Ryan Hellyer’s Website

With my leg out of cast, I decided it was time for some serious fitness. So I agreed to do the Central Otago Rail Trail with Anna! It turned out that my leg wasn’t quite as strong as I thought! I had some serious issues getting from point A to point B. But we did make it back to Dunedin safe and sound eventually. We did the 150 km trail in three days and cycled another 20 km to reach the Tairei Gorge train the next day for our trip back to Dunedin. Unfortunately Anna has banned me from putting any photos of her on the web So there’s no pretty photos of her to show

For those of you who know her, this wont be a surprise at all. But here is the first ever photo of Cassienne attempting to bite me. I tried fending her off with my hand, but she just started munching!

Yeah, yeah I know. Who breaks their leg playing badminton? You can see a spiral fracture of my fibula down near my ankle.

I won the United Club D-grade Mens singles championship in my first attempt! It took all of my strength and stamina to beat my opposition … which was … er … non-existent! I was the only D-grader who turned up to compete, so I won the cup by default

My friend Shelley holding my cup.

It even had my name engraved in it.

This is blatant piracy. So if you are the copyright holder and don’t want me hosting this video then just wing me an email and I’ll remove it. But since this is my own personal site, I’m not trying to make any money out of it and the news item is about me; I figured it would be okay. And no, I’m NOT planning on becoming a meals on wheels delivery boy! I also wasn’t distraught, I hated that car anyway.

There’s some gossip behind this video. If you want to know about it, just email me to hear all about it.

Some dear friends of mine died recently. They were on the back seat of my car when it was callously torched

This is Muncher, he was born at the Cookie Time factory and lived a short but exciting life, taken around the West Coast of New Zealand with Anna Williams and myself. He also made excursions to the Catlins and Invercargill.

This is Cartman, he lived most of his life in the rear window of my old Honda Civic. He then camped out in my parents basement on top of their TV set while I went to Canada and then inhabited my Toyota Corolla till his brutal death. Cartman visited most of New Zealand including Palmerston North, Wellington, the West Coast, and every ice and inline hockey rink in the South Island. He was well known for wearing the pimp hat which Mary Mintel and Kerry Perkins made for me.

The hat is an interesting story in itself! Mary, Kerry and I hunted high and low for a suitable feather to stick in it for me to use as part of my pimp costume for Stephen Brassett’s 21st party. Luckily we found one in a very nice feather duster.

Some $&*%# decided it would be nice idea to break into my car, take it for a joy ride, get drunk whilst at it, then drive it to the top of Signal Hill in Dunedin, put the handbrake on and floor it till the rims hit the tarmac then once it wouldn’t move any further set it on fire!!! Luckilly I was insured, so I only lost $50 on the car.

Here’s what it looked like before they got hold of it.

Mark Hareb, my flatmate Daria and myself went tramping on the Silverpeaks route, just out of Dunedin. Things started badly when my giant three liter bottle of water split only half an hour into the tramp. I carried it in for another hour and ditched at the turnoff where we would be arriving back to later in the day.

The route is quite old and hasn’t been maintained in a long time so picking out where you’re supposed to go was tricky. We didn’t get lost though However, later in the day the wind picked up incredibly strong. We were getting knocked off our feet all the time and we started to run out of water!

After much cursing from Daria and me getting quite dehydrated, we eventually made our way off the ridges, hence away from the wind and back to the water bottle I ditched earlier in the day.

All up it took us just over 13 hours to complete the tramp. En route I twisted my ankle a few times which I didn’t think was a major drama, however a week later was when I twisted the same ankle again and broke my leg

I headed through to go partying with Anna and her friends in Queenstown. I took these photos on the way back home.

I went to see some of the special stages of the Rally of Otago with Scott and Marthah (my brother and his fiance). Lots of sideways action, dust, noise and excitement. The photos didn’t turn out too well, my camera lens got quite dirty and I didn’t realise till after I uploaded them