Author: neil

As we were preparing for bed last night, I was surprised to see my headlamp lighting up small raindrops in front of my face. We were still supposed to be in a rain-free period here! I pulled up the forecast, and yeah, no rain in Northland, “except for an odd shower on the west coast”.…

I think we’ve woken up to a 40-or-below temperature in each of the 8 calendar months that we’ve now been in New Zealand. What’s new is the temperature dropping to 40°F before we’ve even gone to bed. I guess the good news is that it actually “warmed up” to 41°F by the time we groaned…

We’d always been planning to wrap up our time in New Zealand with an exploration of Northland. Not because there was some event happening, or because there was something specific we wanted to see,, or because we were “saving the best for last”. It was simply because the far northern peninsula would be the last…

We weren’t able to enjoy a relaxed morning in our cottage upgrade, because we had a long ride ahead with the wind projected to be in our face all day. So in an effort to beat it, the alarm went off at 6am, we made some egg-bagel sandwiches in the kitchen, and then Keith opened…

The closure of State Highway 1 into Northland is forcing all of that major artery’s traffic onto three detour options, and one of those options is an eastern scenic road that we would have cycled north on. That’s why we instead took a bus from Auckland to Whangarei several days ago, to “teleport” us into…