Rail Trail Roundup

Hey ya'll. The Rail Trail went off!

I still can't believe how the trail can appeal to performance athletes on full carbon frames, just as much as the 80 year olds with baskets on the front of their bikes!

The section of the trail that we did was
Ranfurly - Wedderburn - Oturehua 23km
Oturehua - Poolburn Gorge - Lauder 23 km
Lauder - Omakau 8 km (stopped for lunch here)
Omakau - Clyde 41 km
All up approx 95km

Most of the crew started at Ranfurly, while I drove on ahead to a place called Lauder and then doubled back to meet them. Photos below are from all over the place, although Ranfurly, Wedderburn, Omakau(lunch stop) and the Poolburn Gorge account for most of them.

The day was mostly a cruise, although I pushed myself fairly hard to get from Lauder to Oturehua to meet the team. The rest of the ride was really slow, but very social. Quite a change to training by yourself.

The day was quite long, leaving home at 6:00am,starting riding at 9:00am, and finishing at 4:30. We made it home by about 9:30pm

Bring on the Rail trail Classic Race in October!
http://rtc100.co.nz

Good Call

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others." - Cicero

Central Otago Rail Trail - Polson Higgs Style

Rail Trail Tomorrow

Tomorrow a whole bunch of us are embarking on a ride along half of the Central Otago Rail Trail http://www.centralotagorailtrail.co.nz/, hopefully knocking off the section between Ranfurly and Clyde (approx 90km). I'm guessing that there will be 11 of us, one of whom is really just a driver. It's a sad state of affairs that a cyclist from Dunedin hasn't done this ride aleady.

Spare a thought for Sarah as she is lumped with the four kids all day. Not that they're bad kids, They are just......well..... busy.

I'll update with photo's as soon as we get back.

Gideon and his mate Dominic at the Highlanders Game

Pics from Saturdays' hike up flagstaff

Good Thinking

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." - Mother Teresa

Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. - Chinese Proverb

Kiwi Engenuity

The last weekend saw a classic bit of Kiwi DIY(Do it Yourself) occurring at 15 Salmond St. Pop brought a second hand(read here "got from the dump") garage door down from Christchurch on the back of the trailer. He also brought down Akari(Brother's fiance). Saturday was spent modifying the height and width of the door to match the existing broken door. 12 hours and 200 pop-rivets later, we have a $50 garage door that opens and closes properly, and no longer creaks in the wind. Full credit to Pop for the inspirational kiwi engenuity that he conjured up to make it happen. I would love to take credit, but I filled the "pass me the screwdriver" role instead.
Didn't see much of Akari or Rodney at the weekend however....

Hey everyone, all is going well in the deep south. Just Got back from Christchurch for an elderly friends funeral. It was really lovely, well, as lovely as funerals can be. As per usual, we managed to catch up with heaps of people who only seem to be in the same room when a mutual loved one passes away. When given Lemons, make Lemonade! A funeral is always a great paradigm-shaker-upperor. There is always something of a wake up call in hearing the following calls when spoken from the lips of a grieving Father/Son/Friend:
"It's not what you do, but who you are that counts""Love God, Love People""She always saw the potential in us when we couldn't even see it ourselves"
The list goes on.
The trip was limited to Sarah, Myself and Daniel, so it was cool to hang out with Sarah with only one hanger-on. We stayed with mum and Dad for the night, and ate out for every meal except breakfast. I even got to sit my my Grandma at the funeral, and met one of Mums boyfriends from 40 something years ago.....