I was worried that when I agreed to start writing about being out New Zealand for the winter that I was going to spend the entire time coming across as being unbearably smug. Hopefully I haven’t, but it’s not really one for me to decide. There’s no two ways around it: the last three months have been amazing. For me the last few weeks have bled into a blur of riding and lazy days. Someone once told me that it’s a lucky man who knows when he’s happy and that’s why I’m writing now. It’s good to take a few minutes out, look back a life and understand how lucky you are to be where you are...

This photo was taken last Sunday, the first real weekend of our summer out here. The day before we’d spent watching some of the best riding I’ve ever seen and then headed up the hill to hit the hardest tracks we could find. Then Sunday we picked up our tools and spent a hot, hard afternoon putting in the first bits of a new line that we’re all excited about. We ended our evening barbequing plastic burgers and drinking beer in a friend’s garden with the annual reggae festival booming away over the road, which is where I took this photo. It’s good times right now and I don’t know how much longer than they can last, so here’s not wasting them.