Here’s our completely favourite photo so far of biking NZ. At Tane Mahuta, 2000-year-old Lord of the Forest and the country’s largest standing Kauri tree. Somehow survived the 19th century ecocide of European settlers. Today we resume the #TandemTA heading 75km on rough country roads to remote Pouto Point, hoping to take a fisherman’s ferry … Read more …
Wednesday to Friday of our first full week tandeming the Tour Aotearoa has brought us, slowly, from Kaitaia at the bottom of the Cape Reinga peninsula across VERY hilly bits of northernmost New Zealand to the delightfully-named Dargaville, the country’s sweet potato capital, would you believe, with a colourful history of immigration from Croatia. After … Read more …
Rule one of flying, esp with code share. Check in with correct Airline. Emirates (ours) is flying tonight (sounds like a Chinese chippie). Qantas, which we tried to board, isn’t. So, DaisyTwo is accepted through to Auckland in her plastic bag, and we’re about to head out on the adventure of a lifetime. Having first … Read more …
Isn’t Google amazing. I have all my photos from all time (approaching 40,000 now, including all the old ones scanned in) on my Google Drive, and just typing bicycle in the search box brought up hundreds of two-wheeler images from the very earliest days. Right back to my first trike at Duckshole farm near Holt in … Read more …
Quite how we’re going to get all of this (and more, out of frame, though not the bed) into four panniers, one barrel bag and one handlebar bag is perhaps a question for Iniduoh – Houdini in reverse (terrible joke).But yesterday in two weeks, Feb 3, Jutta (hoping by then for recovery from a nasty … Read more …
So, with a month and a day to go till we fly off to Auckland, the Rory Peck Trust’s page is now live, encouraging their supporters to chip in and sponsor our madcap 2000-mile tandem adventure to and through New Zealand. With warm thanks to so many of you all, Jutta and I are already nearly … Read more …
Nearly 40 years after receiving our first tandem for our wedding in March 1977, we’re taking our heavyweight long-distance tourer Daisy2 to NZ/Aotearoa to cycle from Cape Reinga at the top of North Island to Bluff at the bottom of South Island. We’re raising funds for the wonderful Rory Peck Trust, uniquely dedicated as it says … Read more …
A good 20 years ago now, a clumsy au pair in London dropped the detachable head of our elegant Tianjin clay figurine lady, and her face smashed into unattractive pieces. Now, after her owners’ own marital journey of breakage and reconstruction, our Lady of Tianjin has finally been returned to amazing beauty by the National … Read more …
A hundred years from the start of World War One, I’ve finally found the peg I’ve been seeking on which to hang my first Braynework blog post in nearly a year. It’s been the most extraordinary year, in which I left Cirencester and my former partner Sue, sold the beloved Wychcroft home which we bought in 2003, moved … Read more …
Well, after five glorious cycling and canoeing weeks, the last two with Kat and Mela, it’s time to leave New Zealand, with a last blast of images (fuller set here on Google+ as usual), and some concluding thoughts about what has to have been the best cycling tour ever (though could of course have been … Read more …