karekare

had a conference over in christchurch, on the south island of new zealand in late january. so i figured since i was in the country that i'd head up to auckland for the weekend after the conference and hang out with jay and gesa 'at the beach'. they live a bit west of auckland, in a rainforest on the west coast, literally a couple metres from the beach. a very beautiful spot. was quite a shock coming from australia where it only rains once every couple of months. the grass was green! the waterfalls have water. its a whole other world over there.

mades for some difficult cycling too, because you have a 10k climb to start your ride. needless to say, i wasn't eager to get up in the morning for that. jay was in heavy ironman training mode when i visited, so we ended doing a 6.5hr 155k ride. he's got it tough, i must say. hills everywhere. we averaged about 25kph, which is ~10kph slower that our beach rd. great workout though, very scenic.

couple photos below ...

rubbing the belly. very nice. i believe we are looking at the waterfall that is about 50 metres from their house.


after a 10 minute hike, we are treated to these views. one of those house's below is when hamster lives. the beach is just off camera on the left.


fantastic area of the world.

the near death experience

ok, well, it wasn't really near-death. but it freaked me out pretty good. with all the publicity of steve irwin's death-by-stingray, it was quite a shock when i jumped in for a quick swim and first thing i see was a stingray scooting away from me. i jumped up pretty quick and back to shore. lynn had a good chuckle at me.

while in tasmania, we spent a couple days on the freycinet peninsula at coles bay. hiked over to see the infamous 'wineglass bay' ... named that not because it is shaped like a wineglass (though it is), but because there was a lot of whaling when the bay was discovered .... the water was coloured red from the blood. or, at least that's the (wives?) tale we were told.

Here are some pictures of us sea kayaking around coles bay.

tassie!

Sorry folks. Been a bag blogger lately. My plan is to get up-to-date, especially on the major things like Ironman Oz 07, a wee trip over to new zealand, but let's do this in chronological order, shall we?

Back in January (which seems so long ago), Lynn and I went to Tassie for a week. We did a half ironman race down there, and then travelled around for a few days.

What do you think of when you think 'Tasmania'? Untouched wilderness. Very laid back friendly folks. Seafood. Tasmanian Devils ... Yep, all that and more. Here are a few photos of our expedition.

The gorge in Launceston.


Burger joint in Hobart.


Looking up to Mt Wellington from Hobart.


Lynn up at the lookout on Mt Wellington.


Look down at the city of Hobart.


Funky rocks at Mt Wellington.


Tesselated Pavement on the east coast.


The former convict settlement at Port Arthur.