Yearly archives: 2008

09/03/08
Well hello all you cool beautiful people in the world. I hope you’re all doing well, as I know that I certainly am. As promised, I didn’t turn a crank at all today. No biking. Instead, I hopped on a shuttle bus bound for Aoraki (Mt.Cook). I’m presently in the TV lounge of the YHA in Mount Cook village. Accommodations were almost non-existent up here, but I did score a nice bed in a 4-share room up here for 29NZD for the night. I almost ended up staying up here for a full week, but that’s for the rest of the story, isn’t it? I did plenty of hiking today, and plan to do plenty more tomorrow. The ride was fairly uneventful, save for the fact that I decided I made another good call by taking the bus here instead of biking and spending at least an extra 2 days doing so. At any rate, read on for the entire story, and don’t forget the map, and all of its’ photo-y goodness.

08/03/08
Greetings all my bashful friends. As you can see by the picture, I finally had the opportunity to do my naked mile, a time-honoured tradition where the cyclist disrobes in a celebration of a long journey through nature. For me, it came somewhere after the 3800km mark, on the canal road between Twizel and Lake Tekapo. A unique set of circumstances allowed this to happen, one of which was my old friend, Mr. Wind. And in case you are wondering, no one helped with the picture. If they had, it would have been much easier and taken me far less time to get the shot. Of course, for all the details, you’ll just have to read more of this post, and check out the map, where you can pinpoint exactly where I pulled this off. Enjoy!

07/03/08
Of all the possible hardships that a cyclist faces while on the road, I have to say unequivocally that the most damning thing for me is wind. There is nothing quite as frustrating as a constant force pressing against you as you try to make forward progress. It is even more frustrating when that forward progress is in an uphill trajectory. So begins and ends the entire story of my day. It was probably the hardest emotionally of almost all my days on the bicycle. I only covered 63km in the same rough time that it took me to cover 93km yesterday! Boy, am I glad that I decided to add an extra 25km onto my ride yesterday, rather than trying to slog it out today. I don’t think I would have made it. I really can’t put the extent of my frustration into any words or pictures, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one people! Anyway, read on and check out the accompanying map for my ride from Kurow to a Merino Sheep and Cattle farm 9km north of Omarama.

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 🙂

05/03/08
Greetings folks. Well, as you’ve already seen by the bonus post added to the site, I started my day with a rather taxing attack on Baldwin Street. Although my cycling day was to be 90km, I still had to give it a go on the way out of town, as it would be my only chance to ride up that street on my bike while in New Zealand. What a way to start my day! I was totally exhausted at the top, but had to bounce back quickly, as the next part of the ride was a rather long climb up to around 500m to get over Mount Cargill, which is the scenic (i.e. torturous) way out of Dunedin heading North. The day was a hodge podge as far as weather, scenery and accomplishments go, so without any further ado, I invite you to browse my little map and to read on for a few more exciting details.