Blenheim Biking and the Kaikoura kick

When Charlie's mum was young and wild, she travelled around in Europe with her friend Libby, who now lives in Blenheim on a beautiful vineyard. Libby and Ken were generous enough to welcome us all to their house over the Waitangi weekend. We enjoyed the scorching hot days in great company, with some mountain biking and good food.


One of the more famous mountainbiking/ tramping tracks in the area is the Wakamarina Track, which crosses the Richmond Range. The 30 degree day in Blenheim was ideal to escape by seeking shade in the beech forest and gain some elevation. I was only puffing and sweating like a pig when we had to carry the bike: The track goes through some very beautiful forest and it was heaps of fun riding through all the ferns. I only came off a few times, but nothing serious (sorry, no footage of any crashes).

Here's a map of where we biked. We started in the south and ended in the north in the hillbilly place Canvastown.

Charlie has been eying up a side trip to Mt Royal for more than a year and we tried to take our bikes up through the bush, but a bad storm had severely battered the forest a year ago and the track was still covered with fallen trees. Not really ideal for biking and it meant lots of carrying of bike up as well as down. I was at least wise enough to leave my bike after about 200 m of hard work when I realised that I would not have the skills (or balls) to bike down the steep and slidy track.

Back at Devils Hut where it would easily have been more than 30 degrees in the sun. Charlie looks a bit hot...

After about 7 hrs of fun riding we ended up at the pub in Canvastown where Charlie's dad picked us up. It's great to have parents :-)

I took this picture since it is such a typical view in NZ: 4 utes (what the kiwis call pick-up trucks) in front of the local pub. The bigger engine the better! I love the message below on the back of a car that screams out the level of environmentally awareness a la the modern man.

Apart from biking we hung out with Charlie's parents and Libby and Ken. One great night we all watched "Borat" and I was happily surprised that the "oldies" all really liked it. Assumption is the mother of all...I guess

Ken and Libby grow wine for Villa Maria and Coopers Creek. It is always interesting to learn more from Ken about the art of wine growing. If a winter frost gets to the plant next years harvest can be ruined, so to keep frost away many vineyards have windmills which circulate the air above the grapes when the temperature approaches zero. For vineyards with big cash, they have helicopters circulating above the crop during the coldest part of the night. Since Blenheim has become a massive wine producing area, when a bad frost is about to strike no one in town is able to sleep. Sometimes up to 120 helicopters have been circulating around to save the harvests!! I can only imagine the noise.

With all that helicopter use, it is funny to think that this is the area which has a winery which claims to be carboNZero.

We took an extra day off work and squeezed in another bike ride around White's Bay. It was an awesome track with great views.

Dolphin swimming in Kaikoura

Charlie's parents' tour of New Zealand had come to an end and we spent the last weekend in Kaikoura. While John was fast asleep, Kris, Charlie and I got ready for a 5.30 am start to go dolphin swimming. I have previously been swimming with the rare and slightly shy Hector's dolphins in Akaroa. In Kaikoura you are most likely to interact with the Dusky dolphin. They are usually around and sometimes you can meet up to 1,000 dolphins apparently.

Harrow dolphinos!!

Kris and Charlie are ready for action!! John was more than happy to stay in bed when we set off at 5.15 in the morning.

We had many opportunities to jump in with the dolphins since they kept on just swimming past us. We were not interesting enough I guess, even though we all did funny noises underneath the water to attract their attention.

All the swimmers lined up at the rear of the boat ready to jump in when the skipper blew a whistle (when the rear engine was turned off). I was very eager to jump in with the little sea creatures and happened to hear the whistle from the neighbouring dolphin swim boat. I lept off the back of the boat before the signal went much to the fear of the skipper. I didn't get chopped up by the skipper and was happy as Larry in the water wondering where everyone else was.
It was a great last weekend and it was sad to say farewell to John and Kris. I believe they had a wonderful holiday New Zealand. We have certainly discovered a few new places together with them. Next time we'll see them will be in England in July.