DAY 5 / Leg 4 – 26/03/09 – Wellington - Picton - Christchurch: I had packed two lots of gear for the trip, with sleeping bag, wets, liners and spare gloves in one pannier and clothing etc in the other. (Camera and travel docs etc in the top-box). When I got home I swapped North Island maps for South, threw in the strops for the ferry. Took the clothing pannier up to the bedroom, threw out the dirty washing and put in the clean gear I had packed in a shopping bag. I was all ready to go. ...
DAY 3 / Leg 2 – 24/03/09 – Bell Block - Cape Egmont - Awanui: I had a great nights sleep, not requiring my MP3 as I couldn’t hear Steve snoring from his pad in Hawera. I got up about 0800, packed, puttered around New Plymouth, filled at Spotswood, then headed out to the Cape with a wee diversion around one of the bays after a recommendation from a chap at the Service Station. Once again it was a matter of killing time until we were released so I took a couple of pix and chatted. ...
Another Rusty Ride done and dusted, this time the Southern Cross Road Rally, touted as the longest Rally in the Southern Hemisphere….that is, until they hold the 10,000Kms in 10 days next year. This ride is held every two years and I’ve wanted to do for awhile but haven’t been able to and I put off entering this year due to the cost, but when Ann won $1,000 BP Gift Voucher and I only needed to buy accommodation for 3 of the 8 days….well I had no choice. Preparations ...
Last week I helped out as a rider for the Wellington leg of the Triathlon Series. In the Age Group event I carried a marshall, who was rather officious, penalising several riders with 1 minute time penalties for draughting. In past events, my marshalls would tend to get me to get up close behind errant riders in order that our presence would deter them from doing it, or if another competitor complained, then a rider would get a warning, but seldom was any action taken. It was good fun though, blatting ...
Another two ride week. It was Mum's birthday yesterday so I decided to nip over to Masterton and take her out for lunch and today was a dusk ride to Stonehenge Aotearoa with Ulysses. I had to go to town first to pick-up a book for Ann, then got straight on the Motorway and headed up to Caltex Rimutaka to fill up. I got away from the gas station at 1058, it was 17° and although it looked like it was going to rain and the road was wet, I got to the top of the hill unscathed and all ...
I ended up having two rides this week. The KiwiBiker Cruisy Ride on Wednesday and the Ulysses ride to the Bike display in Palmy today. Wednesday's ride was quite good with 25-30 bikes and the weather was great. The plan was to ride over the 'Hill then go to The White Swann in Greytown, but I decided to head for Martinborough after coming off the Hill, then took Ponatahi Rd and had a brief stop in Masterton to visit mum, getting to the Swan at about 2030. After having a chat with the ...
As we won gold at the last NZ Masters Games in Wanganui (2007), we thought we better turn-up again this year to defend the title….not that one would have a realistic chance of defending a Poker Run result, but that’s not the point, there was a ride to be done! We had registered just before the cut-off, booked ourselves in with Whanau, filled the bike and checked the tyre pressures the night before, and on Saturday 31/1 we cruised up to the Games HQ in Wanganui, arriving around lunch ...
This relates to 25/01/09 but I've been a bit busy to blog For the second year running, we returned to the Aussy tennis Open this week. Plenty of hot days (40° on the Tues), lots of walking, lots of tennis and lots of food. Qantas, on the other hand, left much to be desired! We booked awhile back on a direct flight from Wellington to Melbourne and thought nothing more of it, until a mate mentioned to check our flights as Qantas had changed some flights. Sure enough, ...