Author: neil

No signs of our barn-rave remained in the morning, with Steve either still sleeping off his Coronas, or (as a true veteran partier) already out for the day. On our way out Rett briefly visited his shed to make an honor donation in exchange for his generosity with his home-grown produce. The morning continued yesterday’s…

When we left the Auckland area in November, we needed three days of riding around the coast to get to Thames. For the return we’d be taking a more-direct overland route requiring just two days. Well, “Auckland area” is doing quite a bit of work there; our target this time was the Papakura train station,…

Yesterday’s hike was tougher than we expected, so that made it extra-helpful that we’d planned a short easy roll downstream back to Thames. Well, of course it’s New Zealand so there were still a number of uphills taking us high above the river’s route, but thankfully the exhaustion of our hiking muscles wasn’t affecting our…

We have a big hike today, so we were up at 6am, to a relatively-dry but chilly (40F) dawn. The last couple nights my bike has been under tree cover, while Rett’s has been more out in the open, and it’s been crazy to see how hers gets soaked in condensation at nightfall, while mine…

For the first time in recent memory, the morning was truly sunny, with no drips, drizzle, or mist to dampen us at any point during the day. Even better, the tent was free from condensation, likely a combination of the giant tree blocking its heat from rushing off to space, and the steady wind that…