Chris and I were up before sunrise on another crisp, clear morning. We walked up to a beautiful Buddha statue overlooking the town. This site serves as the funeral pyre for the town (Nepalis, both Buddhist and Hindu, cremate their dead), and the hillside above the statue was completely covered with prayer flags. I hung one for a […]
Day 3: Pisang to Manang Read More »
My body clock was pretty funky after all the travel; I woke up well before sunrise. This turned out to be fortunate, as peeking out of the window revealed the moon setting over an amazing scene that had been covered by clouds yesterday. The snow line had come down pretty far, maybe 200 meters above town, so
Day 2: Chame to Pisang Read More »
After three long days of travel, we were anxious to start riding. We had a good, hearty breakfast at the tea house (traditionally, travelers eat breakfast and dinner at the tea house where they’re sleeping), had a briefing about the day’s ride, and put the unis together. Our Nepali porters and guides were mostly Sherpas
Day 1: Bagarchhap to Chame Read More »
Oakland to Dubai The first part of the epic was travel. Nepal is more or less exactly on the other side of the Northern Hemisphere relative to Oakland, so it’s a long flight however you choose to take it, and all the connections are weird. You can go either east or west; Chris and I
I’ve never been much into uni touring; riding a unicycle always takes a bit more concentration than riding a bike, so I never get that beautiful feeling of floating through a place that I can get when I’m bike touring. But this year’s Adventure Unicyclist tour intrigued me; the crew was headed to Nepal to
Our last riding day was scheduled to be our third big day in a row. It was definitely cold, but sunny and warming quickly. It featured a nice set of rollers into Hobart.
Day 6: Lake St. Clair to New Norfolk/Hobart Read More »
It was scheduled to be another big day; almost 140 km riding and 800 meters net altitude gain. We would be riding through Queenstown, a copper mining tow where the copper smelters released tons of sulphur into the air, which then fell as acid rain.
Day 5: Strahan to Lake St. Clair Read More »
Since Tammy had the bright idea to do 60 extra klicks, we had to get rolling pretty early. Claire continued to waffle throughout breakfast [Ha ha!] on whether she would do the extra mileage, and even after we were on the road she hadn’t totally made up her mind. But when it came time to make the decision, she turned the same direction as the rest of the gang. We were going to be isolated from humanity for almost 100 klicks, until we rolled into lunch at Zeehan.
Day 4: Tullah to Strahan, via Reece Dam Read More »
The morning started with a beautiful hike up towards Cradle Mountain, then a fast short ride into the small village of Tullah.
Day 3: Cradle Mountain to Tullah Read More »
The morning after the first day is always the hardest. Fortunately the next two days weren’t all that big; we were scheduled for about 60k today, up to Cradle Mountain, the most popular national park in Tasmania.
As is the norm when I tour with a group, I was running late and wound up being last on the road. The hearty breakfast had energized me, so despite my legs being somewhat tight, I was able to catch up with the rest of the Bay Area group, and we rode together to the top of a moderate rise, where we learned that “Fatigue Can Be Fatal.” (This became my mantra while battling 60kph headwinds a couple days later).
Day 2: Silver Ridge Retreat to Cradle Mountain Read More »