Every so often we discuss how to turn a regular old outing in your local hang-out into something more memorable.
Well, here’s another way we discovered over the extended weekend: the Staycation.
Many moons ago, we wrote a newsletter about a lovely couple from Australia who bailed out of their deluxe beachside digs to get some more volcanic plateau dirt beneath their wheels.
That was several Nzo website rebuilds and dozens of newsletters ago, so I dug through the archives and retrieved that story in full for anybody interested.
It took a lot longer then any of us expected, but Naomi and Paul made it back to Rotorua with their mate Jo, to do some skids and show her the rides they had been talking about for almost a decade.
They have been doing lots of bike riding in the meantime, but their Dobies are still looking more or less pristine after nearly eight years of use.
It was great to have them back, and even better to show them around some of the stuff that is new since their last visit. We put together a couple of rides in the trails that hit a few new highlights, and revisited the Timber Trail in the Pureora Forest.
Riding three days in a row made the project feel like a holiday. Riding with visitors means stopping to look at stuff, yakking about various things, and taking twice as long as normal to get the trails ticked off.
That didn’t leave a lot of time for the usual ‘life’ stuff we fit around our bike rides, so I didn’t do anything else much for a couple of days.
Hence the title of this missive: the Staycation.
Having a bike riding holiday at home is highly recommended. If you can swing it, there are many benefits to the idea.
You don’t have to pack. Your accommodation is sorted. You are already paying for insurance. There is almost no chance you will lose your bike on the way to the riding venue.
Just find somebody excited about riding somewhere near you and pretend you have just arrived yourself.
