It's time to meet the players!

Today - 3 months to go.

Three months ago, I thought the countdown couldn't go fast enough. Today, I'm more fearful of running out of time to plan. Soon enough, I'll have no time to even hesitate as I hand over my boarding pass and head to Vancouver to await my flight.

My destiny - 2-3 days of hard work and planning in Auckland before we walk. Eleven months to achieve a pretty ambitious trip. We won't know until we reach Stewart Island (our quasi-half-way mark, an island south of the south island) if elevn months is enough time.

So here we are. 91 days to go. Half planned. Half shopped. Half stoked! A decade-long dream coming to fruition.

Twenty-four hours a day, 365 days that year - we will be each other's strength, best friends and probably biggest irritants. :) What else can you expect doing this hand in hand with another person?

May I introduce to you - BRENT

My AWFA partner in crime. This guy used to be a boy scout! True story - and to my surprise, has proven to be very handy with outdoor type stuff. He can build an excellent fire and is great at set-up / tear down of a campsite. Which is great - cause we have to set up camp and strike it EVERY DAY on our trip! He's also really great with outdoor activities. :) Quite frankly, that's almost mandatory with this type of trip. He's got skills with the compass and a map. (I still need to hone in on my outdoor navigation skills!) He's also an accomplished swimmer. Which is good - cause I'm forcing him to take surfing lessons with me. :) Plus he can save my sorry butt when I start to drown due to failed swimming lesson attempts. Brent is 3 exams away from completing his Engineering degree at U of T. He loves robots. And long conversations about vectors and factorial stuff. Trust me - at Jack Astors - I draw stickmen on the tables' papercloth. He draws math formulas and pipe layouts. :p He will be my tent/hut buddy for an entire year! Unlucky for him. Somehow God blessed him with an allergy to birds!! That's right - he's allergic to down. Not such a good thing - especially when it comes to lightweight camping gear. His sleeping bag is synthetic and is much heavier than my own. I have a hyperloft/down mix bag. He can't snuggle up to it, or he'll run into breathing problems.

He's a physically fit person - so you would think at his ripe young age he would be in great shape for this trip. But my dear friend also has hip and knee problems. (how did we get matched together?) He was hit by a car on his bike when he was 16ish. Running on adrenaline, he left the scene assuring people he was okay and never went to the hospital to get checked out - despite the fact that he had a sore hip. To this day, he is plagued with chronic hip pain - but only once in a while. I believe it's more weather related arthritic pain at this point. It's very unfortunate. He is also running into a lot of problems with one of his knees. The doctor thinks he sprained a ligament - and there isn't much you can do about that apparently. He wears a tensor knee brace to relieve the pain when it comes. With our medical 'conditions' you would think we were in our late 50s or something.

Brent's ready for a break from school. He starts his work contract in mid-may for a company that he previously completed a 16month PEY with (paid education year - a coop program). At the end of July, he will start a sabatical and we will embark on this journey together. Upon our return, he will resume his contract with this amazing company. This career opportunity is a wonderful blessing for him. Don't worry - the trip was discussed with the company during this PEY, to ensure that the employers knew what Brent's intentions were.

He's very excited for this trip and the adventure to come. After his exams finish on May 6th, he'll be back into the planning game with me. :)

ALISON - me. :)

I have been dreaming about this trip for years. I love the outdoors so much. There is a beauty to it that is impossible to express in words. I have a longing to be in the mountains - and never understood this feeling until I was finally able to be in the mountains on a trip to California in 2002. Serene and magestic. Can you imagine waking up on the peak of a mountain chain? Originally, I was planning to do this trip alone. I never would have thought that I could find a travel partner who would share the same excitement and want to follow the same path as myself, or be gone for as long as I needed to be. I planned to fly out to New Zealand, possibly hop on a week long tour to initially meet other backpackers and then go from there. But now, I am able to do the exact trip that I have been dreaming of with someone I truly care about. So I feel very blessed to be able to share my love for this destination with Brent.

Why New Zealand? Because it reminds me of Canada - without the predatory animals. It's that simple. It's the only country in the world that I would feel safe & confident to backpack alone. The people are as friendly as Canadians. If I were to run into problems there, it wouldn't be something that I wouldn't see in my home country. There is a comfort to the country. I have to be honest, I don't really ever want to meet a bear or cougar on a hike in this country. We have a beautiful land, but you know what, I'm not a fan of grizzly bears up close and personal. (Luckily, I live in Ontario - but one day I will reside in BC.) I could never hike alone in certain pockets of Canada. I love camping and I love hiking. Living & working in Toronto...you rely on your time outdoors to find peace again. Hiking brings me great joy. Not when my mind starts thinking about the bears in the forests with me...but as long as I don't hear them or see them, I'm fine. Although, I've never seen one in the forest before - so I don't know how I would react. Brent has no fears when it comes to wildlife. I think the story would change if he was ever faced with a situation...but who knows. Animals are more afraid of humans than we are of them. I don't always believe that. When I'm lying in my tent at night, and I hear deep heavy huffing outside of that thin nylon layer, and a heavy step walking nearby...I'm not thinking that creature is so scared of me. Cause I'm sitting inside with my finger over my car alarm ready to click at a moment's notice if it comes too close...freaked out of my mind. It's probably just cruising around the site looking for food (safely packed away of course - at least from our site). Brent still doesn't believe there was a bear outside our tent at Tobermory. (I'm not kidding you - I didn't sleep until daybreak. There were bear warnings all over the campground that weekend due to several sightings in the area, particularly right near our site which was at the head of the bruce trail.)

So the animals that don't want to eat me is a pretty big deal. New Zealand is probably the most beautiful country in the world. To walk the country and experience the breathtaking scenery every day is a wonderful opportunity. And stress free - cause it's bear-free. :) NZ is the one place on Earth I feel that I can truly be at peace every step of the way. I don't come to this trip with a great deal of backpacking experience. I don't know how to read a map or use a compass - yet. But I'm here to learn and push myself to the greatest limits I've ever treaded. I live my life to push my limits, even my greatest fears. I can't imagine what the world would be like without the adventures we all embark on. The thrill of the unknown and a forever challenging tomorrow. This is what this trip is to me. Pushing my mind and my body to its limits. Re-connecting with God and loving this world He created for us to protect and cherish. Enjoying the beauty of the land to find peace in a new way. One step at a time.

CLAUDE

Meet our third musketeer. Claude, the beanie baby. I can't remember how old he is - but my family got him when I was in grade 11, I believe. Beanie babies were all the rage back then. My mother had a brilliant plan to purchase key beanie babies and then sell them to make money to help pay for our post secondary educations. True story. Anyway - let's just say that once these guys started entering our lives, we developed a love for them and couldn't part ways. So my parents' collection exploded and no profit was made. :) Claude and Nanook (a husky) were the first two purchased by my mother. My sister thought Claude looked like a spider and didn't want it staying in her room at night - so he hung out on my alarm clock on his first night with my family as my friend Christine and I worked on completing our assignment, a Pacman game on QBasic (so old...). I always favored him from that day on. I felt bad for him most of the time cause he was cast aside for his looks. I think he's cute.

Claude has since become a world traveller. He accompanies my parents and myself on all of our great adventures. He's been on simple road trips around Ontario and into the US (he's even been in a car accident with me where he was flung off the dashboard...ever since that day, he doesn't like the dashboard). He flew with me to Montreal when I was shooting a documentary about the children from Chernobyl. He went skydiving with my father and I (he jumped with me). He's been to the arctic with my father, to Rome with my parents (I don't know if he went to Ireland with my mom or not...), he's been to Vegas twice now with my parents, the grand canyon with my dad, he's been to Vancouver with me, and I think he went to New York with my parents. But he might have missed that trip...

As much as Claude has sent me emails while on his world adventures, he is just a beanie baby and possibly does not have a real opinion. And besides, I don't think we ever gave him a choice in the matter of traveling. He simply became the traveling beanie. And yes - the other beanies are jealous. Who wouldn't be? :)

Claude's next trip will be New Zealand, Vanuatu, China and Vancouver with Brent and myself. He will train with us, board with us and treck with us every step of the way.

And there you have it. The trip bound trio. We will report to you as much as possible, together on this blog.