The weekend with a lazy day and a full on day

 Hi,

And the week begins again.  But the weekend was pretty good at recharging the batteries for it.  Friday night saw Mike and Andrew at Occasional Brewer in the evening with Elly and some others brewing up an APA (I think that is what Mike said).  In a week or so they will head in to bottle it.

During my lunch break I went to the garage and did a boxing session.

The steely gaze of someone slightly crazy

The cats were chilling in the rays of sunshine.

Moxley in the sunshine.  Mike's underwear on the internet.

Smudge loves the sun

Saturday saw us up for boot camp.  Doro attended too :-)  After a hard session, Mike did the grocery shopping at Thorndon.  He found some vege dumplings and the checkout person was very excited that he had bought this brand and explained in detail how to cook them.  

Which Mike did as soon as we got home and unpacked.

After grocery shopping after the boot camp, Mike made dumplings for lunch

Moxley hanging around

After boot camp - I was cold so used my hoodie

Toby had all his mates over for filming the last installment of Blair Witch.  5 years in the making.  The huge finale.  They arrived at 1pm and stayed until around 5pm.

Smudge finds a warm spot

Same place, different cat.  Moxley hogs the space

We tried these!

That meant we were banished to the bedroom.  We watched a movie and read - and generally relaxed. Mike was tuckered out so we got Indian takeaways.  Off to bed not long after that. 

Evening feet

Sunday - up early (5.30 for me) to get head off tramping with Andrew.  We got away from home just after 7am and got Maccas on the way.  We piled into the Subaru and headed to Hine Road roadend in Wainuiomata to start up the Nikau track.  8.17am was the time I checked my watch as we strode across the grass to the start of the track.

Sunday tramping

Mike says, come on!

Our objective was a waterfall marked on the map on Turere stream - up near its headwaters.  We headed up the Nikau track and then did a grungy sidle to hit another track.  This grungy sidle is another name for a mucky, tough bit of off track bush bashing through a gully.  Gullies attract a lot of treefall.  At one point, I was straddling a huge fallen tree clinging to the slope in defiance of gravity, feet precariously on the leafy soft ground either side of the trunk, hanging on by my arms, very grateful that Quentin has me doing a lot of arm work.

At some point I noticed I had sticky sap on my upper thigh - thought I must have brushed past a tree.  

Once we hit the decent track out of the grungy sidle, we checked the map.  As Andrew and Mike debated the next move, I checked the sap on my pants.  Still sticky.  But weird.  Looked at my hands - they were covered in blood.  Weird.  What was happening?  I had a wee nick on my hand - but it didn't bleed much so it must be coming from somewhere else.  In a mild panic now, I dropped my trousers to find an oozing puncture wound right under the sticky splodge on my trousers.  Andrew reckons bush lawyer stabbed me through my thick tramping pants.  It wasn't sore in the slightest.

We tried to find a well marked sidle instead of the ridge track - headed about 150m in one direction.  But we failed.  Couldn't find it.  [Andrew now thinks we were basically there and it was probably marked on the other side of a tree just past us].  So we headed back up, past where we joined from the sidle and up.

Headed back to the ridge track and along there for a bit up to lunch in a sunny, windy part of the track.  Met our only other person as we dropped down the other side (found the other end of the sidle highway) and then hared off down a spur towards the stream.

The steep down was hard on my legs.  They were like jelly by the time I got to the riverbed.  Loose leaf litter meant you had to hope you had a good foot hold as you trusted your weight on it.  But Mike and Andrew were very kind in helping me down.

In the gorgeous riverbed, just below the waterfall

Target acquired

It was worth the waist deep wade

We wandered upstream for a bit and found the gorgeous wee waterfall.  It was a beauty.  To continue upstream, we had to scramble up a bank on the true right (it was a steep start) and head up quite high before climbing back down to the stream (a steep descent) and continuing our walk up.

Andrew negotiated the river bank, climbing up slippery slopes to avoid getting wet.  Mike and I braved the pools of water to clamber over log jams and rocks as needed.  One pool looked really deep.  I watched Mike go in up to his hips - the cold water elliciting some squeaks from him as it hit areas that usually never go near cold water.  :-p

He climbed up some boulders out of the water then it was my turn.  As I got to the deep part, I took off my backpack, sensing it would actually be under water if it stayed on my back.  I fumbled it as I took it off in the hip deep water.  Gave it up to Mike and stepped into the deeper water closer to the boulder he was on.  It went up to my waist.  Brrrrr.  

Managed to ungracefully haul myself out of the deep water onto the rock.  In fact, grace played no part in my day as I variously thrashed through the bush like a rampaging elephant or splashed through the river like a hippo.  Funnily enough we never saw any fauna.  I wonder why.  :-p

One good thing from the dunking - my pants got a good wash and the blood disappeared from the oozing wound.  Yes!

On the homeward stretch - sun dipping down through the trees

Another bush bash up a trapline out of the river saw us up on the Mckerrow track after a wee while and the sun starting to set.  

Made it to the top and now it is all downhill to the car

But the real track saw us make good time back to the car.  Down towards Sunny Grove road, but took the Hine Road bypass track to avoid a road slog.

Back to Sally and Andrew's place for some Turkish food delivered by Deliver Easy.  It was scrumptious - and the ginger beer went down a treat.

And home just after 9pm and what a day!  Took a bath to relax and then fell into bed and had the best sleep in ages.

But today... Toby has a migraine.  :-(

Up for my session with Quentin - arms day.  So now my arms ache as well as my legs.  Hahahah.

Enjoy your week.  AKL moves to level 2.5 and let's see what that does for covid in NZ.

Love,

Angela

Contact register:

Fri Aug 28

Mike and Andrew @ Occasional Brewer

Sat Aug 29

Angela, Mike and Doro @ bootcamp 8.30 - 9.30

Mike @ New World Thorndon 8.45 - 9.15

Toby's mates over at our house from 1pm.  

Mike @ Dehlicious for picking up dinner ~ 7pm

Tessa over

Sun Aug 30

Angela & Mike @ Maccas Petone 7.30am

Mike, Andrew and Angela tramping (only met one other person)

Mike, Andrew, Sally and Angela ate Delivery Easy for dinner (Turkish place)