Great Walks!

So I suppose my first job is to apologise for the delay in getting this blog out.  I wold try to come up with a clever excuse but actually there isn't one.  I've just spent to much time enjoying myself and not logged onto a computer.  I see this as a positive thing.  I didn't make a New Year's resolution but to spend more time being active outdoors and not staring at a square screen would definitely be a good one.

Let's travel back in time to 2013, specifically the month of December and more accurately the week before Christmas...

The better half and I had decided that to prevent us spending a sad Christmas at home away, from family, stuffing our faces and watching crap television, we would, instead, enjoy the New Zealand summer and go away.  The first destination was Lake Waikaremoana (which is a slight tautology as moana is the Maori word for lake/sea).  Around the south and west shores of the lake is one of NZ's "Great Walks".  For background, there are 9 "Great Walks" which were picked decades ago out of the large number of trails and tracks across the country.  Strictly speaking there are 8 "Great Walks" and 1 "Great Paddle" as one of the walks is actually a kayak trip down a river.  They are all multiday affairs with campsites or huts along the trails (or river).

We set off on our walk on the 24th December.  Lake Waikaremoana itself is nearly 600m above sea level and the first days walking is basically a sharp up to a ridge at 1300m then a long undulating ridge walk to the first hut.  Having done a bit of training (see previous blog) the walking wasn't nearly as bad as expected and despite a bit of misty drizzle we got to enjoy some spectacular views of the lake and surrounding mountains.  We arrived at the first hut mid-afternoon and there was only one other person there.

The huts are pretty basic; communal bunk rooms, wood burning stove and water from a rain tank; but it was warm and comfortable enough.  As the day went on more and more people arrived who had obviously had the same idea as us - to spend Christmas in the wilderness.  We had a very relaxed Christmas Eve chatting to other walkers, sharing stories, and drinking wine (an American couple had carried a 2 litre box up and kindly shared some in exchange for chocolate).  There was a great mix of nationalities with the "immigrants" outnumbering the Kiwis.

Christmas morning we shoved everything back into our packs (already getting lighter from the food we had eaten) and set off along the ridge again.  It started off misty and murky but soon cleared into a beautiful day.  We had deliberately planned a short walk for Christmas Day and after a steep downhill back to the lakeside we arrived at our second hut around midday.

The second hut was on the shores of the lake itself and on arrival we found a hapu (family) from the Ngai Tuhoe iwi (local tribe) had come in by boat to spend their Christmas there.  They were very welcoming and we got to share a delicious lunch with them.  We felt slightly bad as they served up a huge spread with sweet potatoes, chicken, crayfish and more.  We contributed, once again, with chocolate.  We spent the afternoon relaxing, swimming in the lake, chopping firewood and relaxing some more. We then shared our evening meal with the American couple who we had met the previous night.  Another relaxed evening was spent round the wood burner talking and sharing experiences.

We were very glad of our packs getting lighter and lighter on the third day.  We had planned in a long day three to shorten our walk out the following day.  There was no serious gradients but it was quite undulating and tiring on legs that already walked for two days.  We had set off early and again arrived  at our hut mid-afternoon.  It was the biggest and newest of the huts and was right on the lake.  We dumped our bags and jumped straight in.  Another night in front of a fire was topped off with a few games of cards and we fell asleep listening to Morepork (a type of owl) calling.

Day four dawned, after a night of rain, fresh with the smells of the forest.  We knew we had to make the water taxi pick up by two o'clock so ambled along quite happily.  We reached one of the old huts about 11am just as it started to rain again.  In no rush we took shelter and cooked a hot lunch as one by one all the people we had befriended over the last previous few days wandered in.  We made the pick up in plenty of time and on the boat back were treated to some fantastic views of the cloud on Panekiri Bluff where we had spent the first night.

A quick mini bus transfer after the boat took us to a bach on a campsite.  Beer beat hot shower to the top of the to do list  (it was close)  and delicious steak dinner finished off the day nicely.  I fell asleep in a proper bed and dreamt of the next "Great Walk"...

...to be continued

Work, wine, walking and winning

So this time I have not left it three months to blog again but I am still struggling to remember everything we have done in the last month and a half.  Work has been very busy for me with team members leaving to go to new jobs or have babies.  This has meant everyone else has to pick up the work load.  I have done twice as much on call work in November than normal.  I am still living by the Kiwi motto of 'work hard, play hard' though and have packed lots of 'fun' stuff into my free time.

The better half has had more free time.  This is entirely due to the excessive number of hours she had to work in September which she is now claiming back in lieu.  Friday's have become a 'work optional' day .  If the forecast is for rain - work, if the forecast is for sun - day off to ride the horse.  I am slightly envious of the shortened work weeks but then I remember the time and effort that she put in over the winter here so the respite is well deserved.

Back on October 28th we had a public holiday giving us a long weekend.  We took the opportunity to go and explore the nearby Wairarapa wine growing region and spent the weekend in Martinborough.  On the Saturday we had a pleasant seaside walk then went out for dinner and jazz at a local festival.  On the Sunday we hired bikes and cycled round the vineyards.  Weirdly the place that rented us the bikes was run by a man from Derby (it really is a small world). The tour round the vineyards was accompanied by many wine tastings and a picnic of local produce.   The cycling definitely gave us justification for all the tastings but I think we only made it to 8 out of about 20 vineyards before we decided we were becoming too dangerous to be on the roads.

 

On the Monday,  on the way back from Martinborough, we stopped at Kaitoke Regional Park.  This was one of the locations used for Lord of the Rings and had some beautiful native rainforest and spectacular river gorges.  After a shortish bush walk we did the touristy thing and explored the area that was used when filming Rivendell.  Including posing for some strange photos (see facebook for the evidence)

Our Christmas plans have now come together and we are booked in to do the Lake Waikaramoana Walk over Christmas itself.  This is one of the nine 'Great  Walks' in New Zealand and we will spend Christmas eve in a hut 1500m up on a mountain side.  After four days of walking (or tramping as it is known here) we will take a bit of a road trip round the Hawkes Bay Region and probably come back to Wellington via Lake Taupo.

To prepare us for four days of walking carrying packs we have been trying to get out and about every weekend.  The better half is not quite so used to carrying a big pack so two weeks ago we went out into the Tararua Mountains on a six hour tramp and I made her carry a large bag the whole way.  We got some strange looks from a couple of people we met enroute and I had to explain that I had her 'in training'.  Maybe I'm just cruel.

Cricket season has arrived here and we have been getting along to see the local team.  In what turned out to be a better performance than England the recent Ashes test, we made it down to the Westpac Stadium last weekend to watch Wellington in a Twenty20 match under floodlights.  It was a tense and dramatic evening's entertainment which the Wellington Firebirds won with a six off the last ball.

In amongst all the other fun stuff I have been doing some climbing and sailing.  Wellington Harbour is such an amazing place to sail and there are races at least 4 times a week.  A couple who I sailed with during the winter series have bought a new yacht so I am now crewing for them.  They have only had it three weeks so we are not pushing it to it's limits but last weekend in light winds, and much to the surprise of everyone including us, we actually won a race.  Not bad for a bunch of novices.

Hopefully more sailing and climbing this weekend although in typical New Zealand style we are going from 20 degree sunshine today to torrential rain and 120km/h winds overnight.  Sunday may be better.

I will sign off now and leave you with a picture of our bounty brought back from Martinborough.

Hei kona mai!

Birthday Blog

So I am still here. Now thirty-three years old!  I have not fallen off a rock face, sailed off the edge of the world or been buried under falling buildings.  Three months on from the last blog this missive is long overdue.  From one perspective there is not a huge amount to tell, work and life go on.  Of course,  you can pack a lot into 90 days and the better half and I have been busy working and playing hard.

In the last update I talked about the shaky ground Wellington (and indeed the whole of New Zealand) is on.  July and August saw a series of large earthquakes strike the region.  They were strong enough to damage buildings and one of those affected was the building I was working in.  Once you can see daylight through the walls on the third floor it is generally time to change the working environment.  There was a couple of weeks of working out of other offices and from home before we found a new home.  There had been plans to move to this new building anyway but everything had to be rushed to get most of us in.  As it stands half the building is still being refurbished while we are packed into the other half.

There have been regular aftershocks of decreasing frequency and magnitude and the hope is that the faults have settled down for the moment.  Of course, this is never guaranteed and "the big one" could happen anytime.  Something we never had to consider in the UK was having an emergency food and water supply.  We haven't built a bomb shelter but our Harry Potter cupboard under the stairs is well stocked.

All the stresses of the quakes coincided with the better half's busy few months at work.  She worked some ridiculous hours to meet deadlines and complete reports to sign off dates.  All is back to normal now and the hours she accumulated over the last few months will add up to a long break over the summer.

I have found time to climb and sail on a fairly regular basis.  I have been crewing on a racing boat and now taken part in two full series.  We actually won our class in the second series of four races and were awarded a bottle of champagne.  I resisted the temptation to emulate Formula One drivers and soak the rest of the crew, especially as it was good champagne.  I have just signed up to crew the same boat in two more series over the summer.  Hopefully more champagne to come.

With some really good bouldering areas within an hour of Wellington I have managed to get outdoors to climb every few weeks.  There are two indoor centres in Wellington which provide me with good training grounds.  After injuring a finger tendon last year grade progression/improvement has been slow and I am still tentative about how hard to push myself.  I've found plenty of willing climbing partners of all abilities and have been organising climbing events for the local Meetup group "Adventure Wellington".  I am hoping for more outdoor trips as the weather now improves into the summer.

That pretty much brings things up to date.  It has been over eight months since we touched down in this weird and wonderful place.  We miss all of you back home and can't wait for people to start visiting (I know - it's expensive).  Having said that, life is good here, we are enjoying ourselves and making friends.  We have plans for a long weekend away next week (Labour Day public holiday here) and are starting to make plans for Christmas.  We are looking at being away in a hut on a mountain somewhere.  I'll keep you all updated.

Ka kite ano whanau - until next time

On Shakey Ground!

Huge apologies to those who have been waiting with bated breath to hear more tall tales from The Land of the Long White Cloud.  Over the last week we have spent less time looking at the clouds and more time hugging the ground.

If you hadn't already heard (how anyone could have missed it I don't know), Wellington has been suffering, what they charmingly refer to as, a swarm of earthquakes.  It all started about a week ago with a few "pre-shocks" that tipped in at around magnitude 5.  The strongest of these on the Friday (Magnitude 5.7) lasted about 30 seconds and had us putting into practise our "Drop, Cover and Hold".  As it was around 9 in the morning everyone was in work and a lot of people were quite shaken (no pun intended).  It was hard to concentrate on work for the rest of the day but the general consensus was that would be the end of it as it was the largest quake Wellington had experienced in a long time.

There were no noticeable quakes through Saturday although the internet was telling us there were a huge number of small tremors occurring.  It wasn't until Sunday morning we felt one again.  This one weighed in at 5.8 and woke us up first thing in the morning.  The minor shakes carried on throughout the day and then at 5:09pm the big one hit.  We had just been food shopping and walked into the house, put the shopping bags down, closed the door then heard/felt a low rumbling.  This rapidly increased to shaking and we staggered to our bathroom and crouched down in the corner.  After approximately 20 seconds everything went quiet again.

We got off lightly; one bottle of shampoo fell off the shelf in the bathroom.  One of the girls I work with lives in an apartment block in town.  She described her flat as "trashed" with large items falling down and breakages all over the place.  Some city centre buildings faired even worse with structural damage, smashed windows and chunks of masonry falling off.  There have only been 4 injuries that I have heard of and none too serious.  I suspect this is mainly because very few people were in the office blocks in the CBD at the time of the quake.

One of the casualties of the earthquake is my workplace.  It was yellow stickered before the quake (basically that means it wasn't up to modern building standards) and we were scheduled to move later this year.  The quake has caused concern about the structure of main stairwells and it burst a high pressure water main in the building which has saturated everything on the bottom few floors.  Today was the first time I was allowed back in and that was only to collect a few essential (if soggy) items.  Whilst alternative workspace is being arranged we are all working from home (as best we can).  The better half was straight back to work on Monday.  Her building is touted as one of the safest in Wellington.  The fact that everyone keeps saying this makes her nervous - I think it's like the Titanic predictions.

It's difficult to know how to feel about experiencing a 6.5 magnitude quake.  In the grand scheme of things it was not that big, it didn't cause much damage and certainly wasn't life threatening.  For comparison the earthquake in Christchurch was only 6.3 but because it was directly below the city it caused vastly more damage and loss of life.  Also, this saga might not be over, the aftershocks are still going; over 30 quakes of magnitude 4 or higher since Sunday.  I guess, at the moment, I am just thankful to be able to sit down, collect my thoughts and write about them.  I will keep you all posted.

(No photos but if you want to know more about the quakes I recommend www.geonet.org.nz)

Rocks and Waves - Take 2

So these are the promised scribbling's to add to last weeks lengthy blog.  The better half is off riding a horse, the weather is less than favourable (gale force winds and horizontal rain) so I shall take the opportunity of being stuck indoors to write.  I apologise in advance to those of you who don't rock climb or sail.  Most of what follows is shameless glorification of two minority pastimes. 

Last weekend the weather was much better and on Saturday I got to head outdoors to go bouldering again.  Mike (my new climbing buddy) and I headed out to Baring Head (again).  This time we avoided fording the river but took a slightly longer walk in that didn't involve the chance of getting wet from the waist down - see previous blog Rocks And Waves.  We made it to Baring Head and found a bouldering playground.

I won't bore you with details of everything we climbing.  Suffice to say, a lot of it was quite highball and slabby which I enjoyed but Mike not quite so much.  The area had been battered by the recent storms and some of the boulders close to sea were caked in sand and salt.  There were still plenty to climb on though and we spent nearly 3 hours playing.  We walked back out a different way over the top of Baring Head and were treated to some great views of the Rimutaka Mountains and the mouth of Wellington Harbour.

On Sunday I took to the water again for the second race in the winter series.  The results from the first race had been written off due to how slow the race was and a number of technical challenges to the placing's.  This meant we were starting on a clean sheet.  The weather was perfect;  10-15 knots of northerly breeze, a light swell and bright sunshine.  We had a brilliant race.  We need to work on our start as we once again mistimed our arrival at the start line and crossed near the back of flotilla of 30 boats on the wrong tack.   I had been given the bow position for the race in charge of the hoist and drop of the spinnaker during the downwind legs and mainly tidying up and balancing the boat during upwind legs.  Having only rigged a symmetric spinnaker once before (I have sailed with asymmetrics) this was hard work and required all my concentration.  As all my attention was on the sails, until the last downwind leg I didn't notice the progress we had made through the field. We battled up the last leg neck and neck with another boat and eventually crossed the line in 7th half a boat length short of 6th.  The fine weather and fast paced racing was a great change from the drizzle of the previous fortnight.

There is not a great deal more to tell for this week.  I looks like this weekend might be a but of a washout.  Hopefully we will get out for a short walk somewhere and I think we have plans for a meal out.  Once again, until next time...

Pacific Island Paradise

Apologies to all of you who have been waiting in anticipation for more tales of our exploits.  I accept I have been lax in the promptness of my update about our holiday.  Given this, I shall probably fill in all the other little bits and pieces of news since we got back from holiday in another blog and concentrate on our trip to Rarotonga.  So here we go...

On the 18th June we had a wonderful lie in and at a very civilised hour drove ourselves down to Wellington Airport.  The airport actually has a sign on it purporting itself to be "The Centre of Middle Earth"!  After a smooth check in we settled down, underneath a giant fibreglass model of Gollum, for the first drink of the holiday (Beer for me gin & tonic for the better half).  Waiting there for our flight to be called we were approached by a woman and her two kids who asked us (and I swear I am not making this up), "Have you seen a gold ring anywhere?"  I suppressed the laughter (and the urge to make a fatuous comment) and discovered that one of her children had been playing with her ring and had lost it whilst they were seated nearby.

We boarded our plane, flew to Auckland and transferred smoothly to our international flight to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.  Due to Rarotonga being across the international date line we actually took off at 7:30pm and, after a 4hr flight, arrived at 1:25am the same day.  The flight was a bit turbulent as we had a 100km/h tail wind most of the way but it did make it quick.  We landed in the dark and stepped off the plane into a warm sub-tropical night.  To greet us at the airport was a ukulele player singing the greatest hits of the Cook  Islands.  Half asleep we cleared immigration, caught our transfer bus to the hotel and before we new it we were tucked up in bed.

We woke, on Tuesday morning again, and had a chilled morning around the resort.  With a private beach onto a marine reserve and a bar overlooking this there wasn't much need to stray from the resort that day.  We snorkelled in crystal blue waters and then at a very civilised hour wandered to the bar and ordered a drink.  It then struck me that in some strange, paradoxical temporal dichotomy I had already had a drink at this exact time on this exact same day but in a different place.  Thinking about this hurt my tiny brain and as I was supposed to be on holiday I gave up trying to work this out and settled down to a cold, refreshing beer.

That evening we treated ourselves to an "Island Cultural Night".  This involved a long speech by a local chief then a huge "umu" (feast).  There was fish (at least three types), pork (slow cooked), chicken (curried), lamb (roasted) and all accompanied by local fruits and vegetables.  Desert was more mounds of fruit and sweet things.  To follow this there was a fantastic display of drumming and dancing - a truly memorable night.

To justify the way we had stuffed our faces the previous night we set off the next day for a long walk.  We caught a local bus  to Avatiu on the north side of Rarotonga.  There is one main road on the island that goes all the way round the circumference.  It is  only 32km long.  There are two buses Clockwise and Anti-clockwise.  These come complete with mental drivers who take pleasure in telling you they are convicts on work experience - island humour apparently.

The walk was hot, sweaty and steep but well worth it for the views and the jungle.  Why we picked the middle of the day to walk in I don't know.  Temperatures rose to nearly 30 degrees - I'm glad it was the cool and dry season.  We actually walked completed across the island (from north to south) a distance of about 7km.  The track rose from sea level to nearly 400m and back to sea level again and was hard work.  It ran through pristine jungle and at the highest point was a 50m high pinnacle of rock called "Te Rua Manga" (The Needle).  I was very tempted to climb it but the green moss, lack of rope and sheer drops dissuaded me.  We descended to an idyllic beach on the south coast, via Wigmore's Waterfall (which was more like Wigmore's Dribble).  We had to wait nearly an hour for the bus but couldn't really complain about the bus stop with white sand, lapping waves and palm trees.

Thursday was another chill out day, snorkelling, walking on the beach, cocktails at the bar then dinner overlooking another beautiful beach.  On Friday we headed to Muri Lagoon on the east coast of the island for a day with Captain Tama's Lagoon Cruises.  We were treated to singing, drumming, giant clams, tree climbing, coconut husking and sarong tying on top of a cruise round the lagoon in a glass bottomed boat and BBQ lunch on one of the smaller islands off the coast.

On Saturday we headed into the main town, Avarua.  We spent a few hours exploring the sat in a bar on the harbour and had lunch watching canoe racing in the lagoon.  Unfortunately our flight time returning to New Zealand wasn't as civilised as outbound.  We had to hang around the resort until 1am on Sunday morning before catching the bus to the airport.  We were then serenaded onto the plane by the same ukulele player.  After a less turbulent, but longer flight, we touched-down in a cold Auckland on Monday morning (another temporal anomaly due to crossing the international dateline again).  After breakfast at the airport we caught another plane back to Wellington.

While we were away Wellington had experienced some unusually wild weather.  (When they call weather wild in Wellington it means it is pretty extreme.)  On the Thursday whilst we were away Wellington had been subjected to the mother of southerly gales.  Winds reached over 150km/h and there 9m waves on the south coast.  Trees and powerlines had come down, houses had been damaged and the south coast had been battered by the sea.  There had been landslips along the coast line with sand, trees and huge rocks scattered across roads, gardens and the foreshore.   Thankfully, despite the devastation, no one in Wellington had been seriously hurt.

Our car had been parked in an open car park next to the airport and was caked in salt from the sea spray.  We drove home along the coast road which was still littered with debris.  We were quite apprehensive about what condition the house would be in, especially given we live on a ridge 100m from the south coast.  Arriving home we drove past a flattened garage three doors away and the neighbours wooden fence flat on the ground.  Our house was still standing, still had a roof and appeared to have suffered no ill effects.  There were lots of small branches and leaves in the carport and a few cracks in the plaster but nothing more.  Our landlord has said he will send a builder to carry out an inspection just to be sure.

Writing this the holiday is becoming a more and more distant memory.  The better half is reaching the busiest point of the year at work and I have had a week of early mornings and long days.  We have both just made the most of the glorious weather last weekend but I think I will leave that for another blog.  That is all for now...

Rocks and Waves

So once again I probably should have written this blog a week ago so that my imperfect memory is not a factor in the lack of information contained herein.  (Reading that back, that is an overly complicated sentence to say that I am useless.)  I shall do my best to recall the interesting (obviously depending on point of view) details of the last two weeks.

Work goes on as usual for myself and the better half.  I am doing more and more duty cover (being on call).  The bonus pay for it is very welcome but the calls in the middle of the night when you are half asleep and have to work out whether an environmental incident can wait until the morning are taking a bit of getting used to.  In between being on call and investigating incidents I have been getting more climbing in.  I've found a few people to climb with regularly and last weekend managed to get out on some real rock for the first time since arriving here.

Last Saturday I drove out to Baring Head (on the east side of the harbour) with Mike to check out the boulders.  It had been mentioned to us that there was a stream crossing to get to the point but this was a fairly normal Kiwi understatement.  The stream was a river and after attempting to cross at four different points, wading up to thigh deep in freezing fast flowing water, we gave up.  Thankfully, 40 minutes from Baring Head, is Turakirae Head which despite the longer walk in also has some world class bouldering.  We got to spend 3 hours playing on some great Greywacke Boulders (rocks to everyone else).  Definitely going to go back.

Not a great deal to report through the week.  The other half and I had a nice quiet Saturday this weekend, she went riding and I chilled.  Today I took part in the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club Winter Series.  I got to crew on a 10.2m MRX racing yacht.  This was not quite as exciting as it sounds due to the fact we had almost no wind all day and it rained constantly.  There were about 30 boats in the race in two divisions and multiple classes.  Despite the lack of wind, and the dampness due to rain, it was great fun.  We finished middle of the field.  I shall be going back in two weeks for the second race of the series hoping for more wind.

The next blog should have more photos and more news.  On Tuesday we fly out to Rarotonga (in the Cook Islands).  We are only going for five days but are really looking forward to the break.  I will fill you in when we return.  Until next time...