A New Zealand native riding a motor scooter across the United States and Canada to promote volunteerism was mugged early Thursday morning during his stop in Santa Fe.

"I was sitting at a stop light (at Manhattan Avenue and St. Francis Drive) when two guys just blindsided me, cracked me with something," said Matua Ramstine. "They knocked me cold, got my wallet. ... They didn't look much older than 16."

Ramstine, 37, who suffered only scratches to his cheek and a "bump on the noggin," was left with only $13 in his pocket. He left in the afternoon for Albuquerque, where he hopes to replace his credit card while volunteering in a soup kitchen, then will continue on his 4 1/2-month, 30,000-mile, circuitous route across 49 states and eight Canadian provinces. His promotion of volunteerism involves his working at soup kitchens, art organizations and social-welfare groups.

The mugging, he said, was only one of the mishaps that have occurred in the 3,000 miles he has logged since April 1, when he left Thousand Oaks, Calif., on a new, yellow Vespa given to him by a dealership there. His laptop was plucked from his lap after he dozed off in an Arizona train station, where he had taken shelter from a snowstorm. He has wrecked twice — because of snow in Utah and because of wind in Wyoming. And he was hit in the helmet by a falling rock as he passed through a canyon in Utah.

So far, none of the mishaps have been serious, but Ramstine doesn't soft-peddle the difficulty of his venture, which he is documenting with a blog, photos and his entire itinerary at www.vespadition.com.

Asked if he had advice for anyone traveling cross-country on a motor scooter, he replied, "You've got to really, really, really want to do it. If you sit and think about it too long, you just won't do it. It doesn't make any sense. It's not easy. It's incredibly difficult. It's strenuous in every way."

Even traveling on a large motorcycle can be tiring, but on a Vespa — even one with a 250cc engine, one of the larger ones — "it beats the hell out of you," he said. "Physically, mentally, emotionally, it's just exhausting."

But there are advantages, like getting 80 miles to a gallon of gasoline on level terrain with no headwind. With a top speed of 60 to 70 mph and a fuel tank of slightly more than two gallons, he can get up to 150 miles between fill-ups. "It's a lot easier on the wallet as far as gas goes," he said.

Ramstine avoids interstate highways, preferring more scenic routes. He followed U.S. 285 from Alamosa, Colo., to Santa Fe on Tuesday. On Thursday, he left on N.M. 14 through Cerrillos, Madrid and Cedar Crest, and planned to follow the route of the old U.S. 66, now the frontage road for Interstate 40, into Albuquerque.

He carries a sleeping bag and tent, but has yet to camp out because people have given him places to sleep every night. Before beginning his journey, Ramstine arranged to volunteer along the way. He spent Thursday morning cleaning drainage gutters in the parking lot of the Center for Contemporary Arts, which held a reception for him on Wednesday evening. Kathyrn M. Davis, the CCA's media and outreach coordinator, put him up in Santa Fe.

Ramstine, who has dual citizenship owing to his American father and Kiwi mother, grew up in Ashburton on New Zealand's South Island. He has been living in northern Virginia and Pennsylvania, working as a professional chef, for the past five or six years.

He said he became interested in volunteerism in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, when he drove overnight to Gulfport, Miss., with his car full of pet food, diapers and fresh water. But when he offered to turn over the goods to a Federal Emergency Management Agency, he said, FEMA turned them down because it lacked the means to distribute them.

So Ramstine went to a private distribution center set up in a vacant grocery store and stayed on for several weeks to do what he could for people displaced by the storm. "I guess you could say it really had an effect on me," he said.

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.