Cyclic Saga

A few weeks ago we took part in the Cyclic Saga - a two day orienteering event on mountain bikes. We had entered it months ago and it was definitely worth the wait.

The event was planned to be within 90 minutes drive of Christchurch but the actual location wasn't announced until the week beforehand. On the Friday night we drove north to a large farm near Scargill, where we registered and had our gear checked. All teams had to be completely self-sufficient and present a plethora of bike tools (from chain breakers to 2 spare tube each and everything in between) and survival gear (waterproofs, fleeces, thermals, survival blankets, first aid kits). They also checked that we had enough food and water to get through two long days in the saddle.

We slept in the van that night as it saved us having to put up our tent. At 8.30 the following morning we got the safety briefing and finally, the map. All teams had 7 1/2 hours to get to the night's campsite, getting as many points en route. It didn't even look easy on paper!

The Starting Point!

After a few minutes deliberating we set off... ready for hours of pedalling, pushing and careering downhill. The terrain was rough and there were plenty of hills and either rough paths or fields to cross. Some of the fields even had flocks of sheep in them, or cows (with plenty of poo)!

Checkpoint No. 1!

The campsite that evening wasn't actually too far from where we started (about 1km) but we had chosen a long long route to get there. Given the early start, all teams were relaxing by 5pm and we were really glad of the hot showers on hand (and the late finishers were glad to be able to cruise past lots of nakedness on their way to the finish!). Most impressive though were the people who spent the evening cleaning their bikes (even taking off the tyres to check for needles) and oiling them for the following day. We decided to pretend we had done ours earlier and hoped nobody would look at our laziness!

Comfort!

I was wrapped in my sleeping bag by 8.30 that night and was conked out not long afterwards. We were all awake by 2 a.m. though, as the wind whipped up and was funnelled down the valley. Our tent was pointed in the right direction and was secure, but for a few hours you could hear tents flapping, see torch-light outside and hear people trying to put pegs in. The following morning saw a few tents flat on the ground and several folk asleep on the grass. It was only later that we found out that it was called "Windy Valley"!

On the second day we had 6 1/2 hours with the same map and the aim of getting more points before finishing back where we had begun. Given that we had chosen a hilly route the previous day we set off for a long circular path that would give us some gravel roads, a water stop midway and only two (400m high) hills to climb.

A hand-basin with a view!

The terrain that day was fantastic, lots of lovely tracks, paths and fields (one of which even had two alpacas!). I did check out the gravel at one stage though - my first fall in ages and reason to burst open our first aid kit! All was going well until the end of the day when we ended up on a horrible rocky path and had some way to go to get home.

We finally rolled past the finish line 45 minutes late.... enough to make sure that we had lost all our points from day 2, but also enough to earn us the prize for endurance (aka the team who enjoyed it the most) as the last to finish. We managed to avoid coming last overall though!

It was a really excellent weekend, something I'd definitely be keen to try again. Next time I might do slightly more than 45 minutes a week of training though! Our shower at home was a delight, and lest we had forgotten what we smelled like after hours of cycling though cow dung, sheep droppings and by the odd sheep carcass (each of which was greeted with the calling "is this marked on the map?"), our bikes gave us a more than gentle reminder the following day. The stench was pretty strong when we opened our garage door on Monday evening!

Campsite

Gentle Annie (a.k.a. "The Bitch")

At the start of March we popped up to Wellington for a weekend to meet up with our friend Mairead. On previous visits we've stayed in the city but this time we wanted to explore further afield so we decided to head a few hours north to do a 2-day tramp (i.e. hike). Our chosen route was "Gentle Annie", up Mount Holdsworth.

We hadn't been walking for too long when we decided that Gentle Annie was in fact a bitch. There was nothing gentle about it, it was a steady uphill battle. Add in some really heavy rain and lots of mud. Suffice to say that it certainly got our hearts pumping.

After a few hours of walking we came to the Mountain House Shelter, where we stopped for some rest and much needed chocolate. After this the track rose even more steeply, until eventually it was a scramble using all four limbs. The last few hundred meters were pretty exposed and it was really windy, so we were really glad to get to the Powell Hut. It took us nearly 4 hours to get there and even though it was only about 6pm when we arrived I remember it as being almost night-time as there were no views and it was pretty dark.

The Department of Conservation (DoC) huts are fantastic and this one was a welcome sight given that we were pretty wet. There were plenty of beds, each with solid plastic covered mattresses. Add in lots of cooking space, a few tables and it was a great place to spend the night, even with the 25m sprint to the long-drops! Definitely $10 well spent!

Given the terrible weather there weren't too many other walkers on the track that weekend and there were only 2 others in the hut. We didn't get much chat from them, which may in part be due to the fact that I managed to completely flash one of them within a few minutes of arriving. It wasn't entirely my fault and had a lot to do with trying to keep clothes dry, having a raincoat that was damp inside, needing to do the dash to the loo and basically forgetting how many layers I had on. I'll try not to do it in future though!

Dinner that night consisted of some great camping food. We were trying to keep bag weight down so had some freeze-dried food. Definitely edible and welcome after the day; there was even some apple pie!

During the night the wind howled and it often felt that the hut was going to be ripped from the mountainside (we were at about 1,050 meters, about the height of Carrauntoohill). Mairead had made us a little cubby using a few mattresses so we had a pleasant night's sleep, even after hitting the hay around 8pm!

The next morning dawned clear and sunny, so we made the most of the views while having our breakfast. Of course it started to rain as we descended so we definitely got a chance to test the waterproof-ness of our boots and rain gear.

A good weekend, despite the weather (and the fact that Annie was a bitch, and the flashing accident)!

Flockhill

Wow, I've almost forgotten about this thing ;-)

Just catching up.... On February 23rd we took part in a mountain biking event through Flockhill, a large station (farm) in Arthur's Pass. It was an early start, a tough 4 hours cycling and a really hot day. Still, fun was had by all!

Some photos:

Cave Stream

Graham at the entrance.

Here in New Zealand there is a national holiday (or bank holiday) for Waitangi Day on February 6th, marking the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi (New Zealand's founding document) in 1840. This year it was on a Wednesday, so it wasn't really practical to take any other days off. We decided instead to make use of it by going to Cave Stream, about 90 minutes from Christchurch.

Cave Stream is exactly what it says on the tin. It's a cave. It's also a stream. In fact, a stream running through a cave. It meanders 600m underground, beneath a carpark (or field really!). As the crow flies it's only about 100m but it takes about an hour to wander along the windy path.

If this was in Ireland we'd have had to pay 15 euro in entrance fees, pass through an Interpretive Centre, avoid the tacky souvenirs, have a guide and walk along a flat concrete path while holding onto a rope. There would also have been floodlights and I doubt that we would have got wet.

Naptime!

Here, we donned thermals and wetsuits, wore suitable footwear and put on our headtorches for the walk. One walks upstream along the river bed with the water depth ranging from waist-high (at the entrance) to roughly ankle or knee height (depending on your choice of stone!) on the way through. There's a little bit of scrambling but most of the time you're just walking on rocks. The water was quite cold at the entrance (at this point the water was just coming out of the cave so had been underground the longest) but warmed up as we went through.

It took a little bit of time to find the correct photo mode, but we took lots of snaps and really enjoyed the trip - splashing through the water, wading about and wondering at the wierdness of it all (not your regular Wednesday-afternoon activity!). Of course, there were lots of Gollum-moments as well!

Me - climbing up the ladder at the end (the only scary bit!).


Graham - crawling along the last bit and then standing at the exit.

Queenstown

Our final destination with Mog'n'Bex was Queenstown - time for a trip to the ice bar (Minus 5), where downing 1.5 cocktails in 20 mins each left us in great form for our dinner!

Just a few km from Queenstown is Arrowtown (note the naming theme!) - we sent the boys off for a day of testosterone filled biking while us girlies had a lovely time wandering around the shops. As an old gold-mining town it's really pretty, with buildings that you'd expect to find in the American west. I'd really recommend a visit!

(They also have funny shop signs:)

Our last holiday thing was a trip on the luge on Bob's Peak, overlooking Queenstown. They take photos of you as you go up on the chairlift and more as you drive your little buggy thingy down the slope. Sure, we could have bought the photos, but it was more Irish just to photograph the display screens! (Look at my great granny-driving style - I was willing it to go faster!)

And the proper photos:

Finally, our little Annie... she drove us (Herbie style) 2,500km, got herself some new oil and even needed a new windscreen after the drive! We managed to pack lots in - bags, tents, bikes etc for 4 people!

As with all friends from home it was great seeing Morgan & Becky - come visit again folks!!

Biking Around Wanaka

From Fox we drove south through Haast Pass to Wanaka. The scenery was spectacular - lots of waterfalls and pretty lakes along the way...

In Wanaka Morgan and Bex went kayaking and we all did lots of biking, including some time in a forest with really gnarly jumps:

There were lots of nice views of the lake though :-)

Myself and Becky also spent a day cycling about 50kms of the Otago Rail Trail. We had a lovely day, sunshine, animals, nice food (hmmm... lovely cafes along the way!):

Oh yes, and we went to the funky cinema in Wanaka... where the seats are old couches and even an old car!

Fox Glacier

Next stop on the Myra-Graham tiki-tour of the south island was the Fox Glacier - one of the two biggest and most famous glaciers in NZ. The naming has nothing to do with Fox's Glacier Mints and it's named instead after a former prime-minister.

At the moment the glacier is about 13km long, and even though overall it has retreated over the last 100 years, it is currently advancing slowly and you can easily see from photos that it is much bigger than it was in the last few decades.

We spent a day walking up to the glacier and then walking around on it. We all had climbing boots and were given strap-on crampons (note to self - mind your clothes!) and poles in case we went slipping around. It was quite funny seeing photos of ladies from yester-year, all decked out in their Sunday best - there must have been loads of injuries!

Nelson to Fox

From the Abel Tasman we travelled south along the west coast of the south island. While there were lots of long drives and windy hills (which Annie loved) there was also lots of dense rainforest (unbelievably thick) and some great scenery.

Our first stop was the longest swing bridge in New Zealand, complete with adjacent flying-fox:

Next stop were the pancakes rocks... nice, but not the most amazing sight ever....

Kiwi roads often have single lane bridges, often very long and even on busy roads. On the west coast however they combine single lane bridges with train tracks!

(Close by there's a place where the train tracks go straight through the middle of a roundabout.)

The Abel Tasman

After leaving the excitement of Havelock we travelled to the Abel Tasman National Park in the north west corner of the south island. We spent two days in the park - the first tramping (or walking) from Totaranui to Tonga Bay and the second sea-kayaking south to Marahua.

The walking path was really scenic - passing lovely beaches and with some water crossings (at this point Graham and Becky revealed that they had leather soles while both myself and Morgan whimpered like auld wans as the shells dug into our feet).

One thing that took us by surprise was the quoted walking times between the different bays. We were expecting the times to be indicators of maximum times, but it turned out that they required brisk walking with no time for messing about taking photos and jumping (see below). As we booked our trip so late we could only get a campsite at Mosquito Bay (surprisingly nice) and had arranged to get our bags dropped off by water taxi as the bay was not accessibly from land. Given that we were taking our time on the walks we decided to stop at a different beach and arranged to be picked up from there instead. We were booked on the last boat of the day and were sitting on the beach at 5pm when we saw the taxi approach.... and then take off again. Luckily we were able to get a kayaker to radio the company, otherwise we'd have had to spend the night apart from our tents.

(Random jumping.)

The following day we donned our kayaking gear and joined our guide and a few others to kayak back to base. It was really good fun, much easier than we expected and we even saw some seals on the way. My kayak-buddy, Graham, even agreed to the 90:10 rule before asking what it was - when I revealed that it meant he would do 90% of the work and I'd do the remaining 10% he wasn't too pleased (that rule wasn't applied for very long!).

At one point in the journey our guide attached a sail so that the wind could give us a break - unfortunately it didn't move us very fast so we had to get back to paddling!

All in all it was a great trip - good company, good food and good fun :-)

Go Dustin!!

Only in Ireland:

Eurovision entry may be a turkey

"Fowl" Eurovision entry is given the bird

(The second article (from Sky) has a sound clip.)

Morgan & Becky!

Just after Christmas Morgan and Becky came to visit us from Dublin. It was great to see them and we had lots of fun traveling around with them :-)

We spent the first few days in Christchurch, taking them on the standard tour (city, Port Hills, coffee in Sumner etc...) and even fitting in some biking in Bottle Lake. On the 29th we headed out for a few drinks and were shocked to find lots of the pubs closed for their annual holidays. The following night was worse - on the 30th we headed for a late dinner at about 10.30pm and everything was closed. There wasn't an open pub or restaurant to be found and even the pizza takeaways were closed - we ended up having to go to a 24hr supermarket to get some frozen pizzas to put in the oven!

Having stocked up on food for our trip (just in case) and after giving Mog'n'Bex barely enough time to get over their jetlag we stuck them in the back of the van and hit the road. Our first stop was Kaikoura, where Mog'n'Bex had booked in a whale watching trip. Unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side, and even though it was lovely and calm at the pier it was rough seas out further. Bah we said!

Not happy with the whales!

(We did get to see some seals though:)

From there we headed north towards the Abel Tasman. We ended up spending New Years Eve in the small town of Havelock. The campsite we had wanted to stay in was closed so we ended up in the YMCA "campsite" instead. By "campsite" read "garden" - the lucky owners scored an easy few dollars when we arrived! Still, it was a lovely little place!

Give that it was December 31st we were wondering if we should book our table for dinner. Before pitching the tents we popped into one of the two pubs, the Clansman, and they told us that they should be ok for a table at 8.30. We may have to wait 20 minutes or so but it would be fine.

8.30 came and we headed for our food. Lucky we booked because the place was... positively deserted! Until 11.30 there were only 8 of us there, including the two singers. What was worse was the positioning - the singers couldn't even see us but we tried to shout our encouragement from the corner. Just before midnight a few others arrived, although why we don't know as these people didn't even bother standing up for the countdown! Auld Lang Syne was butchered by 8 of us on the dancefloor - us Irish got the crossed-hand-shake-thingy going and the others looked like they thought we were mad. After midnight the singers (who were really good) joked that they'd tell their friends that there were 10 of us....

Ringing in 2008 - us and a tartan-clad mussel!

Havelock is home to lots of mussel farms and the town was full of the critters (I stayed well clear of sea food - two allergic shock caused hospital trips in New Zealand were enough!). The mussels decorated everything, including the police station and the restaurants.

And a few other random photos (I didn't buy any alpaca poo; I don't love them that much!)...