Tbilisi, December 20
The Earth has almost completed another lap of the sun, Christmas vacation is here and it's time once again to cast an eye back on the year that has just passed. I like taking the opportunity to catch my breath and remember everything that happened in an eventful year.
Raja Ampat and Maluku
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Manta flyby
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Village children on Arborek at one of our Science Saturdays
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A shadow puppet play about manta ray conservation
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2018 began on Arborek Island, a small island in Raja Ampat, an archipelago of small islands off the western tip of New Guinea in far eastern Indonesia. Terri was working as the project manager for a small group of volunteers, while I put my newly-earned PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor rating to use as an instructor. Raja Ampat is a beautiful area with some of the best-preserved coral reefs and highest biodiversity anywhere in the tropical Indo-Pacific, and we were lucky to be located next to some of the local hotspots for manta rays. The diving was fabulous, if a bit challenging thanks to raging currents, and we saw a career's worth of manta rays (both reef mantas, Mobula alfredi, and the much larger oceanic mantas, Mobula birostris). The work, though, was frustrating, particularly for Terri, and within a week we had decided that we would leave after a month. The Christmas period was particularly challenging, as many of our local Papuan staff disappeared without warning, leaving us short-staffed. We also didn't get to do many of the community outreach programs that are a key part of the program, as local schools were closed for the holidays. It was fun at times, but we were relieved when we finally put ourselves aboard a speedboat back to Waigeo in early January.
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At stunning Pianeymo
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Ho-hum, another manta :-)
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| The crew bids us farewell on our departure |
We spent a couple of days birdwatching once we were off Arborek, spotting both the Wilson's and the red birds of paradise in one action-packed morning of hiking with a local guide. I had seen them before, in the summer of 2014, when I travelled through the region, but it was a first for Terri.
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| Red bird of paradise |
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Wilson's bird of paradise
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We then stopped off for three days of fabulous muck diving in Ambon, the capital of the province of Maluku. The weather was awful, as the rainy season was at its height, but we still managed to spot lots of new species of tiny critters, although not the very rare psychadelic frogfish which we had hoped for. Ambon is a treasure trove of rare species, and I would love to go back the next time I find myself in Indonesia, as well as venturing out to the Banda Islands (the sea was too rough and the weather too poor to contemplate doing that on this trip.) On January 17th we flew back to Bali, glad to be back in our familiar, comfortable surroundings.
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A beautifully tinted weedy scorpionfish (Rhinopias frondosa)
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Coconut octopus (Amphioctopus marginatus) in Ambon
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Striped bumblebee shrimp (Gnathophyllum americanum)
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Bali
I spent three separate stints in Bali in 2018. The first was a month in January and February, as the rainy season poured down on the island. I spent a lot of time indoors, writing, but also ventured out diving now and then. An American man whom we had met in Ambon, Austin, came to stay for two months in Terri's rental unit and he and I did some great muck diving in Tulamben while Terri was off to New Zealand in advance of me. We spotted tons of new species of nudibranchs, thanks to the eagle eyes of Komang, our fabulous dive guide, who also gave us excellent photography tips. I managed to finish the first draft of my book about cycling the Silk Road as well, which was a major accomplishment for me for the year.
The second stint in Bali happened in April and May, after New Zealand and before Namibia. Again diving was the order of the day, although I started my stay with a four-day bicycle mini-tour all around Bali. When Terri got back (a few days after me), we did lots of diving, and I started reworking the first draft of my manuscript. We had some great days of diving in Tulamben, as well as just across the street in Lipah, where we found tiny Costasiella sp. sapsucking slugs that we had never spotted before; once we knew they were there, we saw them everywhere.
I spent a final two frantic days in Bali in early July, packing up my life after our Namibia trip before heading to Ottawa and on to a new life in Tbilisi; it had been 11 months since I moved to Bali, and they were amazing, life-affirming months that were good for the soul and for my writing.
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| Lake Buyan |
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| Seahorse |
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| Taringa halgerda |
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| Eubranchus sp. |
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| Thecacera sp. |
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| Ornate ghost pipefish (Solenostomus paradoxus) |
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| Hypselodoris infucata |
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| Paddleflap scorpionfish (Rhinopias eschmeyeri) |
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| Emperor shrimp (Periclimenes imperator) riding atop a Tyrannodoris luteolineata |
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| Maree in Lipah Bay, our local dive spot |
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| Halgerda willeyi |
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| Doto greenamyeri laying eggs |
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| Costasiella sp. sapsucking slug |
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| Carminodoris estrelyado |
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| Discodoris boholiensis |
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| Wunderpus photogenicus, the wunderpus |
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| Chelinodura hirundina |
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| Dasycaris zanzibarica, the Zanzibar whip coral shrimp |
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| Costasiella sp. sapsucking slug |
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| A big gathering of Stylocheilus striatus sea hares |
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| Costasiella kuroshimae, the "Shawn the Sheep" sapsucking slug |
New Zealand
Terri is from New Zealand, and as long as we had been together (eight years and counting!) we had been tossing around the idea of visiting New Zealand. Finally, in February and March of this year, we made it happen. We restricted ourselves to the North Island, but even so we had difficulty fitting in all the places we wanted to see, and all of Terri's friends and family whom we wanted to meet. It was eye-wateringly expensive, but well worth it. We hiked, biked, paddled and drove all over the North Island, seeking out rare native birds, wild beaches and campsites. We circled the island, up to the Northland, then down south along the east coast and back north along the west coast. It was great fun, but the best way to follow what we did is to read these blog posts:
While we were hiking along Ninety Mile Beach, I received a job offer from an international school in Tbilisi, Georgia. Terri and I spent two days talking it over as we hiked, and I decided to accept the job, putting an end to three years of footloose freedom but helping restock depleted financial reserves.
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| Terri and 4 of her 5 grandkids on the farm near Wellsford |
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| Hiking the Mangawhai Heads trail |
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| Hiking Bream Heads |
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| A lost little blue penguin |
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| Ninety Mile Beach |
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| Kayaking with Gavin and Michelle |
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| Terri's sister's family in Upper Hutt |
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| A takahe, one of the world's most endangered birds |
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| Kakas |
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| A prehistoric looking tuatara |
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| Paddling the Whanganui River |
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| Hiking the Tongariro Crossing |
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| Looking down on the crater lakes of Tongariro |
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| Terri cycling the Timber Trail |
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| Mount Taranaki |
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| Terri and Jess, her friend from Leysin days |
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| Terri and her good friend Ross and Debbie in Hamilton |
Namibia
In early May, Terri flew to Zambia to visit her school there, the Olive Tree Learning Centre, and to help out a party of volunteers from Canada and Australia who were spending time there. We rendezvoused in Johannesburg airport and flew together to Windhoek, Namibia, to pick up our beloved Stanley, who had spent the year in storage there. We had to move Stanley to South Africa for complicated reasons related to customs duties, and we had been regretting
not being able to spend more time in everyone's favourite country in southern Africa back in 2017.
Our trip through Namibia this time was absolutely fantastic, the culmination of Stanley's Travels. We had finally worked out the optimum way to camp wild, completely off the grid, and so we did as much of that as we could. We drove out to Swakopmund, then turned inland to Damaraland, an area we had briefly touched on in 2017. This time we stopped and camped wild in a fantastic, unpopulated landscape, sparsely inhabited by springbok, gemsbok and giraffe. Every night we had a campfire under the stars, cooked over the coals and stared up at the stars. I tried my hand at some astrophotography, and loved learning an entirely new type of photography. I had found an old macro lens while cleaning out my father's house, and spent a lot of time taking photos of tiny, colourful wildflowers. The coastal desert of Namibia, too dry to support permanent human habitation, is one of the great outdoor wildlife adventure spots of Africa, free of the pressure of exploding human populations everywhere else on the continent. Terri and I felt unbelievably free and close to the spirit of the San hunter-gatherers from whom all humans are ultimately descended, between our campsites in the middle of nowhere and our visits to San painting galleries in the middle of nowhere. Our drive up to the Marienflusse, right on the Angolan border, was the highlight of the trip for me. One day, in a couple of years' time, we will be back, this time to cross the border and drive north, all the way to Europe, before returning south to South Africa along the east side of Africa. When we do, we will be ready, after our experiences camping and driving in the middle of absolutely nowhere Namibia.
After the Marienfluss, we returned south, via the wonderful Hoanib River and its legendary desert elephants and a return visit to amazing Etosha National Park, eventually passing south through Windhoek and heading regretfully south, via the epic Fish River Canyon and the lovely Richtersveld, into South Africa. We left Stanley at a storage place outside Cape Town, ready for his next adventures whenever we leave Georgia. Africa is definitely in our blood now, and we will be back again and again, between Stanley and the Olive Tree Learning Centre.
We flew out of cold, rainy Cape Town on the last day of June, bound for Bali and new adventures afterwards.
Somehow I seem to have neglected to write a blog post about Namibia; I shall have to remedy this grave omission soon! Namibia really is one of the great travel destinations on earth, and we loved our time in this astounding country.
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| Sunset colours on the Brandberg |
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| Half moon |
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| Hartmann's mountain zebras near the Brandberg |
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| Ruppell's korhaans |
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| Another delicious roadside picnic lunch |
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| This is what the road ahead should look like! |
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| Golden grasslands of Damaraland |
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| Wildflower colours |
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| Outback pancakes |
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| The best way to spend an evening: campfire and starlight |
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| In the shallow waters of the Hoanib River |
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| Giraffes wandering past our campsite |
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| More golden grasslands |
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| Wildflowers |
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| Passing motorists trying to fix Stanley, who wouldn't start |
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| Outback campfire fare in our beloved potjie |
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| Namaqua chameleon |
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| The track along the Marienfluss |
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Looking across the Cunene River into Angola
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| Braaing boerwors over a campfire |
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| The Hoanib River flowing through the Khowarib Gorge |
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| Dancing from pure joy in the Khowarib Gorge |
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| One-hour exposure of the night sky near the South Pole |
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| Stanley and the Milky Way |
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| Desert elephant in the Hoanib River |
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| An attempt to capture the Milky Way |
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| Secretarybirds in Etosha |
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| Wisdom |
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| Play-fighting elephants |
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| Finally got the Milky Way! |
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| Black rhino and gembsbok |
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| Me and Stanley on the Etosha Pan |
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| The best astrophoto of the trip! |
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| A Damara dik-dik, an elusive creature spotted at last by Terri |
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Sunset heron near Etosha
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Terri's birthday on the Orange River
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| Wildflowers in the Richtersveld |
Ottawa
I spent most of July in Ottawa, visiting my mother and catching my breath after a whirlwind few months of travel. I didn't do much other than read, sort through gear in preparation for my move to Tbilisi, rewrite my manuscript (an almost complete third draft), play cribbage with my mother and go out to various cultural events like the Ottawa Bluesfest (where we saw Blue Rodeo, Colin James and a number of lesser-known but equally talented acts), Shakespeare in the Park, Chamberfest and Music and Beyond). It was great to catch up with my mother, a wonderful person who did so much to make me who I am today. At the end of July I flew off to Tbilisi to start a new chapter in my life.
Georgia
I arrived in Tbilisi, dumped my gear in my new house and then flew to Leysin for a flying visit. I picked up winter gear that had been sitting in my sister Audie's basement for three years, visited a few friends, then headed back to Tbilisi. Terri arrived a day later and I dragged her, sick and jet-lagged, off for
a four-day hike in Tusheti, a magical mountain region in northeastern Georgia. It was a tough but rewarding hike over the high Atsunta Pass into the Khevsureti region, past ancient stone villages studded with high defensive towers, past meadows of wildflowers and beautiful mountain vistas.
After that I was at work. It was certainly a shock to the system, returning to the classroom after three sabbatical years. I am teaching physical science, geometry and physics. The workload is certainly lighter than I had in Leysin (for one thing it's not a boarding school, so there are no residential duties), but it's still mentally tiring to return to the discipline of work after so long.
My 50th birthday came as a bit of a shock, but Terri did her best to soften the blow with amazing food, a lovely weekend in Juta and (best of all) a present of a unicycle. I can now ride it reasonably well, but it was a long, tough learning curve. I can't believe I'm a half century old now; I don't feel like it (at least not most of the time!).
What 2018 brought, and what 2019 promises
We are here for at least another 18 months, with summer 2019 having Kyrgyzstan pencilled in for some serious hiking, along with more hiking here in Georgia. I can't wait to see what else 2019 brings (including, I hope, a publishing contract for my Silk Road book!). Terri and I would love to welcome some of you to Georgia to explore this intriguing mountain nation.
2018 was a wonderful year, and a year of two contrasting halves: frenetic movement in the first half, then a more steady, measured pace through the second half. Freedom in the first seven months, then wage servitude for the last five months. Tropical heat for much of the first half of the year, then a return to the seasonal rhythm of the temperate latitudes.
I enjoyed crossing paths with so many friends and relatives over the course of the year. In no particular order, we met up with our new diving friend Austin; my friend Eileen; Terri's daughter Selena and her husband and grandkids; Terri's dear friends Gavin and Michelle; her cousins Steven and Toni, Mark and Gary; her delightful Aunt Lois and Uncle Phil; her brother Trevor; her childhood neighbour and friend; Terri's sister and most of her nieces and nephews; her Leysin colleague Jess; Terri's dear friends Ross and Debbie; our Leysin friend Thomas; my former student Ardak; Terri's friends (and epic travellers) Lilian and John; my Yangon friends Reid and Beth; and our new friend Brian. There are many more who have slipped my mind, but as I get older, meeting up with friends and family becomes steadily more important.
May 2019 bring all of you, my dear readers, peace and tailwinds and as much adventure as you want.
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| Tusheti wildflower |
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| Tusheti defensive towers |
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| Tusheti wildflower |
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| Butterfly and thistle |
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| Tusheti mountain scenery |
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| Thistle and beetle |
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| Tusheti wildflower |
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| Tired but elated atop the Atsunta Pass |
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| On the descent into Khevsureti |
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| Wildflower near Juta |
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| Crossing the Sedzele Pass to Roshka |
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| Camped beneath the Chaukhi Massif |
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| Roshka wildflower |
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| The green, green hills of the Caucasus |
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| Chaukhi Massif |
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| More wildflower and beetle action near Roshka |
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| Barbecued mtsvadi, the best food in Georgia! |
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| Yours truly at 50 |
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| Part of the wonderful half-century celebrations |
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| My new unicycle! |
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| Gergeti Trinity Church |
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| Birthday weekend above Juta |
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| Chaukhi Massif yet again |
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| Terri hiking up to the Chaukhi Pass |
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| Autumn colours in Svaneti |
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| Looking down on Mestia |
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| Me in Svaneti |
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| The iconic peak of Ushba |
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| Svan tower and fall foliage |
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| Typical Svan defensive tower |
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| Lamaria Church in Ushguli, Svaneti |
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| Enchanting Ushguli |
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| Hiking near Zhabeshi, Svaneti |
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| Fall colours near Zhabeshi |
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| Terri and I below Mt. Ushba |
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| Becho waterfalls, Svaneti |
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| Cycling through an ancient oak forest in Tbilisi National Park |
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| Armazi Fortress |
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| Ancient Uplistsikhe, near Gori |
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| Me in Uplistsikhe |
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| Georgia-Samoa rugby match |
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Birtvisi
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| Drying persimmons, Debed Canyon |
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| Me with beautiful khachkars, Debed Canyon |
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| Odzun church, Debed Canyon, Armenia |
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| Odzun church, Armenia |
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| Haghpat church, Armenia |
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| Haghpat |
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| Me with a MiG-21, Mikoyan Brothers Museum, Sanahin |
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| Interior of Akhtala Church, Armenia |
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| Terri and I in Gudauri |
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| Terri ripping up the pow in Gudauri |
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| Ski tour in Gudauri |
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| The turns that we earned by skinning |
