My latest adventures

Oh, I am finally back into gear again!! After been spending a lot of times drinking lots of beer and wine, I made it up a few mountains!! My achilles heels are pretty much cured (knock on wood). I am so happy!

Julian dragged me around at a 12 hr rogaine a couple of weeks ago in Dunedin. It was a fairly small race with a pretty demanding course through lots of scrub and pine forests. I suffered from severe cramp, but I must have gone through the pain barrier or something since it got better after half the race. There were lots of uphill and steep downhill and lots of bush bashing. We had traveled to Dunners with Sylvia, Jana and Jenny (Sylvia and Julian's mum) and her friend Fran. The other were a bit wiser and only did the 6 hr race.

Last Saturday I did something very stupid: I went up Mt Oxford, Mt Richardson, Mt Thomas and Mt Grey in one day. Only the SM master Julian Maclaren would come up with that idea. A total of 7 people were stupid enough to join him. We drove between the mountains and chose the shortest (and steepest) routes up and down the tops. What a brilliant idea!!



Mt Oxford was a tough 1000m climb. With gusty norwesterlies the real challenge was not to get blown off the top of Mt Oxford. We had 100 +km/h winds which made it tricky to get down safely. Mt Richardson was a pleasure I though, maybe because I remembered it being a lot steeper than it was. It was ONLY a 670m climb. Piece of cake. No not really. The legs were getting a bit stiff but it was a fun track to jog down.

Mt Thomas was painful, mostly because Ben Low had joined us and he looked painfully fit and fast. We had 1600 m of elevation behind us from the morning. I was pretty slow but with some bribing with ginger nuts, I also made it to the top. We had chosen the most direct route (700 m straight up almost), which unfortunately was not the most scenic. We had the chance to admire gorse, broom and pinus radiata. Oh, good old introduced species. At least we didn'tÂ’t have to bush bash through the shit. The view from the top over the Cantabrian plains was great. This was amongst the first tramps I did in New Zealand five years ago. I am happy to say that I think I am a bit more fit now.

We schlogged up the lasts 500 m to Mt Grey in sun set. The plains were gold coloured, but shifted towards pink the more the sun disappeared. This was the easiest top to climb. Thank god. We enjoyed the beautiful skies from the top but had to return to the cars since my stomach started screaming for fish and chips. I can get pretty grumpy when I get hungry so I got given some more ginger nuts to shut me up.

My feet and legs were pretty sore after our 34 km. The fish and chips was just what I needed. Fat is good and salty fat is even better!!

I left Chch with Sofia the next day to soak in Hamner hot springs. I could hardly walk down the stairs in my flat, but after a nice hot pool day and a delicious meal at norwester cafe in Amberly, my body was a bit more thankful.