Wellington, New Zealand

We chose to spend the day in Wellington north of the city in beautiful forested mountains riding bikes again. Our guide, Isaac, picked us up at the port and drove us approx 30 minutes out of town to an area called the Upper Hutt. There we got our bikes, a bag lunch and water in our bike packs, and we headed off for our 18 mile adventure.
We biked a section of the New Zealand Great Trail called the Remutaka Rail Trail. This is a bike/hike trail that goes throughout the country.
This ride was more than we expected, but it was great and proved very memorable.
We were on gravel trails that were both very flat, very steep, very wide and very narrow. We were in 3 or 4 tunnels. And ride along very high cliffs. I also managed to find the only swamp we saw all day. We were on the narrowest, curviest and steepest part of the ride. A guy came from the opposite direction around a curve in the middle of the 3 ft wide trail and didn’t see me right in front of him, he was watching something in the trees. I took the lesser of two evils( swamp or 30 ft ravine) and landed in the swampy water. Trying to keep my phone and watch out of the mud while Jim snaps a pic! The guy stopped, apologized and helped Jim get the bike off of me. It’s heavy! I was Aok and we finished the last 6 miles of the ride and I enjoyed a sandwich and a very cold Stella at the Royal Hotel in a little town called Featherstone. Them Issac took us back to the ship. The bike needed a good power wash and I found swamp plants in my right ear when we got back to the ship, but we are Aok. No injury but lots of great laughs when people saw the Swamp Rider coming back to the ship. (At the time of this upload, we are not certain the denim shirt will be recovered as well down in the intensive care laundry as the shoes. We’ll see tomorrow)Læs mere