The Soaring Kiwi and the Sauerkraut is the offbeat travel tale of a hang gliding New Zealander who makes the mistake of marrying a grumpy German and moving to Munich, the city of big beer and Lederhosen you couldn't whip a high ranking motorsport official into wearing. A big life style change for the kiwi known to most of the world as:

a) a small brown furry fruit
b) a brand of shoe polish
c) a motorcycle helmet

but is in fact a small brown, nocturnal bird found only in New Zealand. And can't fly. Perfect prerequisites for our Soaring Kiwi, on his quest to become the world's worst hang gliding champion.

From the:

• pinnacle of the dedicated dot.com entrepreneur with a cunning business plan, to the tedium trough of the underemployed with an efficient German employer that isn't

• climax in every teenage petrol head's wet dream of piloting a big black car really, really fast, legally, to the pit of despair while being overtaken by a Mini

• thrill of the first proper sentence in German, to realising said sentence could have been uttered by any good international man of mystery

• relief of freedom from pain, to the tortures of Germany's modern medieval medical establishment

the Soaring Kiwi and the Sauerkraut is a germane journey through the highs and lows of adjusting to life in a new country with bad coffee.