So, it turns out that John Key's $50 million1 monument to his own ego is an even bigger joke than first suggested, with plans not just for a cycleway from one end of the country to the other, but a race as well:
The Government had originally hoped a race the length of the country, named after Sir Edmund Hillary, could have been held on a new cycleway.And this is how National planned to solve the recession and keep kiwis in work: dreams and managementspeak. And next, they'll be building a giant fibreglass vegetable. It's the same small-town cargo-cult mentality: "if we build it (whatever 'it' is), they (whoever the hell 'they' are) will come". Can we have the adults in charge again please?[...]
Initial plans were even more ambitious, with One News reporting a race like the Tour de France had been planned and was to be named the Sir Edmund Hillary Explorator.
1 Some accessories sold separately. Cycleway may be smaller than it appears.