Doger's Dispatches: Boats, bikes and brand new electric vehicles

Apologies for the delay in getting this blog out. Things have been busy here as everyone frantically makes the most of a summer that has been late in coming.

The weekend after our Gisborne-sun-filled adventure we embarked on a Wellington-rain-soaked expedition. This went only as far as the harbour, where we competed in the annual Wellington Dragon Boat Festival.

We were motley crew, made up of different shapes, sizes, fitness levels, tolerances to alcohol, and abilities to bring baked goods to the team tent. Our races went increasingly well as the day went on, and we were ‘stoked’ (a phrase much more common in New Zealand than the UK, presumably because of their love of wood-burning fires) to finish with a Personal Best time of 1m25s.

Green Machine

This was only half a second behind the podium finishers, teams who had trained all year round and travelled from as far afield as Australia. We, on the other hand, had trained as an incomplete team eight times and had barely dragged ourselves there from the Terrace (after an exhausting night of cheese and Jurassic Park at Tim and Sophie’s).

Last ones standing from Green Machine

We celebrated our moral victory with some drinks. Then celebrated Richard’s 30th birthday with some more drinks. Then tried some dancing. Then went to sleep.

Sunday of that weekend was spent recovering from our physical and non-temperance exertions. Eating some of Richard’s birthday cake helped.

The following weekend started off more sedately. I embraced my inner swat and headed to the library on Saturday, stopping off briefly at work to embrace my inner plumber and help resolve a slight flooding issue – NEVER put coffee grinds down the sink.

I rendezvoused with Dora and her mum for the postscript of lunch with Uncle Douglas, then we jumped in the golden bullet and shot up the newly-built Kapiti Expressway to Marton. We enjoyed every one of the nine minutes knocked off our journey time.

Carefully prepared race packs are given out

Once we arrived at Trish and Andrew’s farm near Marton we were swept up in a storm of preparations for the Rotary Marton Pedal for Pleasure cycle event the following day. A hundred packed race bags, one banner and three sponsor signs later we got an early night ahead of race day.

Dora kept up with Trish's cycling crew

As someone who doesn’t know the name of the ‘clippy shoe things’ and thinks a ‘peloton’ is a migratory bird, I felt fully qualified to enter the 80km race. Dora stuck sensibly to the 40km. The distance seemed immaterial, however, given the amount of scenery to distract us from the gnawing muscle ache.

Come the finish line, burgers and hot dogs were dispensed and we enjoyed a prize giving that reflected well on the charitable nature of the local businesses and Andrew's organisation. Indeed, only three of the 100+ entrants didn’t win one of the many prizes on offer. Once the biggest prize of all had been dispensed (a Lazy Boy worth £800, or £700 pre-Brexit), we decanted to friends of the Shands for afternoon tea, cake and beer.

After a fond farewell we shot back down to Wellington. Dora obviously felt she hadn’t travelled enough, however, since during both weeks she was at large in New Zealand in an electric car.

[Dora] With New Zealand’s electricity generation sitting at around 85% from renewable resources (wind and water), driving an electric car makes a lot of environmental sense, as well as being a lot cheaper to run. The company I work for owns and runs major hydro stations and wind farms in NZ and retails electricity, but making electricity tangible and relevant to people is tricky. Enter the electric car or “EV”, a special night rate for EV owners, installation of free public charging infrastructure, a pledge that our corporate fleet will be 50% electric by 2018, and a PR stunt involving one epic electric road trip.

Hanging out in the hire car while the EV filmed

Hence in total I’ve spent 7 working days driving and “minding” the branded car with two colleagues, whilst it’s filmed in various locations to highlight our other good works (community, customers, sponsorships). It’s ostensibly being driven by the face of our adverts, Jeremy Wells, from Auckland to Invercargill. Actually it’s being driven by three snack-fuelled twenty-something comms and marketing professionals with the PlugShare app and Google maps.

The charging infrastructure is varied across NZ and I am now confident I know more about EV plugs, chargers, charging times and how to drive over hills on low charge than anyone else in the country. We’ve charged up in at the Auckland museum, a substation in the Waikato, a Christchurch shopping mall, a Timaru Holiday Park unit and a car dealership in Gore. We’ve still got the Wellington to Blenheim leg of the trip to go.

Here are some highlights: