I went to the Northern hemisphere for 5 minutes.

October 11th, 2008

I hired a scooter yesterday in Bukittinggi in central Sumatra and risked life, limb and lungs to ride to Harau Valley. I didn’t need a map, though. I was joined on my expedition by A.J. an English backpacker who had what a hippy backpacker in 1974 certainly didn’t have – a GPS. It was well worth the ride. Harau Valley was stunning with steep granite walls sheltering a lush valley filled with rice paddies, palm trees and Sumatran tigers. I thought we might see some tigers when A.J. announced that we were only 5 kilometres away from the equator and we headed down a narrow gravel track deep into the jungle. After tackling mud, small boulders and the odd chicken we stopped next to a rickety wooden bridge. A.J. walked around in circles for a few minutes then stopped. We were on the equator (well, the GPS was accurate to nine metres, so close enough). We then jumped on our bikes and rode across the (very scary) bridge into the Northern Hemisphere, remarked how cool it was and turned back to the warmer climes of the Southern Hemisphere.

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