The weekend in Blenheim for the final Spring Challenge training session

 Hi,

What a great weekend to end our spring Challenge training on. Phew! We did get a lot done.  On Thursday after work, Mike ran to the airport (well, I found him outside NIWA) and I drove from home.  We enjoyed a sandwich at the Sounds Air gate before Mike left to head home.

Had a bumpy flight out of Wellington - pilot had to crab a bit over the harbour. Then smooth into Blenheim where Iona picked me up.

Thurs evening Sounds Air flight

Up fairly leisurely Friday for a lovely brekkie then met Nicola at the Quail Stream carpark in the Wither Hills. We rode through the park to the road and along to the Cob Cottage before coming back in along the Mapp Track. Unfortunately I did not find the 8 extra gears this time super helpful at negotiating the track steep parts. Sigh.

Blenheim supply

So windy on Mapp Track

It was so windy - every corner was really gusty. You can see Iona and Nicola bracing against their bikes in the pic above.

1.5 hours of riding then back to the car and a walk up the valley.  This route was not super steep up - and I have come down it a few years ago. The wind was amazing - especially on the top.

Up Quail Stream Valley

Climbing slowly

At one point along the top, Nicole had her beanie whipped off her head and thrown over a barbed wire fence. I squashed through to retrieve it.

2 mins later her wrap around sunnies got blown off her face. Iona and Nicola watched them flutter away over the fence and gone. Oops.

The plan was for us to be back at the car after 1.5 hours so I ran the last 200m to make it 1 hour and 31 mins. Woot!

Lovely scenery

Friday night saw Sally and Andrew visit with Alistair and Vicki. Iona made palak paneer and it was so good. 

Off to bed for an early rise. At Nicola's by 8am so we could pack the bikes into her ute and head to St Arnaud.

Saturday at St Arnaud and Lake Rotoiti

Selfie

We rode from West Arm up to the lower Mt Robert car park. That was hard work. The gravel was good - it was just my legs that didn't work hard enough. We locked our bikes to the DoC sign and sorted ourselves out for the walk up to Bushline Hut.

We started up the track and made good time.  The sign said 2 hours to the hut. We got high up when we encountered snow flurries. We got our jackets on and continued up. We passed a big party of about 6 or 7 people all dressed with tramping pants, boots, and jackets and beanies.  They looked at us in our bike shorts and sneakers like we were mad. Hahah.

We rode to the car park and walked up to Bushline Hut

Stunning

Up Paddy's track

Across some scree

West Arm below

Looking further up the lake

We hit snow

Bushline Hut was surrounded by about 5cm of snow. We were first to it from this side. We met a couple coming down that had done the loop from the other side. Ankle deep snow and often up to their knees.

We had lunch in the hut and chatted to two young women. They had turned back from their route further up Mt Robert due to hip deep snow. :-o

We decided to walk back the way we came - given we had only sneakers and shorts. Good idea!

Bushline Hut nestled in the snow

Ta dah!

Iona is pleased

Our day packs

The descent

Not too chilly

And out of the snow

Me and Nicola at the hut

Back to our bikes with 2 hours 30 min moving time all up. Wow. Super fast.  The sign said 2 hours up and 1.5 hours back. Smashed it.

The ride back to the car was really good - all downhill.

Back to Nicola's place early and home.

Up Sunday to head away with Malcom to do the trapline at Pelorus.  Col and I did K line and Malcolm and Iona did U line and bottom of K. Plus found some gas traps for next time.

Pelorus iced latte

K Trig line with Col

There is the top

View ack to Pelorus

Toasted sandwich

Enjoying the sun

Back down

Mysterious steel cage

Col and I got 3 rats and 2 mice. I think the others got a few rats. Job well done. Finished on time for hot chips at the coffee cart. Choice!

Back home after a cup of tea at Malcom and Marion's place. Off to bed early and up at 1.30am to watch the Black Ferns v Ireland in the RWC.

Such a good game. 40 nil. Did not expect that result to the Black Ferns for their hardest pool game.

Went to bed for an hour. And then up to go to the airport for my early morning commute to Wellington. Nice and fast into the capital. Uber home and happy cats!

Thank you for a great weekend. Happy Fathers Day to Mike and my Dad yesterday.

Love,

Angela

The Wednesday with more work

 Hi,

At least I have some pics for this post. Wednesday! Well - yes, it was busy. But I did do some things.

Take our pic, Joel!

At the gym yesterday (deads 80kg 4 reps x 4 sets) I asked Joel to take a pic of me and Quentin looking ripped. And I ended up with a selfie on my phone. Hahah.

Quentin and I show off our guns

Caught up with Juliet and added to my step count as we met - and enjoyed a lovely spring-like Wellington day.

Walking meeting with Juliet

Met Steph, Satish and a friend of theirs (Felicity?) for lunch with Mike at Rosies. Steph has secured an awesome role that starts at the end of this month. So happy for her (and Bron) to have that secured now. Satish is the same as always - very chill. 

Rode home after work and got to baking the bread while we had some tea. Mike bussed home and came in 5 mins after me so we enjoyed a relaxed evening.

Sourdough

Off to bed and Mike was super tired and asleep by 21:00, easily. I read for a bit before also having a good sleep. Forgot I did not need to get up at 5.30 and my alarm went off a bit early. Hahah.

Gunk out of the pole saw

Online PT session in the garage gym. Not squats as I have a huge weekend of race training in Blenheim. Didn't want to trash my legs. Bench.  35kg. Larsem?  The ones with no leg drive. 6 reps x 4 sets.

Then pottered around the house getting it ready for our cleaner to come this morning. Packed for the weekend. Put the pole saw in the garage and noticed it was clogged up. So used the long nosed pliers to haul out a good lot of grass and twigs. Very satisfying.

Mike is also away this Saturday and I will not see him for about 10 days! Wow. That is going to be weird.

Have a great day. Enjoy your weekend.

Love,

Angela

The Tuesday with work

 Hi,

Too busy to take pics - how crazy is that? But it was a good day. Worked in town. Rode home after work and Mike caught the bus. We got home not too far apart - but let me just say the eBike always wins.

Went to bed and had a good sleep. Up for porridge and a ride in. Lovely day here in the best wee capital.

Gym session was good.  80kg deads.  4 reps x 4 sets.

Big day at work again.

Have a great day.

Love,

Angela

The Monday with a quiz after work

 Hi,

Happy birthday to Jamie for yesterday (I sent him a message) and Cameron for today (Jamie was with him so gave Cam my birthday wishes).  Awwww.  They are all doing their own things now. Cam has a few kids. Crazy.

As sometimes happens, I took no photos yesterday when I worked from home. Typical. But at the end of my working day, I went for a walk up towards the skyline to see how far I could get in 20 mins from our front door. Got past the flax clearing about 2 or 3 mins.  Not bad. Got back bang on 40 mins.  Now to see if I can get faster and go a bit beyond that spot.

Had a shower when I got home and then Erin picked me up and we headed off on our quiz adventure. We collected Juliet just on 18:00 and then picked up Madeleine from her place in Churton Park. The team was together to take the quiz on.

Andrew had forgotten about the quiz but managed to make it for the second round of questions. Yay! And Mike was out running the tunnel loop with a head torch that turns out was not fully charged. Oops.

We had a good quiz night at the Tawa pub - The Burroughs. Good food. We came second equal so we thought that was a job well done. There were a lot of teams - so yay for us.

Erin dropped us all off and I was back home by 21:15.  Was a bit wired though so I did read for a bit. And I was also quite sick. I got cramps at the end of the quiz. Wondered what that was all about. Then was not happy when I got home. As I curled up to Mike to go to sleep, I realised my lunch had used soft mozzarella balls that were a month beyond their use by date. My brain had said:  1 Sept today and read the use by as 3 Sept.   But it was 3rd Aug. I did notice there were slimy so I washed them and smelled them.

Oh well.

Up the morning and my tummy wasn't too bad. So off to work on the bike and then off to my PT session with Quentin. Told him I didn't want to lift super heavy. So we did leg press 142.6kg 10 reps x 4 sets. And adductor work - OMG. Then a bit of back before doing bench.  37.5kg bench. 6 reps x 4 sets. Then 2 sets of Larsen bench at 30kg.  What is that? Seems you do not put your legs on the ground and you use chest only. No leg drive.  6 reps was quite a lot.

Back to work. Not feeling super well. But let's see how the day goes. It is lovely here.

Have a fantastic day.

Love,

Angela

The weekend with trapline work

 Hi,

We had such a great weekend, despite the local forecast saying Friday, Saturday and Sunday were going to be terrible. Turns out none of it really was super bad - just like Mike kept saying that https://yr.no were predicting all along.

Sourdough

Dinner Friday at Jasmin

Friday I got some boxes for packing up Christine's stuff in the garage. Yay. Then got a haircut in town. Back home to chill before driving in for dinner with Mike and some of the NMK people. Chevy organised it and we went to Jasmin in the James Cook Arcade. Very nice time was had by all. Chevy told the funniest story about letting fireworks off at her flat - that happened to look out over a BP petrol station. OMG.

Saturday seemed to be quite nice weather. So we felt a bit sheepish that we did not do park run. But we got our gear ready for the Big Bend trap line and away we went. We forgot to buy lunch so we were running on the pancakes I made for brekkie.

Saturday morning with a complete lack of terrible weather

Orongorongo track

Mike ran to the river and back to find me. I walked with all the gear and was it heavy! Wow. I made reasonable time and Mike got back to me not far from the Toby tree.

Carrying all the gear

Met Mike at Toby Tree

After 1.5 hours we were at BB1 trap. All up it took us 3.5 hours. And we got 7 rats out of the traps.

And the work starts

Resetting

Rat!

Fly, dead rat!

Last one

We got back to Haurangi Hut where Vignesh was staying with some punters.  We pitched our tent out the front and enjoyed their company.

The ground was so rocky I could not get the pegs in. Hahah. We got a bit of rain - but not too bad. Up early and away by 7.30am.

Nice hut

Leaving Haurangi at 7.30am

On the hump bridge

Misty and rainy river valley

Back at the car at 9.30am. Then into the Hutt to meet Sally and Andrew for brekkie.  Ended up at the conference centre for brekkie. Bit disappointed with the food.

Iced latte at the conference centre

Moxley loves this blanket

We chilled on the couch for the day really.  Mike got his mum's new PC prepped for her.

Up for work this morning. Another quite nice day here.

Quiz night with Erin and some people today after work. Woot!

Have a great day!

Love,

Angela