When I was still in university, I went backpacking a lot, so I started using that nickname on IRC and such. (For the computer illiterates: IRC was the predecessor of ICQ, MSN and other forms of instant messaging.) I still backpack every now and then (can be found between Christmas and New Years on the Hadrian's Wall Trail) but not as often as I used to.
I originally started using "Hazel", the head rabbit in the book Watership Down, until I realized that that was a girls name in the real world.
