Author: neil

It felt chilly in the tent when we woke up, and when Rett asked what I thought the temperature outside the tent might be, I guessed 45F, based mainly on the forecast. I guess the forecast didn’t have the resolution to target this specific high mountain valley, because it was only 33F, just one degree…

The alarm went off at 6am, and I was glad to see the radar showed the rain had largely moved on, even though last night’s forecast had a chance of it lingering a couple more hours. That meant we could get moving straight away, and after using the kitchen to get our bagel-and-bacon breakfast together,…

We were both woken at 2:45am by the first thing larger than a bird that we’ve heard outside our tent in New Zealand, rustling in the dried leaves. When we sat up, it stopped, never to be heard again. Did it simply freeze in place for the rest of the night? Who knows! But at…

We’re heading off on a real “bikepacking” adventure, of the sort we’ve rarely (if ever!) done. The Molesworth Muster Trail is a 125-mile mostly-gravel route from Blenheim to Hanmer Springs, through the epic dry valleys of the Awatere and Acheron rivers and up over the high passes that divide them. I had originally set aside…

3:45am, the alarm goes off and we are up and moving. 4:45am, the motorized sliding door in the lobby of the apartment block opens on its strange delay, and we roll our loaded bikes out into pre-dawn Wellington. A worker inside the softly-glowing corner coffee shop, prepping for the morning, reminds us that we have…