Beautiful green countryside

Otorohanga – a quaint town

A nice little town cafe with a variety of pies and snacks

Meat pies are a common and tasty snack

A furry rabbit before shearing

Rabbit after shearing

Ruakuri Bushwalk – a nice hike through the rainforest

The real reason I wanted to visit Waitomo- the Black Abyss cave tour

Crawling up waterfalls in the cave. The water was indeed cold.

A motocross race I stopped by

Kiwi Paka cabin where I stayed

This is page 2 of 10 for my New Zealand / Australia trip.

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Of the hundreds of hiking trails I’ve been on, this is my favorite. It has unusual geological features from the volcanic mudflow, diverse scenery, 5 or so waterfalls, and has technical parts of the trail, including narrow paths near cliffs, 2 ladders and a suspension bridge. You might feel a bit like Indiana Jones while you’re there.

A nice view of St. Helens from the Lahar Viewpoint on the way to Lava Canyon.

The Muddy River canyon

The suspension bridge

A hiker walls along the cliff (the trail). The waterfall is impressive and you can see the suspension bridge in the background.

More waterfalls, as seen from ‘The Ship’, a big rock island.

Remains of a washed out bridge

The trail is quite sketchy and treacherous in places as you can see. Several parts are narrow, rocky, and beside cliffs. One slip could be your last.

This is a 12 second video showing me do a couple basic (and comparatively small) jumps at the ‘Basic Training’ part of the freestyle mountain biking area at Black Rock (near Falls City, Oregon).

This jump along the ‘Granny’s Kitchen’ run is a little more substantial. I didn’t try it- no way.

I hope to buy a helmet cam to show what the ‘Bonzai’ run looks like- a very fast and fun downhill ride.

Beautiful view of Mt. Hood and the Hood River Valley

That’s me doing a downhill log ride.

Riding off a little drop and putting my knee to the test. I was pleased that it held up nicely after my 6.5 months of healing.

I didn’t do this one. I hope whoever tries this has good health insurance.

Some more ramps of doom. Someone spent a lot of time making these death traps.

One of the 4′ high ‘skinnys’ people ride on.

One more mountain vista on the way home. Ahhhh.

(Here’s a video someone made of riding at Post Canyon to give an idea of what it’s like.)

Hardy Falls

Rodney Falls

Columbia River Gorge

Sunset in the Gorge

The sunset displayed an amazing pinkish red color, then darkened near blood red. Sailors were delighted.

Raindrops shown on a window. The weather turned back to the normal Northwest rain the next day.

On Sept. 13th, 2008, I visited Brice Creek with my brother and his family. Despite my knee injury, I was able to hobble down the relatively flat trail. Brice Creek is Southeast of Cottage Grove, Oregon.

There were plenty of downed trees everywhere- ideal for balance beam walking.

A view of Trestle Falls and my niece on the bottom left for scale.