Friday saw me catch up with James to hear about his amazing ultra marathon last weekend up at Tarawera. Ed and June both same for brekkie at Little Peckish too. June is about to head to Mongolia for her crazy multi day marathon - on a frozen lake!
June and James are both slightly mad, obvs.
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| Surprised June |
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| Surprised James |
Ed took my iced coffee pic. Menace that he was with it!
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| The only one ready |
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| Ed selfie - never give him the phone |
Home to pack after work and ready to head away super early Saturday. 5am start. Flung stuff in the car and collected Andrew at 5.50am. Hurtled over the hill to try and find brekkie somewhere. Bakeries all closed. Weird. Finally found a place in Carteron. Wild Oats. Yay!
Slightly late into the car park - 8.15am instead of 8am. Oops. But we met Annette and Phil and we headed off for our monitoring line with them. Andrew was with some high school boys and a teacher (called "Sir") for a gnarly line.
Ours was superb. Up Gentle Annie, then off left to the Gentle Annie creek. Up there for 100m and then left straight up the hill. 10 traps. Laying monitoring cards. Ink pads with a dollop of peanut butter to lure the critters in.
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| Annette and Phil |
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| Mike |
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| Stunning view |
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| Where I have been |
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| Almost back |
We were done by midday and had a cup of tea at the ranger's house to touch base with the other teams. Andrew's team was still up in the back of beyond so Mike and I headed to a patch of grass and read in the shade for a while.
Turns out Andrew was up at the lodge chatting to other trampers and runners and we finally met up with him around 1730. Oops.
Headed into Masterton and found a pub to eat and drink at. Nice. Back to Holdsworth and Eric the ranger said we could use Holdsworth Lodge. Woot! We got a room to ourselves as did Andrew.
Up early ish the next day to decant from the lodge to the car and off to do the monitoring line - this time to collect the ink pads and see what critters had been lured in to eat the peanut butter.
Okay - the bush is riddled with rats and mice. Our cards were covered in tracks and the peanut butter was gone in all but one monitoring station.
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| Chewed cards |
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| Monitoring group |
Back by 11.30am, another cuppa with Eric at his house. And then off to have lunch in Carterton at Wild Oats and then home.
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| Iced coffee in Carterton |
Dropped Andrew home and then got home and tidied up - lots of laundry. Hahah.
Up early this morning for work. It's my birthday! Woot! I love birthdays!
Have an awesome day.
Love,
Angela
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