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“Got a bit of a southerly,” said the man as he prepared my fish and egg pizza.

I wish I were joking about either of these things, either the headwind I have doggedly pedalled into for the last two days, or the pizza, which I finally finished after two days of eating this highly improbable dish, which while, energy-laden was also sufficiently weird as to make me wonder if its consumption would lead to a sad stomach saga (sss, trademark pending).

I am hoping that the end of this pizza, which I carted around in a pizza box under the bungee cord strapped to the back of my bike, will also portend an end to the headwind I have experienced, but I am sure I will later blame the headwind on the cookies I have stashed in my pannier, but never seem to eat (because unzipping the pannier would require too much energy) or on having upset the windgods by ponytailing my hair such that it no longer whips in the wind like a flag.

So. New Zealand. A little windy. Not so bad, actually. Not an unpedalable wind. But the kind of wind that, when it stops, you think to yourself, wow! where did that energy come from? Or maybe it’s the fact that New Zealand has a fabulous coffee culture, which means I can pull into any podunk town (no offense to Hokitika, Ross, Hari Hari (which is said Harry Harry, much to my chagrin, and no, this does not make me stop singing the Hare Krishna song from Hair, sadly) or any of the other one-horse towns I’ve passed through, and ask for (and receive) a flat white, which differs from a cappucino in some, unknowable way (no chocolate sprinked on top?) and which comes in one of those coffee cups that looks like a bowl, and since I have limited clean clothes, I drink, rather than swim in the coffee, which is probably better for getting the caffeine in anyway.

So as you can see, I am well. I am so well, in fact, that I am not going to throttle the woman sitting behind me at this computer who insists on having a very loud conversation with her friend who is some ten meters away as she shakes a small lucite box filled with rings and ball bearings, clearly misunderstanding that it is a game, which requires patience and slow movement, and not a baby’s rattle, which should be shaken for maximum entertainment. You’d think the shape of the box (pointy) would be a giveaway.

I’m in glacierland tonight, and though I pedalled in under clouds(though without rain)and in pre-dusk, I understand that after the sun is done illuminating you people on the other side of the world, it will come back this way (though with us in the later side of the international dateline, maybe the sun just goes somewhere else completely). I am hoping that when it comes back, it will break through the ominous grey clouds and treat us to a 90 SPF-worthy day.

Enjoy your snow and whatnot, wherever you are.