But luckily not for me. One of the things that has been keeping me busy recently is attending weddings. Firstly Karen and Hamish’s wedding over Easter, down in Napier. This was a good chance to do a bit of a road trip, and take the bikes out on some different trails. This means mountain bikes though, not the tourer. We took the mountain bikes, and managed to go riding at Taupo (Craters of the Moon), Napier (Eskdale) and Rotorua (Whakarewarewa of course) on the way home. Awesome biking, if not quite bike touring.
As we were pulling out of Taupo, at the start of a long stretch of not much, we saw a cyclist rolling down the last few kms into Taupo. He would have been feeling pretty happy with himself, after over 100km of rugged, beautiful, but empty land. I miss that feeling. But the trails in Napier and Rotorua were pretty good.
But back to the wedding – absolutely stunning weather in Napier, and a lovely wedding. I must make particular comment on the choice of wine, and the food – both were fantastic, and I did my best in fully sampling them. It was good to see Karen and Hamish finally get married, after many years together. Also a good chance to catch up with Paul, a fellow engineer from university days.
Two other friends who’ve been together for a long time are Bruce and Tanika. And finally they too are married. This was another road trip, but not so far – just to the Coromandel Peninsula. No bikes this time, because it was pouring down all day on Saturday, and besides, we were both tired. The rain had rather affected the plans for an outdoors wedding, and there was a hasty change on venue for the ceremony, but no-one really let it bother them. Everyone was very much having a good time – although I think that they guy who was throwing up before the speeches might have been overdoing it… Great to catch up with Allen though, who reminded me of a few stories about Bruce I thought I’d forgotten. Probably just as well neither of us stood up to say any words.