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“Addictions can be very, very bad but addiction itself is not bad.
It’s a case of what you’re addicted to.
You better live each day like it’s your last, ‘cos one day you’re going to be right”.
Ray Charles.
Link tip a friend
- Betweeen Samarakand and Buhara, Uzbekistan
Day 678 - CHINA (XINJIANG): Chinese medicine.
“The Tranquilizing Mind and Replenishing Brain Liquor”:
“I visited a pharmacy in downtown Shanshan today hoping to get some regular antacid medicine for the heartburn I have been suffering lately.
On the back of the package, under the ingredients, in the Chinese characters, I could make out lots of references to various types of trees, grass, dirt, stones, claws, birds, and skin. I said I would give it a go ……”
Instructions on the box:
1. Pungent and fatty food is forbidden.
2. Keep an optimistic mood and avoid getting angry or indignant while taking this medicine.
- Florida coast
So began Day 678 for Rob Thomson. Breaking with a multi-generational commitment for Kiwis to loiter around the cities of Australia and blather on about the All-freakin’ Blacks, Thompson thought he might do something just a little different, hence his idea for 14degrees Off The Beaten Track Expedition; a 20,000km human powered odyssey around the world by bike and skateboard.
He cycled 12,000km from Japan to Switzerland across some of the most remote and hostile environments on the planet and has endured -23 degrees Celsius daytime temperatures, cycled over 4,600m high passes and has put up with some of the most challenging bureaucracies on the continent.
Not content with testing himself enough with the rest of doing the trip on a bike, on the 25th of June 2007, almost a year since he set out from Japan on his recumbent bicycle, he sent it home and started out again on a …….. longboard skateboard.
- The long road behind
What he did had never been attempted before he got into it; to skateboard solo and unassisted across Europe, North America, and China. Having already skated 1,500km through Europe from Switzerland to England and also 5,000km across North America, he then went on to do 5,000km's across China before flying home to New Zealand and having a warm down.
There are special words in the field of clinical psychology for people like Rob and few of them are flattering, so given he falls outside text book analysis, have a look at a video of a US section of the trip below and his terrific site here.
Put simply it is an awe inspiring effort of monumental proportions.
Before I came to Japan, I didn’t really even consider that people from cultures other than the English speaking one actually felt emotion.
That’s a daft thing so say I know. All humans feel emotion but if that’s so obvious, why do I find myself every now and then being taken a-back and moved when I converse in Japanese to Japanese people?
Every now and then it hits me, these people are no different from me!
Working at Asia Pacific University, I had the opportunity to come in contact with people from countries from all over the world. This has fuelled a desire to go to some of these places and experience the culture and humanity of those people first-hand.
As for doing the trip on a bicycle, there a few reasons. On a bicycle, you experience the environment first-hand. Weather, topography, conditions. This contributes to a deeper understanding of the area that one is visiting. On a bicycle, you are travelling with minimal detriment to the environment.
Less fossil fuels burnt. On a bicycle I have relative freedom in where I want to go, and when and I am not bound by timetables”.
This is a fairly serious niche, this distance longboarding caper, but it is all about rejecting traditional and limiting ideas and pursuing past impossibilities.
Cheers, Rob”.
See what this is all about here and here
Why?
That is the milion dollar question regarding something this audacious and here are his reasons and they’re just terriffic ……
“I sat down one day and jotted down some thoughts on why exactly I want to do this. Usually I wouldn’t feel a need to justify myself, but, I mean come on, around the world by recumbent bicycle and skateboard?
Of course I have feelings of ‘I want adventure‘ and ‘I want to get away from it all for a bit’, but I think the biggest purpose for this trip is to attempt to confirm what I have come to believe over the past few years about us humans. And that is that I believe that we all share a common humanity.
That is, we need to eat, we need to sleep, we cry, we laugh, we want to be happy, we want the best for our family and friends. The list goes on”.
One more section before you go to his site, have a look at the size of this mission, it’s utterly astounding. Note the words “Warm Up” and “Warm Down” and what he did and it wasn’t just some stretching either ….
* The Warm-up
A 12,000km solo cycle tour across the Eurasian continent
* Leg 1 - Europe
From July 2007 until August 2007 I skated 1,500km through Europe from Switzerland to England via Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
* Leg 1.5 - Atlantic Ocean
No, I did not skateboard around and around the deck of the boat. But I did sail across the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to Key West, Florida, USA. Well, I helped out on a sailboat that was sailing across. Took 28 days from the Canaries to the Caribbean. It took much longer to find a ride from the Caribbean to Key West in Florida, but made it there in the end.
* Leg 2 - United States of America
From December 2006 until April 2007 I skateboarded 4,500km across the US of A. Deep in the desert of New Mexico on Interstate 10 I surpassed the Guinness World Record for the Longest Journey by Skateboard.
* Leg 3 - China
From April until September 2008, I skateboarded 5,000km across China. It took way longer than it should have because of crazy Chinese bureaucracy during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Half way through I even had to take a train all the way to Hong Kong to get a new visa, and return back to where I had stopped.
* The Warm-down
Cycling from Auckland to Christchurch in New Zealand
From October 15th until November 5th 2008, I cycled 700km from Auckland to Christchurch in New Zealand.
