T- Shirt BEANZ

This is the first of several pictures of T-Shirts charmingly displayed by the famous model Lucy Hopkins who kindly popped down to Somerset specially so she could be photographed in my T-Shirt collection.

Every T-shirt tells a story and this, is, indeed a special one. BEANZ is an acronym for Bicycle Expedition Around New Zealand. This was a 3,500 mile expedition which I organised in 1994 as one of my last ‘good ideas’ in the Royal Navy. It came under the guise of Character and Initiative Training. The ‘Initiative’ aspect was persuading our bosses that we should have 7 weeks off so we past that with flying colours. I was not able to be so convincing about the ‘Character Training’. After 32 years in the RN’ I fear some of us were lost causes. ….and was it going to be relevant for my last 3 months in the service anyway?

We managed to bicycle round both islands and reach both Cape Reinga in the north and Bluff in the south. Having recently been back to New Zealand and travelled round in a camper van, I must admit that the thought of doing it on a bicycle was quite daunting and brought back memories of our motto ‘Et Cyclum Adnauseam’. Mind you, we were humbled one night when we met a couple who had bicycled through India, Nepal and all the way down to Indonesia before going round New Zealand.

If anyone is planning on bicycling around NZ they are welcome to borrow the BEANZ report.