New Zealand Weekly Update #90

Last updated on Juli 15, 2024

08th of July to 14th of July 2024

Approximate reading time: 5 minutes

Lets get it started

Cloudy outside, a weather we would call wuäähhhh (if you pronounce it the right way you can feel it). Sore muscles in my bump since I went to the pools yesterday and for the first time I managed to swimm 5km freestyle without a break. This was a hell of a ride. You try to focus on every single lane. Lane by lane. Stroke by stroke. Sometimes you feel this energy, this easy peasy moment. Sometimes, you feel like you wanna quite straight away. Even breathing takes a lot of effort. But for some reason you keep going. Your mind is not going crazy since you need to focus on your technique. On your arm pushing the water all the way to your hips and behind you. On how you turn your head to breath, trying to keep the movement as small as possible and the breath as short as possible. And you focus on your kick (well for some reason my kick sucks, I tried some different techniques and haven’t found my way of kicking yet, sometimes I feel like my kick takes me backwards instead of forward and you guys should try it. Touch the wall in the pools with your fingers with being on your belly and kick, I would sometimes move backwards). But back to business. You just keep going. Tired. Sore. And sometimes loosing the feeling for time and for where you are. Welcome back to the zone! Where time and space become one with you. Where everything that matters is just this one very moment. And then the next moment. And the next one. Until you are done and finish. Maybe I could have done a little more, at least one more lane. But 5km freestyle in one go? Heck yeah! Way to go Dingy!

Scoby Doby

Sometimes I would love to write about the current situation at work, about how we mangae to keep things going and what kinds of improvement we think we would need to get some of the pressure off our shoulders. But I have seen something very important, very true and so very much necessary for me to remind myself about what a job sometimes is. Just a job.
You go to work. You do your job. You get paid. And you go home. And that’s it. No more and no less. A way to earn money that you need to pay your bills, to fullfill your dreams and to keep dreaming. It sometimes isn othing more than just a contract. Between you and the company. So I will keep going as long as necessary, doing the best I can to fullfill my contract. And trying to learn new thingsi n the mean time.
Like e.g. learning how to make my own kombucha. Delicsious stuff if you ask me. Healthy as. And, if everything goes well, quite easo to make. YOu just need a scoby (kind of a mushroom), sugar, black tea, a clean big glas jar, a cloth, rubber band and time.
Boil hot water, get some tea bags in, prepare the glass jar, get the tea bags out after 10 minutes, add the sugar, add the whole mixture into the glass jar. Get the scoby in, bless it, cover with the cloth and leave it in a dark and warm space for a couple of days. Ah and add some plain kombucha to get the procrss started.
The scoby will eat the sugar and the caffeine, will grow and will start the fermantation. You might see bubbles up the top of the surface, The scoby will grow, might show some new strings. It looks quite unreal! And I hope my kombucha will work out in the end as long as there is nothing moldy. Otherwise, we will try again. Because this process is just about patience, somethign I still need to learn 🙂
After 7-10 days, you can fill the „kombucha! into glass bottles, add some fruit and leave it for another couple of days – the process of carbonization. And finally, you want to enjoy!

What else to say?

Have you heard about the TA – Te Araroa? A 3000km hike through New Zealand. North and south island. Remote. Challenging. Full of nature. Full of healing. Full of adventures and stories. Hiking lightweight. Just with the things you need. Sometimes so remote that you have to bring 5-7 days worth of food with you. And just thinking about how it might feel hiking this beauty, to finish it. Goosebumps all over the show!
And expensive as hell, since you need the right outdoor gear, which might end up with around 3000 NZ, plus the day to day costs of around 50-100 dollars for transportation, food, backup, replacement gear and so on. And with between 100-150 days its is easy to calculate the whole costs of this beauty. Which might make it even more interesting and challenging. And maybe something worth a shot. What could be the worst that could happen? Well, if I don’t try…

See you next week!
Your DingyInternational
Felix