a new chapter, or I suppose you could say it’s time for a new book.
The coming years are going to see me put a few of my theories to the test; do what you love and never work a day in your life, do what you are passionate about and you’ll be successful.
If you had asked me when I was 10 years old what I wanted to do I would have told you I wanted a job that involved public speaking. This is most people’s greatest fears, but for me it is what I love. I love to entertain. Since I was 10 years old doing school speech competitions I have taken every available speaking opportunity, from inspirational presentations at high school prize-givings to entering the Australian wide stand up comedy competition.
I want to tie my love of public speaking and entertaining with my passion, my passion to inspire people. I love nothing more than hearing about people’s dreams, hearing them speak about what they are passionate about. You see that glint in their eye, the way they rabble stuff off and then afterwards apologise for speaking too much, but for me someone can’t speak enough about what they are passionate about, I find it addictive.
I especially want to inspire the youth, the 15- 30 age group, to teach them what I have learnt over my last ten years. You’re never too old, but I really see these as some of the best years of your life to live your dreams, to follow your passion. There is nothing holding you back, you have no mortgage, no wife and kids, no real expectations from society, and you have your health. If you want to start a business, this is the time, if you fail, who care’s? You’re in your 20′s, learn from your mistakes, do it better next time. If you want to be an All Black, if you want to raise a family, if you want to be a builder, if you want to be a lawyer, if you want to be a photographer, if you want to research the mating habits of Hungarian albatross (I don’t know if there is such a thing), your 20′s are your time to shine.
When I was in Africa I wanted to see what was happening in NZ and checked out the online news. The first article I read was about New Zealand having the highest youth suicide rate of the OECD countries. For me this is such a tragedy. New Zealand is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, and the amount of opportunities here are tremendous. Especially when I compare it to where I read that article, in the heart of rural Namibia. An unforgiving place where kids are born into mud huts with no electricity, 40% HIV infection rate and 80% unemployment. If only these youth that had decided to take their lives had found what they were passionate about and followed that, would the outcome have been different?
So for the next couple of years I will be in my home continent, dedicating myself to my new goal, to inspire the youth.
One thing I have learnt from working the world has been that you can’t do anything by yourself. You need the help and support of others, something I have been extremely lucky with whilst working the world. If you think you know of anyone that maybe interested in my new goal, any companies or organisations that are passionate about inspiring the youth, or potential websites or books I need to check out, then please pass them on. Sharing is caring.
Now I have come to the end of this post, I have to do one more thing. I have to wrap up Hap Working the World. No need to get all emotional just yet, it’s not good bye. I’ll keep you all updated on important happenings but I really have to knock my blogging habit on the head. It’s going to be a busy summer as my book, Working the World has to be to the editor by April (my publisher Allen & Unwin will have it on the shelves October/November next year). I’ll also be busy working with the talented documentary maker Richard Sidey for our joint project, Bikes for Africa.
So that’s it folks. Thanks for all the support along the journey, you guys have been AWESOME!
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