The weekend with the last boot camp and a gruelling day tramp

 Hi,

What a busy weekend!  Friday saw me meet Erin from work at Chillax for lunch to catch up on things.

Manic iced latte selfie at Chillax

Moxley lurking at our work desk at home

Mike had a long night out on Friday.  Around 1.30am I heard him come home with what sounded like half the pub.  There was a lot of noise and cooking until around 3am when Mike came to bed.  He said:  I have a long story for you.   I asked him to tell me in the morning.

Needless to say, Mike was not ready for boot camp at 7am.  I got up and found someone had been sleeping in our spare bed and was now in the upstairs shower.  I made my breakfast and then she came out to the kitchen to say hello.  She asked if I was the partner.  Yes, and my name is Angela.  And what is his name, she said?  Mike, I said.

So we chatted as I ate brekkie.  She didn't want any but rang her partner who had stayed at his brother's place in Newtown and she had left all her stuff at the train station.

She was also in a wheelchair and wanted a hand getting back up to the road.  I said I could drive her back to the train station on my way to boot camp.  Mike got up and helped her up to the road and then we popped her chair in the boot and off we went.

I dropped her at the station and then other homeless people all said hello to her.  I hope she was okay and sorted out her next move.

Iced latte after boot camp at Smith the Grocer

Boot camp was good fun.  Hard work.  But as it was the last one (possibly forever) we went for brekkie afterwards.  And Mike came in for that!  Smith the grocer.  Very yummy.

Boot camp story from Quentin

Home to chill for the afternoon.  Mike went back to bed for a bit.  We got ready at 4pm and headed into town at 5.15pm.  We parked on Victoria and met Kara and Neil at the R&S Satay place on Cuba.  Ate delicious satay before wandering to the Gryphon theatre for a play.

Saturday afternoon chilling with Smudge

Dinner with Kara and Neil at R&S Satay

Popped into a beer place near Fortune Favours ahead of the play.

We saw Spitfire Grill.  A musical by the Wellington repertory theatre.  A great production.  We had good seats - socially distanced into bubbles.  And we were (mostly) masked up.  

Back home and into bed and up early for a day tramp.  Janine was keen to snaffle another secret hut.  This was after a 50 km run on Saturday!  How she actually did the tramp is beyond me as I found it hard work without doing anything the day before!

Toby Island

Putuputu Shelter in behind Kaitoke was the mission.  Callan, Laura, Andrew, Janine, Mike and I all met up at the car park on a gorgeous Sunday morning at 9.30am.

Mike and I had left home at 8am and collected Andrew but then had to drive back for Mike's boots.  That made us about 30 mins later than intended.

Janine walking through the bush

The flume bridge is closed for about 4 years as they fix it up.  It was shut last year and scheduled to re-open in Dec 2024.

So over the swingbridge we went, and after checking the Flume bridge out, we backtracked and headed up the spur.

It went up and up.  From 200m to about 600m.  Not too steep apart from the start - but steep enough.  Laura has legs of steel and scampered up like a wee mountain goat.  I was not scampering. The top was lovely - nice flat run from one spot height to another.  Then a bearing from there down to a spur.  It was a long way down.  And got really steep close to the stream where the shelter was located.

Cute frond unfurling

Following the trail

Putuputu Shelter

The shelter was lovely.  Well built A frame.  Mike cleared the leaf litter from one side.  We ate some lunch.  After considering our options and the time remaining (at was about 1.30pm at this stage) before the park gates closed at 6pm, we decided to go back the way we had come.  It was a known route - the stream was reported to by gnarly and gorgey.  We'd get wet and a lot of us did not have boots.

So up we went.  And up.  And up.  Phew it was hard work.

At the top point on our way back

But we managed it.  And made it back to the car by 5.40pm.  A long day with hard tramping.  And I was delightfully mellow by the end of it.

We dropped Andrew at home and got back to ours and cooked up a bowl of noodles before collapsing into bed.

What an awesome weekend.  Full of different things.  Thanks everyone.

Love,

Angela