A brief review of what I can remember of New Zealand:

(I put together a little album that's supposed to go along with this, but the pictures got a little scrambled, I'll try to fix it tomorrow.)

1) We arrived a day early (for the pre-pre tour), spending an extra night in Wanaka.
2) We took a solo ride around a nearby lake (49k) to try things out. I stopped to take pictures of some sheep.
3) For the first full day of the pre-tour, the group rode from Wanaka over the Crown Range ("The highest paved road in New Zealand" turned out to not be entirely true--some of it is not paved). After the impossibly long descent, we stopped to watch some of the braver members of the group bunjee jump; then on to Queenstown for a couple of days. Summer luging atop some mountain above Queenstown preceded dinner atop the same mountain.
4) 29 mile ride to Glenorchy where we went jet boating, hiked, then road in a 4wd bus through Lord of the Rings territory. It started raining while I tried to shear a sheep. There was an optional ride back along the same route, but it was raining so we all opted for the bus (bikes in a Budget truck). This 29 mile ride seemed more difficult than the previous day's climb.
5) Ride from Queenstown to Arrowtown and back. Then we boarded a 737 to Christchurch for the official start of the tour. We were picked up at the airport by Antarctic exploration vehicles which drove us to dinner at the "South Pole"--the hopping off point for most Antarctic research. Weirdest meal I've ever eaten. We had two courses in a room with a penguin tank (the penguins were not out), then got up and moved to another room where the lights would cycle on and off every few minutes (the other half of the group did this in reverse).
6) Biked around the crater in Christchurch. Took a ferry across the harbor (rather than biking all the way around), and got rained on for the first time. (My wife's notes say we had our 3rd flat tire on this ride). Took guided walking tour of Christchurch in the rain. Christchurch is beautiful even in the rain: very green, and flowers all around. Had dinner at St. Germaine with ChiChi and stoker. 5 courses + 2 bottles of wine in an expensive French restaurant came out to around $50 US per person. I began enjoying the strength of the almighty dollar.
7) Left Christchurch by train. The optional 100 mile ride (leaving from Arthur's Pass) was canceled due to inclement weather. We weren't planning on doing it anyway, but it turned out to be all downhill. I would have regretted not riding had it not been pouring rain. We stayed on the train until the end (forgotten the name of the town), watched the rain come down in sheets all through lunch at Speight's Ale House, then rode 30 (mostly dry) miles to our beach front hotel at Punakaiki. Tired of walking, we checked in and walked the half km to the pancake rocks/blowhole (which was not blowing at low tide). Beautiful sunset over the water followed by dinner which included Bill's "wine buffet".
8) If memory serves today was a wet ride from Punakaiki to a small airport up the coast where we caught a chartered airplane (with propellers) to Picton (or thereabouts). Wine tasting via bus on the way from the airport to Picton.
9) Bicycling through wine country today. I sort of believed the locals when we were told we would have a tail wind for the whole day; when Bill said it I knew it could not be true. Ended up with a headwind most of the day. Took a 2 km detour into Havelock, the green lipped muscle capital of the world. Too early for muscles, we just had coffee (also, muscles are scary). Lunch at Allan Scott Vineyard; surprisingly, no wine served with lunch.
10) Planned non-riding day. We chose the kayaking option (hiking and/or ocean cruise were the other choices). Flew out of Picton on chartered plane to Rotorua (North Island) after dinner at hotel.
11) Opted for the long ride--around whatever lake Rotorua is on, then up to the Buried Village for lunch. The ride back to Rotorua included a near single track dirt path up and then down through redwoods.
12) Raining again. All but 7 bikes skipped the ride to Tauranga and took the bus. Stopped at Rainbow Springs National Park, which is about the only place you can see a Kiwi (bird). Next stopped for a nature walk (in the rain) with New Zealand's own Kiwi Dundee; saw some glow worms, which are less impressive than they sound. Bus ride ended at Puka Park Resort (on the Bay of Plenty). Staying in Puka Park is like living in a tree house.
13) Biking around the Bay of Plenty. I'm pretty sure I'll be buying a farm around here. We opted for the long ride yet again, which included only 2 ferry rides (as seen in the video at the beginning of the thread). This was perhaps 60 miles of the most fabulous cycling we have ever done...and the sun even came out for a while.
14) We opted to take the bike apart instead of going for an early morning ride. Long bus ride to Auckland; walked around Auckland for an hour and a half before dinner at the Sky Tower. Late flight out of Auckland got us home before we left.

All in all, a very different trip than what you would expect if you've done European trips with Santana. There was not much biking between hotels, few cute little towns along the way, and pretty much nothing flat. The roads are not the friendliest for tires (I lost track of how many flats we suffered), but the drivers are relatively pleasant (not Europe pleasant, but better than the US). The weather was less than ideal, though not horrible. I would call this trip a once in a lifetime experience, but my stoker says we can move there...

Things to do when you're bored

Make a slide show of Bill McCready removing eleven tightly packed tandems (+ 11 tandem teams and a dozen other amused ferry riders) off the less than sizable Whitianga Ferry. Keep watching, and you can see another six or seven more go on back across the Bay of Plenty. Keep watching even longer, and it repeats a few times until the song ends.

[In retrospect, I probably should have ended the song when I ran out of photos.]

So I'm not the only one calling them kiwi bucks.

``People are very worried about the global recession, about the meltdown we're seeing in emerging markets,'' said Danica Hampton, a currency strategist at Bank of New Zealand Ltd. in Wellington. ``People are bailing out of growth-sensitive currencies like the kiwi in favor of safe-haven currencies,'' she said, using the New Zealand's dollar's nickname.

Okay, maybe I'm the only one calling them kiwi bucks, but if you just call the New Zealand dollar "kiwi", someone might get confused.

10 hectares and a sheep



PS: I am probably going to need more than one sheep.

PPS: I am now accepting donations, investments, and applications for shearers.

775 New Zealand photos shot with the new Pentax. They can be viewed by clicking here. The pictures are pretty much in chronological order (NZ is the oldest, then NZ2 then NZ3). Nico shot a few more with the other camera which she might be posting somewhere.

Many of them did not come out well, and it is unlikely that I'll have much time to edit them in the near future. If you see a picture you like, and you are interested in a high resolution version (I have jpegs in the 10 MB range and RAW in the 12 to 14 MB range), shoot me an email with the image number (or post your request in the comments field). If you have already given me an email address, and I said I would send something to you, I am certain that I will do that eventually; but it might be faster if you requested again as above.

PS: I think I took 200 pictures of Picton. Can you blame me?

You'll dig it the most.

But you know what the funniest thing about New Zealand is? It's the little differences.

Examples?

In New Zealand, everything has a light switch. (If you're in a hotel, the light switch is probably labeled...to let you know what it does.) But here's the kicker: to turn something off, you push the switch down.


In New Zealand, environmentalists, such as this man, boast about having killed over 50,000 possums.

The view from here

January did not end at the end of January, leaving us with very little time to train for New Zealand. So we decided to cram all of our (pre-New Zealand) riding into one day on Saturday's Tour de Palm Springs.

After the first 12 miles (up hill and into the wind), I was getting pretty worried. Fortunately, as usual, I was able to find a tandem or two (and even a triplet) to draft behind. After the first rest stop, we met up with our Santana friends Mark and Maureen. Mark assured me that the next 50 miles would be down hill, and that the Tour de Palm Springs is the easiest century ever. You would not think it would be necessary to point out that Maureen told me last year they were going to ride one century a month for the entire year...but it is indeed necessary; there is no such thing as an easy century. As a matter of fact, this century was 102 miles long (my flight deck measured it at 104).

Things overheard during the tour (some may have been spoken by me):

"This stopped being fun at about mile 45."
"I've been surviving the last 10 miles on packets of mayonnaise." (I certainly did not say that one.)
"I like peanut M&M's."

Here's a couple of pictures Nico shot from the bike: Mark and Maureen, then a very flexy triplet...I did not really believe in frame flex until I rode behind them. Off in the distance of the triplet, you might be able to make out some windmills. The photo does not capture how fast they were all spinning.



Our times were not impressive; somewhere around 8 hours total and 6 & 1/2 hours pedaling. But we finished, it didn't rain, and we can go to New Zealand next week knowing that we are in 100 mile shape.

In other news, the takealotofdrugs photo equipment has just been upgraded. You'll still probably see some pictures from the point and shoot Sony, as I'm afraid to let Nico take pictures with my new Pentax K20D from the bike. We have not yet decided if the new camera will be joining us on the bike (it weighs over 2 pounds, and would not take kindly to a fall).

I stepped outside this evening to test it out. People are always asking if we can see the ocean from our house. I usually respond: "From the street out in front." Here's a picture of said view, shot with a 50 mm lens (which I'm told is equal to a 75 mm lens on a film camera, which if my memory from high school photography class is correct is about equal to what you would see if you were standing on my street [and looking through a viewfinder without magnification]).


And here's a shot of the harbor from the park across the street. (The size of this picture is 33% of the original.)

It does exist!!!


Well I didn't actually see it moving, so it remains possible that the people at Aptera have just built an impressive looking plastic shell so that I won't ask for my deposit back.

Of note:

1) All dimensions are much smaller than I had been picturing.
2) Aptera does not have a Lexus sized budget for models.

3) I had to bring my own model, but I could not convince her to take off the purple trench coat.

4) Too bad they are no longer making Prowlers. (In case you didn't notice, I'm making fun of the aforementioned purple trench coat.)

The End of Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll

Alternative Title #1: The End of Happy Hour

Alternative Title #2: Wednesday is Now Prince Spaghetti Day

Alternative Title #3: Hey, My Friend Wants to Know Where the 12 Year Olds Hang Out
dubious integrity I may have associated with midweek over the last several years: Nicole has quit the Rainbow business. What's Rainbow, you ask? If I had to describe it in one word, I guess I'd say: "Service". If you gave me more than one word, I'd probably say something like this.

PS: Writing extra titles is fun. I had a few more, but they were even more likely to get me into trouble.

I should have taken some "before" photos...

Most of you have probably seen the before anyway. It was not very impressive. The "after" probably won't be very impressive, either. The "during" however, is quite a sight.

(Disclaimer: This is actually the neighbor's place, but it looks about the same as ours.