The burj

What exactly is a burj?

Krk

Yesterday we orienteered on the Croatian island of Krk. It was a fast sprint race through the alleys of the old town. We did well, Penny finished 3rd and me 6th. Penny won two bottles of wine and 50 maps of Krk for her troubles.

It was a fun event, finishing on a beach with music pumping. There are another 10 kiwis here  as well and everyone is competing well. Watching Penny sprint in at the finish I was reminded why we orienteer. The sheer fun and absurdity of our game that takes us crazy places.

Earlier in the day we visited some other towns on Krk, picturesque hilltop pa with paths leading down cliffs to little coves and the Emerald water. This whole country is full of sun lovers, people lie and preen on rocks like a colony of seals. The beauty of having an ozone layer.

Croatia

We are now in Croatia. Yesterday was the first day of the Croatian open orienteering. We both did ok, and more importantly didn't suffer much from our injuries. It is a good mental challenge for us to change from racing to win to racing as well as we can.

The terrain here is forested karst, with heaps of dolines, sinkholes, and rock. Beautiful and challenging.

We are staying for the next week in the little town of Delnice, which markets itself as the highest town in Croatia and is surrounded by the lovely forests of Risnjak National Park.

We spent the previous few days travelling through Croatia visiting the famous Adriatic towns of Koper, Zadar and Split. The unlikely highlight for me though was the road less travelled, the deserted backroads between Split and Zagreb.

Leaving Knin, the former capital of the breakaway Croatian Serbian republic the main road was closed and we ended up on overgrown country gravel roads weaving through a wasted landscape of rock walls, prickly scrub and ruined houses. In places pick marked walls still show clear evidence of shelling.

The history is complicated, the serbians settled in this harsh place on the request of the Habsburg Empire to provide a buffer against the Turks. They were governed from afar with considerable local autonomy. Following the demise of Empire succesive nation states tried to impose more control here with a particularly difficult period under the Croatian Nazis, Ustasha, during WW2. When Titos Yugoslavia split the rival nationalism of Croatia and Serbians led to succesive bouts of ethnic cleansing during the 1990's. Sobering stuff.

For us the highlight was finding in the middle of this wasted landscape and culturscape a river flowing under an arched bridge by a monastery where we pulled bombs(the jumping type) into a gorgeous pool.

We are finding internet time sparse and the phone not quite as easy as the laptop for blogging, but will do our best. We hope everyone that follows this is warm and safe wherever you are.

The Beginning

We flew out from Christchurch on the 1st, a long week ago now. I only have little parcels of memories. The coral sea studded with atolls, a vast swampy promontory on the south coast of PNG and as we caught up to darkness, forestry or maybe mining camps on the “birds head" of Indonesia's Papua province.

Our first stop was Hong Kong but only briefly. Great views of the lit city flying in, but no memories of the airport experience. Next though was Dubai, the city in the desert. The city of cranes. The skyscrapers stretch linearly along the coast or perhaps the metro. They are vast constructions, ground floors given to malls and parking, towers to living, the contorted spires and shapes to the gods of aesthetics, or perhaps construction.

The largest of them all is the Burj Khalifa. A beautiful tower stretching into the dust cloud. A symbol of Emirati wealth, a spire to their aspirations. And I don't blame them for their quest to turn Dubai into the centre of the globalised world, the West has thrived for so long on the vast profits of oil.

On the road again

I feel alive again.  I am grateful for the job that has paid the bills for the last two years but damns am I glad to be out. The mist in front of my eyes now rises from the rushing Soca river not from the rigours of a working week where time goes past so damn quick.

We strolled into Bovec yesterday around noon. The narrow valleys of NW  Slovenia converge and open out into a broad cultivated basin surrounded on six sides by craggy limestone mountains.

It took us 2 days from the Italian town of Tarvisio. The first night was spent in an Italian Bivouac high on the slopes of Mt Mangart the second in a thunderstorm in a Slovenian forest where barking deer left us shivering in fear.

Bovec at face value is an outdoors paradise littered with trails and rivers and mountains and canyons. We have had some adventures here already but I should really start at the beginning ...

Leaving New Zealand- travel itinerary

So Jamie has quit his job and Penny has come out of her exam cave, and we are off adventuring again! Below is our list of places we plan to be and roughly the dates, bearing in mind that we are prone to wandering off our planned course. If any of you are crossing our paths, let us know- it is always awesome to see people on the other side of the world! Basically we will be orienteering in Europe most of July/August, and then go to Nepal to work for September-December.

1st July- leave Chch (hopefully, as long as a certain ash cloud behaves itself)

Fly Auckland, Hong Kong, Dubai, Milan (sometime/where in the space time continuum that is involved with crossing too many timezones)

3rd July- walk over the Julian Alps from Italy to Slovenia via Mt Triglav

10th July- meet Greg and Claire in coastal Slovenia and travel to Croatia.

13th July-18th Croatian Open (orienteering 5 day event)

22nd July-26th July Slovenian OO cup (orienteering 5 day)

27th July- travel by train from Ljubljana to Chur in Switzerland via Austria

30th July-6th August- Swiss Orienteering week (Flims)

10th-20th August- World Orienteering Champs Aix-les-Bains (southern France)

20-31st August (something fun somewhere!)

1st September- Milan- Dubai-Hong Kong-Kathmandu

September- Kanchengjunga (working here-see Kanchengjunga School Project link to right of screen)

October- Jamie's family coming to Nepal- meet them in Kathmandu

November- Kanchengjunga (working again)

5th December- home-sweet-home!

Rogaining with Bryn

I don't do many rogaines in Wellington, it is often too hilly, gorsy, roady and random for my liking (yeah harden up aye). Last night Bryn Davies and I managed to get out to Karori though and had a great Wednesday night suffer fest, 26km in just under three hours taking in Johnstones Hill, Otari/Wilton Bush and Wrights Hills on the way.

My main reason for blogging is to record the links to Bryn's GPS data, complete with maps, average speed, resting time, climb, etc. The wonders of technology!