By Sea, By Land

On Saturday we headed to the lagoon on the waterfront for the annual dragon boat festival. Having spent literally hours preparing for this day our ‘crew’ were ready to impress. However, with many teams coming over from Australia and Auckland we quickly found that youth and beauty do not make up for experience and the seriousness of teams who fly abroad to compete.

Another one bites the dust...

This year’s festival was even more entertaining than usual by the unplanned addition of a big wave machine in the form of Wellington Harbour. Wind-driven swells meant boats were veering into each others’ lanes, capsizing and flooding all over the place, to general fascination from the crowd and smugness from the teams still afloat and on course (us every time). It turns out that a very long, very thin vessel filled with muscular/fat Australians isn’t the seaworthiest place to be when things get choppy.

Green Machine in action

Despite narrowly avoiding any medals (only one second from second place) we had a brilliant time, improving race after race. On top of the sunny, if windy, weather, our crew were great fun to spend the day with; they continued on this vein into the evening, aided by substantial amounts of rehydrating beer.

Big bikes on our tiny car

The next day we reached another milestone in our time here – our first New Zealand Hangover! I’d decided it would be good to schedule in a 50km bike ride over a mountain range, but neglected to mention this to Dora as we headed off to ‘test our new bikes’.

Sun shines, locomotives rust, Dora sweats

The Rimutaka Cycle Trail is one of the great cycles of New Zealand, following the course of a disused railway line that punctures through the hills surrounding Wellington to reach the wineries of Martinborough. We peddled over bridges, and through tunnels of greenery and rock. Bursting out of the other side we freewheeled a couple of kilometres and then warmed down on the way to Featherson to get the train back.

No train any time soon

Unfortunately by this time Dora was suffering from mild dehydration, and I was unable to lift her spirits with a rousing song because my voicebox had been blown by shouting “POWER ON THREE, TWO, ONE” the previous day. Once I’d appropriated some water from a nearby kiwi (man, not bird) she was back on top form though… or at least back to being mildly hungover.

As I type we’re painting an airport welcome sign for Greg and Sam when they arrive tomorrow. Next week we’ll tell you all about wine tasting and the Tongariro crossing.

Roger (and Dora)