A day in the sun...

Well we had a fair bit of rain last week and we're having a fair bit of rain this week, but Sunday was a wonderful respite with no rain and lots of sun! As the sun had been forecast we decided on Fri evening that we'd get up early on Sunday and head out to Castlepoint.

Castlepoint is about 65km east of Masterton which itself is about, some bigger distance north of Wellington. Hey I'm no good with distance but I do know that we travelled about 400km on Sunday so... Have a look at this and you should be able to see Wellington bottom left with Masterton about three quarters way up in centre (follow Highway 2) and then Castlepoint out on the east coast.

On the way out there, not long after leaving Greytown we got some beautiful views of the snow topped Tararuas... I don't know if it took my breath away but I certainly thought it was quite stunning.



Castlepoint has a lighthouse and beautiful craggy headlands where there was a lovely walk that we could do and once at the top it was totally isolated with no sound other than the sea and birds. I very much enjoyed just lying there basking in the sun... until I got cold :)



So once I'd stopped looking at the sky we wandered over to the reef rock and then up to the lighthouse. All just lovely and definitely a much easier walk up to the lighthouse here than the one at Cape Palliser! And as ever, the wacky Kiwi need to hang something off fences or crosses or trees exists here as elsewhere...

It'll be wet then...

"Wellington. Just rain all day and a high of 12"

This is literally what the radio broadcaster said earlier when giving the weather forecat for today. I think it's the use of the word "just" that I find so amusing :)

Ouch, ooh, eek...

That pretty much was the reaction that my feet got out of me this evening when I was attempting to climb and even when I was just belaying! The outcome was that I did one climb as my feet were totally misbehaving. We were wondering if it was because they had just got too cold with all the standing around in advance. The advance standing around was because it was the launch of the Wellington City Council Outdoor Festival for which which the tramping club is hosting a number of day walks. There were some nibbles (cheese, nuts, lots of dried fruit and fresh fruit... all quite yummy) and fruit juices, bit of a talk, nice canvas bag with some goodies and then free climbing. It would be great to see something like this in Dublin but I fear that the mentality is such that this would not work :( But I guess that just means I'll enjoy it as much as I can while I'm here :)

It all went okay :)

Seems that I didn't pack too much (not clothes anyway) nor too little. I had a wonderful tramp with some of the best weather we've had in ages (i.e. it didn't rain!). Our weekend tramp started Camp Kaitoke where we took a track that let us join up with the Dobson Track. From there we walked along the Dobson Track before doing a relatively steep descent down to Smith Creek Shelter. Ordinarily when doing this walk you can go over Buffer Saddle and walk along Smith Creek to get to Smith Creek Shelter (shorter route) but due to all the tree fall DOC had closed that portion of the track. We ate a much enjoyed lunch by Smith Creek once we got to the bottom. The rest of walk consisted of a stream crossing (we ain't talking an Irish stream here... this was feet in water lark) which I thought had a relatively strong flow but I knew that by Kiwi standards it wasn't strong at all!


Once we'd crossed there we walked on a bit before I stopped to wring out my socks. Admittedly boots and feet still wet but the wringing out business does mean that you're not sloshing in boots and that makes a big difference! I had a near miss at one point where I stepped in to some seriously icky mood (there was lots of that but not all of it was deep) but luckily I managed to avoid falling over. It was close though! Lots more walking in water (but on for 2 or 3 steps) and I practised my long strides to try to completely avoid some some water where possible; not as easy as it sounds to do and keep balance when pack on back! We got to Tutuwai at 4:45pm yesterday afternoon which was about 6.5 hours after we set out so not bad.


I knew the return journey today was going to be harder as there would be the climb up to the Dobson track and of course because I was just a bit sorer (hip bones, ankle bones this morning though right now it's that plus right shoulder and my lower back is quite sore to the touch too). So, we had an early night last night. I listened to some Podcasts and Amanda read for a while. I have to admit the latter surprised me as she's so careful about weight in her pack but I can see how/why a book is important. But by about 8pm it was "torches out" for the night. Actually I wasn't nearly as sleepy as I expected to be but knew we'd be up early and I was getting cold. So I slept in two pairs of thermal long johns, two polyprop tops, a scarf and a had though the latter came off during the night! Fashion or appearances do not count on tramps, trust me :) Lots of waking up but at least i wasn't too cold (we reckon it hit about zero last night as there was lots of frost about this morning).

We were on the track by 7:45 though there was about a 10 min delay at our first stream crossing (Irish stream size) while we figured out how to get my camel pak bladder out of the container so I could dip it in stream to fill it up. It was a beautiful clear day but very cold; long johns on under shorts and gloves and I had my fleece on for about 45 minutes which surprised me. Again the views of the stream/river were just gorgeous. So many lovely trees, rocks... it's a beautiful area. The climb up to Dobson track (a number of hours later) took us about 1.25 hours with two 10 min breaks. I have to say that I did find this hard as I'm much slower going uphill and it's not just straight walk up it's lots of clambering over roots or using roots as steps to get up so it was relatively steep. I tried to look on positive side doing this which is that my long legs (don't think of them as that long!) allowed me to manage this easier than a shorter person. I also do believe that the climbing helped here (as it did at lots of other stages) as instead of just seeing a steep bank and going "how do I do this?" I look for places for my feet and trust myself to lever myself up.

Beautiful sun at the top; I actually went down to a t-shirt (actually I did that during the climb) and a sun hat. Funnily though I remembered the walk from here back to Camp Kaitoke (over 2 hours) from yesterday as being easy track... none of that at all! I guess I was in the first few hours of the tramp yesterday when doing this so I didn't find it hard whereas today it was just a little more difficult as I was definitely tired by now!


Anyway, it was a fantastic weekend and it was great to get outside and not be rained on. Amanda, after having me lead for the whole walk so the pace was one I would be comfortable with, can now ready herself for a proper fast fit tramp in a few weekends. I expect to be a little sore tomorrow morning!

I managed to get some photos yesterday but I guess I should have recharged my camera battery so none from today (when it was a much brighter day). And for those of you interested, there are more photos on flickr.

Too much, too little or just enough?

It's Fri evening and I'm definitely in the "have I got enough/too little clothes/food combined with will I really be able to keep walking with big pack for up to 7 hours? Have I enough warm clothes?" phase of packing for a tramp. I'm heading off in the morning with my climbing buddy Amanda to Tutuwai Hut from Ranch Rd end. As in the climbing she is significantly more advanced than me and would even say herself that she is currently very fit and very strong. I'm not. Fit or strong. But she knows that so I'm sure it'll be cool. Won't it?

Will update on Sun evening or some time next week. Wish me luck...

It's looking good!

I did a good climb this evening and I'm happy :) It was one of those days where I didn't even know if I'd go as I hadn't been feeling the best but I reckoned I could do at least one climb and if nothing else I was fine for belaying for Amanda. My warm up climb was not good; ended up on the easy climb that i haven't done for ages and well I got nervous! I didn't quite know where to go or how to do the climb. It was awful! For my next climb I did that yellow grade 15 that I've only managed once before and I got it. It was hard but I got there so I felt much better when I got down. And the big news is that I completed my challenge wall this evening. For weeks and weeks I've been getting closer and closer and today I managed it. At one point my hand was about half a foot away from ceiling beam but I just couldn't reach it. I nearly cried 'cos I realised i was just going to have to get higher to touch it... but managed it in the end. So all good.

Planning to go tramping this weekend with Amanda and for my first weekend away in months the forecast is *not* rain. There's definitely a spring feeling in the air this week... it's all good :)

Colours...

I'm struggling with colours these days:( Chances are nobody's noticed but I've changed the colours on my blog about 4 times in the last 2 or 3 days and I'm still not convinced with what I've got. But I do have to thank COLOURlovers for the different colour palates that I have been experimenting with. Current palate is Terra?. For anybody interested in colours then I recommend you go have a nose at this site :)