It was a bit damp early morning but dry by the time I emerged. Just a roll around the Hanmer Springs Forest today. Some fun trails through a mix of bush and more commercial forest. A fun warmup after a lazy morning, going further afield tomorrow if the weather is as good as forecast.
En-trance ready for a midday departure...
Typical forest trails on the flat lower section. They share space with, but are well separated from, walking and horse-riding trails. These areas are easy riding for any ability; trails threading around Conical Hill and Jollies Road slopes are more challenging with some fun downhills.
Forest road and roadside sections connect the various forest loops.
Stopped by the Mountain Bike base; good facilities including bike wash, repair stand and (tethered) essential tools.
Although only 38km, packed in ~500m elevation so quite a bit of climbing on gravel trails to the summit.
Listened to a fascinating podcast while riding. The epilogue for the, exceptionally good, BBC R4 'The Coming Storm' series looks at a bizarre conspiracy theory around the Evergreen Suez grounding, the book 'The Sovereign Individual', and why billionaires are looking at Alaska or New Zealand as boltholes...
BBC Radio 4 - The Coming Storm, 8. Epilogue
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
Gabriel Gatehouse has something to confess. Throughout the making of the series he’s been developing his own conspiracy theory. It’s about a book, called The Sovereign Individual, written by two men who were also pushing stories about the Clintons in the 1990s.
Were the people who seeded the myths that led to QAnon involved in a vast conspiracy to break reality, to divide and conquer and divvy up the spoils?
Gabriel seeks to understand the book, a favourite amongst the tech billionaires of Silicon Valley. They think a new version of the web, based on crypto and blockchain, will bring about the next step in the societal shift driven by the internet. What would that mean for democracy?
Was still damp from overnight rain, some of the bridges and a few rockier parts of descents were a bit slippery!
Robin meets (South Island) robin. 10x optical zoom on the phone helps with bird photos, even when it's quite dark in the shade.
The day just got better as the afternoon progressed.
Although occasional fun I'm not a great fan of 'round and round in the forest' riding. Prefer exploring the countryside, road or trail, which is what I plan tomorrow. The gelato reward for today's efforts...
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