Friday 26 August 2016

Scottish Country Dancing – Johnsonville’s 50 Golden Years


Apart from a couple of short rides down to our local café, we have not done any cycling for a month. Various reasons – John’s knee has been bothering him (partly as a result of biking up Ngauranga Gorge at the end of a long ride); we are having major work done on our house – re-roofing, exterior painting and dealing with other issues as they are being discovered; and there’s a lot of Scottish Country dancing to be done at this time of the year.

On the subject of Scottish Country dancing, one of the SCD clubs that we belong to, Johnsonville, celebrated 50 Golden Years last Saturday. It was a great event, with lots of extra activities that don’t normally come into an “annual dance”.

Saturday 13 August 2016

Tawa to Plimmerton


Riding to the Gear Homestead Café has become a bit of a destination for us on a fine day. It’s about 9 km from the start of Te Ara Tawa, which makes it a nice there-and-back ride.

Lunch at the Gear Homestead Café (photo by John)

Folding Goldies Ride to Pencarrow


On Wednesday 20 July, John went on a major escapade – a Folding Goldies ride to Pencarrow, and though the plan had been to take the train back from Petone, he ended up biking back all the way back to Churton Park, up the Ngauranga Gorge – on his (non-electric) Giant. I was unable to go on this ride, as we had our grandchildren staying with us during the school holidays, or I might have tried to dissuade him from doing that!

John took the train into town and met up with the others for the 10 am sailing of the East by West Harbour Ferry. Alastair had arranged with the ferry crew to be able to use a ramp to wheel the bikes onto the top deck at the Wellington end. Because of the difference in height of the individual wharves, passengers normally board the ferry on the lower deck in Wellington, but disembark from the top deck at Days Bay. The stairs between the two levels are rather steep, which presents a bit of a problem when you have to carry your bike up. Not too bad in the case of a regular bike, but rather harder with an e-bike, which is much heavier. And Alastair and Sue were riding e-bikes, though John wasn’t this time.

On the Harbour Ferry wharf - from left: Sue, Alastair, Gottfried, Frank, Daryl (photo by John)

Saturday 6 August 2016

Churton Park to Gear Homestead


It’s a month since I last posted anything on this blog. It’s not that we haven’t been biking, but it’s mostly been little short rides that have not been blog-worthy. I have also been busy with other things.

On Thursday 7 July, while I was otherwise occupied, John took a ride on his own, partly to bike along Middleton Road, which is a place where I am reluctant to cycle, and partly because he wanted to hit the 4,000 km milestone on his e-bike.

With his camera fixed on his handlebar, and set on a three-minute automatic time-lapse, he took the route we usually take to get to the local café (Café Thyme), but then continued on Middleton Road towards Tawa.