Good Morning, Good Morning: June 2026

Tuesday, June 2, 2026

The weekend with spring challenge training in Wellington

Hi,

What a busy weekend. Long weekend here in Aotearoa with the King's Birthday weekend. Friday saw my haircut cancelled so I ended up walking into town to meet Maureen for lunch to plan the weekend fun.

Sourdough last week

Walk in on Friday

Mike joined us as we got a vague plan together. I rode home (I had left my bike in the bike shed at work on Thursday) and blitzed my way up the hill. 2 seconds slower than my PB. Woot!

Tidied the house. Then picked up Mike and Callan from Foxglove on my way to the airport for a 8.30pm pick up for Iona. She had a smooth flight and we were quickly into the car for our drive home. Mike and Callan decided to go out on the town and meet Quentin at Rogue and Vagabond. So we dropped them on Dixon and continued home. We had a nice cuppa and then off to bed.

I did get woken at 12:30am with Mike trying to find a sleeping bag for Callan. Despite the copious amounts of alcohol they did decide a night on our couch was wise. So good on them. But my broken sleep meant when the alarm went off at 6am, I was not ready to get up for parkrun.

So we slept in a bit. And then I made lots of scrambled eggs. Callan headed home before he could eat some though. We all ate eggs then got ready for our day.

Margies lunch

Iona and I rode our bikes down the hill to Ngauranga Gorge to meet Maureen. And then we proceeded through the new pathway to Eastbourne. At Eastbourne we stopped for coffee and grabbed some lunch. I went to Hive cafe and it was very good.

Saturday bike ride

Views

Continued down to the lighthouse and had lunch looking out to the southern ocean. Then we started back and realised just how strong the tailwind had been. It was a hard slog back.

Lunch spot

Bikes in a pile

Originally we were going to ferry back from Eastbourne but the ferry bike passage was full. So we had to continue right around the harbour back to town. We said goodbye to Maureen at Ngauranga and Iona and I got to Spotlight where Mike came to pick us up. Thank you Mike.

We managed 65km all up. Phew. That bike path was so busy at both ends of the day. So good.

And done.

A quick shower and out to town to meet the Forbes family at Great India. It was a good reminder about how good that restaurant is. Yum.

We caught up on all their news. Ellen was in town for a Shakespeare competition, so everyone was up to support her. I absolutely loved the conversation. So good to see them all.

Great India for dinner

New bridge

Sunday saw Mike drop me and Iona at Khandallah pool where we met Maureen. We headed up to the summit then along the Skyline track. It was pretty windy. I needed to hold my cap a lot. I saw Maureen get blown off the track a bit at one point.

Mt Kaukau

Selfie

View of Wellington

Walking on the Skyline

Such a good walk. 3.5 hours later and 13 km later we walked across Karori Park to meet Mike. And he whisked us to the pool car park where we enjoyed lunch at the cafe there. Cafe du Parc. Maureen headed home after that and we got home to get ready for the next social event.

Cafe du Parc

Sally arrived at our place and we got in the car with the ladder and water blaster and went to visit Quentin and Courtney. What a gorgeous house they have. Wow.

We got a tour of their house and a cup of tea. Quentin's mother came home just as we finished chatting so we got to meet her too. We heard about Joel's wedding to Rachelle the day before which sounded really good fun.

Out to Sally and Andrew's place for a chat and Sally cooked dinner. Roast vegetables with haloumi. Mmmmmm.

Home to bed.

Monday morning saw me drop Iona at her mother's place. I got a cup of tea with Helen and heard about her latest news.

Monday morning cats

Monday project

At home Mike got stuck into the plywood project. We want to extend the floor of the loft in the garage. Phase 1 is now complete. Ply measured and cut. Next phase is ready.