23 Comments
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Lyn Stark's avatar

I so enjoy your uplifting articles. You manage to share your life experiences with a poignancy that touches mine, and propose challenges that can be attained. Here's to further adventures!

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David Slack's avatar

Really grateful for that Lyn. Thank you

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Murray Olsen's avatar

I was riding through the Desert Road once and came up behind a convoy of Army trucks. I had sat behind the last one for a couple of minutes when the canvas at the back rolled up and I was greeted by four soldiers pointing their SLRs at me. Not in my general direction, but directly at me. I near shit myself, but some part of my brain told me they were taking the piss. Another part wondered when my body would be found.

Anyway, down a gear and past the lot of them. Not one of my favourite experiences, but it does give me a story to tell now and then.

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David Slack's avatar

Bloody hell. And it takes a hell of a lot to faze you. It's a story to share alright.

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Sue Boyde's avatar

I'm assuming not "Single-Lens Reflex"!)

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Murray Olsen's avatar

Self Loading Rifle. A Belgian design that our army used for many years.

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Michael Smythe's avatar

I look forward to your next book, David - 'Pivoting for profit and pleasure: adventures on the road less travelled'.

I will always appreciate the limitations imposed by Level 4 Lockdown when my daily walk involved focussing on and photographing a single theme - letterboxes; circles; yellow; reflections; shadows, etc. There is always more to discover in what we might think is boringly familiar.

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Helen McNaught's avatar

Well that was a cool article. I've always been one for adventures and have had quite a few tucked into my life and yes many have involved OVERSEAS. And I've been feeling a bit at a loose end because i can't get out of Dodge for now and my motivation is beginning to look like I'm GETTING OLD... I love the story of meeting a random stranger and having a huge impact on them. I've just booked myself on a tramp along the Hollyford in summer. Your article was the horse ride across America to my Alaska.

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David Slack's avatar

Hollyford! Love it down there!

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Margaret Olsen's avatar

An approach to life that works for me too David Really enjoyed. Thankyou

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David Slack's avatar

Thanks Margaret. That’s your way for sure x (Looking forward to the party!)

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Jo Johnson's avatar

Absolutely! How many amazing experiences you would have had on that motorbike trip compared to x number of boring and uncomfortable hours in a flying sardine can

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David Slack's avatar

And now I’m thinking e-bike 😎

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Val M's avatar

Palmerston North in the late 1960s - our elderly neighbour told me this: "I've always wanted to live by the sea but my husband didn't want to." That sad quiet story has stuck in my mind for 50 years.

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David Slack's avatar

The saddest

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The Lighthousekeeper's Muse's avatar

I'm always up for adventure by finding out what is over that next hill. I love that picture of the intersection at Taihape (by the old Gretna Green where I spent a night with a jazz pianist - but that's another story). I want to one day turn left there and go to Napier that way. But my usual chauffeur is an A to B driver so I may have to find another Thelma for my Louise.

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Archives Rock's avatar

It was Covid that gave me the boot up the arse I needed to resign from a deadbeat organisation, take four months off to recalibrate, and embark on my current adventure, relatively late in the piece. No regerts 😁

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David Slack's avatar

This is great! If you felt like writing it up I’d love to share it.

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Archives Rock's avatar

Oooo! How long?

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David Slack's avatar

Say, 800? But if you need more, go for it

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Vague Craig's avatar

Yes! Life appears to present an irregular series of crossroads / forked paths / revolving doors. Sometimes we get to make a choice, sometimes we must make one, and other times we have none and just have to get on with it after karma or chaos pushes. Occasionally I feel a choice, even a compulsory one, does seem to have a temporal or 4D element when a connection is remade to the past and a circle rejoins or closes.

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Winston Moreton's avatar

Great writing and I enjoyed Maria Mckee's Wheels. Better than Stevie Nix. Her band had a piss poor publicist

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David Chaloner's avatar

Yes!

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