Front of the house
Living room
Kitchen
Sunday, July 1, 2007
House!
As I think most of you know Helen and I bought a house last week. We are both really excited. It has pretty much everything we wanted including a large open-plan kitchen, living dining area. It also has a massive double garage with automatic door. We move in on the 21st of July and we can't wait! Below are a couple pictures.
Front of the house
Living room
Kitchen
Front of the house
Living room
Kitchen
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Seals at Red Rocks
Despite a threatening weather forecast it has been another beautiful weekend in Wellington. So as Aaron headed off on a training ride I decided to go and check out Wellington's seal population on the south coast. A seal colony forms every winter to feed and bulk up over the cooler months.
Anne Laure and I set off on our bikes from Owhiro Bay along the rocky/sandy/water crossing 4WD track out past Red Rocks to the point where you can smell the seals. They are pretty smelly creatures - although to be fair we didn't get the worst of it as it was fairly windy. You can get up pretty close to the seals, they seem to be unafraid of people - probably why they were a major food source for the original Maori. Now the fur seals are protected, so I guess they have no need to be afraid of humans.
Fur seal basking in the sun
Hiding in amongst the rocks
Anne Laure and I set off on our bikes from Owhiro Bay along the rocky/sandy/water crossing 4WD track out past Red Rocks to the point where you can smell the seals. They are pretty smelly creatures - although to be fair we didn't get the worst of it as it was fairly windy. You can get up pretty close to the seals, they seem to be unafraid of people - probably why they were a major food source for the original Maori. Now the fur seals are protected, so I guess they have no need to be afraid of humans.
Fur seal basking in the sun
Hiding in amongst the rocks
Friday, June 8, 2007
Office View
Not too much exciting lately. Here is a picture of the view from my office window. The round building on the right the "Beehive" and the gray building on the left contain the houses of Parliament.
I also have a nice view of the harbour, when it is clear!
I also have a nice view of the harbour, when it is clear!
Monday, May 28, 2007
Sunday Stroll
Sunday morning was beautiful - sunny and hardly any wind at all. There is a saying here, "You can't beat Wellington on a good day" and Sunday was one of them. We decided to go for a walk down by the beach to help loosen up the stiffness in our legs from the run the day before.
Walking along Oriental Parade we were surprised by a camera and microphone pointing directly at us. A reporter informed us that it was "national PDA day" - she clarified that this was "Public Displays of Affection" not "Personal Digital Assistant". She had picked us out as we were the only couple holding hands while walking along the beach. She asked if we thought it was natural to hold hands, and whether we kissed in public, to which Aaron answered "No". She then asked if we would kiss for the camera - to which Aaron answered "NO!" We carried on with our walk and joked that it could potentially be on TV - but thought we were too lame and scruffy to have made the news.
Unfortunately the final question about kissing for the cameras made the evening news, much to the amusement of our work colleagues. All very surreal and entertaining.
Walking along Oriental Parade we were surprised by a camera and microphone pointing directly at us. A reporter informed us that it was "national PDA day" - she clarified that this was "Public Displays of Affection" not "Personal Digital Assistant". She had picked us out as we were the only couple holding hands while walking along the beach. She asked if we thought it was natural to hold hands, and whether we kissed in public, to which Aaron answered "No". She then asked if we would kiss for the camera - to which Aaron answered "NO!" We carried on with our walk and joked that it could potentially be on TV - but thought we were too lame and scruffy to have made the news.
Unfortunately the final question about kissing for the cameras made the evening news, much to the amusement of our work colleagues. All very surreal and entertaining.
Cannon Point Run
Saturday, Helen and I decided to go for a run. Since we had heaps of time I thought we should go explore a bit. We ended up in Upper Hut, about 30 minutes drive to the north. I picked the track out of a hiking book hoping that it would be runnable - not covered with masses of roots or too steep.
The run started out with a swing bridge across a small stream. Then the track started climbing up beside the stream, crossing it occasionally on small wooden bridges. After about 10 minutes we reached a small reservoir and a group of hikers. After we passed them the track started to climb steeply. We managed to keep running for a while, but eventually had to slow to a walk. Luckily the track finally started to level off and we were back running again. Once we gained the ridge-top the track started to undulate. The steep bits were were pretty painful, but luckily short.
After a couple kilometres on the ridge we reached the trig. It is called "Cannon Point" because a tree felled during logging resembled and cannon from the valley. The track down from the trig was damp and pretty slippery. After a short tricky descent we emerged onto a logging road. We followed this most of the way down to Totara Park. We negotiated a short bit of sealed road through a neighborhood before turning left onto the Hutt River Track.
After another kilometre or so we finished back at the carpark. All up it was just over 9 kilometres and took us 70 minutes.
The route (sorry it is a bit hard to see, I'll make our track a different color next time)
The run started out with a swing bridge across a small stream. Then the track started climbing up beside the stream, crossing it occasionally on small wooden bridges. After about 10 minutes we reached a small reservoir and a group of hikers. After we passed them the track started to climb steeply. We managed to keep running for a while, but eventually had to slow to a walk. Luckily the track finally started to level off and we were back running again. Once we gained the ridge-top the track started to undulate. The steep bits were were pretty painful, but luckily short.
After a couple kilometres on the ridge we reached the trig. It is called "Cannon Point" because a tree felled during logging resembled and cannon from the valley. The track down from the trig was damp and pretty slippery. After a short tricky descent we emerged onto a logging road. We followed this most of the way down to Totara Park. We negotiated a short bit of sealed road through a neighborhood before turning left onto the Hutt River Track.
After another kilometre or so we finished back at the carpark. All up it was just over 9 kilometres and took us 70 minutes.
The route (sorry it is a bit hard to see, I'll make our track a different color next time)
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Biking with the Boys
While Aaron was off running up volcanoes I joined the boys, Josh, Alan, Phil and Hilary to ride an NZ classic mountain bike route called the “42 Traverse”. The 42 traverse is approximately 42 km of track across the Tongariro Forest Park along old logging trails. The great thing is that it starts 900 m above sea level and ends at 550 m – so a total descent of 350 m. Unfortunately it is not all down hill and there are a few short steep climbs, a longer climb and several river crossings to keep you entertained along the way, not to mention the sketchy muddy rutted sections. It is obviously a popular route for the trail bikes too, as we bumped in to quite a few and there was plenty of evidence of their regular presence on the track.
The morning was pretty cold, as evidenced by the iced over puddles on the track, but with clear blue skies and no wind it soon warmed up and was quite pleasant riding conditions.
There are quite a few views of Tongariro, Ngauruhoe, and Ruapehu at the beginning of the track. Logging in the Tongariro Forest ended 20 years ago, so the area is slowly regenerating and has a bit of a prehistoric look about it. It is also a very strange lumpy landscape (highly eroded ignimbrite sheets for all the geonerds out there).
The boys raced off at the beginning of the track – probably because it was freezing and we all wanted to warm up. I tootled along at the back, where I pretty much stayed for most of the ride. We caught up with another group of cyclists about 2/3 of the way along the track and I realised that compared the average mountain biker I’m not so slow after all. Unfortunately all the mud took its toll on the bikes and several of the guys started getting really bad chain suck and gear issues.
We got to the end of the track at Owhango and rode up the hill, probably the hardest part of the whole track. Fortunately we were rewarded with a beer at the end, as the track appears to unofficially end at the pub. So we patiently sat in the sun drinking beer while Phil and Aaron shuttled cars.
Back at the bach in National Park we queued for the one outdoor tap to spend a couple of hours cleaning and fixing bikes up to allow us to ride the next day.
After much debate and consulting the Kennett brothers mountain biking guide we decided to change our initial plan for Sunday. The final decision was to attempt the "Mangapurua Trig" ride – although none of us knew anything about it - the description promised 80% single track and 20% 4WD.
Sunday morning we woke up to drizzle and low cloud - disappointing. We were here so we were going to ride.... we headed off down a twisty back country road in the middle of nowhere to the start of the track. There were a few vehicles parked at the end of the track - but they all had trailers for ATV's, or quad bikes, so this was obviously good pig hunting country. We headed up a relatively gentle gradient 4WD track through some farm fields - this must be the 20% 4WD track. A couple of kms in we reached a more forested section and the 4WD track continued - in fact the 4WD track continued the whole way to the last 10 m, a short hike up to the trig. So much for the 80% single track - what is the definition of single track? I assume it means you can't ride next to each other. In general this ride was less technical than the 42 traverse, with only a few muddy sections to make hard work on the uphill and entertaining on the downhills, especially for the boys with v-brakes. I think we almost spent more time in the creek cleaning the mud off our bikes at the end than we did on the whole ride. Don't think we'll be doing that ride again in a hurry.
Covered in mud....one of my muddiest rides ever.
The morning was pretty cold, as evidenced by the iced over puddles on the track, but with clear blue skies and no wind it soon warmed up and was quite pleasant riding conditions.
There are quite a few views of Tongariro, Ngauruhoe, and Ruapehu at the beginning of the track. Logging in the Tongariro Forest ended 20 years ago, so the area is slowly regenerating and has a bit of a prehistoric look about it. It is also a very strange lumpy landscape (highly eroded ignimbrite sheets for all the geonerds out there).
The boys raced off at the beginning of the track – probably because it was freezing and we all wanted to warm up. I tootled along at the back, where I pretty much stayed for most of the ride. We caught up with another group of cyclists about 2/3 of the way along the track and I realised that compared the average mountain biker I’m not so slow after all. Unfortunately all the mud took its toll on the bikes and several of the guys started getting really bad chain suck and gear issues.
We got to the end of the track at Owhango and rode up the hill, probably the hardest part of the whole track. Fortunately we were rewarded with a beer at the end, as the track appears to unofficially end at the pub. So we patiently sat in the sun drinking beer while Phil and Aaron shuttled cars.
Back at the bach in National Park we queued for the one outdoor tap to spend a couple of hours cleaning and fixing bikes up to allow us to ride the next day.
After much debate and consulting the Kennett brothers mountain biking guide we decided to change our initial plan for Sunday. The final decision was to attempt the "Mangapurua Trig" ride – although none of us knew anything about it - the description promised 80% single track and 20% 4WD.
Sunday morning we woke up to drizzle and low cloud - disappointing. We were here so we were going to ride.... we headed off down a twisty back country road in the middle of nowhere to the start of the track. There were a few vehicles parked at the end of the track - but they all had trailers for ATV's, or quad bikes, so this was obviously good pig hunting country. We headed up a relatively gentle gradient 4WD track through some farm fields - this must be the 20% 4WD track. A couple of kms in we reached a more forested section and the 4WD track continued - in fact the 4WD track continued the whole way to the last 10 m, a short hike up to the trig. So much for the 80% single track - what is the definition of single track? I assume it means you can't ride next to each other. In general this ride was less technical than the 42 traverse, with only a few muddy sections to make hard work on the uphill and entertaining on the downhills, especially for the boys with v-brakes. I think we almost spent more time in the creek cleaning the mud off our bikes at the end than we did on the whole ride. Don't think we'll be doing that ride again in a hurry.
Covered in mud....one of my muddiest rides ever.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Tama Lakes Run
Last weekend Helen and I went up north with some guys from her work. They were going mountain biking and I was going for a run. My bike wasn't working and they needed someone to shuttle cars.
I did an out and back run from Whakapapa Village to Upper Tama Lake. It was just over 19km and I did it in about 2 hours 40 minutes. I ran most of it, but there were a few places where I had to walk – either it was too steep or the track was too rough. I felt pretty good the whole time and had an awesome run. On the way back I went a slightly different way, which took me past Taranaki Falls.
The route
Ngauruhoe
Lower Tama Lake and Mount Ruapehu
Taranaki falls
I did an out and back run from Whakapapa Village to Upper Tama Lake. It was just over 19km and I did it in about 2 hours 40 minutes. I ran most of it, but there were a few places where I had to walk – either it was too steep or the track was too rough. I felt pretty good the whole time and had an awesome run. On the way back I went a slightly different way, which took me past Taranaki Falls.
The route
Ngauruhoe
Lower Tama Lake and Mount Ruapehu
Taranaki falls
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