Day 2 of Bike Ride

John and I met the PedalTours bike group on Sunday for the introductory ride. We rode around a park and the One Tree Hill area and then along the Auckland city coast. There are 3 guys on the tour - 1 is an eye doctor for CA, 1 is retired from an insurance company in Seattle and one is an out of work house builder/tri-athlete for Massachusetts. Our guide is Owen, who is a retired milk scientist and used to work for a company called Fonterra.

This morning, John dropped me off at the ferry and I was on my own until Friday. Me and the 4 guys........ For the ride today, we were bused to a town about 1 hour out of Auckland. The first 10 miles were rolling hills. We then hit a nasty pass over the Bombay ranges (not nearly as bad as Arthur's pass in the South Island though!). We also got rained on going over the pass. The last part of the ride was flat and along the coast. Beautiful scenery!

A little note on Fonterra. They have been in the news recently due to a milk scandal. I believe Fonterra is a NZ company. They have a branch in China as well. Apparently, the China branch was distributing milk with some bad chemicals included with killed a bunch of kids. China didn't do a recall as the whole thing was happening during the Olympics and they tried to keep it low key. I also found out from Owen (and confirmed what my Mom said) that cows are feed off grass here. That is why the milk tastes so different. In the US, dairy cows are feed grain and silage.