“I’m a sexy beeeeeeee-ast”

Well it’s been a fun week (or two, can’t remember the last time we ‘blogged’)

What’ve we been up to, well I spent 2 hours rewriting my CV, turns out I’ve done quite a bit since 2012 when it was last updated. Spent an hour watching cute cat videos on Facebook when I should have been updating my CV. We have been riding, done more riding and only been in a hardware shop twice……!

We spent one day wondering around the government gardens in Rotorua which are rather splendid, then went along to the lake.

Spot the wally….!
Since getting the bikes built we have done as much riding as possible, and also squeezed in walking up two mountains, well one was a hill, a very big hill….. Whakarewarewa has become our second home, we have even done a ‘Sheldon Cooper’ and got our own spot in the car park. (Big Bang theory reference for all of those who didn’t get it.)

Greg – we found some berries for you!

We also spent one afternoon and wasted too much money getting some lift passes for Skyline in Rotorua, when even I can do the black runs with little difficulty it’s not a black run. However getting off the gondola and out the door posed more of a challenge when I somehow managed to get my foot stuck in my back wheel, much to James’ amusement.

On Monday after too many uncomfortable nights on the blow up mattress we head North up to Tauranga to find a mattress place, all of James’ dreams came true when we got there and they also did insulation and carpet stuff for the back of the van too!

We found a foam mattress with a memory foam topper for $350 and got very excited. Then came the realisation that we can’t buy the mattress before we have built the bed. Then there’s no point building the bed if we haven’t insulated the van properly, and if we are going to I insulate the van we may as well carpet the walls and tidy it up properly. Needless to say, I type this laying on a blow up mattress!

Whilst we were up in Tauranga we took the opportunity to go and discover the place a little more as we missed it last time we were in NZ. The beaches are beautiful with some lovely shops and cafes and and an even better waffle and ice cream bar.

We walked up Mount Maunganui to burn off said ice cream.

Spot the wally on the ledge

Check out the cute rescue dogs – Bernie knew how to pose!

So our campsite had a jumping pillow – james hadn’t even parked the van and I was already out the door being a loon!
The following day we head back to Rotorua, back to the woods to go ride some more. The break away seemed to helped my legs recover I even got a 7th place on a segment on strava! (James: out of the 8 girls who had ridden the segment.)

– actually there were over 100 riders and I was still 7th

James made friends with a bee, who would not leave him alone, hence the title of this blog.

Finding our way around the woods got easier and James making me cycle up a massive hill only to find out we took a wrong turn has only happened once so I think we are starting to get to ‘grips’ where we are going, which will be handy for the Enduro World Series (massive bike race James is doing) in 3 weeks time – eeeeeek!

– James was very proud of the grips pun!

We missed pancake day on Tuesday so instead had pancake Thursday,

This was our ride from yesterday, the GPS cut out in the trees a little bit so it’s a bit jumpy, but you sorta see how much of the woods we cover. Eagle Vs Shark is a new track built the other side of the woods which we didn’t do last time we were in NZ, however even with the 2000ft climbing to get there it’s my new favourite track.