Tākaka

So yeah, it's challenging, but the beauty of it is because there's six separate corners, people turn up to just do as much as they want.

So a lot of it is out and back from Takaka on one side and then kind of out and back from Collingwood on the other side.

Almost ten years on, the challenge is still going strong.

With no set course, Brian Aldiss says the magic of the event is in seeing different people cycling in all different directions and not knowing how much of it they've completed.

I think some of the rides, especially down the west coast to Anatoi and up the Cobb Road into that area, the head of the Takaka River, are particularly amazing pieces of road through National Park and some of the best riding in the country, I would argue.

In the first year, about four people showed up, and in recent years, they've been up to 80.

Around 20% each year make it to all six corners.

There's a little bit less pressure.

Also

apparently in Takaka there is Bob's knob.

That's where that one is.

Oh.

And I think data from Earth Sciences shows that the El Niño could split Nelson Tasman into two sort of distinct weather zones where part might, part of the region might be really wet and another part might be quite dry.

And that's because there's sort of stronger than usual westerly winds coming across the top of the South Island, so that's colliding with some of the mountain ranges up here, meaning that places like Takaka, the Kahurangi National Park, Abel Tasman, could receive more rainfall than usual.

And then other parts, uh, the eastern parts that are more sheltered could face really dry conditions and the risk of drought.

And it's interesting, those winds aren't just going to affect those on land either.

Okay.

And what I pitched essentially is what I've created in Golden Bay, the Takaka cohousing neighborhood.

And did you just stumble across this when you were online and you thought, right, I should throw my, this is exactly like you said, exactly what you've been looking for, a way to get to New Zealand, but it really was talking your language.

Do you remember the process being super challenging or?

We've kind of upgraded our model for Circle Living and now we're looking at people buying off the plans.

They do a sale and purchase agreement.

Essentially, the company looks at securing the land through different investment channels to then make it less stressful for the person, the residents who are buying in, rather than in the Takaka cohousing neighborhood.

Residents had to put up to 30% of their home up front at risk to make it happen, which was a huge achievement for everybody involved that were there.