Gee Willikers, a new blog!
To me, ultra means the outer limits. Ultraviolet light is light on the edge of the spectrum, or ultrasaurus was the biggest hypothetical dinosaur, pushing the very definition of what it meant to be a dinosaur. So you will see me ultracontinental: so great as to challenge the very notion of a continent. Sorry, I got a little carried away there. As my dear long-term readers know, this is my third blog documenting a bicycle trip that will be entering its fourth and final continent on November 27. Yes, I know it's not good marketing to have three blogs, and I'll probably get even fewer readers and followers on this one, but frankly, consider this Act III to a non-fiction reality theater piece. The first blog, supercontinental.blogspot.com, followed the first legs of the trip, in which my friend Jaco "Big Jake" Roesch and I shook hands on the Portuguese shores of the Atlantic ocean, and headed east with Hong Kong on our minds. This trip would eventually climb the Alps; cross the Euphrates; survive the oily shores of the Caspian Sea to finally soar up to the mighty eagle-specked passes and pastures of the Tibetan plateau, eventually spanning the Eurasian supercontinent and descending to the warmth of the South China Sea. Then, on day 90 of our 90 day Chinese visas we found ourselves eating homegrown bananas in Hong Kong, even Occupying Central Hong Kong for a stretch. Then reality set in, and my bank account roared, "Nate, you must work! Go to Australia! There you can work, and after you have worked you can keep riding your bicycle!" So I listened.
I left for Australia after having spent my last money on a work visa and a plane ticket. I arrived in Perth at 6am on December 1, with about $60 cash and $19 in my bank account. I picked up my battered and deconstructed bicycle from baggage claim, put it back together and rode the 20km to Fremantle, on the Indian Ocean. Thanks to couchsurfing.com, I had found a place to stay in Fremantle, free of charge. With couchsurfing.com, reciprocity is the idea. I joined this website in 2006, and it is one of the finest uses of the internet, connecting travelers and hosts who give you special, local experiences and connections in cities of strangers. I eventually moved in with my couchsurfing hosts after having found a job in my first weekend in Australia. But making $22 an hour as a barista in Fremantle wasn't doing it for me, so after I saved enough money to move I went south, to pick grapes in Margaret River. Here I learned firsthand about exploitation, and would rather not go into it. Suffice to say Margaret River is the only place in the world I have ever been where I was told to "go home". I didn't go home. I went to Melbourne.
In Melbourne I quickly found work raising money for charity. I would do this job for the next six months, becoming a team leader and using an iPhone for the first time in my life. What significance! Fundraising was much more fulfilling than picking grapes or pouring coffee for idiots, and in the end I raised about $225,000 for UNICEF, Mind (a local non-profit mental health provider), and Clown Doctors (think Patch Adams). I quit last Friday, and all last week I was traveling the Great Ocean Road on my bicycle with my friend Pete (check out Pete's video of when he, our friend Kelvin and I rode our bikes across the US. The link is to the right titled "Keep it Rolling America"). I saw my first koala bears, and got really excited for the trip to come.
On November 19 I am flying to Shanghai where I will celebrate Thanksgiving with my cousin Max, who is an exchange student there. I plan to eat a lot of roast duck. Then on November 27 I am flying to Cancun, where I will meet my friend Alex and we will begin our two-wheeled journey through Mexico. Then I will enter California, and ride my bike on that familiar route home, which I imagine will be fairly surreal.
This blog is the third and final act of the past two years of my life. This is the culmination of tens of thousands of kilometers, the sum of every interaction I've ever had. It is my real job, it is my real world. My bicycle is my desk and the world is my office. Don't sweat the view.
