Saturday 2 May 2015

10 months gone ... 10 months to go!

It has been 10 months since I busted my femur and I am starting to feel like life is getting back to normal!

The last month has been a good example of that, with a visit to sunny Marlborough to complete the Forrest Graperide, a 100 km circuit taking in Blenhiem, Picton Queen Charlotte, Havelock and back to Renwick.
Rolling up to the start I was pretty nervous starting with hundreds of other riders, but it was fine being able to stay with the group on the flats but fading on the hills ... pretty much expected ... what was surprising was my endurance which lasted pretty well, finishing stronger than expected.


Returning home I finished my job at Fletcher EQR after 4 and 1/4 years, it was a fantastic experience, very satisfying and a great learning experience ... but it was time to move on! I have landed a great job as a Project Manager with a small but growing firm. www.Interex.co.nz

I had a week off between jobs so took advantage of some late summer sunshine and headed over to Banks Pennisula for an overnight trip. The Pennisula being a couple of old volcano cones, doesn't have any flat land so you are either going up hill or going down, until you get onto the plains again.








The trip was 80 km each day, from home through to Lyttelton catch the ferry across to Diamond Harbour pop up over Purau saddle to Port Levy then up and over Pigeon Bay up and along the Summit Road before descending down into Okains Bay for the night. About 2400 metres of climbing.

The trip home I had planned an easier day with just the climb out of Okains Bay to the Summit Road and along to Hill Top and a quick descent down for my morning coffee at Little River, from here I jumped on the Little River Rail Trail for a flat ride home.

A pleasant couple of days right from my front door!

Now if that wasn't enough, @velolassie and I took advantage of another long weekend and headed across to the West Coast to ride the Wilderness Trail which takes a route from Greymouth to Hokitika via historic towns of Kumara and Milltown, approximately 100 kms long 85 kms of it on trail, the balance on sealed road. It is not technical and saw plenty of riders of all ages enjoying the trip. Most complete over three days, we rode for about 7 hours stopping for two of those, one hour to enjoy a farmers breakfast at the Empire Hotel in Kumara, about half an hour at Cowboy Paradise for a cuppa ... the rest were photo stops.
















Our plan was to ride there in one day stay the night in a B&B and return the next day by the trail to pick up the car. Soon after arriving in Hokitika it started to rain and rain it did as only it can on the West Coast.

We reassessed our plans quite quickly and blugded a lift of a friend back to Greymouth to pick up the car ... soft! Yes we are, no denying that.

It did rain that Sunday Hokitika got 90 mm in that 24 hour period, while Hokitika Gorge (only 27 km away) got 290 mm!

We spent the day drinking coffee and exploring some of the back roads behind Hokitika.






So ten months have past since breaking my femur and it is ten months to go until the Tour of Aotearoa!