Bored. Snapped a few pics in the airport. 3 hour layovers in terminal 1 are toooo looong. Happily the Red Rocket supplies us with beer. 2 pints of Rickards – an outlandish $19 after tax and hefty tip (hey, I’m on vacation and happy). Looking forward to $3 bottles of Argentine Red!! Next up, the hung for Chester Cheetah’s Cheese Corn! Rumour has it that Nacho Libre is slotted for the next flight. THe Notebook is also on tap, but luckily, it’s later on so I won’t have to stay up.
Saturday, Dec.15 was to be the official departure of ActiveSteve from Auckland to points unknown. Well, I sort of knew some points that I would hit. My first little while will be spent in the Northlands of New Zealand, as far as Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of New Zealand. Some say this area holds the most challenging biking, and if I could make it there, I’d make it anywhere. However, before I went anywhere, there was the matter of getting things packed up. This would prove to be a little more challenging than anticipated. I awoke shortly after 8:30 on Saturday, and dragged Kevin out for breakfast before starting the packing. Read on for my exciting first day.
Good evening my friends. It’s that time once again. Gather round the glowing LCD and let ole ActiveSteve share another travel tale with you to while away some time. My post today takes us back up to Mount Meru, where Team Cantrailia was about to tackle our second day of climbing towards the peak. On the menu for today would be climbing from Mariakamba Hut at 2,500m up to Saddle Hut, located at 3,576m, and nestled at the foot of the Little Meru peak (smaller peak in the region). Once again, you can start out by checking out the custom map that I’ve put together, as well as the set of photos that have been uploaded to Flickr. I’ll try to keep things light and breezy for this post, as the heavy work is all about tomorrow… summit day! 🙂 Read on fans.
17/01/08
Hello hello hello. What have we here? Some curious readers? Well, I guess the post and picture really don’t leave all that much to the imagination, do they? You already knew that I was planning on summiting Taranaki today, and, well, I did. And rather quickly at that. I had all sorts of concerns vis a vis weather, time to climb, clouds rolling in, finding a way there, and so on and so forth, but yet again, things worked out splendidly for the little cyclist that could. I’m super-glad that I tacked on this side trip on my North Island touring schedule. As it turns out, the weather was brilliant for my climb, and everything was great. I’ve put a map up on the ole blogosphere for you to check out. Yep, there’s a lot of pictures to go through, but hey, they’re worth it. The stats are for just the climb and descent part, not including the drive up to the mountain, in case you are wondering. For more details, read on.
Friday had me in Auckland for another day. Freddy, Elaine and Maya were getting in early that morning, and I had told him that I’d stick around to catch up a bit with him before I took off on Saturday for the real adventure. Even though they rolled in very early, I planned a few other things to do to fill up my day, since it would be my last Auckland touristy day before hitting the dusty trails. My first problem in the morning was that I had no way to get a hold of them. Kevin doesn’t have a home phone. Not a problem for a resourceful lad like me though, I just got set for my day, then biked over to their parents house where they were staying. Luckily I had the address, so I found my way. I rolled in around 10am. They had just had a little nap, so my timing was relatively good. I stuck around for a little bit, posted some blog entries, then headed out alone for downtown again, read on for what I did. You can also check out the map that I threw together as well.
