Tonight I felt like a freak. At women’s self defence we are doing pushing and hand grabbing and apparently I am a big strong girl so no one wanted to push or grab me. So I bicycled home and cried. Nah, just kidding. But it was very cold and wet bicycling home. And now it [...]

It just dawned on me that I am leaving to start the second part of my trip exactly two years after I was originally going to go at the end of November 2006 to ride from Argentina up to Alaska. Instead I took five weeks and went back to NZ and rode from Christchurch to [...]

I just got an email from my mother this morning and they have just discovered that my recently born nephew in NZ has two holes in his heart and has been scheduled for open heart surgery. So I promised my mother that I would do a postal vote in NZ’s upcoming elections as I am [...]

Is the title of this post swearing? Sorry if it is. But on last day of riding from the Corbin factory near San Fransisco to Los Angeles I just about died from the heat. It was 107 degrees fahrenheit (42 celsius) and it was easier to ride with my visor down as the wind on [...]

For the rest of our time in St. Petersburg we took a ferry to one of the summer residence of the Royal family Peterhof’s which is famous for it’s fountains that are all gravity fed (rather than using pumps). A museum about the 900 day siege of St. Petersburg when they were surrounded by the [...]

On our first day in St. Petersburg we had a guided tour around the city stopping at Saint Issac’s Cathedral the resting place of the royal imperial family including Anastasia, Peter and Paul Fortress, Trinity Square and the Church of the Saviour on Blood. It is funny as someone at work was saying that their [...]

The State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg is one of the largest museums and oldest art galleries in the world. The collection is displayed in six buildings, the main one being the Winter Palace which used to be the official residence of the Russian Tsars. You are allowed to take pictures of the art works [...]

The great thing about living in London is that it is relatively easy to go to Europe. So every year for my birthday I go on holiday. This year I was lucky enough to go St. Petersburg in Russia. St. Petersburg was founded 305 years ago by Tsar Peter the Great and at its height [...]

It’s my birthday tomorrow so I have added a bit of whimsy. This is a poem my friend wrote me. Sunflower Smile Golden Aura Shadows Shine Stems Steer Skywards Among The Daisies Of Daytime You Nod In The Gust You Must Grow On by Julia Miller-Surridge Also a friend once said that this poem reminded [...]

When I travelled up and down New Zealand I managed to leave something at every place that I stayed. Which wasn’t too bad as I was going the other way and picked it all up on the way back through. I was congratulating myself in San Francisco that so far I was doing all right [...]