For Nic's Parents

The Sterling Sessions

Sterling is an awesome trail on Cypress for members of the Secret Squirrel club. Most AM with a few sections of holy shit mixed in. Im working on my big boy pants. Lee and Bob fared a bit better.

Can't wait to get back.

G-Spot v1.5

I wasn't broke enough when I got back from down under, so I decided to pull the trigger on some long needed upgrades on my bike.

This is more like the vision I had for my bike I first got it. When I finally decided to go black frame, I wanted to jazz it up with some green. Finally Cove got me some old school decals. 

Add in some dark green pedals, green Chromag bars, the bike has a look that is all mine.

And finally getting rid of those shitty XT brakes in favor of a set of Avid Codes. Nice and powerfull and no sqwauk.

v2.0 gets released when I get the new wheelset.

Ski Season? What Ski Season?

We arrived in Queenstown around 1pm on Wednesday. We still had lots of time to check things out so we went down to the i-site to look at a few options and make some bookings.  The Shotover jet came highly recommended so we tried it out. No much in the way of pics and for $129 NZ dollars I wsn't allowed to GoPro it. Fine. They zipped us around the river for 15 minutes racing us close enough to canyon walls that you could slap the stone. It was fun and zippy and they did their 360 degree turns. I nice bit of fun for someone who's not up to throwing himself off a bridge or out of a plane. Over priced a bit though. I think this is the sort of thing my Mom would have enjoyed.

On the plane ride into town I was looking out the window. I could see some snow higher up but for the most part the hills were a greenish beige colour. I couldn't convince myself that there was much skiing going on in QT.  When at the i-site we were told that there wasn't any mountain biking this time of year. Over at another shop, set up with ski stock, the same thing. Finally we made it up to near where the Gondola was. A small station had been set up for bike repair and rentals. Better yet, they were open and riding bikes. We told the guy that everyone says there is no mountain biking in QT right now. He said "I have no idea what they're talking about. There's lots of trails open." I thought to myself "WOOHOOO!".

We ate dinner that night then got ready for a busy day.  We hired a couple of Specialized Pitches  at 10am and started Thursday off with a quick 2 hour ride (push actually) to the top of the bike park. We had some great views from up high.

 

 Hopefully I'll have to Gopro footage to add here as well. 

We had to hustle back to the hotel and be ready for our wine tour($129 nz each) pick up at 12:30. The tour took us to 4 different wineries in the Central Otago region just north of QT. The region is quite well known now for it's Pinot Noir wines. In fact the worlds best Pinot Noir came out of here last year. They do however produce some nice white wines as well.

 Our first winery was at Gibston Valley. I quite liked their Pinot Noir but didn't buy any. I probably should have but it was the first visit and I wasn't yet plied with enough wine to pull out my wallet. 

 Stop 2 was at the Peregrine Vineyard. Not much in the way of whites that I liked here but a very nice Pinot Noir.

 I think stop number 3 was my favorite. Not only we're we the first tour group to get a chance to visit the Chard farm, but there were a number of nice tie ins to my personal interests as well. For starters, a famous yearly XC mtb  race here in Queenstown has it's finish line on this property. Cool I thought. Someone had made a mountain biker out of grape vines.

 The house had a nice Italian rustic feel.

 And the farm is located right above one of the Lord of the Rings film locations, this is where Aragon and the rest of the group are canoeing down river and past the 2 stone kings.

Our favorite Chard farm wine was the Closeburn Chardonnay. Quite tasty and dry. We picked up a couple of bottles.

We visited the Amisfield winery last and took a bottle of their Sav Blanc.

We wrapped up the day with a Gondola trip to the top of the local hill for a tasty buffet dinner. I gather that the restaurant business is pretty competitive here. Everywhere we ate the food was epic in caliber. We forced ourselves out of the buffet restaurant before I was to fat to fit in the Gondola.

The buffet dinner was a good idea though. We had a big day of riding planned for friday and we'd need our mojo.

We rode out to the 7 mile scenic reserve, literally 7 miles away from down. Along the highway we peddled until we got to the smallish trail network. It was a fun day and it was good to get out for  longish ride. 

 

We wrapped up our day with a visit to on Onsen hot pool to help ease our aching muscles.

I'm really glad I got a chance to ride on both Islands. Queenstown was all I've hoped it would be and out timing with the weather was uncanny. I'd like to get back here again sometime when it's a bit warmer. Just for the riding though, and maybe the wines. As a tourist destination, QT has just about every adrenaline activity you can image. If you let it, this place will empty your back account.

When we realized mountain biking was available to us,  we made an effort to change our plans so we could stay longer. The fees for changing flights were too high though. Sadly Saturday morning we started our journey back to Sydney. No worries. We're back at my favorite hotel now. The Rosano-Kylie Paradise Inn. I doubt there will be much in the way of stories to tell over our last 5 days here. Unless Nic and I decide to pull something out of the hat, the plan is to just hang out, read and watch movies. It's back to Canada on Friday.

Auckland

We're back in Sydney now.Time to get caught up on a few blog posts.

After Hobbiton, we finished our trek back up to Auckland and dumped off the Mystery Machine. The camping was fun but I think we'll need a bit more space the next time we try such an adventure.

It was nice to have a Hotel room booked for 2 nights in New Zealand's Capital, and for all intents and purposes, only major city.

We did some shopping and some site seeing, ate at a few restaurants. Basically just hanging back and soaking in a new setting.

 This is the Auckland Skytower. The rest of the pics are taken from the top.

I wouldn't say that Auckland is boring. It's not. It's actually a really cool and well built city. Nor would I say I was bored in Auckland. Only that my time in Auckland makes for rather boring story telling.

We flew out to Queenstown on the south island on Wednesday. My next post won't be boring.

Edit:

Forgot to mention. Auckland has a very good Italian Restaurant. Prego at 226 Ponsonby rd.  Trust me. If you're ever in town, check it out. 

Disturber of the Peace

6:45 came early Monday morning but truth be told, Nic and I had already been up having a confab about the Queenstown leg of our trip. So Packing up the Jucy and heading back to Auckland was quick and painless.

There is however one small matter I wish  to share with everyone back home. Especially my Brother. I hope this post gnaws at him in his dreams for the next few months.Matamata was along our return route to Auckland this morning. We made an important stop here in a place best known as Hobbiton.

This may to be the most Picture intensive post I have ever made.

Teresa was our Tour Guide. Again her enthusiasm was contagious.

I watched the commentaries on most of the DVD releases of the Lord of the Rings movies. I found that knowing more about how a movie was made took the magic out of it for me. For that reason, I was at times hesitant about coming here.

Within minutes of arriving, I think I would describe myself a giddy as a schoolgirl. I really got wrapped up in it.

Nic managed to make a Hobbit out of me.

This is where I'd like to have my Eleventy-first Birthday

The pictures on the New Zealand website don't this this visit justice. There are a number of pictures of this place with a number of white stuctures, lifeless placeholders, used to fill up the rest of Hobbiton. However with the filming of the Hobbit here recently, the shire has found new life. It sounds like December is the time to come. New features and the chance to visit the Green Dragon are on the horizon.

See the tour with Teresa if you can. She brought wonderful life to the place.

I wish for everyone I love the chance to come and do the trip I have done so
far.