Posts made during July, 2012
Funny money.
Friday, July 27th, 2012
It’s time to rummage through my shoeboxes again for another episode of Travels in my Shoebox. I have an incredibly large collection of foreign notes and coins, but for a long time I didn’t go out of my way to collect them – I just always seemed to be stuck with a pile of money when I left a country. Yes, I’d try to buy stuff at airports or before I crossed borders, but there is a limit to how many packs of chewing gum you really need to buy. I’d been throwing stashes of foreign cash into my shoeboxes for years before I decided to skip the chewing gum buying frenzy and not only start collecting foreign notes and coins, but even have a… (read more)
Getting on the piste.
Monday, July 2nd, 2012
I’m off to New Zealand tomorrow to go skiing. I’ll be based in Methven (near Christchurch) and I’ll be skiing Mt Hutt, Craigeburn and also heli-skiing in the Arrowsmith ranges with Methven Heliski. And boy, am I excited. The heliskiing day (which is NZ$975 for 5 runs!) is my birthday treat to myself (I’ll be doing it actually on my birthday!). The first time I went heli-skiing (back in 1995) was with Methven Heliski and it was one of the best ski days of my life (what am I saying, it was one of the BEST days of my life!). In fact, I often get asked what is my number one dream travel destination and it’s always the same answer: heliskiing for a week in Alaska (and I will do it one day!). If you haven’t guessed… (read more)