Kerry in Tauranga

Seán’s friend, Kerry, who we had met up with in Dunedin, was on placement in Tauranga in September so we went there one weekend to see her before we leave. Her parents are living there so we stayed with them all in Tauranga. It was great to catch up with her again and Saturday was spent chatting over cups of tea.

On Sunday morning we went to Bethlehem Market where her mother sells jewellery she makes and after lunch we walked up Mount Manganui in beautiful sunshine. We got Monday off work and so were able to spend all day Sunday with her. On Monday morning we took a spin up the mountain again before meeting Kerry for lunch and going back up to Auckland via a run in the Karangahake Gorge through the tunnel we walked through with Susan.

And so begin the goodbyes!

Cambridge to Hamilton Race

Carolanne was helping organise this 23km kayaking race so we decided we’d give it a go. Ron kindly loaned me his Beachcomber and Seán decided to take his Downriver Racer. As he was the only one he was put in with the fastest category of all, the Multisporters. We loaded up our van with those two boats and Uncle Steve’s Beachcomber and set off on Saturday afternoon to stay in Cambridge for the night.

Sunday morning we found most of the Oosty family and some others at the race. Ron was going in his Tasman Express, Steve in his Beachcomber, Dave and Nic in one double, Greg and Debs in another double and my fellow competitor; Chris in a Beachcomber.

I got the best start in a race I have ever got, only to be stopped just around the corner by a kid in a sea kayak claiming to have broken his rudder and lost control. I managed to hit him right in the middle and had to wait for him to move a bit to get past! Not to worry, I soon caught up with Chris and we worked together until he got cut off from following me and I was out on my own. I caught up with a few guys and hung on to them for as long as I could but my shoulders decided I was only allowed to paddle for 1 hour without them getting really sore. Problem was that it was a 2 hour race… I carried on slowly and eventually Chris caught up with me again and we managed to go over the finishing line together, though I think I was a good deal sorer than him!

It was to be my lucky day though. I never win things, through effort or luck! But this day I won a spot prize of a book about sea kayaking and a paddle leash (maybe I’ll have to take up sea kayaking with a nice shiny new Beachcomber sometime) and I managed to win my category: Women’s Open Plastic Sea Kayak. Nice!

Skiing Holiday

On the last Sunday in August, in the middle of the afternoon, Seán and I realised there wasn’t that much work for us to do the next week. We texted Dave to check if he needed us for the week and his reply was “Well, not really until the ski machine is fixed. Where are you going?”. Umm, skiing we thought…

How many jobs are there where you can decide on Sunday afternoon to take off for the week?! Thanks Dave!

So, with that arranged, we packed up and headed down to Taupo on Monday morning to catch up with the lads there. The following morning we got up bright and early to get down to Mount Ruapehu and get our passes and skis. We got a three day pass at a mid week discount, which also included a one hour lesson. Already a much cheaper trip than in Europe! We had one quick run before our lesson, where I was told I was doing ok (memory of those classes in school must have come back ok) and Seán got loads of help. There was much more snow that when we were there with Susan and the weather wasn’t too bad so we had a nice day skiing loads before going back to Taupo for the night. We had planned on staying at the mountain but were ordered back as Jeanine had bought roast chicken for our dinner that night. Given that she was offering food who were we to resist! We also made use of the hot pools in Taupo AC Baths to ease our tired legs a bit.

I sent a message to Mary and Fergal telling them we were going skiing if they were around and interested so we met with them on Wednesday morning and all decided we would still ski for the day even though the weather was pretty crap. On the mountain our visibility was down to less than 10m at times so we ended up sticking to the main routes where there were plenty of people and we were happier we weren’t going to end up skiing off a cliff! The day helped my skiing as Mary and Fergal had done plenty before and trying to keep up with them sped me up a bit.

The New Zealand North Island Primary Schools Skiing Competition was scheduled to be on that day on a separate bit of the mountain, but had to be postponed because the weather caused said bit of the mountain to be closed altogether. Our little bit of the mountain was crawling with kids as a result, all of whom skied so much better than me it wasn’t fair!

That night the four of us stayed in a campsite at the bottom of the mountain. Seán and I stayed in their lodge, where we had previously stayed with Susan, and had it to ourselves complete with log fire and plenty of space to dry our gear.

Thursday morning arrived with better weather, but Mary and Fergal weren’t quite convinced it would be good enough so continued on their travels around the country. Seán and I decided we’d give it a go and were lucky enough that the day cleared quite nicely and we had the best views of the three days. As we were quite fed up of the main runs due to the day before we spent a lot more time exploring the mountain and had great fun. The schools comp was going ahead on the different slopes so it was also pretty quiet where we were.

That night we went back to Taupo and I felt sorry for my knees that had decided this skiing was too abusive to them, especially after the life long abuse of horse riding and kayaking. We made use of the hot AC Baths again on Friday and by Saturday we were good enough to go up Mount Tauhara (the little mountain outside Taupo) again. On our own this time we were up and down in under 1 hour 30 minutes and after a quick lunch we headed back to Auckland. We had left the Oosty house with strict instructions we were to be back for a family dinner that Sunday!

Jet Boating in Auckland Harbour!

Remember the jet boat that we went down the Wanganui River in back last November? Well, since then it’s got a bigger engine and some other things changed (and they took the big stone out of the impeller) so now it’s really really fast! They’ve added a bar behind the driver which is very useful to hand on to for dear life, as I found out pretty quickly when Dave took us out in the Harbour in Auckland one quiet Saturday morning.

Dave and some others were out practising for a swim from Paihia to Russell in Northland. It’s a relay swim where each swimmer dives into the water grabbing the team flag on the way and swims until the support boat has caught up with them and someone else takes over, leaving the first swimmer to get back into the boat again. Then the boat catches up with the second swimmer and a third swimmer takes over and so on. I think they had about 4 swimmers per team who each do several quick sprints until they are nearly in Russell, at which stage the team diver takes over the flag and swims along the sea bed to the shore, runs up the beach and skulls a drink to win the race. Strange you might think, but the people doing this are the same people that play Underwater Hockey and Underwater Rugby so it’s a perfectly normal thing for them to do!

While they practised their turnovers, the rest of us were left to play with the jet boat. Seán had fun driving us around the harbour and under the bridge at ridiculous speeds, while I hung onto the safety bar! Good fun!

Underwater Rugby...

Yes, it does exist, and Seán and I have now played it. Only once though, so sorry to those of you in the know if I mess up any of the following interpretations of the rules and regulations!

It’s played wearing snorkelling gear and a coloured swimming cap to distinguish between teams. The goals are similar to big flower pots and are weighted to sit at the bottom of a five metre pool. The ball is a small basketball filled with salt water to weight it so as it drops to the bottom of the pool at just the correct speed. Tackles are allowed anywhere bar a players flippers, though if the tackled player is feeling a little lacking in the oxygen department they can just drop the ball and must be released so they can swim back to the surface. The ball has to stay below the surface of the water to avoid a turnover.

It’s a very strange but pretty cool game to play (bar when my ears hurt once I went below 4m). There is a real 3D aspect to it as you can not only be tackled from the side but also from above or below you. As this was only the third time Seán and I had ever been snorkelling it was pretty hard work. My efforts generally involved waiting for a good moment, trying to do something useful and then swimming as fast as I could for the surface again where I floated panting for air for a while! I had one moment of almost glory though when I got the ball at about half way and everyone else had gone to the surface for air, so I swam my heart out despite the protests of my lungs and just as I was about to put the ball in the basket to score Emma arrived in between me and the basket. Very mean of her I thought! I spent quite a bit of time on the surface recovering from that effort!

After playing Underwater Rugby, I think I might fare a little better playing Underwater Hockey, as they only use a two metre deep pool for that so my ears might not complain as much. It was good fun though, even if we were lured to the pool on the pretence that we could just go for an ordinary swim at surface level while the others played rugby!

Back to Normality

After Susan left we had a good nights sleep (without her snoring!) and went for a run in Okura Scenic Reserve the next day. It’s another forest to the north of Auckland with a long track through it. Unfortunately it’s a bit soggy at the moment with all the rain we’ve been having so we went home after our run and put all our muddy clothes straight into the washing machine! That night we met up Seona again, just before she left the country.

For the next while life reverted to the usual timetable of working and paddling, so I’ll not bore you with tales of that.

We also had more Irish visitors, Mary and Fergal, so we met up with them a couple of times in Auckland before they headed off around the country in a campervan.

Susan's visit - Tauranga and back to Auckland

With just two days left of Susan’s visit we drove from Taupo to Tauranga in the hopes of seeing Mount Manganui. When we arrived the weather was awful so instead we had a bite of lunch and went on to Te Puna and met up with some of my new found fifth cousins; a son of Margaret from Hamilton, Tracey, and his family. Tracey has been researching his genealogy and has gathered a lot of information already and was delighted to meet us to hear about more of his old relations. After giving him as much information as we had, we left with promises to email him with family trees and other details we have back at home.

That night we stayed in a campsite in Bowentown and made the most of their spa the next morning before going on to see the goldmine in Waihi. On our way to Paeroa we stopped in the Karangahake Gorge and went for a walk alongside the river and through a 1km long former rail tunnel.

In Paeroa we stopped and had a look at one of the giant drinks bottles advertising the famous New Zealand drink Lemon & Paeroa while a couple more new tyres were put on the van. Then it was time to get back up to Auckland for dinner before dropping Susan to the airport for her flight home.

Susan's visit - Mount Tauhara

To continue our busy schedule, the day after our parachute jump (finished off by Susan going swimming and soaking in the hot pools while Seán and I went to the gym) we decided to walk up Mount Tauhara. This mountain is just outside Taupo and Seán and I had gone up it with Jeanine in January. Unfortunately the great weather hadn’t quite held so we weren’t anticipating great views from the top.

After just under an hour we reached the top and had a quick break before heading back down. Susan dashed off on the downward trip; trying to get off the mountain asap perhaps? I don’t think she’s going to forgive us for making her do that particular hillwalk! As we guessed, the views weren’t quite worth it but at least we’d seen as far as we could with the parachute jump the day before, and the exercise was good for us!

Susan's visit - The Parachute Jump!!!

After our days skiing, we woke in Taupo to a beautiful clear day, perfect for Susan’s last request – a parachute jump. After a bit of indecision on my part, put aside by Susan and Seán both telling me I was doing it, and Susan deciding that Dad was paying for it (thanks Dad!), we booked our flights. We then got another pair of tyres put on our van which finally put an end to the bone shaking drives we had been experiencing!

The Taupo parachute jump companies are all based around the small Taupo airport. When we arrived we were treated to a video explaining what would happen. My stomach started turning… We then got dressed up in our jumpsuits and met our tandem partners.

Before I knew it we were heading up into the sky in a tiny airplane and I was shaking – largely due to the cold up there, but also from sheer terror. My opinion was, quite firmly, why would anyone want to jump out of a perfectly good plane! On the way up Susan’s partner pointed out many of the sites in the central north island, as we could see quite a distance. For the second day in a row we could see right over to Mount Taranaki in the west as well as Mounts Ruapehu and Ngaurahoe across the lake.

We climbed up to 15,000 feet and the door was opened – then I was in a perfectly good airplane with the door wide open! Susan was the first to go so she and her tandem partner shuffled to the door and rolled out quite quickly. The problem with that was that it was my turn to go next! I reluctantly did the shuffle to the door and my tandem partner rocked us back and forward and suddenly we were out. I was quite impressed that I managed not to scream my head off. I’m not sure if that was just cos I couldn’t make any noise at all though… We whizzed down rapidly for what felt like ages and I spent most of that time concentrating on breathing! The jump from 15,000 feet includes over a minute of freefall. With a little bump and a welcome reduction in speed our parachute opened and so started what was definitely the best part of the jump. We floated gently down taking in the breathtaking views of the lake, the mountains and green fields everywhere. From that I can really understand why people go paragliding and all those similar free flight sports.

All too soon I had to tuck my legs up and we landed with a bump back on the ground where we had started. Only then did I think of Susan and Seán. They were both still in the air (perhaps showing more enthusiasm than me) but soon landed beside me. We agreed that the jump was good fun, but unfortunately for us it wasn’t quite the buzz we had expected. On subsequent contemplation Seán and I reckon that we are both control freaks and the reason for the lack of buzz was because we had no control whatsoever over the parachute and it’s opening. Because of being entirely in the hands of our tandem jumpers we felt like we were just along for the ride. But despite that I loved the bit after the freefall was over!

Susan's visit - Skiing at Mount Ruapehu

It was time for us to do a bit of skiing, another activity Susan had requested for her visit. We got up early (in the opinions of Seán and I at least) and were up at the mountain by 9am. Unfortunately so was half of New Zealand as it was still school holiday time. We were planning on only doing a half days skiing but as we only got onto the mountain with our skis at 11 we quickly decided to go for the full day.

As Seán had never skied before, he went down to the aptly named “Happy Valley” and got a lesson while Susan and I headed up and tried to remember how to ski. It had been quite a while for both of us! We had a great day exploring the mountain and even got some great pics. We ended up above the clouds and had a fantastic view of Mount Ngauruhoe and even Mount Taranaki far off to the west.

By mid afternoon Susan’s patched up ankle started giving out so we decided to pack it in for the day. We tried contacting Seán to tell him we’d stopped but his mobile battery died as soon as I texted. We were quite surprised when he skied for the full day, given his lack of enthusiasm when we’d left him that morning. However, it turned out that he had been having a great day practising everything he learned in his lesson.

Once we finally managed to locate Seán we headed up to Taupo again to catch up with the household there.