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NZ Visit – Northern Week

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Ben & Gina’s upcoming wedding finally provided me with the motivation to spend considerable money & annual leave to return home to New Zealand for a brief visit. I was a little concerned that a wedding at the end of winter would mean that I would have a rather cold & gloomy visit home.  I need not have worried, it was a generally stunning & warm fortnight – especially after all the prior rain I was told about.

I had planned for my inbound flight to arrive on my birthday – much better than the other option of missing one’s thirtieth through time zone changes – & was very pleased that favourite sister, Adele, made it all the way up for the night’s celebrations.  After picking up the rental car & navigating new roads, we made it to Mt Eden.  Andrew & Shelley’s house (they have returned to NZ after many years in London – the latter few during which I spent a fair bit of time with them) was in a fair state of disarray as the kitchen area was gutted for next week’s new kitchen.  It was a gorgeous & warm day to head up Mt Eden with a good old steak & mushroom pie to catch some views of Auckland.

We decided a local B&B was a much better option for sleep than a rather crowded lounge next to a (de)construction site – so after a jet-lag induced nap, it was time to wander up the road to Mt Eden Village & the bar where I’d organised a small gathering to see a lot of people at once.  I recommend having a birthday when visiting home – it’s a good excuse to get everyone together.  A most enjoyable night catching up with many old friends – a little odd for me being the only one that knew everyone else & therefore having to actually mingle & talk to everyone, imagine that!  Was my usual slack self at taking pictures of people, but pretty pleased with this one.

Another clear morning was enough excuse to wander around Mission Bay with Adele in the sun, before having lunch with cousin David & dropping Adele at the airport.  Straight down to Waihi Beach & the farm, where strangely Rosemary & the children were missing (gone to Te Puke).  While Dave continued milking the cows, I had another big nap before a bit of a boys night eating well too much down in the village before returning to watch the All Blacks.

Sunday Brunch with catching up with Tori & Greg down at the Mount before strolling along Main Beach reminiscing (my first school is not too far away).

Up in to the hills behind Tauranga to check out Bruce & Sue’s new property (they’ve recently moved from Pukekohe) before taking the back roads in to Te Puke for another gathering/birthday celebration. It seems plenty of kids have arrived since I left, there were almost as many children running around as there were adults (not running around) that evening.  Penny excelled in the cake department, yet again, & there was the general abundance of food that comes from a good Te Puke shared dinner.

I’ve just realised that the rest of the week continued in the same way – I drove a fair bit & saw scores of close friends & family.  I’m still tired from the return flights & going straight back to work, so it’s to the highlights we go.

I was thrilled that my first bike ride post-shoulder operation was in the Redwoods & on my singlespeed that I haven’t ridden for over three years (I brought it back with me, it’s now assembled & awaiting Thursday’s after work ride).  A relatively easy ride which the shoulder & legs handled admirably.

More Auckland outings with Shelley & Amelie in the sun, plenty of good food too.  By the end of the week, I’d seen that Auckland is actually quite a nice city – if you can get down to the water.

From Devonport

Auckland City from Devonport

Rangitoto from Devonport

Other good visits included a return to Ironmaking at NZ Steel; Pukekohe visits to my old flat; and a coal dinner.  The wedding was down south of Hamilton on a vineyard (who knew there were such things in the Waikato?) halfway through my visit.  It was just warm enough for the service to be outside (but that’s easy to say when you wore a jacket & weren’t one of the ones with bare shoulders). It was a super sweet service & most excellent to see two close friends clearly so happy; the food & cake wasn’t bad either.

One last stop before the South Island was necessary in Wellington to see Elizabeth, Nigel & recent-addition Cara. I’ve not been more thrilled on hearing a friend was expecting a first child as I was when Elizabeth told me she was pregnant, so there was much delight in catching up with this expanding family. In what seems to be a common thread of these visits, the food was once again scrumptious.

bikes, event, friends, MTB, UK

Olympic Mountain-Biking!

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Once I worked out that I wasn’t going to be in Prague during the event, I was well pleased to snaffle the spare ticket that John & Anna had for the women’s XC mountain-biking at the London 2012 Olympics. The last two weeks have been fantastic to be in the country & be both British & Kiwi, as both countries have done well. Much to most of the country’s amazement, the games have been spectacular and very well embraced – it sure has been a great change from the usual moaning, cynicism and football (soccer) coverage.

I set off from Trish’s bright & early to meet Anna, John & Richard at Fenchurch St station – it had dawned a lovely day & the stroll across the Thames showed Tower Bridge sporting its recent addition.

The station & train was not nearly as busy as expected & about an hour later we were walking the forty minutes from Leigh-on-Sea towards Hadleigh Farm (there was a free shuttle bus, but we preferred & had the time to walk). The enthusiasm & outgoing-ness of all the volunteers has been noted by many people – & all the volunteers we encountered lived up to this reputation, they were great. Before long we were in a sizeable, but fast-moving queue as we quickly made our way through security.

We got our first glimpse of the course. It was surprisingly open & easy to spy a few of the features – particularly the rock garden to the south (left in the picture below).

The Start/Finish area (bottom right below) was well groomed sitting below all the flags of the participants’ respective countries.  I imagine that first climb was brutal enough after a few fast-paced laps to warrant using the switchbacks on the left.

With plenty of time until the 12.30 start, we leisurely checked out various features of the course.  A few of the trickier parts had chicken runs (the easier route on the right below), but I was impressed that I never saw any of the racers take that option – although I wasn’t everywhere, so may have missed such happenings elsewhere.

This was the bottom of the appropriately named Snake Hill (all the features were named by local school children apparently) – a series of switchbacks up a hill that was quite steep to walk straight up.  We ended up spending quite a few laps near the top of this climb as it provided a variety of good viewing options – Anna even managed to get a camp seat to sit on from some kind lady.

The view below looks back over a lot of the course to the Start/Finish area from the Rock Garden.  So we could still follow the race progress from afar – with the help of the PA of course.

Parts of the course were quite skinny & weren’t ever going to be any good for passing – but there were plenty of other places for passing.

The bottom of the Rock Garden was our first spot, we lunched & patiently waited to hear the race start off in the distance.  Eventually it was all on, & the British representative, Annie Last, quickly got to the front of the field – much to the delight of the crowd.  The lead motorbike came on down the Rock Garden & we got our first glimpse close-up at some fast riders.

Annie Last leading the race down

Sabine Spitz – who I saw racing at the 2006 Worlds in Rotorua

After a couple of laps watching at the Rock Garden, we moseyed off back to our favourite spot at the top of Snake Hill with a view across to see the riders coming down Deane’s Drop.

Below is Julie Bresset (FRA) leading Spitz (GER) & Georgia Gould (USA) to the top of the switchbacks

When Spitz crashed coming down Deane’s Drop, slowing both herself & Gould down, the race as a competition was effectively over as Bresset kept extending her lead.  The only Kiwi in the field, Karen Hanlen, slipped further down the field to eventually finish nineteenth after a crash & a puncture – nonetheless, she got a cheer each time she rode past.

Naturally, we stayed for the medal ceremony, the flags being raised & stood for the French national anthem.

In a ploy to try & stop everyone leaving at once, there were more of the standard trials shows that seem to crop up at every big mountain bike event.  The RAF Falcons (parachute display team) also dropped in – just not in the biking sense.

So a great day out in the sun, on perhaps what is the only hill in Essex, watching a world class & well-run event.  I was well pleased to get to an Olympic event, & even more pleased that it was mountain-biking.

We wandered back to the train station & didn’t really have to wait all that long considering there had been twenty thousand people at the event & then we were back in London for a bit of time on Southbank & a much needed meal.

Sunday provided a necessary sleep-in (I think I was still tired from Prague – it’s a tough life) & then the last day of Olympic competition.  The marathon was great, but naturally I was intrigued to see the men’s mountain-biking.  It was good to see the whole course as the race unfolded, listen to the informative (if you didn’t know anything about MTBs) BBC commentary and watch a thrilling tight race that came down to a sprint finish.

That afternoon was a particularly early birthday dinner for me with a fair few of my second cousins, first-cousins-once-removed (in both generational directions) at a Mexican restaurant.  Good food, fantastic to get quite a bit of the family together – thanks Trish for the effort in organising it.  With almost two weeks to go until my birthday, the timing was a bit off (I was supposed to be in London next weekend, but then the Olympics came up) & it’s so long since I’ve had to blow candles out, I was a little confused as to what to do.

around home, bikes, GPS, MTB, UK

Whitchurch Off Road Trail

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Trying to beat off the general lethargy that has set in as I wait for my shoulder operation on Tuesday, I set off north an hour on Saturday for this ride around Whitchurch. I’m not sure why the recommended start point & therefore parking spot is a turnout on the side of a road – I’d be inclined to leave my car in one of the smaller villages on the ride. As I set off in the fair weather, my ride was very nearly thwarted early on as the bridge over the railway into Whitchurch is out for construction – eventually I found the temporary footbridge just to the east.

Out of the village I was soon on bridleways heading north & then over the A34 – quite a bit of this ride is too close to this busy road for my liking. There’s the odd route marker, but intelligent guessing while referring to the map has one picking the correct route around the edges of fields & through farmyards. The views started to open up a bit & early on there are a couple of cute little villages to roll through. I was becoming apparent that I was well over-dressed as the sky began to clear – but it’s a little too much hassle to remove leggings mid-ride & I only had the stifling winter gloves with me.

I shared this ride with the usual array of rabbits, squirrels, pheasants, hawks & various livestock. Shortly after I got on to Wayfarer’s Walk & found this strange building in the woods. It appears to be someone’s house now, with no clue as to why it was built. It’s on the Highclere Estate – if I had have been later in the year I could have popped down to Highclere Castle, the setting for Downton Abbey apparently. There was a nice, relatively, long downhill back down to the A34.

With a little detour to find the underpass, I was soon climbing back up on to the top of the downs over a big rabbit warren. This was hardly surprising as I made a small detour to go & look out over Watership Down – the setting of that delightful little book of the same name (Richard Adams still lives in Whitchurch).

I was lucky not to ride into a bunny living room, as I was reminded of man’s ability to generate electricity

Watership Down – it was much more exciting in the book

The short descent off Watership Down back to the loop I was supposed to be riding was the best bit of singletrack all day – which isn’t saying a lot, but it was good fun. I was soon on Caesar’s Way – which was predictable straight, before going through the last village, Litchfield, & back to the car. Litchfield disappointingly didn’t have a pub – I thought every village had a pub in this country – so it was some time before I got lunch. But that was mostly my fault as I enjoyed a pleasant drive home down little country lanes avoiding highways & motorways.  A nice day out exploring in the sun bringing temperatures in the mid to high teens.

Today my bike was cleaned & put into hibernation, before I headed out in more sun to the New Forest Wildlife Park.  This was mostly so I could get some some idea of what my housemate, Gary, is talking about when he comes home from work – he’s a keeper there.  And partly because they have a lot of otters there & after Yellowstone, I quite like otters (although Giant Otters, it turns out, make quite the obnoxious sound).  Amongst other things they have some Scottish Wildcat (slightly bigger than a domestic cat, which seems to think it’s a tiger), lynx (very hard to spot), a lot of owls (including a Morepork), some big wild boar (with rather cute boarlets) & five wolves.

Boarlets – like striped furry piglets, reminded me somewhat of baby warthogs (warthoglets?)

around home, bikes, MTB, UK

Last rides

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For my last weekend of riding for many months, winter finally decided to turn up – just a little bit. Saturday dawned beautiful & clear – Ady & I headed out for a similar loop of the Forest to the previous week’s. With an extra layer on in deference to the -5ºC, it was great to have the Forest dry for a change. With a slightly slower pace than last time, the best part of the riding (apart from being out on such a great morning) was riding across all the frozen puddles & either locking up the wheels to slide across or suddenly breaking through the ice.

Sunday’s news was of course dominated by the UK coming to a grinding halt in places with a few inches of snow. Pleasingly, it just rained a bit down this way & I set off up the M3 with Dan towards Winchester – meeting at Chris’s house in Otterbourne. As soon as we got off the motorway the snow starting showing up on the side of the road. We set off through a few inches using a variety of bridleways & side-streets to go around Winchester anti-clockwise through some rather posh patches. A few centimetres of snow is great fun as there is still mostly traction, but a just enough sliding around for the front wheel to make things interesting. Eventually we were off the roads & cutting through the countryside avoiding puddles & trying to keep our feet warm. It was noticeably warmer, but damper than Saturday’s ride.

There were some big wide tracks that provided plenty of amusement snaking around many puddles. Unfortunately by this stage, our feet were starting to get wet from the constant spray. In the end, our three different methods for keeping warm feet all failed well & truly – at the first decent food stop, there was much walking around on the road to try & warm our feet.

Through more fields, down bridleways & the occasional piece of singletrack we carried on. After a particularly wet, muddy & slow field crossing, during which we were delighted not to have the large-horned steers impale us, we hit the South Downs Way and headed back towards Winchester. It wasn’t long after that we stood around cursing our cold feet as Dan extracted a large thorn from his tyre & patched a tube. That was about the time I took this photo – apologies for lack of nice photos, stopping to satisfy my shutter-finger wasn’t a large priority.

Strangely, as the snow was mostly melting by now, we hit the deepest drift of the day in the middle of an open field. More fun sliding around, it was a pity that the spring that holds my brake pads apart somehow got bent in part & then started rubbing annoyingly on the rotor. There was no way I was changing that with so little distance to go until home – it took long enough to remove the calliper from the frame & cable-tie it to my seat. The 50 km were up with a lot less resistance for me (you never realise just how much your brakes are rubbing when you gradually get used to it). Back at Chris’s it was time to painfully remove socks, warm up & hose bikes, shoes, clothes & backpacks of much splatter.

So there you have, my last ride report for quite some time (“and there was much rejoicing”).