Category Archives: London

Africa, around home, bikepacking, bikes, Europe, family, friends, London, MTB, NZ, travel, UK

The Christmas Letter 2014

1 Comment

It’s that time again when I try to remember where the year has gone and what I’ve been doing. Once again it’s been a rather varied year – with only a couple of lows in between numerous highs.

As the closure of the synthetic rubber factory where I worked for almost three years in the south of England loomed, the first half of the year was rather quiet on the travel front as I tried to save money for the approaching unemployment. While I was never too concerned with how I’d cope with losing my job (other adventures & parts of the world beckoned), it turned out to be very difficult seeing the demise of a plant that had been going for over fifty years and about one hundred and thirty people lose their jobs. The last few months after production ceased were particularly tedious – but I enjoyed throwing myself into my study of the Italian language (which I’d started learning at work at the end of 2013).

The exception to the difficult first seven months of the year with little happening (except riding bikes – I was still doing that, of course; the highlight was finally riding the South Downs Way) was May. Mum visited for almost six weeks and Adele was also over for three weeks of that. There were plenty of little trips here & there, as I tried to show Adele a bit of Europe and a holiday that didn’t include some sort of extreme adventure. Highlights were a long weekend with Mum in Barcelona; five days in Paris with both Mum & Adele; a rushed weekend showing London to Adele; taking Adele up to Scotland to visit a friend and do a little bit of hiking; and finally, a fantastic family wedding in Tuscany – with plenty of enjoyable time with extended family, some sightseeing, great food & wine and some hiking in the Chianti hills.

Tweed RunWe came across the Tweed Run in London. It was all rather odd, but looked a lot of fun.

Glasgow – I was pleasantly surprised to be so impressed.

Ben NevisOn top of the UK – most of the way up Ben Nevis was really nice, it was only a little bleak at the top.

San GimignanoBack in San Gimignano.

Work finally finished at the end of July – I promptly moved back to (the ever dependable and hospitable) cousin Trish’s in London the following day and took ten days preparing for three months of bikepacking (backpacking on a bike – minimal luggage carried compared to traditional cycle touring to enable more off-road riding) of west-Europe, with two months touring Italy being the main goal. I had hoped to do a big cycle tour of Europe in 2015 before moving back to NZ, but with work being what it was the timing changed.

In the end I only managed three weeks and two-thousand kilometres of touring, as I found the wet August and mud in Belgium was not much fun – after a week of that I was getting tired of solo-touring. Having said that, there were plenty of good times and highlights – including some of the people I met along the way; visiting a huge old ironworks in the Saarland (sad, I know); my birthday spent in Strasbourg; the Jura mountains (in France, near the Swiss border) and best of all: crossing the Alps into Italy over the same pass my grandfather rode over on his Euro cycle tour sixty-five years before me – that was a very special & memorable day.

All ready to leave.

I quite liked what I saw of Antwerp.

Another night, another forest, another wild-camp-site.

Strasbourg.

On the shores of Lake Geneva.

Pretty happy to be at Great St Bernard Pass – four hours of steady, but rarely difficult, climbing.

I’d organised (about a week beforehand) to stay a week working on a vineyard in the Aosta Valley (the most north-west province of Italy, in the Alps bordering both Monto Bianco & Monto Rosa) – in exchange for my labour, I would get food & board. I enjoyed the food (so much pasta, cheese, wine, grappa & all manner of things from the garden); the work (it was harvest season – so we mostly picked grapes and I learnt to make wine); trying to practice my Italian speaking; mountain scenery & lifestyle; hiking in the Alps; and most of all, the wonderful people I met and got to know. Although I left to see more of Italy, after a day by myself it seemed rather pointless leaving such good friends (& food) to have to worry where I was going to put my tent each night as the autumn weather deteriorated – so I returned to the vineyard. I ended up staying almost four weeks in total.

A day spent looking at Monto Bianco while we hiked.

If I ever got bored of the work in the vines, the scenery was always worth looking at and appreciating.

All of sudden October was free – so I hastily arranged for another visit to East Africa and close friends Adrian & Carmen, as it’s so much easier & cheaper to visit from London than NZ. Biking around Kilimanjaro was fantastic and we went up to Kenya to visit friends – the camping trip was unusual. I’m still not sure what scared me more – camping with ten children under the age of five or the injured lion we had resident in our campsite for much of the weekend.

Our lion friend for the weekend.

Back in England for November, it was a mixture of winter cycle touring saying goodbye to friends & family in the south & south-west and trying to pack my life up to move back to NZ. It was great to see so many people that have been a big part of my life for the last five or so years, sad to say goodbye of course.

As of December, I’m back in NZ – hopefully for good. For now, I’m enjoying the sudden change from northern winter to southern summer (if you think twenty-four hours in a plane counts as sudden), being with family – especially for Christmas, getting plenty of riding in (it’s easily been my biggest year on a bike ever – approaching 7000 km on my mountain-bikes [of which, I now only have one left – the big heavy touring one]), and generally reacquainting myself with life in NZ.

I’ll slowly start looking for a job in the new year, hoping to find one that means I can live in a large town/small city that has easy access to good mountain-biking – I think then there would be a chance I may be able stay still for a while and not spend so much time and money on travelling…

Thanks to all that were along for the ride (literal or figurative) this year – whether providing food, a bed, travel opportunities, quality mountain-bike rides or simply time. Merry Christmas & a great 2015 to all.

Africa, around home, bikepacking, bikes, Canada, combe raiders, Europe, family, friends, London, MTB, national park, roadtrip, snow, travel, UK, USA

Five and a half years

4 Comments

Well, my bike is packed up in its bag again, most of my possessions were collected yesterday for shipping back to New Zealand and, really, I’m a bit bored of packing. I leave London for NZ – five and a half years to the week after I left to see a little bit of the world – curious if I can settle back in a beautiful country far at the bottom of the globe. At the least, I should get a good summer of riding in. Over dinner with Trish at our favourite local Italian pizzeria the other night, there was plenty to reflect on – many excellent things, only two or three not so great happenings, all memorable.

So excuse me while I try to remember most of them and jot them down for posterity. Naturally I’ll start with the highlights in no particular order, as there are many.

As I delve into the archives, this is proving more difficult to narrow it down than I expected, …

My first port of call was the States – little did I know that would be the first of four visits and about six months in total in the country, it turns out the west is fantastic for scenery and mountain-biking.

A west-USA road-trip with plenty of mountain-biking was always a pipe-dream for when I was in my forties or fifties – thanks to living in Canada & the company of my aunt, Valerie, it became a reality much earlier.

The best biking holiday was my return to Moab last year – fantastic trails, great company & beautiful scenery – click on the photo above to watch the video Megan put together.

I also never intended to visit Africa four times, but somehow that happened. Each of the four safaris were quite different, but all excellent.

But the first one in the Masai Mara was the best.

Seeing the Pyramids on Christmas day was excellent – not very crowded either.

I only briefly went to Asia, on a visit to Turkey:


Gliding over the spectacular landscape of Cappadocia in a hot air balloon is indelibly in my memory.

Five weeks’ vacation almost five years ago in the Canadian Rockies saw me learn to ski, a bit, and then all of a sudden, living in Bow Valley for a year of mountain-biking in the summer and skiing in the winter.


Returning to the UK, I managed to settle into a job that I quite liked – that was, until the rather horrible drawn-out experience of plant closure & many redundancies. It was a good base for travels near & far while it lasted – the long, dry & hot summer of 2013 was especially good with many mountain-biking trips around the south-west. Always good to visit Taunton & also ride with my Somerset riding buddies, the Combe Raiders – whatever the weather.

That summer saw me enter a few biking events too – a six-hour solo (nice trail, but boring riding round & round the same thing for six hours), a couple of marathon events, & culminating in my first multi-day stage event.

That event, as you can probably tell from this photo taken while riding along, was in Africa.

Apart from the redundancy experience already mentioned, only two other notable low-points are worth bringing up. The mugging incident in San Diego the day after I left NZ is still the best if I ever have to tell one story from my travels. The ongoing shoulder dislocation saga was painful in a different way – but after four dislocations I had surgery and it’s been fine ever since.

With all the trips to North America & Africa, I perhaps didn’t see as much of Europe as I originally hoped. But I managed a fair few trips – with Italy being the most visited country, five times now I think. I also loved the time spent living in London wandering around all parts of the city & delving into the history. Due to the demise of work, my bikepacking tour of western Europe was brought forward to this year & shortened (& then shortened even more when I got sick of travelling alone in the August rain & mud).

Straddling the German-Belgian border somewhere.

One of the most pleasing & proud parts of the trip was crossing the Alps over Great Saint Bernard Pass – because my grandfather did the same on a bike sixty-five years ago.

Somehow I ended up spending four weeks living & working on a small vineyard in the north-west of Italy – eating a lot, hiking a bit, making new friends & thoroughly enjoying myself. Learning a second-language, Italian – thanks to work, was something I never thought I’d do – but it turned out I really enjoyed it.

Hiking near Monto Bianco.

Oh, almost forgot the whirlwind two-week trip back to NZ (the only one) for some friends’ wedding, and coincidentally my thirtieth birthday & many celebrations with friends & family all over the country. Hectic, but most enjoyable.

The visit also coincided with my shoulder being declared fit – so after six months of no biking, it was great to be active again – here skiing near Wanaka.

I’ll be back with these fine folks next week – hard to believe we’ll have our first Christmas all together since 2006.

That’ll do for unashamed self-indulgence – thanks to all the family & friends that made all this possible in many different ways (usually providing somewhere to sleep & plenty to eat). Biggest thanks goes to cousin Trish in London for repeatedly opening up her home to this often-vagabond – all this would not have been possible or lasted nearly as long otherwise.

city, family, London, UK

Whirlwind London sights

1 Comment

Arriving back from Paris, I only had two days to show Adele as much as possible of one of my favourite cities before the next week away. Pleasingly late-spring obliged with a stunning weekend of sun and heat – the city was teaming. Back at base (cousin Trish had the privilege/misfortune of that), first priority was wandering around the corner to feed Adele a proper British take on an Indian meal.

It didn’t disappoint

I’m not sure how going to watch the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace came up as the first thing to do Saturday morning, but it did. While I’ve seen the equivalent at Windsor Castle, somehow I’d missed this one. It turns out that it was excellent, which would explain the large crowds, with the two groups of guards changing over, a band for each and some sort of ceremonial cavalry unit.

From there we wandered down to Westminster, checking out the abbey and the Houses of Parliament. There also seemed to be a couple of organised bike events occurring – cue a lot of traffic backed up and much difficulty crossing streets. But I didn’t mind, because – bikes! The best of these was the Tweed Run which unexpectedly (to us) rode past as we were on Westminster Bridge. I’d not heard of this, but the basic idea was to get an old bike (plenty of drop handlebars, white-walled tyres and the odd penny-farthing), dress up in tweed or some similar old-fashioned style and ride around central London in the sun having a lot of fun. It looked just that.

Continuing up Whitehall we reached Trafalgar Square and then Leicester Square to take in Covent Garden, Chinatown and Seven Dials (where all the streets were closed for some big street festival). I think Adele was enjoying it – she kept following at least. Mostly following my nose we got to Lincoln Inn Fields and the Royal College of Surgeons. Having visited some years before, I was pretty sure Adele was going to enjoy their Hunterian Museum. It’s full of all sorts of anatomical specimens (both human and all sorts of other animals) that would no longer be collected & displayed today – most of what’s left of the collection (there was extensive damage in the Blitz) is from about two hundred years ago. I quite like the collection of surgical instruments – not because they’re gruesome (they are), but because my grandfather trained in their making during the war.

Adele wanted to ride at the front and top of a London bus, so that helped us on our way to St Paul’s and a stroll over the Thames on the Millennium Bridge. We then met my school friend Levi for a quick drink – what better on a hot English day than Adele’s (& possibly my) first Pimm’s. As Levi & Marki have just returned from a extensive road trip of the SW USA, I enjoyed hearing stories and comparing experiences. Eventually back on the train home suitably tired, we arrived home to find Trish had out done herself cooking dinner – I’m always partial to good food, but it’s even better when one has had an active day.

Apparently, if you’re going to pay to enter one tourist attraction in London – the Tower of London is as good as any. So that was the plan for Sunday; it’s a while since I’ve been but I didn’t mind returning as it is a good day out. We spent a good four hours there and even then it required some persuasion on my behalf to finally leave – as I contemplated the four-hundred mile/seven hour drive to Glasgow that night.  Adele surprised me with her historical interest – but I can remember when you come from little & young New Zealand, such things are fascinating.

The tour given by the Yeoman Warders was as good as I remember

city, family, food, friends, London, UK

On the Thames

Leave a comment

After two rather strange events at the end of last week – I joined a gym & bought runners (need to burn energy somehow while I’m off the bike) – I headed up to London for the weekend. Mostly it was to catch up with people I haven’t seen for some time. Since I last saw them two months ago just after my operation, Levi & Marki and Jeff have been to NYC, Czech & Turkey in different permutations. So with my Rome trip as well, there was a fair amount to discuss. Time was a bit limited as they were heading off to the O2 to see Kayne & Jay-Z (maybe I’m just boring, but I didn’t see the attraction). However, someone had decided that a good way to get to the O2 (which is well away from the centre of London) was to get a ThamesClipper (a pretty fast catamaran passenger ferry) down the river.

I jumped at the chance as while I’ve walked over, under & beside; driven over, under & beside; cycled over, under & beside; and ridden trains over, under & beside the Thames many times over the last four years I’ve previously never found reason to get on a boat on the river. It was good fun watching so many landmarks slide by from a different vantage point – I particularly liked going under Tower Bridge.

Meeting up with more concert-going friends in the O2 (I’d never been in before – it really is an incredibly large tent with all sorts of shops, restaurants, a squash competition & of course the arena), I joined them for a very late lunch before riding buses back to Sidcup. Trish picked me up & went out to watch the Bexley Village world go by as we savoured our Moroccan meal. I’m not sure acoustic Lily Allen & Lady Gaga is traditional Moroccan music, but whatever.

Sunday was spent driving north into Essex & visiting various family – the main point of the weekend away. A very pleasant cup of tea with my great-uncle (Grandad’s brother) as he regaled me with stories of his travels in WWII as a wireless operator. Still can’t picture Blackpool as a place to go & learn Morse code or why exactly Alan was shipped to Brazil, Durban, Bombay, Iraq, Cairo & Libya. But then war doesn’t make a lot of sense on much higher levels than that, so I’m really not too fussed. Always a delight to spend time with a very switched older generation (with a surprisingly good grasp on current news) – there’s some small hope that I won’t completely lose my marbles in fifty-odd years. Plus Alan was interested in my USA roadtrip (particularly Yellowstone) photos, so I got to show some of those.

A little bit back towards London, I spent the afternoon with Carly & her family. One of only two second-cousins on my maternal grandmother’s side (compared to the plenty on grandad’s side), it’s been sometime since I’ve seen them – the kids & house are now much bigger. As Carly & David honeymooned in Banff, there’s always plenty of Canada talk which is good fun; family also is a hot topic, as Carly’s brother, father & grandfather are all quite funny (/crazy) there is generally much amusement.