Time spent riding this year was always going to be down with shoulder surgery scheduled mid-year, less expected is the year drawing to a close with the least distance covered by bike in over ten years. The year started predominantly at home in Naseby around family. I kept pleasantly busy with casual work driving vans carting bikes, baggage and people around the Otago Central Rail Trail (hard to get sick of driving around Central Otago) and volunteering as much as possible on the local ambulance in an attempt to have all the practical skills signed off to complete the first responder qualification.

The remoteness of the region means we see helicopters responding far more than in urban centres.

I did manage to get out for a few small bikepacking adventures, none of which went quite to plan. After one of the best trips I’d done the previous year, I was keen to head back with Andy to the Lindis headwater area. Strange how we forgot that we swore never to return to this area with loaded bikes. Sweltering in summer weather, it was quickly apparent I was not in any sort of condition for such hills. We did manage to complete most of the loop planned and I was particularly pleased to make it along Grandview Ridge.

The every-other-year Great Southern Brevet, one of my favourite bikepacking events, was only two weeks later and I was in about a dozen different minds about whether I’d show up to ride what is now my backyard, especially with Andy’s much-awaited Nine Stations immediately after. I couldn’t face Grandview Ridge, in the more difficult other direction, again so soon – but the course was changed to take it out and instead include some private land – that was enough to entice me back.

While nice to see so many familiar faces again, it took me a good day and a half to get into it and by the third day things were going well enough – that is until I pulled up at the end of the day with very tight achilles tendons. A good rest overnight, I tried to ride away into more mountains – but quickly decided against that. A few days of rest was enough to allow a day’s ride to collect my car and make it to the start of the Nine Stations ride – but the achilles injuries plagued me for quite some time, and they’re still not a hundred.

Route-maker extraordinaire Andy had somehow got permission to ride through many private stations to put the loop together, it was a privilege to ride some new places with a good group.

Got to stay in this restored hut that we’d seen the previous year.

Dropping down to the Rangitata – TTW memories.

Far enough up the river to safely cross the Rangitata.

Unfortunately, a mechanical early on the third day meant I sat the fourth and final day out – but that held less interest for me, so I wasn’t too put out.

Mid-February I watched from afar in disbelief as Cyclone Gabrielle devastated Hawke’s Bay and so many of the places I’d come to know in the six years I spent living in Napier and biking a lot of the backroads. With electricity and comms compromised for a week, information was sparse but the damage over such a wide area was more than I could comprehend.

I’d have never thought the Esk could burst its banks to flood my former workplace with over a metre and a half of water and the accompanying debris and silt.

The end of summer saw me being support crew (at the last minute by myself) for a friend’s team in the ~week-long Godzone adventure race. It was a great week for me around the beauty of Fiordland. All the driving, planning, packing, unpacking, assembling transition zone, team social media updates, washing and drying vast amounts of clothes and gear was enough of an endurance sport for me – I wasn’t even out there doing the hard yards! Pleasing to be able to support others in their mad adventures.

Heading out onto Manapouri.

I did manage to do a little exploring of my own.

Transition zone set-up.

As my own plans to build a small house in Naseby developed, helping my friend Mike replace my parents’ roof one drizzly autumn week was both satisfying and good experience for future building work.

Old and new steel.

The rest of autumn was a flurry of getting firewood for the winter, more Rail Trail work, and completing the ambulance qualification, just, before shoulder surgery. Surgery went very well and I spent most of the six-weeks of sling wearing staying with and being cared for by Mum and Dad in Dunedin. I was surprised that there was far less pain/discomfort and swelling than the keyhole surgery eleven years before. I made the most of the mild weather by going on increasingly long walks exploring Dunedin and surrounding hills.

Out at Portobello for Mothers’ Day.

A week in Auckland near the end of the sling stint was the first time I’d been to the city for at least four years and I thoroughly enjoyed catching up with many dear, and long-neglected, friends – as well more walking and warmer weather. Sling off and it was back home to Naseby, staring at the prospect of a long, cold winter sitting by the fire reading books unable to do much else as my shoulder recovered.

A well-timed check-in call from a mate (a former colleague) detailed just how much work there was to recover from the flooding in the Pulp Mill and gave the idea that I might go up for a few months and help out. I thought three months would be good, but it was five I was needed for – so less than two weeks later I was back in Napier amongst too many people telling me it was like I never left. Things had certainly changed in two years and I still struggle to believe the amount of recovery work that has already been done and how much is left to get the place running again.

It was odd returning, as Napier isn’t home any more, I’m not living alone in my own house and everyone’s lives have understandably moved on. My shoulder recovery, with some physio, continued to pleasantly surprise me and I was able to get on a bike sooner than I expected. I’d not brought a bike with me, so it was an opportunity to give a gravel bike a try buying a secondhand one. I thought I might sell it if I didn’t like it, but I’ve decided it’s a glorified, but useful, road bike and I’ll keep it for some different exploring when I return home.

There used to be a bridge there.

Getting back to parkrun, a large part of my previous Napier life, was good to try and get some fitness back; I managed to cut the gap to my 5 km personal best in half before picking up a side strain which has halted further progress. As it happens, the work in the Pulp Mill is nowhere near complete (which rather hinders my role as Completions Manager – yeah, I’d never heard of such a thing either) so I was asked to stay through summer until pulp should be coming out of the mill again – something I’d really like to see.

We managed to agree on what another four months, and summer, away from home and family was worth – but equally I’m sticking around to see a place that was good to me and is the livelihood of many workmates and an important part of Hawke’s Bay on its feet again. Pleasingly, the work is engaging, keeps developing and very satisfying. The second half of this video gives a better idea of what’s been going on.

I’m down south in Dunedin for a week and Christmas with my parents, and an overdue venesection (haemochromatosis seems to be nicely under control now, blood letting only required every few months), before returning to Naseby for a week at home doing little – maybe some biking and ambulance cover. All the best for yours and the new year!