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The adventures of a kiwi and an american kiwi on their first through-hike: Te Araroa, New Zealand. When we're not on the trail, weekly random facts, cute animals, or basically anything that tickled our fancy this week.

The best cat ever

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December 09, 2022

RIP Smaug (2011?? – 9 Dec 2022)

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Happy Thought for 30 June 2023

June 30, 2023

Have a Happy Thought: At the end of this week, possibly as you are reading this email, you get to have some separation between work colleagues and home life. (If you’re retired… well, I’m already jealous, so don’t @ me with a “ what is a week-end ” sort of quote). But four very lucky people (yes, I’m somehow jealous of them as well), this week began a 378-day “week”, being shut in with their colleagues. June 25 2023 was the start of the CHAPEA Mission 1 - a simulated Mars habitat at NASA's Johnson Space Centre. For just over one year, these four people will live as if they were on Mars, giving us valuable insights into logistics and human psychology. You can watch the emotional press-conference / shutting-the-door-behind-them , it’s actually very cute! Mission patch for Chapea-1 https://www.nasa.gov/chapea/mission1 with the mission motto Ad Martus A Domo and the participants' names Selariu, Haston, Jones and Brockwell. Of cour...

Happy Thought for 31 March 2023

March 31, 2023

Have a Happy Thought: The world can look very different, depending on your perspective. This is not only true when people go into space , it can be as simple as… Focusing on the water, instead of the land: AltText: An alternative projection of the Earth, centred on Antarctica, showing how all of the world's oceans are connected to each other. Land is shown as darker portions on the map and take up the periphery. A map of ocean currents on the Spilhaus map projection, from https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-pro/mapping/spilhaus-more-like-thrillhaus/ Or maybe you’re interested in how connected we all are, and you want to see all of the deep-sea cables AltText: Global map of submarine telecommunication cables, using a more standard projection, centred on the Atlantic Ocean, with land masses taking up most of the image From https://mastodon.energy/@pauleastwood/109649166925454437 Or maybe you’re wanting t...

Te Araroa Hiker's Almanac

June 11, 2022

While walking, we talked about some of the lessons we learned on the trail. Here they are, distilled for you. Once you've made a decision, stick to it (unless it is about to march you off of a cliff...). The back-and-forth will just add an hour to your day. Don't beat yourself up about yesterday. You can't change the past, so there's no purpose in thinking "what if?". But you can always learn from your past - both good and bad decisions! Have a long term destination (Cape Reinga) and a short-term destination (tonight's campsite; the next resupply town). Don't worry so much about the in between, it'll take care of itself. Check the map whenever you're unsure. Better to check more often. You know what? Just go ahead and check that map again... Enjoy the scenery along the way! Even when there isn't much of a view. You need less stuff than you think. Except food and wat...