The Tuesday with AFL training for the first time post covid

 Hi,

Busy day at work and a quick drive into a local petrol station to beta test their new app for refueling your car. I was perfect as a tester because I seriously had no clue having never paid at the outdoor pump before using the old app.

Ummm - I needed human help, readers. Well, only at one point. And perhaps I should have worn my glasses to read the tiny words.  Hahahah.

Beta testing an app at lunch time

Flashback to Michelle's wedding and a hot Melbourne summer

After work Mike had an architect planning session in town and I drive to AFL training. It was my first real exercise since covid - and I didn't get breathless. Yay! I did mark a ball slightly wrong and now have swollen knuckles on my right hand. I look like I have been boxing. It is a little sire - but not bad. Probably be fine in a day or two.

Picked up Mike and one of the other architect punters - Andrew! - from their planning session and dropped Andrew home before heading home ourselves. Off to bed.

Up for a walk into work. First day back in the office since early November! Wow.

Will walk home with Barb after work too. Need to practise for Kepler after New Years.

Have a great day.

Love,

Angela

The Monday back at work

 Hi,

Busy this week - maybe Christmas crazy has started a wee bit early. Anyway, long day at work, even with working from home.

I also signed up for an AFL coaching session from 7 - 9pm - and discovered it was actually online because it was being run in Auckland. That was a nice surprise. After I cooked tea and Mike got home and we ate that - I wandered down to my Zoom meeting.

Biggest takeaways were:  

• Make your practice mimic a match
• Have a list of What Ifs to handle any game twists and turns - and anything new, just add it to the list

There you go. I figured any coaching tips would translate to real life leadership so it was worth going along to hear what Ryan said (played 15 years for the Swans so he knows a thing or two). And sure enough - comms, comms, comms.  That's the key.

Went to bed not long after that and I was asleep as soon as I stopped reading my book. And I don't think I woke until 15 mins before my alarm. So that was pretty nice.

First day back in gym post-covid

Headed into the gym for the first time since catching covid. Did deads and back/shoulder work. Not bad.

Drove home and working from there. At lunch time Mike and I are beta testing a new app for work. So we'll drive into a local petrol station and try it out with someone watching us.

Mike has an architect forum he is kicking off and is planning with people after work tonight.

Busy, as I said.

Hope your day is a good one.

Love,

Angela

The weekend with not a lot on

 Hi,

The weekend was really making sure I was absolutely fine. And it did the trick. Friday was very relaxing for me. I did get the outside furniture bench coated in mould killer ready for a sand and a stain. I might try and finish that off after work through the week if my time allows.

I did also make biscuits. I think I nailed the form in this batch - all nice and circular. Hahahah.

Biscuits

Faint line still

Saturday saw us relax at home before heading to the Hutt and dropping the trailer off. I did get a walk with Andrew over the bridges along the river and tried about 200m of running to see how my lungs coped. No major coughing - yay!

Hello there

Bird of paradise in flower

Hi Celia

Sunday saw rain in Wellington - and some slips. We saw SH1 south blocked as we darted out to see Callan and Stacey to collect our luggage that went home from down south with them. Good to chat to them.

Then off to collect my oil stain from Resene for the furniture. And home before the trapline BBQ event (saw Ellie there) and then quickly home for Mike to get Janine's car to meet her at the airport and me to drive to Kara's place for tea with her Mum.

Cheese subscription!

It was so good to see Glenn after so many years. I reckon it's been over 10 years since we saw her last. Easily. She looked well and we enjoyed tea with them both. She flies home on Thursday. It was lovely to see Kara and her mother interacting.  And see Kara's newly revamped kitchen. Much more open now.

We headed home after I realised I was starting to fall asleep. And into bed straight away. Mike was up for PT with Quentin and I am WFH today and tomorrow. I hope to go to AFL training after work tomorrow.

Have a lovely week ahead.

Love,

Angela

The Wednesday with some sick leave

 Hi,

After realising that for the first time ever I slept through my alarm at 6.30am Wednesday morning, I figured my body was saying I had to rest more. So I took Wed afternoon off. And I did sleep. So there you go. Covid brain. :-)

As a consequence I took no pics. How boring.

Mike was also tired but continues to test negative. He did collect the trailer from its bushes/bearings work and get a WoF. So yay! We can pop it back to Epuni this weekend. And get our car back in the garage.

We went to bed early and Mike must have slept for 10 hours. Wow. We got a terrific amount of rain at 9.30pm before I fell asleep. And when we woke this morning it was clear blue skies. Wellington weather!

Hope you enjoy your Thursday. I hope I will test negative soon and can get out and about over the weekend.

Have a good one.

Love,

Angela

The Tuesday back at work

 Hi,

After a day at work - but from home - Mike and I had some tea. And decided it would be best to walk it off. We walked up to Northland school and back. Good distance and I felt way better for getting out of the house.

Out for a walk after work

Moxley finds her place

Went to bed early and slept like a log. Didn't wake up for anything. And even when Mike's alarm went off at 6am, I merely rolled over and went back to a sound sleep. Then Mike delivered brekkie to me and it was a struggle to wake up from the depths of sleep.

Maybe this is a symptom of covid, finally?  I want to sleep lots?

Anyway. We are getting a supermarket delivery today. Nom, nom. And I might consider a half day if I think I need to sleep more. Hahahah.

Have a lovely day.

Love,

Angela

The Monday with a covid positive test

 Hi,

Well, that was a surprise. My cold is actually covid. Given I had the same cold as Iona and she tested negative, I really thought it was just a cold. But I got a faint line on the first RAT - and tried another.  As did Iona.  Hers was still negative - and mine was positive a second time.

So... our assumption now is, maybe I picked up covid in packed Queenstown on Friday, Saturday or Sunday on top of my cold. Who knows?

There is a faint line

And another one on a different brand

But so far I am just the same as I was with my cold. Less snot today. Woot! Same chesty cough from time to time.

Smudge is a bit sifty about how close Moxley is to her

Mike tested negative too. So yay for that. Hopefully he avoids anything from this cold. Phew!

We went to bed early and I had a great sleep. But the blinds are still not on our windows from when they were put in and we painted them. So at 5am I woke up and thought it was time to get up as it was so bright!

After work today we will put the blinds back up. Hahahah.

Have a great day!

Love,

Angela

The Sunday back from our Milford Routeburn Queenstown adventure

 Hi,

Yes - we are back at home after the most amazing few weeks away. It was so good it feels like we have been away for a month!

Our house did not do so well in our absence. The hot water cylinder only has one job. Keep water hot. And we have tepid water only. I am going to have to wait for a bit before I brave the cool shower. Mike thinks the element has gone!

The cats are good. But very needy! Moxley is noisy. Running around the house, crying for attention.

Andrew collected us from the airport - thank you! And now Mike and I are both at work - from home. Mike had to take the trailer in to get fixed - and I have a cold from the tramp. I am not contagious as not even Mike has caught it. But I am snotty and have a cough every now and then. Iona caught it too - we are blaming our Tasmanian trail buddies.  Hahahah.

I will work on getting the blog on the holiday sorted. It was so good! (Hah - Mike got the blog sorted a full year later.)

Mike did well in the Queenstown half marathon. He's not sore or hurt at all. He's so strong now.

Have a great day.

Love,

Angela

Days 10-11 Queenstown Half Marathon

Mike here.

It's time. The cumulation of our Southern Adventure. When Janine and I run the Queenstown Marathon. The full marathon for Janine and the half marathon for me.

I can't say that I'm particularly ready. My training programme has consisted of:

• Going to Nepal for three weeks - and catching Covid
• Recovering from Covid
• Doing one 8km run at Tekapo about two weeks ago
• Tramping and e-biking - but not running. At all.

Yesterday was my rest and tapering day, where I squeezed all my recovery from not running into one 24 hour stretch. I booked myself in for a lower body massage in the hope that the massage therapist would put all the strength and endurance back into my legs somehow. We also said goodbye to Callan and Stacey as they headed away to catch up with family and go on more adventures. 

We carb loaded at The Cow Pizza House for dinner. And that was that for preparation.

Now it's race day. Janine and I are are up early. We load up with coffee and breakfast. Out and ready for our 6:30am buses to our respective starting lines.

6:20am, smiles for the camera.

My bus takes me out towards Lake Hayes and Speargrass Flat Road. We unload into a huge field with a row of porta-loos at one end. I queue for one. The queue ends up snaking over the whole field. 

Once I'd been I get straight back into the queue for the next go. Well, I'm just standing about in a field waiting, right? I may's well stand about with purpose.

7:51am. Start chute. Nerves are building.

8:16am I'm off. It feels good. For the first 10 km.

8:50am. I can do this!

9:20am, I'm even taking first person photos.

At the 10km mark, all of a sudden, I hit a wall. I go from doing my thing to feeling exhausted. 

Now it's time to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and don't stop. 

 

9:50am. Just keep going.

The scenery we're running through is truly beautiful. My running pace has dropped right away and I'm shambling along at a pace I'd associate with tramping rather than running. Everything hurts. There is a bit more up and down in this course than I'm used to, too. 

10:45am. Nearly done. And nearly done.

Angela is there to cheer me on at the end. I try to put a game face on and fail completely. The last few hundred metres twist through the town which lets Angela cut the corners and keep up with me. At last I see the finish line.

10:50am, whew. Done.

That was so, so hard but I feel incredibly proud to have finished uninjured, pushing through 12km of pain. 2:34 is very slow but it is not a DNF. I keep that photo of me near the end on hand from now on. I don't want to feel like that at the end of a half marathon again.

I hobble off back to the hostel to shower and change. I have a bit of time before Janine gets in on her full marathon. 

Janine gets in, her time is 6:24. Huge effort. 42.2km, I can't comprehend running that far. And she still has a smile on her face.

Our medals!

We wander back to the hostel again, then off to Ferg Burger for dinner at the Hostel dining room. The view is beautiful. The dining room is pleasantly buzzing. I chat to a woman who is working hospo and was treated quite badly at her last job. She had to meet with HR to talk about how she couldn't just break her contract like that. The HR person ended up taking detailed notes about exactly how bad her manager behaved.

Don't treat people in hospo badly. Especially in Queenstown, in 2022, when you can't get good staff anywhere. There are 'staff wanted' signs everywhere. Lots of places are closed because they just don't have enough staff to open.

Ferg burger and a Speights at the Hostel

I love hostel life. Free beer on the dining room table.

What a finale to our 2022 Southern Adventure. We crammed so so much into just eleven days. I am really proud of what I achieved today. But I never want to run a half marathon like this again. The expression on my face near the end of the half is going to be my motivation for next time.

My Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/8136646782

Janine's Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/8137434295

Day 9 Lake Dunstan Ride

There's a really good writeup of the Lake Dunstan bike trail in Stuff, too.

Our Lake Dunstan biking day started with an early morning coffee and iced latte expedition to Ferg Baker (next door to Ferg Burger).  Queenstown is nice and quiet in the early morning.

We said goodbye to Iona and left her to start her day.  Thanks for coming, Iona! You've been a great Southern Adventure companion.

6:45am iced latte

We'll miss you Iona!

There were five of us today - Me, Mike, Janine, Callan and Stacey.  

We jumped in the van and swung past Callan and Stacey's Rav4, parked up on a Kelvin Heights side street, to grab helmets and other bike gear.  As we headed south down the Kawerau Gorge, right on time, we realised we actually started from Clyde and not Cromwell and so we were late.  Some panic ensued but we were driving just behind the bike company's shuttle bus so that reassured us. We were just ten minutes late in the end and it wasn't a bother.

We followed the shuttle bus all the way to the She Bikes He Bikes car park, and soon found our bikes lined up on the old railway station platform. The professional but relaxed and reassuring staff soon had us fitted to our bikes and quickly ran us through how everything worked. Then we loaded our bikes onto the enormous shuttle bus trailer and Don, our driver, drove us back up State Highway 6 to the start of the trail.

We're ready to begin

The first part of our ride was around the Lake Dunstan inlet to Bannockburn and back, shaking down our bikes as we went. Janine's bike wasn't accelerating like it should, in fact we worked out that it was actually not providing any e-bike assistance at all and showing a "W013" error (thanks, Callan, for remembering that code a full year later). We tried various things to fix it but - of course - turning if off and on again sorted it out.

In fact I think this first few km was mainly there to sort out both the bikes and their riders. In this part it is easy to leave the trail and get help or pull out. Especially at the Carick Winery where some other riders warned us with serious voices that we would find nothing more to drink past this point. I think they meant water but I'm not completely sure.

Off we set

Lupins

I'm having so much fun

Now we started around the lake proper, and the track went from "Grade 1" (wide flat gravel road) to "Grade 2-3" (slightly narrower track with some up and some down and some corners). 

One highlight was how the track designers had solved the impossible problem of how to get the track past the occasional sheer cliffs on the way around the lake. They had built cantilevered track hanging off the rock faces. Lots of fun to ride around. 

We reached the famous coffee boat right at 12pm. I enjoyed my second iced latte of the day along with yummy things from Ferg Bakery that I had secreted in my bike pannier. 

The view just keeps getting better

Mike reads about the cantilevered track

Lunch doesn't get much better than this

Straight after the coffee boat was one of our few ascents, a series of nicely graded switchbacks. Our E-bikes made short work of it. There was a viewpoint at the top with Brent's dad Bruce McMillan featuring on an explanatory sign.

"People were able to see inside the drainage tunnels after they were constructed. Pictured is tunnel guide Bruce McMillan during a drainage tunnel open day."

Callan, Stacey and I at the trig

Janine at the trig

It was quite surreal biking along this path, which Mike and I had looked at from the highway on the other side of the lake many times in our travels. And now we were biking along it, with the serenity of the heat and scenery only broken by the noise of the traffic on that same highway. Now we were watching the cars who were watching us and no doubt some drivers were wondering, "How did those cyclists get there? What's up with that track then?"

Towards the end we reached a huge, nearly 100m long suspension bridge named the Hugo Bridge in large letters. 

Mike set himself up and took a lot of photos

Mike's leg is not as photogenic as my feet

Stacey (and Callan)

Me!

Janine (and Callan)

Janine exits the bridge

... and onward, back at lake level

Clyde Dam was nearly our destination - it was the point when we transitioned from track back to tarmac. I'd never been that close to it before. Unfortunately you couldn't cross the dam itself, but you could see it up close.

Very soon we were back at He Bikes She Bikes Base Camp and returning our bikes. Clyde is quite a small town but it did have at least a couple of cafes and bars for weary thirsty cyclists. We chose The Merchant of Clyde and enjoyed a few drinks and a bite to eat.

Clyde dam, up close

Clyde memorial at the side of the road.
"RIP Danny, our lovely cat. We miss you."

The Lake Dunstan cycle trail was really impressive. I had high expectations and it exceeded them! If you have a spare day in the Queenstown area it's a must do.

42km in slightly over 4 hours (we were definitely not in a hurry)