‘Trumped by Nature’ kicks off, but I am still in ‘Work Mind’….
(To learn what the adventure is about, click here.)
On the day ‘Hillary’ clinched he California Primary, I said goodbye to Nelson, Allone (my yacht and home), my girlfriend Fiona, and set off on ‘Trumped by Nature, alone! I still had some One Point Zero, infrastructure work to do!
I loaded myself and my bicycle onto a bus with destination Tauranga, North Island New Zealand! There isn’t yet a bridge across the Cook Strait, so it was then ferry to an overnight stop in a very wet and blustery Wellington, before continuing with the bus up to Tauranga.
If I had taken the plane it would have taken me less than an hour and a half! If I had done the ‘real sustainable thing’, cycle and ferry it would have been over a week…. Opening the choices further to The Ultimate Sustainable thing’ I could have sailed Allone to Auckland and then bicycled the short distance to Tauranga. That would have taken a week! Choices, choices, choices…. For many these aren’t real options, flying is the quickest and easiest….! Yes, I have been tested already??? But after all I have nothing more to do, than sit on a bus…. Ha-ha, if my life was as simple as that….??!!
Fortunately with Wi-Fi, and all the comforts of Kiwi bus and ferry travel these days, I had a wonderful travelling office that enabled me to ‘pump out’ the raft of tasks in launching the One Point Zero website and e-letter. In addition to the delights of a travelling office, I could also take a break from work and take in the intensity of a very wild windy, Cook Strait, and the very pleasant kiwi landscape as I moved toward my Cap Capricorn, container ship destiny!
My time in Wellington was not about restaurants, night clubs, and shows! That’s The Good Life! I was working most of the time…! Ha-ha, fun work though! Yeah, the adventure boy is also now a web ‘designer’, content creator and manager, e-letter publisher, and One Point Zero, researcher, thinker, and also One Point Zero, debater in person! This is the new life as a self-funded Activist!
In this context: As I challenge paradigms, I sense a scary (for me) part of the move to a One Point Zero life maybe being able to have a meaningful life, without needing to ‘go much further’ than one’s mind! Moving into the physical is where our ecological footprint mostly starts growing!
So bring on the virtual world in my open air, solar lit bedroom! Couch potatoes are in fashion! No TV’s allowed though! Taking that to the limit, (well not quite the absolute limit!!) the smallest footprint we have each day is while we are asleep, fully ‘stimulated’ in our dream world! Ha-ha now there are some shattering thoughts hey!! Maybe that is Zero Point Zero life…Ha-ha!!!
All, ‘not too serious’ Fun, and back to my work so as ‘Not to be Trumped by Nature!’:
Thanks to Charlie and Melissa Evans at Sunroom, Nelson I almost feel qualified now to do the web stuff! Melissa will be helping with the blogs from the ship, as like many of my past expeditions, I’ll be restricted to limited Sat phone links back to you guys in normal Society!
Fiona, my girlfriend in Nelson is part of my ‘other support’! That emotional type that we all know we need in our lives, and I know I am more ‘demanding’ of when I’m heading out ‘alone’ …! It was hard justifying to her, and maybe even more to myself, my need to take the slow travel choices rather than more time together.
Anyway this is just a pointer to the future inevitable: A download about relationships in the context of adventures will probably be published from the middle of the Pacific on one of the voyages!
From lover support to Luggage: Travel by container ship is very cool in having zero constraints on baggage number /size / weight, no X-Ray checks, no liquid hand luggage issues, and with just an estimated ‘day of departure’, I’m working on, I’ not sure that it is more, or less stress than flying!!
Even with those no limits, I’m packed like I would be for a typical Howard, ‘reasonably remote’, bicycle / kayak adventure. With my canoe and bicycle sectors, that’s what lies ahead, but more importantly: Simplicity and Self Sufficiency is ME, and also I don’t own much more!
I can’t wait to just cycle off the ship in Long Leach California, through the port, and then continue riding to San Diego! No idea of the roads to take, no iPhone to provide the robotic navigator, no clue how many days the 180 kms will take, or where I’ll be staying overnight? But living intensely I will be, as I find my way to my sister’s place, after turning down her very non sustainable offer to drive up to LA to pick me up!!! ….
To me that’s the fun way, and I have no doubt the journey will produce some interesting characters, places and experiences! After all finding the unusual, or reporting unusually on the usual is my passion and my new activist work! I even think I’ll be doing some formal, informal surveys to help me understand the state of the nation with regard to One Point Zero awareness.
So there we go, this is ‘all’ the infrastructural stuff now done with, and as I sit here writing this first post, the excitement builds as I feel it is the ‘last one’: The ‘last one’ before I disconnect from ‘normal life’ and can really can start immersing myself in the unfolding of what promises to be a uniquely amazing adventure.
I look forward to once again telling the stories as they happen, so that as you read you feel like you are here feeling it all with me. The downloading on One Point Zero issues as my mind is set off by the adventure experiences. Then the sharing: Your comments and reactions to what you read, how you feel, and what you believe is right for YOU. The sharing of our personal challenges and paradigm shifts in moving to a One Point Zero way of thinking.
This is all where the fun and what ‘Trumped by Nature’ is about! Let’s go and Do It Now!
PS: There is a huge amount of building emotion going on inside me at the moment, and I’ll share a bit of that in the next post.