So yesterday it was off to the ‘Heights Of Winter’ – a 12 hour orienteering event. It a rogaine you’re given a map with lots of checkpoints dotted all over it each of which has a score (10,20,30 ->100 points) associated with it. Checkpoints which are further away / more awkward / require good navigation – are worth more points.
So L->R Me, Franklin, Andy and Kirsty
headed off to do the best we could! I must admit, I was beginning to wonder after about the first 10 minutes when we were struggling up this matagauri infested steep slope…
..whether I had the staying distance. Well, not really, I’m a masochist at heart, but I will be picking thorns out of my hands for weeks. Matagauri is the fairly innocuous looking grey shrubs in that picture. It’s a very tough, very spikey bush. And a lot of the course (I thought ;) was covered in the stuff. Still, more of an incentive to move quickly and get to the top.
Or something.
Still, it was lots of fun cruising around the course. You can see our initial plan on this map (dark blue thin line – only as far as 52 as we were going to see how we were doing!)), and also the route we took (sky-blue line)
As you can see, we looped back through the start. If you were seriously competing in the event that would be suicide.. but I felt a gazillion (or two) times better after getting serious quantities of bread + soup into me.
There were some nice views along the way though
And at the end we all got a hearty meal! which always tastes so great after hiking for 12 hours.
They had these ‘funky gizmotrons‘ (technical term) for keeping track of which points you’d visited. Each team had a sort of magnetic (I guess) penny-sized object, and at each checkpoint held some sort of RF? writer up to it,?! no idea, but it encoded the time at which you’d visited the checkpoint. It was all very quick and very clever. So at the end of the event, after you’d handed back in the gizmotron, there was an instant readout of each of the points you’d visited (and the times you’d got there). I really thought it was super clever. This particular system designed by a local guy… I believe there are similar systems – but it would be great for adventure racing teams etc.. real potential there.
So yes, thanks (though I wasn’t saying it at the time ;) hehe, to Andy and Kirsty for the invite…
So a few other interesting things (if you’ve made it this far!)
Store Wars is a really funny little flash animation. All about fruit ‘n veg wars between Organic Foods and Evil Supermarket Clones (he’s more chemical than potato now Luke ;) Chewbacca is a cauliflower… honestly.. it’s really funny!!
On a mostly sadder note – very odd (and not suitable for mum…) is postsecret.blogspot.com. People send in postcards to an address with a secret on them. And he puts the cards on the internet. Mostly quite sad though.
On a far happier note – organised the wine + glasses for my mulled wine party on Friday week. Co-incidently (not) the day my friend Lorcan arrives from Ireland. It’s going to be an excellent party (I hope). Also – on Wednesday an college friend – Emma Bartlete) is going to be in town.. twill be fun to catch up over a pint or two. And then on Thursday morning fly up to Auckland for a work function – same as last year. Got quite hammered on really excellent wine (and accompanying food). Though I think it’ll be tamer this year. And then taking a couple of days off and heading up to Northlands to explore that part of the country. Only major area I’ve not visited of NZ yet (other than Dunedin). Though there’s still so much to see and do.
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