Well a relaxing day in Hami today. A couple of things ticked off my to-do list:

• Got a battery charger. I left my old one in Shanshan a week ago by mistake. Bought a Chinese one for 10 Euro – a nice 2 hour quick charger.
• Scoped out my onward route from Hami. There will be a couple of 140km plus desert streches with no services coming up, so that will strech my water carrying capacity to the limit, espcially if I happen to experience some strong headwinds during those no-service streches.
• Bought up on snack stuff – fruit leather, lots of soy milk powder, figs, lightweight high energy stuff.
• Dropped my camera memory cards off to the photo place to have my photos and videos transfered to DVD. 5 Euro for two DVDs.

In the internet cafe I have been checking up on some other adventures. In particular I am looking forward to SOUTH:

“SOUTH will be the first return journey to the South Pole on foot, and the longest unsupported (human-powered) polar journey in history.” – from the SOUTH website.

Ben Saunders and Alistair Humphreys will be teaming up for this expedition.

I watched a video of Ben speaking about a previous trip. Very interesting. Amazing in this day and age where people interested in a journey can get daily updates on how a journey thousands of miles away is developing! Great stuff.
I was inspired recently by a quote that Ben has on his Facebook page:

“The greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is nature’s payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses; people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. ‘Good for you’. Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lady with few friends these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms, she rewards passionately.”
- Tim Krabbé, 1978

Great fun.

I was also inspired by a letter written to Dave Cornthwaite before his epic skate across Australia. You can hear the letter read out loud in this video promoting Dave’s book about his journey. See it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDupjrKXgzw

In the letter, Dave is warned that he will either give up after less than four days in Australia, or die from exposure to the sun. He didn’t give up, and he didn’t die. Dave skated across Australia.

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    Permanent Link     Comments (3)

The Tim Krabbe quote is so very true. For each painful, blister filled push towards the end, there is the knowledge that you will look back on a long, human powered journey, with great satisfaction and a great big smile on your face.

I know people who are amazed that I skate 9 miles and, more so, that I will be skating 90 miles. You would truely blow their mind.

blimey still catching up hope the world is treating you well I've been self absorbed again with my trip now in the near horizon.

Pictures look great and I'll enjoy reading what you've been up to, stay out harms way matey and all the best from Surrey.

Hi Rob,

I am back after four weeks home in Madison.

I even went out to New York for 10 days to visit my sister. Beautiful weather and a ton of fun. It was quite hard to board the plane and come back to Nagoya. Where, by the way, we are now into the rainy season and high humidity every day. Lovely stuff.

As always I enjoyed catching up on your continuing adventures. The photos are great and the videos really let those of us at home get a sense of what it must be like to be there with you.

Stay positive and have fun!

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