I live in Whanganui, a city of 40,000 people. I'm about 150km north of Wellington our capital city.

I'm self employed coaching people into self-employment.

I don't have a Facebook page, but you can find my festival work profile here : https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100016586371655

My home is an apartment in a commercial building contructed over 100 years ago. It sit's adjacent to the main street of Whanganui (Victoria Ave) and the Whanganui River is across the road where there is a 15km long cycle trail to take you to the beach or up the river to a pub and café.

I've had 3 covid vaccinations / boosters.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I travelled around Europe for 3 weeks in 2016 and couch surfed all the way. What an amazing experience, meeting so many people who were so generous with their time showing me around their home city.

In April/May 2018 I spent a few days in Tokyo and then nearly a week in Seattle attending an industrial music festival. Rather than squander money on a hostel I'd rather treat my host with a meal out or bottle of wine.

Interests

Meet interesting people.
For the past few years I've tried do start or do something different from my usual routine.

In 2016 I travelled across Europe for 3 weeks with just an 8kg backpack, couch surfing all the way.

2017 saw me buy a motorbike, gained my restricted riders license. I also quit my job and started a new career.

2018 I've kicked off a side career doing video projection work for music events and am traveling to Tokyo and Seattle.

2020 - now have my full motorcycle license and waste my spare money on bikes. Attended my first burn, love it. Embracing burner culture.

2022 - heading to Germany for Mera Luna festival, then Chicago for the Cold Waves festival

2023 - India to ride through the Himalayas

• singing
• wine
• running
• traveling
• motorbikes
• burner

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies : Blade Runner, Life of Brian,
TV : British comedy from 1980's, 1990's. Black Books, Black Adder, Father Ted ...
Authors : Edward de Bono, Stephen King (many years ago), not much of a reader these days.

Music : European electronica and industrial music, VNV Nation, Front 242, Icon of Coil, Joy Division, Kraftwerk, Devo, Men without Hats, Assemblage23, Covenant.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I was spotting bids for an auctioneer at a huge liquidation sale, about 15 minutes into the auction, the auctioneer (who hadn't slept for nearly 40 hours) turned to me and said "I just can't do this, can you take over", so I stepped up and auctioned over 1000 lots to a live crowd of a couple of thousand people.

Traveled across Europe in 2018 for three weeks with just a 7kg backpack.

Teach, Learn, Share

I've attended workshops run by Edward de Bono and am fascinated by his methods for teaching lateral thinking to people who don't consider themselves creative thinkers.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Paloma Gardens and a few other cool little public parks are nearby. Whanganui has many artist studios to visit. A west coast beach, laden with driftwood.
Wellington is not far away if you want to bounce up and down to some banging techno.

I have a few push bikes here, so happy for you to take a bike and explore this city.

Discussion about lateral thinking. Sing along to 80's hits. Jump around like a mad thing to the sound of thumping techno (might need a couple of gin and tonics first). Debate about the pros and cons of internet filtering.
I won't talk about the All Blacks or rugby.

If you want to read my travel journal you can find it here. It's a PDF file hosted in Google drive. You'll probably need to copy and paste the link below.
https://bit.ly/2UW39ox

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Belgium, China, Cook Islands, England, Fiji, France, Germany, Guam, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Macao, Malaysia, Netherlands, Philippines, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Thailand, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

New Zealand