Time to go

I have just spent most of the week trying to shake off a nasty case of giardia, I have now recovered and tomorrow I fly out for a tour of New Zealand's North Island. Assuming I'm back to 100% relatively quickly, I'll have three weeks. The journal is here. That's where I'll be doing all of my blogging for the next three weeks.

Ups and downs

Last weekend I promised to head for the mountains, and on Saturday I did just that, with three passes in the space of 120km. I had been planning to go further, but this wasn't one of my better days. For one thing, it was an extremely warm, humid and muggy day (reaching 32 degrees C at one point). For another, I was in the early stages of a nasty illness that would lay me low for most of the week.



Initially I climbed over the Springbrook range at the 530 metre pass at Salmon's Saddle, before the screaming descent into Numinbah Valley. I had already set the tone while climbing Springbrook, a day where I could ride steadily, but forget about any attacks. There was plenty of time to take in the scenery -- at least where it wasn't obscured by the haze that accompanies these humid summer days. Consequently, I didn't attempt any speed records on the screaming descent on the western side, which probably isn't a bad thing anyway.



The valley below is quite beautiful, and usually very green. I took my time here as the southerly wind started to build, and simply took in the surroundings which could have been from 100 years ago. Fortunately, the mcmansions of the coast haven't reached this far inland yet. I pedalled on, taking in the changing landscapes of the long gradual climb as this really is a ride to be savoured. After this it was a matter of another rapid descent into the Tweed Valley, before largely flat roads skirting around Murwillumbah, and one final climb.



The final climb of Tomewin is fast becoming the "traditional" way to end the southern rides. This has largely happened because it had been about six months since I'd finished any of them with a tailwind. On this day that would change, but I wanted to do the climb anyway. I hammered the climb, doing a full three minutes faster than my previous crack at it. I actually think I can do better still, but that might have to wait until temperatures cool a little. Unfortunately, the mountain views at the top were totally obscured by the haze, but the rainforest was nice.

The ride home was alarmingly lethargic, and I was content to let the wind do all of the work. It was only three days later that the reason for this would emerge. I have been laid low with a case of giardia all week. It's quite debilitating, not actually fatal, but enough to make anyone suffering from it wish they were dead. I picked it up after drinking from a creek in Mt Barney National Park (a trip I haven't blogged about yet, but will do so at some point, probably on my return from New Zealand). It wasn't the way I wanted to lead in to a three week tour, but there's not much I can do about it now. Most of it seems to have left my system as I type this, but the big concern is that I'll start this trip with a fitness level of close to absolute zero. I Guess I'll just need to make sure I gorge on pasta before leaving Auckland.

Tosspot of the week (again)

It's a new week, so I can add a new tosspot. They seem to be coming thick and fast at the moment. (warning: this post is more than a little off-topic). It may be unkind of me to pour scorn on a poor, down-trodden American financial institution which, in a time of need, in a time when they were struggling so badly they had to be bailed out by the US government to the tune of billions of dollars, they could still find the generosity to pay the entire hand-out they received to their directors (i.e. the ones who got them in the sh!t to start with) in the form of "bonuses". It was an act of extreme kindness, although some would call it an act of extreme stupidity.

While it might be unkind to pour scorn on Goldman-Sachs for this, I'm going to do it anyway. Note to financial regulators all over the world (because I know they're all poring over these words as soon as they leave my keyboard): This is why the bail out didn't work and has done nothing to prop-up financial markets. Cutting through all the "the world is going to end" rhetoric that came from financial "regulators" to justify bailing out these institutions, there was one fundamental fact that everyone ignored.

These financial institutions got into trouble as a result of their own poor decisions. In basic terms, the problems arose because these institutions borrowed too much to on-lend to borrowers who simply weren't qualified to borrow as heavily as they did. Yes, that's an oversimplification, but it cuts right to the heart of the problem -- investing in debt to make risky "investments" in order to chase a few extra dollars. And now we have the people who made the poor decisions being rewarded with money that was supposedly going to shore-up the financial system and protect the savings of investors. And yet, there are still people who wonder why financial markets didn't recover as soon as this happened.

If anybody really wants to see stability restored to the markets, the first thing that needs to happen is for regulations and safeguards to be put in place to ensure this sort of reckless profit chasing doesn't happen again -- and a good start would have been attaching a few conditions to the multi-billion dollar handouts, such as limiting the percentage of their financing that can come from debt, and ensuring that incompetent fools aren't rewarded for f*cking up. After all, an unemployed person on welfare is still expected to look for a job to get their handout, and their demands are much smaller. The tosspots are truly running the asylum this week.