Mudder's Day

If you go down to the woods today..... it'll be dark and damp, but you won't care.
After the most perfect weather for two weeks, we finally got some rain on Monday at Hanmer Springs. Some idiot told me before I left that it always rains in NZ, while some other idiot reckoned there are no hot chicks in NZ. The combination of the two has left us with sunburned eyeballs, if ya know wot I mean. But I digress. With the rain (it wasn't even proper rain, more like a persistent drizzle) set in overnight and in the morning, we lazed around the small resort/ski town until it cleared for a two hour window in the afternoon. We took our chance with both hands, and headed up the 2km gravel road climb to the start of the singletrack. We slipped and slid our way through some of the nicest trails we have encountered so far, no nasty climbs, and with the famous flow we have come to expect from every ride. The mud didn't worry us at all, in fact I think it added to the experience. In the dry these trails would rival Rotorua, just there are less of them, though we didn't get to do one section as the light was fading and we could see the weather getting nasty again from the top of Jolliffe's Saddle. There were some tricky 'XXX' sections, rooty and steep, just the sort of thing to get the heart racing as the bikes took their own course through the trees. The lady at the holiday park where we were staying looked like she'd seen a couple of aliens when we arrived back, albeit a couple of muddied, wildly grinning aliens. She kindly let us use her hose, and we basically had our showers in the middle of the park. For dinner we had the world's most expensive pizza, but it was almost worth it, piled high with good stuff, and a bread loaf drizzled with pesto, sweet chilli and garlic... lush. We can't say the same for an $8 Southo and Coke or $5 beer while we waited though. Pure rip-off. I guess the usual calibre of tourist that comes through here doesn't really care what they pay. It's worth looking like these two dickheads when the smiles are on the dials!The rain started again after we'd cleaned up, and we were happy that we got to sample the fine offerings. There is a 12 hour race there in April, could be worth heading back for.