Category Archives: bikes

around home, bikepacking, bikes, family, NZ

The Christmas Letter 2015

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Looking back at this year, I can safely say it’s worked out better than I imagined it would when, in last year’s Christmas missive, I wrote: “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…”!

As it turns out, I did rather slowly, in fits & starts, look for a job at the beginning of the year. I was rather picky in what I was applying for, so I had plenty of time to spend time with family, ride bikes, visit friends and travel a little around NZ. Highlights before starting a job were:

My first brevet – the Kiwi Brevet – 1150 km of self-supported riding around the top of the beautiful South Island. I was pleased to finish in a few hours short of seven days.

A bit of time in and around Wellington catching up with friends and family – with some bikepacking thrown in to keep the legs happy/wrecked. The photo above from an excellent day’s ride around the coast from Wellington to Martinborough – a spectacular coastline so close to the capital.

A few weeks further up the North Island meant a bit more easy bike touring visiting friends and family, a quick trip over to Sydney to see family (particularly my aging grandfather) and an excellent wedding of family friends over Easter.

Two trips to Westport to visit Adele in her home-for-now were of course filled with plenty of adventure: caving, hiking, and more biking. This picture from the spectacular Old Ghost Road trail – which has since been completed, I’m very much looking forward to riding it in its entirety.

This photo from the other memorable ride from those trips – the Heaphy Track. It’s spectacular! Disappointed not to be able to ride the whole thing due to weather at the first attempt, the two-day Heaphy-Double James & I did was great fun and slightly-epic.

During the second Westport trip I’d secured a job as a process engineer again – it ticked all my most important boxes: in a plant that makes something, a good small city (Napier) to live in, some mountain-biking and a feasible bike-commute. So after quite a few months enjoying staying with Mum & Dad in their new home and exploring the area, I moved north to become a North Islander again.

Just like that I’ve settled into a strangely normal non-wandering life. I’m liking the work (it’s still novel after five months); disturbingly quickly I bought a house; this city is great with its climate, history and beautiful art deco; the local produce and wine is exceptional – along with the Farmers Markets; there is mountain-biking next door to work and plenty of gravel roads to explore in the hills. Much to my surprise, I found Italian language lessons locally – so that’s a complete bonus. I’m still a little amazed it’s worked out this well so far.

Arranging the purchase of my first home-of-my-own and then moving in and furnishing it has taken much of the last few months. Well worth it though – I can have visitors!

A few pictures from around home:

Probably the most astonishing news of my year is that which sees me now own a road bike. It’s great for the commute, but I’m still to be won over for distances longer than that. I only really post it here so Grandad may see it, although I may have left it too late for him to comprehend; not that I’ll ever get to his standard of extreme road adventures.

That’s about my year. Not too much on the horizon for next year (except one ride I signed up for without really considering the consequences of doing so) – still enjoying having a place to call home and not having a great desire to travel some distance at every opportunity. Assuredly, there will be bike adventures to be had and I’m hoping for at least a couple of trips south.

Merry Christmas to all (although I’m struggling to believe it’s actually Christmas) and all the best for the coming year. If it happens to bring you to Napier, get in touch.

around home, bikepacking, bikes, GPS, NZ

Mangatutu Hot Springs Bikepacking Overnighter

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Even before I moved to Napier (albeit the day before) I was told of some hot springs up the hills to the west of town. Being at the end of a long gravel road, that it is almost two hours’ drive from home for a relatively short distance hints at the sort of country one must pass through to reach the reward of a hot soak. Any suitable opportunity to go up there and do a bit of hiking was not forthcoming and a quick look at the map had me thinking such a route would make a great bikepacking trip from home.
I wasn’t wrong. After a large Saturday lunch and vaguely remembering where everything camping is supposed to go on my bike, I set off for the hills. Into the foothills on a day of patchy clouds and a cooling (and helpful) southerly, the climbing was modest for thirty-odd kilometres – a good opportunity to get used to a cumbersome loaded bike again. Weekend traffic was light and the views started to stretch further afield.

Loaded up again for, hopefully, another summer of bikepacking adventures.

Progress was steady, as was the climbing and three hours in a plateau at about 600 m was reached. I was surprised to see a reasonably sized school at Patoka, and a golf course at Puketitiri – unfortunately the little school there closed some years ago. I was chased remarkably well by a spirited fox terrier – that thing must have topped thirty kilometres per hour. Thankfully I have no fang marks around my ankles.

It was three-quarters of the trip before the seal ended and the gravel started – mercifully it has been a long time since it was last graded, so the tracks were smooth. There was so little traffic I enjoyed riding on the right hand side of the road as if I was back in the northern hemisphere. In the early evening light, everything started looking even nicer and the Kaweka Ranges came into view.

The road kept dropping down a fair bit before remembering it really should be around 600 m, energy levels dropped accordingly. But I was pleased my legs weren’t really complaining. As I entered the DOC (Dept. of Conservation) land the flowering manuka (tea-tree) stands were staggering. The little white flowers blanketed the hillsides, I’m quite sure I’ve never seen so much manuka in bloom before.

My arrival at the campground at the end of the road was greeted by all sorts of astonishment. They said I was mad for biking all the way in here – “but I built it all the same”. Perhaps I was, but that’s fine as I quickly found a secluded little spot to pitch my tent, cook my dinner and marvel in the beauty of the area and just how fantastic the afternoon was. I was well chuffed with the little adventure.

Water bottles topped up from a steep walk down to the Mohaka River, it was time to reward my muscles with a hot soak. A short walk down the hill from the campground are two small pools which are filled by water flowing down from a spring above. I must have sat in, or half-in, there for a good two hours. The campground was well populated, but not overly so as I imagine it will be in a few days, and there was a steady stream of people to chat to. It was a little strange being treated as a crazy-man/minor celebrity for being the guy that biked all the way in – but everyone was very generous and after a couple of offered drinks I had to start turning them down. The oddest thing was a young guy who went all the way back up the hill to get a cooker so he could have pancakes – hot pool pancakes and ice cream were quality.

After a fitful sleep and a leisurely Sunday morning start to the day, I got to ride down all the hills I’d ridden up (but there were still a reasonable number to ride up) and get chased by the same dog again before returning home twenty-four hours, to the minute, after departing. Such fun!

around home, bikes, family, house, NZ

Where does the time go?

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Naturally, now that I’ve moved into my own house leisure time is much reduced. But the busiest period, moving-in and setting up a home from basically scratch, is over and summer is all but here – so looking forward to getting out a bit more.

There was a bit of a lull in house activities between sorting the purchase out and settlement date, so I tried to make the most of that.

My bike fleet slowly grows – this one a town bike for doing the shopping and various other errands. It will also get put into service during the annual Art Deco Festival.

I savoured the view many a time from the window seat of the house I was boarding in – I can’t afford such a view, so it was worth taking the time to so.

Finally, I got further into exploring the hills in the distance of the picture two above. I was particularly pleased to find a decent length of gravel roads – I’d been led to believe there were few around. This picture looking towards the Kawekas.

I combined a work trip away in Rotorua with a weekend around the Bay of Plenty visiting various people and places from my time growing up there. Great to do so, especially seeing how much it’s changed around the orchard I spent the first eight or so years of my life on. For the first time since we left, I took the opportunity of having a good look around the property (it’s been subdivided a few times by now) and our old house. Fairly nostalgic.

The shed on the orchard that was my first home. Our family quickly outgrew it when Adele was on the way. (It may be about to fall over and sink into the swamp.)

The only picture that I snapped of the family home that Mum & Dad designed and had built once Adele arrived. It’s changed a fair bit in superficial ways, but still brought back plenty of memories.

I was definitely pleased to get back to Hawkes Bay, strangely a few hours of traveling didn’t really appeal. I may have just been quite anxious to get into my house. But there was still a long weekend before I got the keys and a mortgage. So a shorter trip away to Palmerston North was in order to catch up properly with friends from my years at university – yes, some people still live there! The streets are plenty wide I suppose. It was good to get out on the bike, as well as doing a bit of secondhand shopping for the house.

I went on a brilliant few hours’ ride reconnoitering the Pohangina Valley for next March.

Settlement day finally rolled around and there started much cleaning, packing of the things, moving all the things, buying the other things and a lot of work. It was, and still is, exciting to have my own home and set it up as I want – even if it is an awful lot of work by oneself (I did have generous help moving the bigger items), it’s very much worth it still.

At some stage, I escaped from house setting-up and Sunday morning fog and went and found some more gravel roads. This photo look back towards Napier and the fog.

And this one look west for a different angle on the Kawekas.

I was very excited to have my first house guests – finally after many years abusing others’ hospitality, I could start to repay my debts. Elizabeth and Nigel and family came up from Wellington on a little road-trip and all of a sudden I had five extra people in the house! That was a change, but we all coped – even with just one chair in the lounge (a suitable source of many jokes apparently); that may have been a factor in Elizabeth being keen in helping me to choose a lounge suite.

From Te Mata Peak looking north along the coast to Napier.

West from Te Mata Peak.

The visitors continued – Mum came up later that week and we had a great time doing a few things around the house and exploring little bits of Napier and around. I also had my first cycle tourist stay from warmshowers (like couch-surfing, but for cycle tourists) – so that was fun hearing about a big tour and sharing some of my less adventurous stories.

I finally found a correctly-sized secondhand road bike for sale locally. The fact that it’s steel and has some nice Italian componentry on it helps to lessen the horror of actually owning a road bike. It’s service is getting me to work, and back, five to ten minutes faster and a lot less tired than the Ogre. I tried to go for a road-ride one day, but cut that short as I was horribly bored by the ordeal and could think of many better uses of my time.

While Mum was here, we went on plenty of walks. This one, pictured, I finally walked the trail around the estuary (I’d not explored it before as bikes are not permitted). But my favourites were exploring Napier Hill from home – it’s so interesting with plenty of hidden stairways, a fantastic variety of houses and even a little bit of history.

Dad joined us for a week before he & Mum went home back to south. Unfortunately he wasn’t up to walking far, so couldn’t share as much in my keenness for walking around and up and down this end of the Hill. At least he managed to cope without a TV for a week – my library card finally got some use.

Last Saturday morning was pretty hot; I exhausted myself going further into the hills behind and north of work. Great country and good gravel road riding.

Now that November, the month of moving in and setting up the house is long-since over, I’m moving to work on the garden and house exterior – but hope to have plenty of time to get my fitness and endurance up to an acceptable level, with the help of a few consecutive days of riding here & there. We’ll see…

around home, bikes, family, NZ

Farewell South Island

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With the gradual erosion of my bank account balances, a suitable opportunity to rejoin the workforce was most welcome. As such, since I got the phone call offering me a job on the last day of the June sojourn to the West Coast, July was rather quiet as I sorted details and prepared for the move north. There definitely was not much biking as a rather frigid few weeks set in and I couldn’t get motivated to re-ride gravel roads that were no longer new to me. But there was plenty more to do and think about.

Having been back in NZ for eight months, it was bigger trips away that got more coverage here. Understandably too, as there were a fair few highlights there – mostly notable surviving the 2015 Kiwi Brevet (1150 km around the top of the South Island was a great re-introduction to NZ); the big training rides for the brevet; a couple of trips to the North Island with short bike tours, a fantastic wedding, and visiting family & friends; a quick trip to Sydney to see family; and two trips to Westport to see Adele in her new home (the Heaphy Trail was the highlight of the riding). But the time, between those trips, with Mum & Dad in their new home was just as good – plenty to do and many places to explore.

The local beach, a short distance from home, was always good for a walk in the, frequent, sun.

Waikouaiti Beach

Further around the beach towards to estuary mouth

Out on my twenty kilometre loop – looking out across Waikouaiti and Hawkesbury Lagoon and over the Pacific.

As I trained a little bit for the Brevet, my eyes turned to the myriad of gravel roads slightly inland. I was surprised by the quality of the gravel road riding out there – wonderful scenery and pretty much deserted too.

Out riding in the hills of coastal East Otago.

At the end of one of my favourite gravel roads to ride, a station – remove a letter and you can anagram my name.

Looking over Karitane village to Waikouaiti Beach.

There was even the odd local event to go along to, sit in the sun and drink wine at.

A day at the local races.

My twenty kilometre loop came over that saddle and was a great rush down that hill.

The facilities are looking a little long in the tooth.

Another recurring route on the bike was north to Palmerston, avoiding the highway, and then on past Trotters Gorge to Moeraki.

On one of the few trips to the fishing village of Moeraki – where there is a uncanningly fantastic restaurant, with plenty of seafood, naturally.

The decor is somewhat eclectic – this historic hand-drier reminding me of Polimeri (my workplace in the UK actually still had these!).

Now that Mum & Dad have a much bigger section there was always plenty to do around home – particularly outside. I went a little way towards earning my keep by washing the exterior of the house, repeatedly mowing the lawns, replacing paving stones, picking apples & pears, carting & stacking dry firewood, and finally by wielding a chainsaw an awful lot cutting trees down & into burnable pieces. The weather often played fair and it was always nice to be outside – even on those crisp days close to freezing.

It looks a little different now that winter has arrived and many of the trees have been dealt to by a chainsaw to let some more light in.

So a great few months at home spending time with Mum & Dad. Nice to have that time before I dive into seeing if I can get used to a life that will be more settled &, dare I say it, normal than the preceding six years. We’ll see.