06/03/08
Hello rock-hounds. I have another day full of rocky miracle stories to share with you today I suppose. My trails today took me 87km from Waianakarua to Kurow, along the way passing some mighty impressive rock structures, including the Elephant Rocks, some Maori Rock Art, as well as some very amazingly shaped rock cliffs. Now I’m by no means a geological expert, but I certainly appreciated seeing these things, even though it meant I had to take another ‘scenic’ route, which meant a whole pile more of climbing as well as twists and turns, narrow roads, and even a gravel section due to a slight navigational error on my part (actually turned out to be a distance shortcut, but the speed was much slower). To learn more about my day, read on, and to see just where I saw some of these cool rocks, don’t forget to check out the map I’ve got up for you as well. Who loves ya, babies? Oh, by the way, big congrats out to Alyssa and Greg, as well as Trevor and Julie on their recent arrivals! Best of luck sleeping 🙂
Welcome to the second last day of race coverage for the 2009 BC Bike Race. This would be our second and final day on the Sunshine Coast in BC. Normally I would be waking up with a slight hangover, given that it was July 2nd. However, as a result of this race, my 1st of July traditions were put on hold. I had work to do, and celebrating would have to wait until the end of the week in Whistler. In all honesty, I think the decision not to have any beer the night before was the best decision, given that we’d had such a long day in Stage 4, and with all the travel, I was beat. A decent night’s rest was the best perscription for success on Stage 5. Of course, even a super rest probably wouldn’t elevate Carl and I to the podium or anything like that, but I just wanted to feel strong and ride hard all day. It’d been a great week of riding so far, with plenty of challenges, and I’d been growing as a rider with each day and each pedal stroke, so I was excited for another day of riding. It also helped that we could wake up and walk to the start line, rather than need to be bussed somewhere else. Before you read the rest of the story, check out the pictures from the stage that I took, as well as the custom map that I put together. Once you’ve had a look, click on through to read more.
Well, Happy New Year to one and all! Sorry for the recent lapse in communicating with the world. You see, Jody and I were off in Cuba enjoying a week of fun and sun over the holiday season. I’ll post a few more entries over the next few days about Cuba, but generally speaking, it was a fantastic week! Lots of pictures can be seen here. Every day was between 22 and 29 degrees, with mainly bright and sunny skies. Mind you, yours truly didn’t pick up much of a tan, but rest assured, I drank plenty of rum and spent much time in the water 🙂 The ironic exception to the weather of the week was on New Year’s Eve! We started our day off with plenty of sun and beach walking, followed by my attempts at sailing and windsurfing. From there, Jody and I took out a tandem kayak and went out snorkelling in the water near the hotel. Lots of fun fish. We had an underwater camera, so hopefully some of those shots will turn out. Later on, we had supper at one of the A La Carte restaurants, which we’d booked early in the week. It was very nice, a good way to have New Years Eve supper, away from the big chow hall. The meal was a feat of gastronomic indulgence, as we had a full 7 course meal lasting 3 hours! However, as you can see by this picture, sometime around 10pm, the skies unleashed monsoon-like rain! It was insane. In the span of 15 minutes, the normally dry walkways all over the resort were under ankle-deep water! The rain kept up for almost 2 hours. This made it rather unpleasant to attend the mainly outdoor festivities that the resort had planned out. I feel sorry for all the work they had put in only to be ‘dampened’. As a result, Jody and I ducked back to our cozy room to enjoy the evening in dry comfort. After all, we had a nice covered balcony from which to watch the world. I’ll say this much for the Cubans and New Year’s. They LOVE fireworks! They had shows that were almost the same calibre as the Canada Day fireworks in Ottawa! No joke! It was amazing. At midnight, they had a show of almost a half hour. It was a great way to enjoy the complimentary bottle of champagne that the staff had placed in every room (and complimentary quart of rum, which we took home).
