Familiar Ground

I think most of you knew this post would show up eventually. The chance to get my passport stamped in a new country couldn't be passed up on. "Follow Me" is a mtb movie that basically got me started on the New Zealand band wagon. Their segment was shot in Queenstown but considering it's their ski season right now I figured that Rotorua was the place to get started. Some say Roto has the best mountain biking in the country.

We did our scouting about on friday, searching for a place to hire a couple of bikes. We started our day at Cycletour on the main drag(Fenton st.). I owe them thanks for ordering me some replacement XT spokes for my G-Spot, which are basically off the market as far as Shimano is concerned.

Sidenote: Shimano can go fuck themselves. I'm maintaining this wheelset for now. But my mission over the next couple of months is going to be to strip every piece of Shimano garbage off my bike. Thier brakes are noisy shit, they don't support their wheelsets which are junk and Sram drive trains are way more smooth and reliable. 

Anyways, I digress.

Thanks to Matt and Bryce at Cycletours in Rotorua for their help. Ian, a friendly Scotsman was also helpful their even though he was just hanging out on his lunch hour. He even offered to let us park our Van in his driveway for our stay. That surprised me actually. My history with the Scottish hasn't been so friendly up to this point. Hehe. I guess a few years in one of the most laid back countries I have ever been in took the edge off?

We then found our way to Planet Bike, which has it's link on the NZ webpage. Lenore showed us around their warehouse of used bikes, with a few Mongoose fs bikes and a couple of older Bighits. I don't want to poopoo on them, but I think Lenore was just in it for her husband, Todd. I wasn't excited about trying any of the bikes they had. I think this may have put her off a bit. Which is too bad. I don't think Lenore loves mountain bikes, or at least doesn't love mountain biking the way you NEED to if you are going to be in the business. On our way out she told us to be sure to test ride the "Other Guys" bikes and ensure the shifting was all good.

We bowed out with Planet Bike and made our way back up the Waipa Mill Rd to "Moutain Bike Rotorua". We met Brad and Tu(Maori Name). Enthusiastic, travelled and fun to talk to. We made our arrangements with these guys.

Saturday morning came along and we were excited to spend this Saturday the same way we spent many a Saturday back home. We picked op our rigs and peddled into the surrounding trail network. Brad suggested a loop for us that would provide us a solid 4 hour ride day and a good cross section of what Roto had to offer.

Insert Pics here.

OUr trails this day were:
Tahi
Creek Trail
Mad if you Don't
Ball and Chain
Hill rd. to where we were picked up by the shuttle($10 each) and taken to the top.
Billy T
Followed by a longish ride around to
Split Enz(Wasn't that what Crowded house was before they were Crowded House?)
into Pondy Downhill/New Pondy
Roller Coaster
Chop Suey.

The suggest lap was a bit longer but we were running out of time. We hit the Waipa Bypass and headed back to camp as to avoid any late fees.

Rotorua has a dedicated group of trail builders. And Rotorua is lucky to have them. Just as Vancouver is lucky to have Digger, Jerry Willows etc. They have really made the most of the Whakarewara forest making it a true Gem for the mtb community. The trails here are well made and flowy with lots of ups a and down. You can easily spend 100+ hours in here and not redo a trail.

Nic commented on the trails saying that there was a lot of "Up". I agree but Vancouver riders get spoiled I think. We are used to riding up a fire road or old buck then riding down and thats it. Pub time. This style of riding doesn't prepare us for what goes on in trail networks in the rest of the world. Trail builders in NZ expect you to save some mojo and re-earn your turns from time to time. I have no problem with that.

My only suggestion for the trailbuilders here, and yes this comes from North Shore rider, is to add some wood features. They are a great way to add personality and individuality to your trails. Our day in Roto, and forgive if because I didn't see every trail, seemed a tad generic.

That being said, Rotorua is lucky to have the trails in this forest. If you are in NZ on the north Island, be sure to stop by and see Brad and Tu. It's worth the cost of your bike hire.

Don't Cry For Me, Vancouver

The Fog rolled into Waitomo this morning and We rolled on our way to Rotorua. Its nite now and we're parked at another Holday Park. The internet connection is considerably better here.

We get emails from our friends and Family from time to time. Apparently we are 'missing' an amazing summer in Vancouver. Before anyone started to feel bad for us, I just wanted to share some pics today from just our drive into Rotorua. These images are typical down here of the rural area we are in. The weather has been mostly sunny. Warm in the day, though chilly at night.

 Livestock here is off the meter. There are more cows and sheep here than people in the commonwealth.

 A nice looking lake through the trees.

We got ourselves situated at the camp site at Blue Lake. Set up our activities for tomorrow and a clear idea of what happens on sunday. Then we went for a hike in the nearby Whakarewarewa forest. (pronounced fuk-air-ware-wa) The sun started dropping on us fast but towards the end we had some nice views of the town below.

The steam below is from the considerable thermal activity in the area. Rotorua is well known for its geysers and mud pits.

Blurry, but nice.

We had to make haste to the car towards the end of our walk. Well timed all and all, but a few moments of worry as the canopy darkened in places. There was a thin orange glow over the mountains when we arrived back at the mystery machine. We picked up a roast chicken(Roast Chicken) but forget the salt and headed back for dinner.

Most of you aren't wondering what you're missing.  But neither am I.

Down Under Down Under

This post is full of win and pics that make me look awesome. 

Waitomo is famous for its geography. Here there be caves. And in those caves there be glow worms.

Unfortunately in those caves it also be dark. So my gopro footage was useless. And the glow worms dont really glow when flashes are going off so none of that cool stuff either. Thats ok though. This is an experience best had first hand. 

 The tour we had was with Caveworld here in town. (Across the street, actually.) There were 5 of us today, Rodney, our guide and a couple for Toronto. Steve and ...ummm yeah we never did get her name.

 Pics here were all taken by Rodney. A good guide who really did a good job of making us not feel safe down there. All fun and games tho. For all of Rodneys ghost stories and such, the journey was safely traveled without any real danger.

He drove us out parked were we grabbed our inner tubes. Then across a farmers field to some stairs that took us down to the entrance of the cave. I had about 30 seconds of unease but as things got going I started to relax and have fun.

.

 The english name of the cave is whistle foot due to the formation behind us.

 At our lowest point, we were 100m below the farmers field above us. After a few photo ops, the lights went off . We got comfy in our tubes and started to float through the waterways of the cave. Looking up we could see hundreds of thousands of glow worms hanging from the cave ceiling.

The worms are long and stringy and hang from the ceiling. They catch their food, insects that wonder in. It's their poo that is luminescent and glows in the dark. Rodney let off a loud popping noise to prove the point.  The ceiling lit up with little blue dots.

These pics are a good illustration of why im not an action star. We had to make our way over a couple of water falls in the caves. One 2 meters high. The other 7, which we found had  a cool water slide to get us down it. I love water slides!

My best pic ever, just before the slide.

2 more Canadians delivered safely to the top.

We took a break then went on a short road trip to do some sight seeing in the Waitomo area.

Mangapohue is a  natural bridge formation in the area.

 

And Marokopa is a rather Epic looking water fall .

 

We head for Rotorua tomorrow. 

Scooby Doo, where are u?

Fred and Wilma are in NZ. Not sure where the rest of the crew are but at least we got the Mystery Machine.

 Jucy Rentals operates out or Aus, US and NZ. This is one of the larger and more gas intensive units and its our home and transportation for the next 5 nights. Woot. We picked up in Auckland and drove down to Waitomo for the first part of our New Zealand Trip. As I'm typing this we are parked at a Top 10 Holiday park in Waitomo and have quite a bit of fun.

Thank god everywhere has WiFi now or no Starcraft and Daiblo for me. And I get to update my blog. But the Reef post is going to have a wait  a while longer. Youtube posts are too bandwidth intensive for this place.

Anyways, on our way here we stopped in Otorahanga to visit Kiwi house. We saw a Kiwi but no photos were allowed. There are other birds there.

 Cant remember what this is called.

 But this is a pig goose.

 I think this was a Kea

 And this is Thor, a friendly bird that followed us around the park for a while.

 Upon getting to the park, the receptionist suggested we go for a walk in the Ruakuri scenic reserve.

 The trip started off looking like this, walking down a somewhat dark but pretty path way.

 But the pathway is dotted with lots of really cool little caves.
 We had to creep through this narrow little cave to get to the other side of the nature of the walk.  Glad to discover I'm not claustrophobic.

 There was enough glare off my head to light the way.

 A lot of work went into this cool little walk. The whole thing only takes an hour or so, but its build with a network os stairs and wooden boardwalks putting you over some nice photo ops.

We walked down this one very dark staircase into a cave. The flash from m Camera is doing all the work here.

 On our way back to the car park.

A full day all and all. And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling kids!!

I just had to throw that in there. 

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Things have been moving pretty fast the past few days, and internet connections have been hard to come by. Nic and I did swim in the Great Barrier Reef on Sunday, but pics and Go Pro footage will have to wait.  This post will be updated later.

We arrived in Auckland a few hours ago. We got a hotel room and went for an awesome Italian dinner at Prego on Ponsonby st.

Everything else can wait. We start moving around the north Island tomorrow. Updates to come as possible but I'm not sure when I'll have internet again.

Cheers.

Wannabies

Nic and I decided to try surfing on Thursday. Lessons were fairly cheap and they did a great job. The 2 instructors, Wapu and James with their photographer took us out to Lennox Head to start us on our journey to surfdom.

 The pics demonstrate more skill than I actually have. I had a lot of help from the coaches who helped me get set up for these photo ops.

 Nic always look like she's having fun.

 After the break we went back out the waves started bitch slapping me around. I had tired fast.

I left the day completely exhausted and humbled, but I know now what to work on and how to start getting better should I get a chance to go out again. 

We ate in town that night and started up to Brisbane the next morning. We turned in the Camry(good riddance) and bummed around Brisbane. We took a free ferry ride around the river and ended up in South Bank to see Batman again.

In a few hours there, Brisbane seemed a really awesome town. South Bank seems an area being set up to attract tourists, a bit like the seawal along false creek.

 

After the movie, we made out way to the airport for our Flight up to Cairns. After keeping us in the plane for 2 hours while they tried to start the starboard engine, they finally gave up and switched planes. We disembarked, reembarked and were on our way. We finally made it to our Hotel around 3 am. 

Reef tomorrow. Looking forward to it. I'm totally zonked tho. Gotta start having vacations that are actually vacations.