A time to reflect
28 March 2022
After a few days back home, I've had a chance to reflect on an amazing month away.
Firstly, thank you again for the donations. A total to date of $4,000 exceeded my hope and is a result of your kind generosity. I trust that the good people at Muscular Dystrophy NZ will be able to put it to good use. I also know that some people donated to muscular dystrophy causes in the UK.
I realise how fortunate I am to have the physical health to be able to embark on such a trip as the Tour Aotearoa. Now that I have completed it, I've crunched some numbers; 26 days to ride 2,924 km (there was also a few km on various boats), 29,556 m of vertical ascent and 92,726 calories burned while riding.
But the numbers don't really tell the story. It was about watching the mist rise and sun break through each morning after I'd started riding at 7am. My favourite time of each day were the mornings. It was the tour friends that I made, some for a few days and some for most of the tour as our schedules inter-twined. It was the people I chatted to along the way; a farmer driving his livestock along a gravel road, a fellow camper in a campground kitchen, or a chatty shop owner. It was the variety of landscapes, experiences and the chance to enjoy some of the rarely visited backwaters of NZ. It was listening to the birds and being the subject of the gaze of a thousand sheep and cattle as I rode past their paddocks. It was a pig in the middle of the road and lizards sunning themselves in the morning sun on a wooden retaining wall. It was the sunset over the Tasman Sea from the camp ground in Ross. It was the hospitality of a school friend I haven't seen in nearly forty years, and others.
My mind was free to wander; refreshing and rejuvenating as I went. I got fitter and lost weight, while eating as much as I wanted. It's done me good, and thanks to your efforts, some good has come out of it for Muscular Dystrophy NZ.
