This weekend I went off to do the St. James bike loop with Malc and Gabby. It’s two days (well, it was for us), and it’s mostly 4wd track though quite a bit of it is off-road. I think somewhere it says it’s grade 3 or something, but, apart from steepness it’s pretty straightforward. DOC has opened up both ends of the track to 4wd enthusiasts (and motorbikers) which definitely changes the “feel” of the ride. Still, we had gorgeous weather and it was nice to be out and about.
As you can see from the map, we did a side-trip to Lake Guyon. We’d intended to camp there (well, Malc and Gabby, I was hoping for space in the 4 person biv). As expected, being Labour weekend (public holiday) it was extremely full everywhere. So, it seemed pointless to camp there where it was busy anyway, may as well make a bit more progress along the route and find some space to ourselves. So, we biked on and found a fine place here to camp. There was a stream nearby we could take water from, and enough flat space to pitch a tent.
I setup my bivvy bag. It’s a miserable way to sleep, at least mine is. It gets super hot and then sweaty and clammy and the sandflies are around and generally it’s just quite average. I did feel somewhat resilient though, I mean, it was just one night. I realise reading the previous sentence might not make it sound like I was particularly resilient but still ;)
The next day…
we headed on around and out. A nice couple of swing bridges and old huts to see. We’d hoped to go to the hotpools at cow stream, but, we saw about 3 4wd trucks headed in and a bunch of e-bikers and decided to flag it. Labour weekend is definitely not the weekend for a quiet relaxing time in a hot pool.
Anyway, it was excellent to stretch the legs and I thoroughly recommend bringing Gabby along on trips. She’s strong as an ox and was quite happy to be a wind break on the long routes with the headwinds blowing :)
Weather has started picking up. Got out on my bike for the first time in a while. Even have decent brakes again after getting it serviced… lovely! I need to get some practice in because I’ll be biking the St. James at the end of the month with friends and I’m not at all sure I’m fit enough.
I attempted to make mint jelly.
It was a pretty much complete failure. The consistency is completely wrong. Mum said I could just boil it up again and reduce it a bit more and it might come right, so, I’ll give that a go in a bit. Don’t think it’ll go off in the meantime! Shame, I thought it would be pretty straightforward, but, I think I just got the “setting point” wrong. Hey ho.
Found the book “Ferdinand” in the library. An childhood favourite. Anna was initially against it but once she actually let me read it to her she loved it!
Spring is springing. Lovely crisp days and blossom everywhere.
Anna turned 8 and we had her birthday at the gymnasium again. Kids seemed to have a great time, ate a bunch of food, ran around, played games… generally a win. Anna and I made the cake, it was a work of *art
Anna’s school is taking part in the big school kapa-haka competition in October. They’ve been practicing constantly and performed a different routine at the town hall (the other is kept secret until the comp). She loves it. Amazing amount of learning (dexterity, memorisation (dance moves etc.)) let alone language practice.
My first weekend back my friend Mark had arranged a lads ski weekend staying at Castle Hill. It wasn’t amazing timing that it was the first weekend back and Anna was pretty sad I think that I wasn’t about..
The bach was lovely, I do love Castle Hill, great spot.
The first day we went to Broken River. It’s a “club” field, so it’s ungroomed. My thighs were absolutely killing me by the end of the day. I’m just not that good of a skier so it’s really hard work when the snow is all chopped up. Still, no major falls and I was doing fine on the rope-tows.
Broken River were doing a fundraiser for the helicopter rescue service. It’s called the “Cheese Roll” competition. They used to get a wheel of cheese and roll it down the hill and you’d chase after it. Times are tough so instead it was 10?kg of cheese and it was on a sled. Madness. No broken bones though (would have been hilarious if the helicopter had to be flown out for it..)
Then afterwards we all ate masses of cheese. Delicious.
Then the next day at Porters. Pretty patchy snow this late in the season, but, a good day – so much easier on the groomed slopes (but, honestly, BR has the better vibe by a mile).
I always try to see my primary school friends when home. We were an awesome (and obviously stunning) bunch of kids back in the day. Look at us, amazing!
I had a chance to make mums tiramisu recipe and it came out really well. Probably because I nabbed most of dads golden rum. Apparently it wasn’t for cooking with. Who knew? ;)
And then all too soon it was time to leave back to NZ. It’s always hard leaving Ireland, and it doesn’t get any easier as ones parents get older.
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