The Hokkaido Wilds is born

So I set out to create a new site, where I’d transfer all the Hokkaido-related content from 14degrees.org. It would be 100% focused on showcasing Hokkaido’s outdoors – ski touring, cycle touring, and hiking.

It didn’t start as The Hokkaido Wilds. I originally started creating a site focused solely on ski touring in Hokkaido. But then what would I do about the cycle touring content? Make a new site for that too? There’s also content that overlaps between activities, such as the content about displaying Japan topo maps on a smartphone, or submitting hiking and backcountry plans to the Japan police.

So it started to make sense to have a full site that included all activities.

I wanted the site to look really good, so I hired a designer. But I didn’t just want any designer. I wanted someone who understood the mountains. Who actually did the activities that the site would showcase. Ideally, they’d be passionate about ski touring. But where to find such a unicorn?

After a few months of giving up hope, a random Facebook post in late May 2018 from someone wanting a logo designer ended up with an unrelated person suggesting that this person contacted Dominika Gan. I checked out her work, and I was hooked. She was exactly the person I was looking for. Her exhibition of mountain-themed posters, as well as an overall sense of space and simplicity got me hooked.

Exciting graphic design by welldonegan

Hokkaido
Cycle Touring
Routes

on hokkaidowilds.org

Hokkaido
Ski Touring
Routes

on hokkaidowilds.org

Hokkaido
Hiking
Routes

on hokkaidowilds.org

Hokkaido
Mountain
Huts

on hokkaidowilds.org

The post My New Website: hokkaidowilds.org appeared first on 14degrees Off The Beaten Track.

On the China National Highway 312 in June 2008…3,333km away from Shanghai

Recently, I had the opportunity to travel back to China. It was for an Asia New Zealand Foundation Leaders Network conference, to be held in Xian in central-ish China. I skated through Xian in 2008, so quite apart from being excited to be in Xian for the conference, I was secretly extremely excited to be seeing my old friend Highway 312 again.

So I hatched a plan. I would take my folding bike with me to Xian a few days before the conference, take a bus to around 150km south-east of Xian, and cycle back in time for the conference. I would spend some time with my old friend Highway 312.

I flew to Xian from New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido Japan. This required a connection in Tokyo and Beijing. Lucky for me, Air China allows bicycles as checked-in luggage free of charge, so long as they are within the weight limit (23kg). Accordingly, I just packed my Tern Verge S27h folding bike in Tern’s Stowbag 2.0 and checked it in, hoping for the best.

The bike arrived none-the-worse, and in no time I had caught a bus from Xian airport to central Xian, and then the last bus to Shanglou for the day at 8:40pm. I finally arrived in Shanglou (map) at around 10pm on the 18th of August. The helpful university student I was sitting next to on the bus helped me find a hotel (US$8 a night), and I was finally in bed at around 11pm.

The next morning I was packed and ready to leave by 6am. The hotel staff gushed over my bravery for attempting to tackle the great feat of cycling 150km to Xian. “You are very brave!” one called as I cycled away.

Breakfast in Shanglou that morning consisted of what I remembered eating often while in eastern China previously: spicy dumplings and a few bowls full of rice porridge/gruel. Today, I gobbled it down with glee. Which was a little surprising, because when I skated across China in 2008, my body was inexplicably shutting down on me quite regularly, making most meals quite the chore… Today, however, I was feeling strong, and made good time out of Shanglou towards Xian, stopping only to pick up some fruit at a local market.

Not long out of Shanglou, I realised that I’d never actually traveled this part of Highway 312; previously in 2008, I had skateboarded from Xian past Shanglou on the G70 expressway, which was under construction at the time. Going back and trying to cycle on the G70 was out of the question, however, so I just continued on along the 312.

Probably due to the presence of the G70 super-expressway just one valley over to the west, the 312 had hardly any traffic. Perhaps one or two taxis and private vehicles every 30 mins or so. Perfect for cycling.

The wide even gradient soon became monotonous, however, and I jumped at the chance at a detour up a short, sharp valley. The alternate route was well signposted, and it looked like there had been some effort in trying to make the area somewhat of a tourist attraction: “tree-lined avenues,” “cool roadside lakes…” It was definitely much more pleasant than the main road.

The previous night I had left my smartphone on the bus from Xian to Shanglou. I checked with the bus station the following morning if the phone had been handed in, but to no avail. The most immediate pressing issue that this predicament presented me with, was not so much that I no longer had access to the maps I had downloaded to the phone, but I no longer had any way of telling the time. So at some stage in the morning (it was 9:30am, I would later find out) I decided that my stomach was telling me that it was lunch time. So, listening to my “stomach clock” as the Japanese call it, I stopped in at what looked like a kitchen of some sort.

I approached a group of men sitting outside, eating some sort of soup with what looked like dumplings in it. I asked if I could order some food (I actually said “do you have food?” which was quite obvious they did, but it’s the only way I know how to communicate that I want to eat something in Chinese). They looked a little confused, but quickly offered to give me a bowl of the soup they were eating. I was sort of confused also, since I thought they were customers at the kitchen. But I just went with it, and said yes.

One of them pulled a plastic chair up to the plastic table, sat me in it, and in front of me was placed an enormous bowl of scalding hot soup. Into my hand was thrust a withered cob of corn, possibly cooked a few days ago. A rotund man of around 50 years of age waddled out of a door opposite the kitchen and sat down at the same outside table I was sitting at. A couple of the men present scurried into the kitchen and brought him a similarly scalding bowl of soup and grimy piece of corn on the cob.

He happily bit into the corn, and proceeded to slurp up the piping hot soup at a pace quite unreasonable for anyone with fully functional pain receptors in their mouth.

I opted to let the soup cool a little while I chewed at the tasteless corn.

It took me around 20 minutes and several rounds of stinted but jovial conversation to get through the soup. It was quite delicious, with large chunks of potato and floury dumplings, with what I suspect was a generous inclusion of pork lard. By around minute 18 of my stay, I had finally deduced that the men present were not in fact customers. They were staff in the (or perhaps ‘a’?) restaurant. The rotund soup-skuller was the father of two of them.

If I was still a little hazy as to the situation I had found myself in, they seemed quite sure of the situation they were in: their first ever foreign guest in the history of the kitchen. As such, I spent approximately 15 minutes of those 20 with at least one smartphone camera pointed at me, either for a photo or video.

The meal was finished off with a photo with the lads…

And a firm refusal of any any form of payment for the meal. This is China.

I bade my farewells, and carried on up the valley to rejoin with Highway 312. This consisted of 1st-gear mash-the-pedals climbing up an impossibly steep pass, but allowed for some great panoramic views over the terrain.

Back on Highway 312, I felt like I was back in the grind of main-road cycle touring: on the main physically easy, but mentally draining. By what felt like lunchtime (or, more precisely, a second-lunchtime), I had made it to what I had intended to be my destination for the night, a small town called Lanqiaozhen (map). 60km before lunch…this felt like a very solid effort. But unfortunately there appeared to be no hotels or inns in the town (I wasn’t carrying a tent), so I decided to just have some lunch and push on to the next larger town, Lantian (map), another 30km or so away, downhill.

It was at lunch that I remembered that I had always struggled with noodles in China. Thick, stodgy, and flavours so intense (salt, red peppers, garlic) that finishing a bowl of them would always be somewhat of a herculean accomplishment. Today was no exception. I put my foot down and completed the whole bowl though, since I knew I’d need the energy.

Suitably powered up for the remaining downhill to Lantian, I mentally prepared myself for another few hours of monotonous Highway 312.

How wrong I was.

The next two hours had my jaw hanging low in amazement as China dished out exactly what keeps me enticed by this country: unexpected and enthralling natural beauty.

Photos hardly do justice to the hanging bare rock faces that greeted me at each turn on this super fast, almost traffic-free descent on a perfect surface. China really has a shock-and-awe value that is worth spending time in the country for…on a bike.

The beautiful rocky gorge (the Qing River gorge, according to a helpful Reddit commenter) spat me out onto the vast, hazy Xian plains. From there it was a hair-raising sprint into central Lantian.

I stayed one night in Lantian before doing the final dash into sprawling central Xian, a city of over 8 million people. Even if I was on the same road as I had taken 8 years ago, I very much doubt I would have recognized it…that place it colossal. Lunch on my way into the city was an old favourite of mine: ‘tree ears’ and chicken…now this is something I can eat truckloads of.

I eventually arrived at my accommodation for the night at around 2pm in the afternoon: the Sofitel Xian On Renmin Square. For the unacquainted: this place is four-star amazingness. Easily in excess of US$100 a night, which in China is uber-high-class. Luckily for me the conference was the next day, so this night was part of the conference package.

I nonchalantly cycled through the main gates and towards the entrance to the hotel. A security guard rushed towards me, and ordered me to stop. His demeanor clearly said “you’ve got the wrong address.” I suppose I couldn’t blame him. I was dusty and sweaty, and my bike was splattered with mud. It was close to 40 degrees outside, and no, no self-respecting guest of this hotel would subject themselves to such physical torment as to cycle in this heat.

I told him I had a reservation, and he relented enough to allow me to walk my bicycle to the front entrance. A gaggle of bellboys had congregated, fussing over what to do with this creature who clearly had bags of some description, but they were attached to a dirty bike.

I was most definitely not a case study they’d been briefed on in their training.

Eventually I was allowed to wheel my bike into the lobby, and my bike was ushered into the back luggage storage area. I grabbed my panniers, thanked the bellboys for their help, checked in, headed up to my room, and promptly went to sleep.

The rest of my stay in Xian, a short three days, went quickly, and before long I was back on a plane out of the country, bike folded up in it’s bag.

Highway 312, it was nice spending time with you…I hope to be back another time soon.

The post Revisiting an old friend: The China National Highway 312 appeared first on 14degrees Off The Beaten Track.

* Some names have been changed to preserve anonymity.

Offered a Job

It’s October 2007, and I’m sitting in a bar in Tortola, the British Virgin Islands. I’m with Captain Steve Dewhurst and his first-mate Ellie. We’re celebrating a couple of successful yacht deliveries, one three-week trans-Atlantic delivery from the Canary Islands to the BVIs and another from the Bahamas to the BVIs.

Someone slaps Steve on the back from behind. “Steve you old bastard, I thought I’d run into you here!” Speaking in a faint British accent, she’s an attractive 40-something blonde woman with a deep tan. I notice her hands. Calloused and weathered.

Steve and Ellie turn and break into smiles, standing in turn to give the new woman strong hugs. “What brings you here?” Steve asks.

“I just finished doing a charter around the BVIs. 10 days with a group of Chinese clients. I need a strong drink,” she laughs.

Steve introduces me to Captain Kathy Johnson. “This is our most recent boat-scrub for our last couple of deliveries, Rob. He’s a Kiwi, but don’t hold that against him. He was a great deckhand!” She gives me a strong handshake, and turns back to Steve.

“I don’t suppose you know of any chefs looking for some work, do you?” Kathy asked Steve. Steve hardly hesitated, replying in jest “Rob makes a pretty mean curry!”

I didn’t deny it. I was pretty chuffed with the coconut milk and chicken curry I’d put together as one of the many meals I’d prepared during our delivery of a large Lagoon 420 catamaran yacht across the Atlantic. And I had always enjoyed cooking and making meals look and taste nice.

Kathy turned to me. “Would you be interested in being a chef on a 10-day yacht charter? We offer five-star service on our charters, so you’d have to be prepared for a high degree of quality.”

I replied saying that it sounded like an interesting proposition, but that I’d never cooked on a yacht before. Before I could mention that I’d never done any form of paid kitchen work in my entire life either, she said “I’m sure you’d be fine. If you can put together a 7-day 6-person menu proposal and email it to me in a week’s time along with your CV, I’ll take a look and we can go from there, if you like?”

“Ah, yeah, OK, I’ll get back to you in a week,” I said, not quite knowing what I was getting myself into, but pretty confident that if I went with the flow, things would work out.

“Great, that will definitely get me out of a pickle. My usual guy can’t make it on the next charter, so I was getting desperate. I look forward to hearing from you in a week. Don’t let me down!”

Kathy read through my feigned confidence, however. “The thing with yacht cheffing is that you’ve got to keep things simple. Use off-the-shelf sauces, and choose recipes that keep cooking time to the minimum. We’ll be on a mono-hull yacht, so galley space will be limited, and you may find the entire galley leaning at a 40 degree angle sometimes! I’ll put you in touch with some other chefs I know, and they’ll be able to give you some more tips.”

With this, we exchanged email addresses. She then turned to the bar tender, ordered a double-shot rum and coke, and cheerfully greeted another bar-goer next to her.

I didn’t speak to Kathy again for the rest of the night.

True to her word though, the next morning I had an email from Kathy, introducing me to another chef friend of hers. Also in my inbox was an email from that friend, recommending a book called Ship to Shore. She gave me the same advice Kathy had given me the night before. “Keep recipies simple and easy to prepare! The best gourmet yacht chefs make uncompromisingly perfect meals, but know that creativity is key in challenging shoe-box-sized galleys.”

At the time, I was staying at a Joanne’s place. She was a local Couchsurfing host, and I would stay there for a week. I asked her where a bookshop was where I might find the book. She went to her bookshelf, pulled out a well-worn book, and handed it to me. “Hold onto it till you’re done with the charter trip.” It was the very book Kahty’s friend had recommended to me.

I spent two days poring over the book, looking for recipes that looked suitable for my level of inexperience. In the end I had my 7-day menu. I Googled how to best lay out a menu proposal, and nervously sent it to Kathy for review, asking for guest preferences so that I could finalize the dish selection (here’s that very proposal).

Kathy got back to me quickly with a brief email. “That looks great, Rob. Meet me Thursday at 10am at the marina so I can give you some cash to go buy the supplies. I’ll be at dock E prepping the boat. We leave the marina with the clients at 9am on Friday morning, so we need to be fully prepared by Thursday evening.”

Supplies: Only the best will do.

Thursday morning came, and I met Kathy at the marina. She had grease on her hands. She rubbed one on her trousers, and gave me the same strong handshake. Out of her chest pocket she handed me a thick envelope, full of American dollars. “Buy the best quality ingredients they have on the shelves. If there’s a 600ml value-pack of olive oil for $6, and a 200ml option for $15 next to it, choose the 200ml option. Choose the $30 a pound cuts of beef over the $10 a pound cuts. Cost is no option. Our clients are paying big money, so they expect the best. And I like giving the best to them.”

This was like music to my ears. Nothing like exceptional quality ingredients to make my job easier.

As I was waking away from the boat, Kathy called out. “Remember we’ll be away from any sort of civilization for 10 days, so you’ll need to buy food for our 6 guests plus the two of us for those 10 days. As for vegetables like lettuce and other perishables, we should be able to replenish at a couple of spots, but don’t expect too much!”

I got a taxi to the local supermarket and started wandering around the shelves. What struck me was the extremes in prices for most items. There seemed to be clear lower-end ‘locals’ products and those aimed at high-end gourmet meals. It was like being a kid in a candy shop. The prime wagyu steak was going to be a winner.

By just after noon, I had the supplies I hoped would last 10 days. This was just one of the things that I was nervous about for this trip. Forget the fact that I’d never actually cooked a steak in my life. Forget also the fact that this was a 5-star gourmet yacht charter trip, with the clients paying around $15,000 between them, and I’d never cooked professionally in my entire life. To run out of food just wouldn’t do.

When I got back to the marina with my haul loaded up on a borrowed trolley, I asked Kathy to watch as I packed the galley, and let me know if what I had bought looked like enough for 10 days. “It makes me kind of nervous that you’re not sure, Rob,” she said, looking at me sideways. “But OK, let’s take a look.”

With food packed, she looked satisfied. “There’s just one thing that we need to top up on, and that’s alcohol. Drunk clients are happy clients, so here’s a list of what I noticed is missing from the boat’s drinks cabinet. Can you go back to the supermarket and get these? Anything else you want to add, feel free to get it.”

The list was long, and consisted mostly of hard liqueur. I happily obliged.

Meet the Clients

The next day was departure day, and I arrived to the marina at our arranged time of 6am for a final check over the boat. Kathy was in good spirits. She was obviously happy to be returning to her element after a week and a half on land. “Don’t you just love the marina in the morning,” she beamed.

With the boat in order at around 8:45am, Kathy directed me to cast the ropes off the jetty, as we needed to move the boat to the guest landing at the other end of the marina. With my trans-Atlantic trip and Caribbean trip behind me, I felt a surge of pride as I made my way around the boat, making sure the ropes were tidy. Just like Steve had taught me.

It was a short 5 minute trip under engine to get to the guest landing. Our clients were already standing in the morning sun, squinting at us as we approached the jetty. I ran around and dropped the starboard side fenders, to ready the boat for landing. A stiff easterly wind was coming from the starboard side, so I’d have to work quickly with the bowline once we were along side the jetty, so as to secure the boat from being blown to the port side.

Kathy was in her element, and sided the yacht up to the jetty with exact precision. I jumped off with bow line in hand, and jogged to the far bollard. In that moment, all pride in my previous next-to non-existent sailing experience evaporated as I had a complete mind-blank as to how to tie a clove hitch around the bollard. In the panickingly long two seconds as I stood there vacantly, I decided to wrap the line haphazardly around the bollard, hoping that the breeze would not push the boat so much as to unravel it.

I rushed to the port-ward-drifting rear of the boat with Kathy’s cries to “goddamn hurry up!” and thankfully remembered Steve’s excellent instant-cloves-hitch technique. With pride returned momentarily, my moment of glory was interrupted by Kathy’s curses as my miserable attempt at securing the bow came unraveled. I ran back to the bow and grabbed the line just as the last inches of line were being pulled off the jetty, the bow of the boat being quickly pushed towards the other luxury yacht on the port side.

The clients watched on in curious silence.

Katy called me on board and was admirably calm despite the near collision with the next door boat. “Good save. I’m going to brief the clients now, so you can get onto preparing lunch.”

I went down below and started preparing a light lunch of turkey salad wraps, served with a sweet chili dipping sauce, sour cream, and a fresh coriander garnish. All nerves were gone as the calm realization sunk in that there were hungry, exacting clients coming aboard.

When Kathy called me up on deck, the clients were seated around the outdoor seating area looking relaxed. They introduced themselves as three couples from Las Vegas. They were obviously all old friends. Only one offered what they did for a living. He said he owned four successful restaurants in Las Vegas. I smiled and tried to hide my shock at the fact I’d be preparing meals for a man who should by all means know what a good meal should be.

I served their light lunch and we were then under way.

Fake it till you make it

The next few days are a blur. I remember wedging the cookbook in a corner of the galley, referring to it as I prepared the dishes I had planned on my 10-day menu (most for the first time in my life). I tried to avoid the clients noticing the cookbook, but the clients seemed to have complete confidence in my abilities, and paid little to no attention to my movements in the galley. I found this fascinating considering that the galley took up at least a quarter of the space available in the under-deck saloon of the yacht, and was in clear view of the clients when they were down below.

Early on in the trip I prepared sushi for lunch one day. The weather outside was uncharacteristically drizzly, so the clients were all sitting in the galley chatting loudly. One looked over to me and asked where I had worked prior to working on yachts. I answered honestly, saying that previously to cycling half way around the world, I had worked in Japan. Before I could elaborate, she exclaimed to her friends “hear that guys? Rob used to work in Japan as a chef!” I smiled and chose not to comment (for those who don’t know, I worked in a very normal municipal government office in international relations). Luckily the conversation steered towards my cycle trip, and any probing questions into my deeper professional past were avoided.

Also memorable was the evening I prepared my only steak dish for the trip. Steak served on a bed of crushed potato with a gravy sauce and vegetables on the side. This would be the first time in my life I had cooked steak in any form. And here I was preparing it for Americans from Las Vegas. If there was anyone more qualified to judge good from bad steak, these people were it.

Referring to my saving grace cookbook, I learned for the first time how to cook a steak in the various rareness options. It was one of the two times I was genuinely nervous about my cooking performance. The whole operation went smoothly, however, and the plates came back empty.

Perhaps my personal favourite dish of the trip however was a peach schnapps tiramisu, using real peaches (expensive in the BVI’s!) as an ingredient. I followed the cook book’s recommendation to make the dessert three days in advance. This allowed plenty of time for the flavors to develop. It did not disappoint.

Novice mistakes

My biggest disaster was a lunch towards the end of the trip. The plan was for vegetarian stuffed eggplant, with a curried lentil stuffing. At the last minute Kathy advised to add some sort of meat. These Las Vegas clients were unlikely to be wooed with a no-meat lunch, she advised. So I hastily added some sliced ham as a lining to the eggplant cases. The issue however was that I had left the preparation of lunch too late. The drastically under-powered and minuscule oven on board refused to cook the eggplant cases through, and I ended up serving the dishes under-cooked.

They were returned with lentil stuffing and slithers of ham gone and eggplant cases still on the plates. Kathy was not impressed.

My cooking skills were not the only thing that I was lacking. One one occasion it became achingly clear just how inexperienced I was as a deckhand. One particularly blustery afternoon, we had to take refuge in a particularly shallow-reef bay for a night. Like most moorings on the trip, this bay required that we moor at an off-shore buoy. Like many evenings previously, Kathy edged up to the buoy bow-first, and it was my job to lean over the railing, hook the rope, haul it up, and attach our bow line to the buoy. All this had to be done with clear communication from me as to how close we were to the buoy. With little crewing experience, I had yet to figure out how to communicate with my hands how far we were from the buoy, while simultaneously holding the hook ready to grab the buoy.

On this blustery evening, after five frustrating attempts at hooking the buoy, and the yacht being pushed further and further towards a shallow reef, Kathy’s composure with my lack of skill finally cracked. Finally after I had the boat secured, Kathy stomped up to the bow and let loose. “What sort of deckhand are you?! You put us all in danger! A four year old could have snagged that rope? What’s wrong with you?”

I felt slighted. “This is not what I was hired to do,” I retorted angrily. “I never claimed to have skills as a deckhand, so your insults are unfair!”

I think Kathy and I realized at that point that the stress of six days on the water was wearing both of us thin. She decided to head into shore to the bar in the bay with the guests for the afternoon, and I stayed on board. It was the first time that Kathy and I were not on the boat together during those first six days, apart from supply runs. It was bliss having the boat to myself. I went for a swim in impossibly clear waters, and relaxed while everyone was away. It did wonders for the sanity of Katy and I as a team, and the rest of the trip proceeded without any major confrontations.

Lost diamonds

The trip was not without its more petty drama however, either for Kathy or myself. One such drama consisted of me losing one of the client’s $5,000 diamond earrings.

It was when we were moored at Shipwreck Bay. On the program for the day was some snorkeling around a shallow shipwreck, a short swim away from our yacht. The clients were changed into their swimsuits and ready to jump into the water when one realized she still had her “favorite earrings in the whole world” (her words) on. So she removed them and handed them to me for safekeeping. I put them into my top short pocket and promptly forgot about them.

It was not until an hour after the clients had returned and were getting ready for dinner that she asked for her earrings back.

They were not in my pocket, and I had no idea where they were. The feeling of complete sinking despair was something I would rather forget. I realized that the earrings must have fallen out of my open-topped pocket when I leaned over to pick something up off the deck. I searched for 30 minutes, to no avail. I had to let the guest know what had happened, and that I was sure they would turn up (I wasn’t in the slightest). She was surprisingly pragmatic about the situation (as was her partner who had bought her the earrings).

Two days later, however, as I was doing the early morning scrub of the deck, I found to my indescribable relief two diamond earrings wedged between a line of rope and the very edge of the deck. My bacon was saved.

The inter-island cable

Another drama was not, thankfully, my doing. We had dropped anchor at a sandy-bottomed cove one evening, and anchored overnight. The following morning, however, as I was raising the anchor, I noticed the anchor winch straining more than usual. A few moments later, the bow of the boat dipped perceptibly. I immediately stopped the winch, and called out to Kathy. She skipped over from the helm and tried again, first dropping then raising the anchor. Again the winch strained and the bow dipped. “Fuck,” Kathy muttered under her breath. “Let’s have a look at the charts. I have a bad feeling about this.”

Back in the saloon, Kathy pointed to a dark line on the GPS map screen, running along the screen at least 75 meters away from our port side. “That’s a bloody inter-island cable, which we should be more than enough far away from. I never knew cables could drift this far!”

Kathy disappeared into our shared cabin, and returned in her swimsuit. “I’ll have to go down and try to free the anchor from the cable. Otherwise we’ll have to cut the anchor loose, and I’ll be in deep trouble.”

The anchor was in at least 10m of water, so it was hardly an easy task to dive down and dislodge a very heavy anchor from a very heavy cable. Kathy was doing it all with just a snorkel and goggles. It took her four dives to get the anchor free, each dive inching the blades of the anchor little by little away from under the cable. By then the clients had congregated on the bow of the boat, looking on curiously at the proceedings, a couple of them offering advice on how to best go about the problem.

On her fourth attempt Kathy came up and as she hurriedly swam to the back of the boat to take the helm, she yelled at me to draw the anchor up. This time the winch lifted the anchor with ease, and the clients broke out into applause.

Cabbage coleslaw

As the days wore on and food supplies dwindled, I found it particularly difficult to supply a varied selection of fresh vegetables on the menu, particularly in the form of salads. Despite heading into shore on a couple of occasions, stocking up on lettuce, tomato and cucumber became difficult in the smaller settlements along the coast. Luckily, however, I still had a strong supply of hardier vegetables such as carrots and purple cabbage. This meant that for the last three days I could supply the guests with refreshing coleslaw rather than green salad. This did not go unnoticed by Kathy or the guests, however. “Rob, apparently the coleslaw is getting a little repetitive,” Kathy said on the second-to-last night of the trip. I apologized and reassured her that they’d only have to endure it for one last night.

“We knew we’d have our own personal chef, but wow”

After an exhausting ten days on the water (in which I had to endure making lunch at a 40 degree angle only once), it was time to say goodbye to our guests. It was 2006, and my official pay rate for the trip was US$120 a day. Like most service industry jobs in that part of the world, however, it was the tips that really made the payoff worth the effort of being on call 24 hours a day for ten days.

After the guests had all left and Kathy and I had cleaned up the yacht, we sat down to take a look at what the guests had left us in tips. Kathy had told me to expect anything between 5% and 10% of the total charter cost (around $15,000 total for 6 people). We found two envelopes in the larger envelope left behind. One addressed to Kathy, and one to me. They both contained US$650 each, along with a personal note.

I was already amazed at my good fortune of landing and finishing the job without entirely stuffing it up, but to receive $650 in tips was incredible. Add that to what I expected to be paid by the yacht charter company, and I’d just landed almost $2,000 in ten days, more than enough to fund my planned longboard trip across the US.

The personal note, however, laid at rest any insecurities I had over the reception of the meals I had prepared. “The home-cooked style of the meals really made us feel at home,” the note read. “And we knew we’d have our own personal chef, but wow. You were brilliant.”

The note went on to say if I ever found myself in Las Vegas looking for work, there would be a chef job ready for me at one of the restaurateur’s eateries.

I sat there and shook my head. I had actually pulled it off.

The post A story never told: My job as a yacht charter chef in the Caribbean appeared first on 14degrees Off The Beaten Track.

Officially, the meeting was called the ‘North Asia Hui’. ‘Hui’ is a word, used in New Zealand, originating in the Maori language, that means a social gathering or assembly. Over the three days the 30-odd network members were together (I also spent a couple of days prior to the Hui cycling over a mountain pass), the hui was made up of a mix of a few structured lecture/discussion sessions, and a few excursions that were great for facilitating networking among the members.

A highlight of the lecture sessions was the one with Financial Times Beijing Bureau Chief Jamil Anderlini (above). Jamil is originally from New Zealand, and shared some off-the-record frank opinions and ideas about China’s internal and external state of affairs.

Starting off this wee report of the Hui with some formal-looking sessions like this probably makes the Hui look all rather serious and academic. But in reality, perhaps the most valuable part of the Hui was the time spent with other network members, all with one key thing that tied us all together: a passion for North Asia.

The Leaders Network itself is quite young. I joined it in it’s early years in 2009, and it has grown well, but is still only around 8 (?) years old. I think that the true value of this network will be seen in another 15 to 20 years, as New Zealand’s economy and human relationships with Asia become more intertwined and current members will then be in positions of leadership. To have a cooperative bunch of people who can work together will be a valuable thing.

And that’s what I really love about this network. I’ve been to a few meetings with network members, and I’ve always been amazed at how down to earth and open everyone is. It feels like there is very little sense of competition or bravado among the members, despite many of them very successful in their careers so far. A genuine openness, and a modest passion for their areas of professional and personal interest.

The Foundation did well to set up plenty of activities during the Hui to get us all interacting. This included a trip to the terracotta warriors. This army of clay figures was impressive…

But I think I spent more time absorbed in discussion, getting to know others in the network that I had not met before this Hui, as well as catching up with old friends from previous meetings.

New Zealand Ambassador to China, Mr. John McKinnon, made for an intriguing tour guide! Thanks John

The meals were of course another highlight…once again I found myself torn between wanting to stuff my face and jabber to others at the table…two things that are unfortunately difficult to do at once!

The three days of the Hui were over too fast, but to my great delight, we did manage to get some cycling in on the last afternoon. A few of us had heard about how it was possible to hire bikes to cycle the 14km around the old Xian city walls. I had originally thought that’d be at the street level, but no. We could actually cycle *on* the walls.

This gave us an expansive view over the old and new parts of central Xian, a sprawling fat-growing city of around 8 million people.

For the 30 minutes we spent cycling around half of the wall, we were enjoying a gentle tailwind and a generally dry heat of the afternoon.

This didn’t last long, however. Around 5km into the ride, the sky in the northeast direction grew darker and darker. A gusty, sandy, hot wind grew in strength until I was squinting to keep dust out of my eyes. It was a classic sign of a coming squall that would end up dropping heavy rain for over an hour.

As the horizontal rain started flying in, we decided to cut the wall ride short, and escape while the rain wasn’t too intense. We were just in time. It felt like a fantastically adventurous end to a great few days.

The three days felt like they were over before they started, but I appreciated the opportunity to deepen my ties with other people passionate about New Zealand and its relationship with Asia, and get back to China – that vibrant ever-changing place that it is.

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Right now I’m at the University of Oxford in England, attending the Oxford Internet Institute’s  Summer Doctoral Program. This is a two-week long intensive course for late-stage PhD students, and it was a great honor to be selected to be one of the attendees. One of the exciting by-products of taking part in this program, however, is the chance to use the one day off during the program to explore a little bit of English countryside by bike.

To this end, I took my folding bike (the Tern Verge S27h) with me to England, so I’d be ready for some adventure.

My return flights from Sapporo City in northern Japan to London were ticketed by Austrian Airways. Amazingly I was allowed two pieces of check-in luggage on all flights, and bicycles (classed as ‘sports equipment’) are taken for no extra charge so long as they fit within the weight allowance for each piece of luggage (23kg each), and are registered by phone at least 24 hours before the flight. For this trip I decided to copy another seasoned traveler Virginia’s technique for flying with a folding bike: encase the bike in Tern’s Stow Bag.

The bike arrived in one piece (albeit with slightly bent racks; easily bent back into place), and I promptly got to Oxford by bus, and got stuck into the 9 to 5 daily summer program schedule.

My chance for a 24-hour getaway came last Saturday. We had a social event in the afternoon and a picnic in the evening, and I said my farewells at around 7:15pm, and slipped out of the city on my already-packed bike. The plan was to get out of Oxford City towards the direction of Woodstock, and keep riding into the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB for short) until dark, whereby I would find myself a suitable tree to sleep under. The ultimate aim would be to roughly follow a recommended cycle route, taking in some of the sights in the area.

Approximate cycle route from Oxford (see map link here)

As I was making my way out of the northern end of the city, I stopped to snap a pic of my setup for this brief escape. The solid Tern Verge S27h folding bike, with Ortlieb bags, Shimano Alfine 11-speed internal gear hub, and Selle Anatomica saddle. The handlebar bag is attached to the head tube using Tern’s Luggage Truss. In the panniers are a change of clothes, sleeping bag and sleeping mat. Since this was only going to be an overnight trip, I figured I wouldn’t need my tent.

As I was knelt down in the quiet street taking photos, a young guy approached me and asked where I was going. He scoffed at my intention to cycle along side the A40 motorway out of the city. “I’m a cyclist, and I can tell you that the A40 is shit,” he said bluntly. “Look out for the blue and red Sustrans signs. They’re cycle routes and are much better!”

He then pointed me down a side route that cut onto the Oxford Canal path, which would take me a third of the way out to Woodstock, and keep me off the busy highway. The canal was quintessential England (at least according to my own idealistic stereotype of the country).

I pushed on and soon found myself navigating quiet back roads approaching the town of Charlbury. The weather was calm, and not a breath of wind was blowing. Each turn of the road felt like a scene out of the Shire in Lord of the Rings. So idyllic.

I was using the excellent bare-bones Open Street Maps application on my Andriod smartphone (called Offline Maps) to navigate. With a map of the area already downloaded onto my phone, all I needed was to check the map in conjunction with the GPS feature on the phone, to get an idea of where I was heading.

During one of these checks, when it was starting to get dark around 9pm, I spied a nice-looking wooded area indicated on the map, called Topples Wood. The map also indicated a bridle path (open-to-the-public access-way) cutting through the woods. I decided this would be a likely spot to sleep for the night. As the light was fading, I slipped onto the dirt road and quickly found myself surrounded by the quiet woods.

Once I was deep into the woods, I stopped and pushed my bike further off the path. There was something about the woods that was very peaceful. Usually at dusk in the woods one feels slightly on edge, with a hint of creepiness, but perhaps it was the peaceful undergrowth of green leaves…there was something inherently tame about the place that put my mind at ease.

That was until I disturbed a large pidgeon/fowl of some sort that gave me the fright of my life when it burst into life, barging its way headlong through the foliage with wings flapping and screeching at the top of its lungs.

I found a clear spot under a large tree and laid out my sleeping pad and sleeping bag. No sooner had I got myself tucked into bed than I heard (through my ear plugs, a must-have accessory for wild camping, in my opinion) the patter of rain on the foliage above. I briefly contemplated packing up and finding somewhere to shelter, but convinced myself to wait it out for 15 minutes. Sure enough, 15 minutes went by, the woods were quiet again, and I drifted off to sleep.

At around 3:30am, the sound of rain on the foliage above woke me up. This time it was raining with a little more determination than earlier in the night. Before long the foliage was drenched and was starting to let drips through down below. I curled up into the fetal position, covered my sleeping bag with my rain jacket, and hoped for the best.

The rain shower lasted an hour before letting up. It left in its wake a peaceful morning, with birds chirping. Amazingly my sleeping bag was still mostly dry.

First destination of the day was the achingly beautiful town of Charlbury. But to get there from Topples Wood, I followed the bridle path through wheat fields…

And I found myself on Sustrans Cycle Route 442 that cut through more quiet forest…

And passed magnificent estates…

Before giving me a glimpse of sleepy little Charlbury tucked away on a hill.

I had a breakfast of toasted sandwich, coffee and croissant at a small cafe at around 8am (for £8.25…ouch). Like all locals I had met so far on the trip, the cafe owner was effortlessly relaxed and seemed genuinely interested to hear where I would cycle for the day. “Definitely do make sure you see Kingham,” she gushed. “It is a very well maintained village.”

To my eye all the towns so far were simply immaculate. Each place was like cycling into a live museum.

One thing that I noticed very early on in today’s bike ride was the relatively short distances between towns. At the very most it would be 6 miles (10km). The between-town distances were covered via quiet lanes with little more than a few cars per hour.

And yes, Kingham was beautiful. Devastatingly beautiful little cottages abounded.

It was in Milton-under-Wychwood that I stopped for a break in the town park. I grabbed a £2 packet of cut fruit (300g) from the Cooperative supermarket next door and sat down on a bench. One can only sit in awe at the English perfecting standards when it comes to large lawn areas.

As I was admiring the perfectly cut grass, a black Labrador came galloping up to me and dropped a slimy tennis ball onto the bench I was sitting on. He looked at me with innocent expectation, so I obliged and hurled the ball as hard as I could onto the green. Moments later he had dropped the ball on my bench again. “You’re done for now,” a voice said from behind me. The owner of said dog had made it to my bench. “For some reason he’s got into his head that a bench is some sort of ball-launcher,” she explained.

This got us talking and I explained that I had already more or less completed the suggested loop of the area, and that I was looking for a detour on my way back to Oxford. “How much of a detour do you want?” she laughed.

In the end, she suggested I go via Bourton on the Water. “It is called the Venice of the Cotswolds,” she said. “In reality it’s just a village with a short section of stream flowing through the center of it. It will be crowded with tourists.”

This sounded like a viable plan though, so I thanked her and set off to find some tourist throngs.

The route took me over rolling countryside, fields all laden with wheat, or grazed with sheep.

And “Venice of the Cotswolds” was pleasant, despite the throngs of tourists.

I had lunch in Bourton on the Water. I ordered a steak and kidney pie, and what I got was essentially meat stew sandwiched between two whisps of pastry, served with a genrous helping of veges and chips on the side. It was a good hearty meal that required a solid 45 minutes to get through at a leisurely pace.

Lunch devoured, I pushed on back towards Oxford. While I was eating lunch a heavy rain shower had passed through, and now on my bike, I was subjected to another few decent dousings. But even when it is raining this countryside has a homely feel to it.

The rain showers didn’t last long, and I was soon cycling in brilliant sunshine that lit up more of the inconceivably picturesque little villages.

The way back to Oxford consisted of around 10 miles on the cycleway along the A44 motorway. It was a terrible route, with noisy traffic and an uneven surface. But it got me back to the Oxford Canal, where I was once again able to transport myself right into the heart of the city. I was tired from a long day on the saddle, but happy that I had taken the time out to get some exercise away from a busy course schedule and see some local sights.

The post Exploring the Cotswolds area by folding bicycle (near Oxford, England) appeared first on 14degrees Off The Beaten Track.

Looks like Bustin has a push-specific board these days too: the Nomad Pusher. Looks nice on my computer screen

Full Portugal series here: http://www.bustinboards.com/longboard-portugal

Episode 1 below

The post Longboard Portugal appeared first on 14degrees Off The Beaten Track.

Every year the Hokkaido University Festival takes place in June. Students prepare in teams for months in advance, culminating in four days of intense festival spirit. Here I interview students about “festival magic”…the curious pairing up of couples during the preparation and excitement of the festival.

This was my first video I’ve shot on my new camera – the Olympus OMD EM-1. I must do a decent write-up on the camera at some stage, but suffice it to say I really enjoyed using it for filming.

— Location: Hokkaido University, Sapporo City, Japan

— Script, camera, and editing by Rob Thomson (www.robthomo.com)

— Music by the amazing Jeris Quinn (http://ccmixter.org/people/VJ_Memes)

— Produced as part of the World Relationships Study (http://on.fb.me/1lUQZzl)

— The World Relationships Study: a 40-country survey about intimacy, similarity and secrets in friendship and romance.

— Filmed using an Olympus OMD EM-1, Panasonic Lumix 20mm f1.7 lens, Canon FD 50mm f1.4 lens, Zoom H1 sound recorder, and a Syrp Genie timelapse controller.

The post College Festival Magic – The Art of Love at a Japanese University appeared first on 14degrees Off The Beaten Track.

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First impressions summary PROS: WheelShields – mudguards (fenders) for a longboard – are a game-changer. Commuting by skateboard on wet roads doesn’t mean road grime on your pants, shoes, and deck anymore. If you’d rather skate, even after a downpour, and arrive at your destination clean and dry, these do the trick. CONS: Can be tricky to install (but the video does help: http://wheelshields.com/pages/install), may not fit all trucks, and are a little on the heavy side.

Disclosure: I’m not affiliated with or compensated by WheelShields. I pre-ordered and paid in full for a set of WheelShields when they were still in the crowd-sourcing stage on Kickstarter.

My setup: Gbomb Paramount Board, Bennet Vector Model 5.0 trucks (front), Holey Trucks (back), Orangatang In-Heat 75mm 80A wheels (front), Orangatang Durian 75mm 83A wheels (back), Seismic Tekton bearings (no separate spacers), WheelShields (black).

Almost a year ago, I wrote “Wheel Shields are brilliant. Hands down the biggest innovation in longboarding in a long time. I wish I had Wheel Shields when I skated across the US, Europe and China. Wheel Shields have changed the longboard transportation paradigm forever. They are an elegant solution to a frustrating problem.”

The frustrating problem I was referring to was getting my longboard deck swamped with water (= slippery), and getting soaked shoes and pants due to water flicking up off wheels as they ran over a wet surface. Even just a couple of shallow puddles on an otherwise dry road or pavement could mess up a clean pair of pants.

Already I can hear some people groaning. “What a pussy! Boohoo dirty pants…get over it!” This first impressions review of Wheel Shields is not for such people. This first impressions review is for people who want to skate to work or school everyday (even if it had been raining in the night), and who would actually rather stay dry no matter what the pavement condition.

For such people: WheelShields work.

Where I live, we get a lot of snow during winter. Around this time of year in spring, we get clear sunny days, but lots of snowmelt running across cycleways and roads. It is at times like this that the WheelShields really come into their own for me. Dry road, wet road. Clean and dry shoes and pants, no matter what.

For my inaugural test-skate, I skated around 15km (9 miles) along a river-side cycle path and city streets. To be honest, for the first half of the ride I was nervous. I mean, if for any reason those WheelShields turned with the wheel, they would stop my board in a split-second. Faster than a nice sharp concrete lip in the sidewalk. So far, however, they are holding fast.

For the most part, though, I was amazed at how they prevent almost all water from being flicked up onto my board. Even the 4-foot long patch of muddy snow-melt below would have covered my white shoes in dirty spots in a moment, had I not had the shields.

That said, they are not spell-casters with invisible forcefields. If you hit at speed a puddle of water anything more than 1cm (half and inch) deep with water, the forward-and-upwards splash of water being displaced in front of you will splash up onto you. That’d be very hard to avoid, even if WheelShields came in some sort of uber-full-coverage design.

After all this gushing over how awesomely functional they are, time for some hard truths: In terms of design, they’re not perfect, yet.

In their current form, WheelShields are not only designed for stopping water flicking up off wheels. They are also designed to carry something like 680kg (1500lbs) of weight on them, before they collapse. So you can stand on them (I tried, and they’re solid as a rock). You might want to invent new tricks. They’ll stop wheel-bite (if that is an ongoing, recurring issue for you, in which case you don’t need WheelShields, just some common sense to adjust your risers or get smaller wheels).

This is to say, they’re tough, but they’re a little on the heavy side. They’ll add about 400g (14 ounces) of heft to your board. I’m willing to pay that price in weight because I want to use my board in a wider range of weather conditions, but I’d like to see a lighter-weight fender-only version in the future.

Another little niggle is they didn’t fit my Tracker RTS 129 trucks. The axle length from end of hanger body to end of thread on the axle was about 2mm too short, meaning that the outer nut supplied with the WheelShields couldn’t get enough grip. They fit my Holey Trucks (plenty of room on the axle) and Bennett Trucks Vector Model 5.0 trucks (only just) with no problems though. Perhaps the Trackers just have a particularly short axle?

Also, first-time installation can be time-consuming. Mainly this has to do with getting the WheelShields on the right angle, and at the same angle on each side, at least for me. I have mine installed on an angle, which WheelShields expressly forbids. They insist they are installed so the top flat-ish area of the shields is parallel with the ground. I assume this is to ensure the greatest strength when standing on the shields. For me, however, all I care about is making sure the shields catch splashes. So they’re angled back at the front.

Those minor drawbacks aside, I love them. The picture below shows the bottom of my board after that 15km skate around the city. If I didn’t have the WheelShields, the top of the board would have been just as dirty.

As for why the underside still gets so dirty, I think it may have something to do with water being pushed to the side and upwards away from the wheels, causing a wave of water being driven up onto the bottom of the board.

If you take a careful look at the photo below, you can see that very little water gets flicked up off the middle part of the closest wheel. My shoes stayed totally dry during this (repeated) splashing through this puddle (for science’s sake, of course). However, water does get displaced towards the center of the board, which then meets water being displaced by the opposite wheel, pushing everything up onto the underside of the board. At least it stays under the board though…

All in all a fantastic product, which I thoroughly recommend. US$49 (plus US$20 for international shipping) might seem a little on the expensive side just for some ‘mudguards’, but think of that money you’ve spent on driving the car or taking public transport just because you can’t skate because it’s raining lightly or the roads are wet – no longer an expense you’ll have to front up.

Just bring on the lightweight fender-use-only versions,  and then they’d actually be perfect.

The post First Impressions Review of WheelShields – Mudguards for a Longboard appeared first on 14degrees Off The Beaten Track.

Way back in 2008, I was in western China sitting in a stifling internet cafe. I had already skated over 6,000 miles (9,600km) across the US and Europe, but in the previous days, I had spent a couple of days skating on wet roads, getting legs covered in road grime, yak shit, and slug guts. Some of the roads were also hard-packed dirt, which were still skateable when they were wet, but caused havoc on my shoes and clothes. This was a super frustrating issue. Sure, dirty pants and dripping wet shoes can be cool. But not when you want to sit down at a restaurant, cafe, internet cafe, someone’s chair in their house, etc.

Sitting in that internet cafe, I thought up an idea for a fender/mudguard setup for a longboard. Below is the sketch I did in 2008, to explain the idea to my product-designer brother. “Can it be done?” I asked. He was confident that it could be done, but it would require a lot of work prototyping before a decent device could be created. The idea promptly got put in the too-hard-basket.

Fast forward to 2012. I get an email out of the blue from Chase Kaczmarek from the US, asking for my opinion about his invention called Wheel Shields. He was developing them into a marketable product. I said that they are brilliant. A year later, he’s got a very elegant, refined product ready to produce. The one thing he’s not got is money to create the tooling to mass produce them. That’s where his Kickstarter Campaign comes in: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1522548247/wheel-shields-longboarding-technology.

He needs US$25,000. He’s raised just over US$14,000 so far, with 11 days left in his fund-raising campaign. I’ve already pledged my support by ordering a set. I really want to get my set of Wheel Shields. It will mean that skating to school and work will be a reliable option, without having to worry about rain during the day creating wet roads. So do get in there and support a great idea and the masses of work that has gone into making them work: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1522548247/wheel-shields-longboarding-technology.

To be honest, I think for purely distance skaters, who are not concerned with wheelbite or ‘shoe-bite’ or stand-on-wheels-tricks, they are a little bit on the over-engineered side. For just ‘fender’ or mudguard applications, light plastic would be fine. But still, I do stand by my words: Wheel Shields are brilliant. Hands down the biggest innovation in longboarding in a long time. I wish I had Wheel Shields when I skated across the US, Europe and China. Wheel Shields have changed the longboard transportation paradigm forever. They are an elegant solution to a frustrating problem.

* The quote above was edited slightly on Chase’s Kickstarter page to keep things brief.
** I should also mention that I am in no way officially associated with Wheel Shields, or receiving compensation from them…

The post Wheel Shields – get in and support a great idea appeared first on 14degrees Off The Beaten Track.

Details about the journey are a little scant (mainly because I don’t understand Portuguese), but from what I’ve seen on his Facebook page, the journey has been epic, especially this past southern-hemisphere winter, as he skated through Uruguai, Argentina, and Chile.

 (Photos via Marcelo on Facebook)

His documentation of the journey has been, however, by all appearances, immaculate. Photos of all kilometer markers he passes (https://www.facebook.com/marcelopedalverde/photos_stream), 200 hours plus of video footage, and plenty of diary entries. Some of his videos, including television interviews, are here: https://www.youtube.com/user/Marcelopedalverde?feature=watch

I’ve had a few emails back and forth between Marcelo and I, and he tells me that the journey has a couple of motivations. He says the journey is, first and foremost, in memory of his father, who passed away in 2004. While this is the biggest motivation, he also wants to see skateboarding be promoted as a healthy past-time for kids in Brazil.  He is a passionate activist for getting kids off the streets and into life-affirming physical activity. And skateparks are a big part of this (he’s been a skateboarder since 1967). Along the way on his journey, he’s been meeting with politicians, and trying to raise the profile of skateboarding as a sport in Brazil. I really hope that the exposure he could get from his epic world-record-breaking journey will help with this.

When I said to Marcelo that he should apply to Guinness for the world record, he said that it is not so much for the record, but to honor his father that he is doing the journey. I have contacted Guinness myself anyway, and hopefully they will get onto “officializing” this journey. The process for applying for and validating a record is pretty daunting (http://14degrees.org/en/?page_id=715), but it looks like Marcelo should have enough evidence to make a claim. If you want to help Marcelo along in this respect, you could contact Guinness World Records yourself, and encourage them to follow up on this amazing journey. Email me at rob.thomson@14degrees.org, and I will forward you on the contact details of a few people in Guinness in London who you can contact.

Apparently he is currently working on a book and a film about his journey. I look forward to seeing them!

The post BIG NEWS – Unofficial World Record for the Longest Journey by Skateboard appeared first on 14degrees Off The Beaten Track.