back on the bike

The Pirate has his training "circuit"...an old bit of the main road about 8 k long..quite "lumpy" too.  Today was the first time I'd ridden it on a decent (borrowed) road bike.

You can add a "sting in the tail" by riding up one dead end (or "no exit" road it is called here) called Hill Road...as they say, it does what it says on the tin!!

Looking down, and across The Waikato..the centre of which is a peat dome....

and looking up to the hill... and unlike Scots and Welsh hills, they go steeply up....and steeply down, no plateau in sight.

This is our last day officially in these colours as we both change clubs for 2013.

Funnily enough we'll just be swapping club nationality...as he'll be riding for Bush Healthcare, a Welsh racing team, and I'll be a member of the Sandy Wallace racing team from Fife!

Then I left The Pirate to do two more hour's riding, and came back across a local  small road.

You can see the effect of several hundred cows crossing the road twice a day....
cow dung is very corrosive to road metal.    In most places now they are not giving any licences for cattle to cross the road, and underpasses are built for the road crossing.

This is also quite near the  cycle track, financed personally by the NZ  prime minister from his own pocket.

This goes from Te Aroha to Thames with a branch off near Paeroa towards Waihi, and is steadily growing.
 It is a pity to see the railways struggling...but good to see the track being constructively used.