More bathroom talk

Scariest pit toilet ever
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Since we arrived in the Southern Hemisphere, I've had to learn how to pee again.  You see, the urinals are not like the U.S. version.  The Southern part of the globe has placed a step like structure in front of the urinal, leaving you to contemplate whether you should stand on it, or pee over it.  It's just a tad too short to stand on if your shoes are greater than size ten, and it's just a bit long to pee over without leaving some liquid on the step.  What's the purpose of this?  Is it so the person taking a leak can be placed on a pedestal for everyone to watch?  Is it to alert the person from behind that the guy standing on the step is peeing?  Seems to me that it would be quite evident being that there is a urinal there.  In case anyone is wondering, I just used the other toilets and had to wait to watch what the natives do.  They stand on it and take care of their business.  However, there must be quite a few American travelers as shown in the photo.

notice the pedestal-peed on
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While Anne and I have been in the Southern part of the Northern island, we have had a chance to do some hiking-I mean tramping.  We did a couple hikes, the second one being Mt Holdsworth.  At under 5000 feet, it would seem that it would be quite assessable for our journey.  Unfortunately, the weather changed for the worse, just two hundred feet below the summit.  I wanted to continue, but every ten seconds Anne would turn into a parakeet and ask, "do you think we should turn around, do you think we should turn around, do you think we should turn around?"  I finally resigned the climb as the winds were in excess of 60 knots and the visibility was less than 100 feet.  I personally have never had wind push me around like that.  It was torturous and felt like touching cold steel on a February day in Minnesota.  Every gust sucked the heat out of your body making you wish it would let up for just a brief moment.  We hiked back down to Goldie and prepared dinner for the night.

do you think we should turn around?

A look into the scariest bathroom
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While we were at the campground, we had a large, tree enclosed area pretty much to ourselves.  We also had a pit toilet all to ourselves---that I can assure you.  No one in their right mind would ever want to use the toilet unless there was nothing else for substitute.  I had no substitute.  The hike up to the toilet was surrounded by trees and tall grass.  I went into the spider infested hut to do my business and half expected to have a chainsaw come tearing through the walls at any second.  Needless to say, Anne held it in as she refused to use the primitive outlet.

power steering, anti-lock brakes, rack and pinion steering, and California emission
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bkh