Keeping busy
Yikes, that last post was a bit emotionally loaded, so lets start with something much more light hearted!
I have been keeping as busy as possible over the last few months and have done some pretty cool things which I want to document.
First off - the Timber Trail! Sam and Dan convinced me to join them on a 2 day mountain bike trip back in December. It's over 80km of hills and a variety of terrain through old logging routes, in the most beautiful landscape. I managed to persuade Rosie, Christo and Luise to come too and we had a whale of a time. Definitely type 2 fun though. We drove down on Friday night after work and pitched our tents at Piropiro campsite in the dark - hoping we had at least pitched them in a vaguely sensible place. My first night camping after a long while is never a good one and I got zero sleep, anxious about what lay before me. We woke up bright and early, sorted out our day and night kit and drove to the end of the track to leave our cars and pick up the bikes we were renting and hopped into the shuttle bus.
An hour later and they dropped us off at the start of the track with a few bike tool kits. What took an hour to drive took 2 days of tough cycling. Day One was great - I took it slow, did all the hills in my lowest gear, and barely got off the bike. We even managed to climb a mountain 1/3 of the way in. 2/3 of the way in and I was done - my bum hurt, my shoulders ached, I was sunburnt, stinking and tired. I became focussed on getting to the campsite and stopped for nothing, overtaking my friends and zooming all the way back just so that I could collapse in a heap and know I could crawl into bed whenever I wanted. When the others joined me 5 mins later, we lay there for a good 30 mins, too tired to move, before heading to a little stream nearby for a very cold dip to wash off the sweat and dirt - it was very refreshing to say the least. We then joined forces to cook up a big dinner of bolognaise before pretty early nights all round. I managed to get a bit more sleep and then next morning woke up more refreshed, but also not in a great mindset - everything hurt and I really couldn't face getting on the bike again, my butt was a mess. We packed up all our gear ready for the shuttle to come and pick it up and waddled back onto the bikes ready for the long day ahead. I started off this day in the wrong mindframe - I already decided that I was going to get off and push when it got tough, which resulted in me getting off my bike almost immediately. After keeping with the pack yesterday I quickly dropped behind and got frustrated, but then got frustrated when I saw them waiting for me (man there's no pleasing me sometimes! sorry guys!). I nearly fell off a few times and I was just completely pooped. Everything hurt and I wasn't enjoying myself. I may have even had a little cry. But, the scenery did wonders at distracting me - we cycled over heaps of suspension bridges crossing over gorgeous gorges, forest that was something out of Jurassic Park, through an old railway tunnel, along old tracks carved out of rock - it was stunning and remote and wild. Christo had a bit of an issue wiht his chain at one point which was a bit worrying as we had no phone signal and we were on a one way track with another 15km to go - a long walk if we had to push his bike, but luckily he is a genius and managed to fix it.
I have never been so happy to finish a bike ride (except maybe for when Sepha and I cycled round the Isle of Wight) and when the end was in sight I was again nearly in tears. We finished up by polishing off our food at the bike hire place and a long drive back to Auckland.
I spent my Christmas with Christo and Luise, the remaining orphans in Auckland who kindly adopted me. On Christmas Eve we had the most delicious dinner cooked up by everyone apart from me, followed by randomly going to a bizarre church where there was a live band singing religious praising God songs and everyone was swaying to the music and I felt like I was at a Justin Bieber concert, everyone seemed to be in a trance about the music. Then a preacher came on who riled me when he said that they'd just taken over the lease of the only nightclub in Whangarei and he was turning a 'house of sin into a house of prayer' Urgh. Then randomly they had hidden 3 envelopes under the chairs in the congregation, and so 3 lucky people won some money, a hug with the preacher, and an electric scooter. So weird. Then we went home, played scrabble and went to bed. In the morning we had an amazing pancake breakfast before heading to Piha and did a rainy walk, played games in the campervan, did an escape room and I headed home for a solo netflix binge. It was probably up there with my top 5 Christmases which is bizarre given the circumstances, but I really enjoyed the lack of pressure and traditional christmas activities.
A few days after that I headed to Australia. I had 3 days in Brisbane which is a really cool city. I spent day 1 wandering around the city centre, they have a great south bank area which has been designed as a huge public space with heaps of cool things like a board walk, herb garden, tropical garden, art installations, a fake beach with lifeguards - it's brilliant. I think I walked 25k that day just around the city! The next day I took a train and ferry to Stradbrook Island. I did a nice walk around Point Lookout where I was amazed to see sharks, eagle rays and huge turtles swimming about in the sea - it was incredible, and 2 kangaroos lying in the shade. My final day was spent on Moreton Island which was a little disappointing because I joined a tour - it was super busy and they took us to the island for a kayak and snorkel adventure, but really it was just a 15 min snorkel in a big group - they even made you hang on to the back of a jetski to travel the 100m distance to the snorkel area for H&S reasons (it sounds fun but it's 12 of you hanging on for dear life on a rubber ring and you get petrol flavoured water up your nose and in your mouth) and a 15 min kayak in the same area, for the grand price of $200. So I was a bit irritated at that.
I then flew to Sydney to join Mum and Tim. We spent New Years Eve watching the fireworks from Birchgrove Park which was awesome, and just did lots of sightseeing. I tended to spend one day with them and one day on my own so that we gave each other enough space to not get annoyed at each other. We went to the Blue Mountains which the weather didn't play ball for - the clouds were so low so you were walking in drizzle the entire time and could barely see 10 ft in front of you, which is a shame as the views are meant to be amazing. I ended up leaving a day early as the weather was making me feel weird. I spent one of the days in the Maritime museum which I highly recommend - I ended up spending 4 hours in it exploring all of the exhibitions and visiting the boats. I also did the Spit to Manly walk which was great and we did the Coogee to Bondi walk again. All up it was a lovely trip and a good distraction from things back home.
Mum and Tim then flew to New Zealand so I had a night or 2 entertaining them here before they set off for their big adventure around the country. It's such a comfort knowing they're in the same country.
Below is a wee lazy photo diary of all the other things I have been up to recently:
I have been keeping as busy as possible over the last few months and have done some pretty cool things which I want to document.
First off - the Timber Trail! Sam and Dan convinced me to join them on a 2 day mountain bike trip back in December. It's over 80km of hills and a variety of terrain through old logging routes, in the most beautiful landscape. I managed to persuade Rosie, Christo and Luise to come too and we had a whale of a time. Definitely type 2 fun though. We drove down on Friday night after work and pitched our tents at Piropiro campsite in the dark - hoping we had at least pitched them in a vaguely sensible place. My first night camping after a long while is never a good one and I got zero sleep, anxious about what lay before me. We woke up bright and early, sorted out our day and night kit and drove to the end of the track to leave our cars and pick up the bikes we were renting and hopped into the shuttle bus.
An hour later and they dropped us off at the start of the track with a few bike tool kits. What took an hour to drive took 2 days of tough cycling. Day One was great - I took it slow, did all the hills in my lowest gear, and barely got off the bike. We even managed to climb a mountain 1/3 of the way in. 2/3 of the way in and I was done - my bum hurt, my shoulders ached, I was sunburnt, stinking and tired. I became focussed on getting to the campsite and stopped for nothing, overtaking my friends and zooming all the way back just so that I could collapse in a heap and know I could crawl into bed whenever I wanted. When the others joined me 5 mins later, we lay there for a good 30 mins, too tired to move, before heading to a little stream nearby for a very cold dip to wash off the sweat and dirt - it was very refreshing to say the least. We then joined forces to cook up a big dinner of bolognaise before pretty early nights all round. I managed to get a bit more sleep and then next morning woke up more refreshed, but also not in a great mindset - everything hurt and I really couldn't face getting on the bike again, my butt was a mess. We packed up all our gear ready for the shuttle to come and pick it up and waddled back onto the bikes ready for the long day ahead. I started off this day in the wrong mindframe - I already decided that I was going to get off and push when it got tough, which resulted in me getting off my bike almost immediately. After keeping with the pack yesterday I quickly dropped behind and got frustrated, but then got frustrated when I saw them waiting for me (man there's no pleasing me sometimes! sorry guys!). I nearly fell off a few times and I was just completely pooped. Everything hurt and I wasn't enjoying myself. I may have even had a little cry. But, the scenery did wonders at distracting me - we cycled over heaps of suspension bridges crossing over gorgeous gorges, forest that was something out of Jurassic Park, through an old railway tunnel, along old tracks carved out of rock - it was stunning and remote and wild. Christo had a bit of an issue wiht his chain at one point which was a bit worrying as we had no phone signal and we were on a one way track with another 15km to go - a long walk if we had to push his bike, but luckily he is a genius and managed to fix it.
I have never been so happy to finish a bike ride (except maybe for when Sepha and I cycled round the Isle of Wight) and when the end was in sight I was again nearly in tears. We finished up by polishing off our food at the bike hire place and a long drive back to Auckland.
I spent my Christmas with Christo and Luise, the remaining orphans in Auckland who kindly adopted me. On Christmas Eve we had the most delicious dinner cooked up by everyone apart from me, followed by randomly going to a bizarre church where there was a live band singing religious praising God songs and everyone was swaying to the music and I felt like I was at a Justin Bieber concert, everyone seemed to be in a trance about the music. Then a preacher came on who riled me when he said that they'd just taken over the lease of the only nightclub in Whangarei and he was turning a 'house of sin into a house of prayer' Urgh. Then randomly they had hidden 3 envelopes under the chairs in the congregation, and so 3 lucky people won some money, a hug with the preacher, and an electric scooter. So weird. Then we went home, played scrabble and went to bed. In the morning we had an amazing pancake breakfast before heading to Piha and did a rainy walk, played games in the campervan, did an escape room and I headed home for a solo netflix binge. It was probably up there with my top 5 Christmases which is bizarre given the circumstances, but I really enjoyed the lack of pressure and traditional christmas activities.
A few days after that I headed to Australia. I had 3 days in Brisbane which is a really cool city. I spent day 1 wandering around the city centre, they have a great south bank area which has been designed as a huge public space with heaps of cool things like a board walk, herb garden, tropical garden, art installations, a fake beach with lifeguards - it's brilliant. I think I walked 25k that day just around the city! The next day I took a train and ferry to Stradbrook Island. I did a nice walk around Point Lookout where I was amazed to see sharks, eagle rays and huge turtles swimming about in the sea - it was incredible, and 2 kangaroos lying in the shade. My final day was spent on Moreton Island which was a little disappointing because I joined a tour - it was super busy and they took us to the island for a kayak and snorkel adventure, but really it was just a 15 min snorkel in a big group - they even made you hang on to the back of a jetski to travel the 100m distance to the snorkel area for H&S reasons (it sounds fun but it's 12 of you hanging on for dear life on a rubber ring and you get petrol flavoured water up your nose and in your mouth) and a 15 min kayak in the same area, for the grand price of $200. So I was a bit irritated at that.
I then flew to Sydney to join Mum and Tim. We spent New Years Eve watching the fireworks from Birchgrove Park which was awesome, and just did lots of sightseeing. I tended to spend one day with them and one day on my own so that we gave each other enough space to not get annoyed at each other. We went to the Blue Mountains which the weather didn't play ball for - the clouds were so low so you were walking in drizzle the entire time and could barely see 10 ft in front of you, which is a shame as the views are meant to be amazing. I ended up leaving a day early as the weather was making me feel weird. I spent one of the days in the Maritime museum which I highly recommend - I ended up spending 4 hours in it exploring all of the exhibitions and visiting the boats. I also did the Spit to Manly walk which was great and we did the Coogee to Bondi walk again. All up it was a lovely trip and a good distraction from things back home.
Mum and Tim then flew to New Zealand so I had a night or 2 entertaining them here before they set off for their big adventure around the country. It's such a comfort knowing they're in the same country.
Below is a wee lazy photo diary of all the other things I have been up to recently:
Yann randomly is related to one of the girls in B*Witched and so got free tickets to go to the 90s reunion 'So Pop' at Spark Arena and invited me along - it was a lot of fun and I got to go back stage to meet Adele from the band. 11 year old me would be mindblown, 31 year old me not so much. Other highlights were Venga Boys, Eiffel 65 and Blue.
We convinced Natalie and Tom to go on one of my favourite hikes - Mokoroa Stream Track. A 3km walk along a stream, stopping in swimming holes along the way, on a beautifully hot day. Perfection.
We caught the ferry to Rangitoto, hiked across to Motutapu and stayed the night - a lovely, quick weekend adventure.
I have started (and nearly finished) an 8 week drawing class. I have done better than I ever could have imagined!
KP (now known as Pete, apparently he doesn't like being called KP) visited NZ so we had a highschool reunion.
Christo took me climbing and I had fun and did good!
Yann took us to play indoor crazy golf for his goodbye party - much more fun that I anticipated, brilliantly adventurous holes!
Ben came to visit, so we went on a little adventure up north. Camped at Kai Iwi Lakes, a disappointing bucket list tick off. But climbed a little mountain (well, hill), found the most beautiful beach (Bayly's Beach) and visited Tane Mahuta, New Zealand's largest Kauri tree.
Dan and Sam moved to Christchurch :( But, Dan also turned 30 soon after so invited us all down for a 1930s themed party. We had high tea, played lawn bowls and games back at his house. We also went for a lovely exploration in Akaroa with his delightful Dad and Aunt, and a beautiful walk in Godley Heads. Sadly, we were also down there for the mosque shooting - on Sunday we visited the botanical gardens to pay our respects. Such a tragedy that such a thing should happen, but the reaction to it has been incredible with the majority condeming such an atrocious act and our Prime Minister being an absolute doll and supporting Muslims across New Zealand. I still don't really have good words to talk about it all as it is still so shocking - New Zealand is such a safe haven and it gutted me to my core that something like this should happen in a country viewed as safe and inclusive and peaceful by the rest of the world.
We had a weekend away this past weekend in Whangarei Heads - we were meant to be camping but 2 members of our party chickened out because there was the slightest chance of rain. The only way I could convince them to go away was by getting an Airbnb, and I found a goodun!! It was beautiful and the hosts were adorable. We had a lovely weekend away with lots of walking and chilling out in the sun.
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