zealandia, or, haters gonna hate

2019

According to the Geological Society of America:

A 4.9 Mkm2 region of the southwest Pacific Ocean is made up of continental crust. The region has elevated bathymetry relative to surrounding oceanic crust, diverse and silica-rich rocks, and relatively thick and low-velocity crustal structure. Its isolation from Australia and large area support its definition as a continent—Zealandia.
https://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/27/3/abstract/GSATG321A.1.htm

Armed with this knowledge, I decided to ride a bike in both Australia and New Zealand. I knew that if I didn’t, someday I’d find myself at a party and mention that I’d ridden a bike on every continent, and some goober would go, “Well, actually, Zealandia is a continent, so you haven’t.”

I didn’t have to wait until that hypothetical party to hear it. The guy who took a picture of me riding a bike on Zealandia called me out.

“You’re just riding around the courtyard?”

“Yeah!”

“You can’t just ride a bike around the courtyard and say you’ve ridden a bike on the continent.”

“Pretty sure this courtyard is in New Zealand!”

“It doesn’t count if you don’t ride all the way across New Zealand.”

“Says who?”

The thing about chasing a grand, quixotic dream is that there are people who love to tell you you’re doing it wrong. But as far as I know, there’s no Official Society of Judging Other People’s Dreams. Seems more likely that these people get jealous when they see someone doing something exciting and try to take it away from them.

“You didn’t ride the same bike on every continent? Then it doesn’t count!”

Silly guy. The bicycle isn’t the point.