The landscapers made a lot of progress on Friday and the front yard looked great - we can see what it will become now. Kinda. If I use my imagination.
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| Retaining walls going up |
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| Should look great soon |
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| View from the front door |
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| Iced latte time! |
I did get an iced latte in during the day on Friday - so that was good.
But it was all about the weekend after 5pm! Ooossshhh! Got home and packed for the weekend. Finally found my bike computer - and that hunting expedition meant I found my favourite cap.
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| Andrew and I start off after Sally dropped us at the top of Remutaka Hill |
Next morning Sally and Andrew collected me and my bike and gear at 7am and we were at the top of Remutaka Hill by 8:30am. Yay. Gorgeous day. Sally took some pics (hopefully I get some of those) and we were off.
I got to try my hand at navigation - I may need more practise. Ok - a lot of practise. It's lucky it wasn't up to me to get us back to the track. Andrew is collecting spot heights, and we got 5 on this day. He considered that a job well done. A few more remain for him in this area.
But the exciting thing about spot height bagging is there is often no track to them. They are just isolated high points (Andrew explained they were for mapping purposes).
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| Selfie with Remutaka Hill Road behind me |
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| Lovely view - you can see Lake Wairarapa through the trees |
I wanted to do this walk with him because you see this skyline ridge as you drive over the hill, and I like the idea of knowing I have now been up there.
One of the spot heights was a bush bash from a track. At one stage it took us 1.5 hours to go 1.2 km. It was choked with gorse and scrub. You had to wriggle through, hoping you never caught brown sharp gorse anywhere, using your pack to create a barrier between you and the worse bits. It mostly worked. I ended up following Andrew through one part, upside down, tumbling through a wee scrubby tree. It got me there!
I also collected bruises, scratches and had blood welling to the surface in more than one location.
And I loved every minute of it!
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| Feet during a lunch stop |
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| Selfie high above the Wairarapa |
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| Ok - I like this view of the road |
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| More road views |
I loved the view of the Remutaka Hill road from various points on our walk. Beautiful vistas. As we got back up to our high point of 805m, and back on the track, we had to scramble down a short, steep bank onto the track. Andrew went first, hanging off a tree branch and using that to guide himself down. He told me to wriggle down to his height above the path. And put my foot where his was, as soon as he moved it. He did mention it wasn't the best footing - but ok. I slotted my boot in as Andrew gracefully descended the last 2m. And as I stood to put weight on my foot, holding the same tree branch, the foothold gave way and I hurtled to the track, on my bottom, feet first, into Andrew. Andrew bravely attempted to put his body on the line to save me face planting into the hard track.
It worked. All that happened was I got filthy from sliding through the muddy bank. And Andrew didn't say I had damaged him in any way.
Anyhow, we got onto the tops after that, and grabbed another spot height. Then we were on the never ending downhill to meet Sally. Andrew jumped into wilderness again for thirty minutes to get another spot height while I lay in the grass, listening to him bashing away into the bush. I could hear him coming back once he had found the spot height, and it was eerily like Jurassic Park. Hearing snapping branches and seeing the trees shake and it getting closer.
Continued down, picking blackberries as we went. Met Sally and happily ate yummy things (pain au chocolate and ginger beer - classic!) then off to Martinborough and our accommodation at Cologne Cottage.
We got changed for dinner at Pinocchios and dropped the birthday cake off early and went and waited at the park for our 6pm reservation. Aidan and Janne got there for 6 and we walked over and met them there. Janne had no idea we knew about her birthday and announced this dinner out had morphed into her birthday celebration. Ohh - we said - you kept that secret. :-)
Then she found the card under her napkin and the cat was out of the bag. We knew it was her birthday! And we even had birthday cake (yummy banana) that Sally had bought earlier. Anyway, after a lovely dinner, I was almost asleep in my seat. We got a drive back to our cottage and I tried to eat some cheese before bed with everyone. But before long I was pretty tired from the day's excitement.
Off to bed and a pretty good sleep despite the strange bed. Up early (well, not too early) at 7am and packed for our bike ride at 8am. Andrew had to fix a puncture in his back tyre before we left. And we ate custard squares for brekkie - unusual fare. Hahah.
However, 2.5 km into our ride, I heard a "pppfftttt" and a groan from Andrew. His back tyre had popped. So he changed it again - and put in another new tube. But this one stayed up. Yay! We rode up the back road (Longbush road) to Gladstone, making fairly good time despite the odd wind direction from the nor'west. As we turned up Admiral Hill at 10am, the wind got behind us. Choice. We were facing a 10 km climb. But as I started to put pressure on my gears, they kept popping out of bottom into the second bottom. Constantly. Andrew suggested holding my lever in, so I tried that and that seemed to work. But my hands got so tired from the constant pressure.
Got through a pinch about halfway up - real grunty. The wind picked up as we got higher. Andrew tweaked my derailleur settings and that seemed to work well for the last few kms. Got to the top and we were rewarded with views over more hills towards the west coast. So windy though - as Andrew held up his phone, it acted like a sail to knock him off balance.
Anyway, we started back down, and on my first slight uphill section, my gears played up. This time it seemed like they were broken and not shifting at all. After trying a few tweaks, Andrew decided to ride my bike. And he stopped immediately, yanked at my gear cable, and it came out. With frayed ends. Oh. No gears (apart from the front one). Lucky I mostly had downhill ahead of me. Andrew popped my chain into a middle back gear and he took off to get Sally (and reception) ahead of me. Any uphill killed me - a steeper section had me walking up. Anyway, I eventually got to the last uphill section and hopped on my bike and coasted down. Met Aidan and Janne and they grabbed my bike and shoved it in the boot and away off to the pub for lunch.
Lunch at the Gladstone Pub. In the sun. And on Janne's actual birthday too. Nice. Got away at 1.30 ish to meet Col on Palmerston North. First time for me over the Pahiatua Track.
We got to Col and Iona's place at 2.30, but Col was out. We ate cheese and crackers with Iona and waited for Col. She got back, and we gave her a wee birthday present before heading off to Tawa and the Bichan family dinner.
Home by 8.30pm and a well needed bath before bed. Mike was up early today for his flight to Auckland - back late tomorrow.
Phew! Such a great weekend. How cool is that? Just me and Toby tonight. Although he has a dental appointment I forgot to mention to him this morning. Hope I can sort that out.
Enjoy your week ahead.
Love,
Angela
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