After leaving the Waikato where we spent time with Alan and Linda, riding part of the Te Awa trail Cambridge to the Velodrome a pleasant 11 km, of course great coffee at the Bikery cafe.Onto Tamahere where we stay with Jeremy and Annie, ride from Hamilton Gardens which are fabulous “note to one self go back in the spring!” We follow the Waikato river via the Te Awa river trail a well maintained trail on the banks of the river being early winter the trees losing there leaves a beautiful starkness. It was easy ride with some undulations we rode 15 km to Pukete thenRead More →

Motueka is like a magnet to Jude and I, it has been a year since we were last here and here we are back again. We arrived at the NZMCA Park yesterday (Friday 4th) to beautiful hot weather, just as we remembered it last January. Went down the Main Street and being a Friday it was as busy as, with people everywhere, lots of traffic heading either to Kaiteriteri or over the Takaka hill to explore the Golden Bay area for the weekend or possibly they just got their Xmas leave after working the holiday period. It was a hot afternoon and the walk backRead More →

Leaving a cold Christchurch head north, improving weather SUN oh yay! After experiencing beautiful weather in the McKenzie country and Fairlie temp drop 29*c to 12! Stopped in Amberley for a coffee at the Little Vintage Cafe and very good coffee at that highly recommended 😉 We cruise on up to Hurunui stop at The Balmoral Recreation Reserve for the night a stunning area with plenty of space and Hurunui River not too far away …. fishing yeah nah very dirty and high after thunderstorms 😖. We enjoy a lovely evening thunder booming round the hills and down comes the rain! The following day dawnsRead More →

[Sunday 7th Oct.] The day was perfect, clear sunny sky, no wind, views sublime, what better to do than attack a section of Alps 2 Ocean bike trail. As we were parked up at Lake Ohau just below Ohau Lodge, lets do the uphill to highest point…. geared up and off we go on a well formed track along the Ohau Range gradually climbing not too strenuous a gentle breeze kept us cool, crossing streams tumbling down from the range passing through small remnants of beech forest ever increasing our altitude. The views were stunning looking right up the head of Lake Ohau up theRead More →

The day dawned rather grey but within a couple of hours the sun once again made an appearance, after yesterday’s hike a bike ride was in order…. lunch packed, off on our trusty steeds, a cool breeze wafted past us as we rode towards the Waiau River, muscles objected today took a bit of time to get into the groove of biking after yesterday’s uphill grunt. With having electric bikes I thought I may have to resort to power but managed to bike 15 km uphill and down dale without assistance. It was a joy to be out and about on such a beautiful day,Read More →

(Above image: The “Sign Of The Kiwi” cafe.) What a bugger of a game the boys (AB’s)put in last night… hey at least they can play like morons and still win, even with one man up they were not convincing and very lucky. The public are divided on the red card issue however the excuse he had his eyes on the ball is a tactic that players are adopting to make it look like they’re going for the ball, but he never left the ground and run underneath Barrett. Anyway we did another MTB ride up Evans Pass Road, along the hill tops with allRead More →