CURRENT MISSION

right now: on an bike trip in New Zealand

ABOUT ME
Hi, we are Hardy and Alena with our 7-month old son Anyu. We are planing to explore New Zealand by bike from mid December to mid March 2017.

During 2011 to 2014 we cycled from Alaska down to tierra del fuego in Argentina. We were very happy to have had the chance to do that together! It was our biggest bicycle dream and we are still impressed from that adventure…
After some time in Berlin, sorting our live back home again and figuring out that we even would be better three and like to explore New Zealand without a rush, as a family and by bike, of course.

In Berlin we used to lived in a housing project together with 16 people. 14 years ago we started this project together in loose group of young people. We wanted to have our own youthclub, place to hang around, which is a bar nowadays. A place to meet and organize not pre-organized by social workers or under state rules. In a cooperative we managed we use an old kindergarden building in the very eastern district in Berlin. Our project is still ongoing although our part is more into beekeeping and house maintenance.

In the years before cycling the Americas we used to travel a lot (mostly in Europe) and practised cycling together. Our big trip started in Anchorage/Alaska in June 2011. We cycled to Fairbanks, Dawson City, Vancouver Island, down the 101 in USA to San Francisco. Then we made a big loop through Utah and Arizona in such an amazing landscape. Our plan was to go down the Baja California then to Guatemala, Belize and so on until we met some friends from Berlin in Costa Rica. - This is what we did and then a lot more uncountable things to come down to Argentina and to Ushuaia.. Lots to cycle...We were really excited about finishing and then starting again in Berlin...
… what we did so far (finding jobs, moving out and start a family) and are now open and excited about being on the bikes again for a longer period of time under totally new conditions exploring New Zealand.

We are always open for changes because of tips and info from people we meet during this trip. Please have a look on our blog: http://www.2radler.de. There are lots of photos and stories. There is an English translation too.

We love the Earth we live on. That's our planet and we try to take care of it because we have the chance to do so. It is amazing to be borned!

When we are hosted we really like to help where we can. Cleaning and cooking goes without saying.

PHILOSOPHY

the statements:

a)The future is unwritten.
b)Because of evolution life happend. It is amazing!
c)No one is illegal!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We are looking forward to meet many people during our tour and we are very open for new experiences wich we like to share.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

We had a lot of experience with the network warmshowers.org which is a hospitality network from touring cyclists for touring cyclists. We used it during this trip a lot of times with only the best experiences.
Couchsurfing we just started to use more frequently since Mexico. Only best experiences so far.
Our name on warmshowers.org: strawhat-hardy

Interests

Alena:
-Art
-Pottery
-Reading
-taveling, cycling, hiking
-beeing outside in the nature
-meeting people
-gardening
-making wine
-cooking
-managing our houseproject (managing the art
studio, working for the house administration,
foundraising, cooking for the social kitchen in
the bar, working in the garden project)

Hardy
-traveling with bike
-bike tuning
-talking about science
-plants/biology
-bee keeping and bees, once I start it can be hard to
stop me
-living in a community
-making plans
-discussions

• arts
• cooking
• wine
• baking
• gardening
• reading
• traveling
• socializing
• pottery
• blogging
• music
• cycling
• hiking
• biology
• science
• volunteering

Music, Movies, and Books

Hardy: Punkrock, Stanislav Lem, Star Trek, science
Alena: Alena likes it to read spanish lectures. She read a lot books from Gabriel Garcia Marques, Isabell Allende, crime novels

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

We started that trip! It is still incredible for us. We enjoy our chance to travel a lot, even sometimes it's a hard work.

Teach, Learn, Share

bee keeping,
pottery,
bike maintainance,
baking,
making wine,
how to use herbals from the garden,
experiences about renovation and house construction,
how to it is possible to live in a houseproject with a lot of people and making decisions (or why not)

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Austria, Belize, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, France, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, India, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Nepal, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Uganda, Ukraine, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, Spain

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