Ukeleles, Tail End Charlottes and Leap Year Babies

saw these guys perform last night

they were

awesome awesome awesome
hugely talented, and
funny
7 ukeleles played by
7 brilliant musicians;
1 of whom was a champion whistler (this point will become important momentarily)

they got their (la) freak on
they were teenager dirtbags
they were good
bad
and ugly

they played david bowie's 'life on mars', 'my way', and 'born free' - ALL AT THE SAME TIME! just their voices and their 7 ukeleles, ranging in size from the very small to the slightly bigger.

folk, jazz, pop, rock - they covered it all

they were in new zealand as part of the $14million NZ International Arts Festival,

and if they ever come to a town year you - GET NEAR YOU!!!

after a late night, i had an early morning start to get here.

karapoti is the southern hemisphere's longest running mountain bike event, and possibly one of the toughest!

all off-road, it's through rivers, up hills, down dales, over rocks and all that other great mountain bike stuff. there's the 50k (kilometre) classic and the 20k challenge. i did the challenge last year in around an hour and a half.

i have been volunteering at this event for the past 3 years, and today i got to be a 'tail end charlotte'. this basically involves coming last with style. we wear high-vis vests and ride out with the last riders. fresh air, exercise, fun and lending a hand. my kinda day.

here's my bike ready for action

this is what i usually look like in my cycle gear this picture was taken at karapoti last year after a training run

event photographers lurk everywhere and i thought this sign was too cute not to photograph

under the heading of useless information and random facts:

130 kiwis were born yesterday. along with the 200,000 born in the USA, they help make up the total of 4 million babies born on february 29, 2008.

just thought you would like to know