Category Archives: NZ

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, city, NZ

Settling In – Napier

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It’s a little strange going back to work after a year, but not too much of a shock really. After a good few months of looking for a suitable job, I took one as a process engineer at a pulp mill just north of Napier (in the Hawke’s Bay region – east coast of the North Island).  The company just happens to own the mountain-bike park next door, so that’s quite attractive; also the commute by bike is a pretty good one (a bit flat, but very scenic around the bay) – I’ve ridden to & from work five days out of the two weeks so far.

There’s plenty to learn and discover – so many new faces at work, yet another new process to get my head around, and a whole new city and surrounds.  I get the impression that the area was one of the first in the country to set up a rather extensive network of cycle trails – so I’ve done a bit of riding on those visiting the few people I know in the area, as I try to familiarise myself with my new home.

Speaking of new homes, I move into a share-house tomorrow and will keep my eye on the market for a suitable house to buy.  I’m starting to get a idea of where I’d like to buy and what I would like in a house – so it’ll just be a case of waiting for something suitable  to come along.

With all that going on, I’ve not done anything terribly exciting – but have ridden around a bit in the sun (for the middle of winter, it’s shockingly warm compared to what I’m used to) and taken the odd photo. So that’s about all I have to share.

Looking around the Bay from outside the motel work put me in for my first two weeks – very handy.  That’s pretty much half of my commute around there – tough alright.

Looking over to Mahia Peninsula and the top of Hawke Bay.

Port Napier (from which our pulp is exported) and the only hill in Napier – this end is called Bluff Hill, the other (out of shot) – Hospital Hill.

Looking south from the hill over Napier and on to Cape Kidnappers – the southern most part of Hawke Bay.

Over Ahuriri Estuary at dusk – on the other side of the motel.

The public space along the Pacific waterfront is rather long – this a small part near the centre of the city.

In this part is also the much-photographed statue of Pania of the Reef.

Another view from Bluff Hill over Marine Parade.

A cathedral apparently – a bit different to those I’m more used to.

The Six Sisters – also on Marine Parade – remind me of being in San Francisco for some reason.

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.