“The Nut Doctor”
Howzit!
I’m Amand, a Kiwi lad who loves to enjoy life. I’m a big fan of a good dose of humour, mockery and self-deprecation!
The Nut Doctor has just become my nickname thanks to the other GAS boys. The nut part has always been with me as my parents have always pronounced my name “ar-mand”, which in a kiwi accent sounds exactly the same as “almond” the nut, so I’ve heard everything under the sun related to this growing up. The doctor part has just been added as I’ve been given the medical responsibilities for this trip, based on being a physiotherapist many years ago. My plan is the main medicine administered will be a good dose of single malt!!
I live in Wellington, NZ with my partner and young boy. I grew up on the wild West Coast of New Zealand, not far north of Punakaiki. Although I don’t get back there very often these days it still holds a special place in my heart. I’m sure this is where I developed my love of wild rugged scenery, and the adventure it takes to see such places.
Sam was always around as my older brother, and I imagine it’s probably his love of motorbikes as a teenager that peaked my interest in bikes. Maybe not so much when he had accidents and broke bones….but you know, in general!
I met Steve at our first year university hall in Dunedin, we became mates over pool, beer and missions. Our first mission was to Queenstown for a skiing weekend, in which I knocked myself out going through a drop off between a couple of big rocks. Since then we’ve had a bunch of cool adventures – road trips, hitch-hiking, boat trips, fishing and camping trips and travelling through Europe together.
My biking experience started as a little fella at about 11 years old on a little mini motorbike. I remember racing down the rows between the apple trees at my mates orchard. Mostly I remember hitting loose apples on the ground and going down again and again, but getting up laughing and having another crack.
The next memories of bikes are from travelling through Asia. The most prominent memory is after an all night beach rave on Koh Samui, Thailand, one of the people I was hanging out with somehow got on the back of a bike with a lady-boy. The lady-boy took off with them away from the beach and away from town and here I was chasing after them, getting up along-side them and screaming at them to pull-over. The problem was I was super low on fuel and after a couple of kms of doing this without success I had to give up and head back to town for fuel. I never heard what happened to the person taken by the lady-boy!
I got my first bike after the initial discussions with Steve about Queenstown to Cape Town, it was a little Suzuki GN250. Perfect little thing for reacquainting myself with riding after not having been on a bike for about 10 years. I quickly got back into it and upgraded to my current bike, a Suzuki DR650, which took me around the South Island. It just feels like a stalwart and I love it!
I’ve now been to over 30 countries worldwide, but have desire to delve deeper into the real world and challenge myself rather than through city to city travelling, which feels a little superficial to me. Grit and Sprit Adventures and the comradery of good mates is bringing that into real life right now and it makes me feel so proud of ourselves that we’ve owned this idea and made it a reality!
I’ve written a post about making taking your own life in your own hands and not wasting it and that’s important to me. It’s too easy to coast through life and not really put yourself out there. I know this means different things to different people but Grit and Sprit Adventures is what this means for me.