Running just as fast as we can...

Contrary to how it might appear to readers of this blog (and prepare yourselves for a shock here), I am not actually the world’s most active person.

In fact I was once described by a very close friend as almost ‘sloth like’ at times when it came to the need to jump up and down and move about. So it was with an inner disbelief that I found myself blithely agreeing a couple of months ago to take part in an 11km run as part of the annual Xterra festival down in Rotorua.

Rotorua is generally known in New Zealand as a place with a dubious smell and lots of hot springs and bubbling mud, due to covering a vast area of land that is thermally active, but every year in April they hold the Xterra Triathlon there, an event viewed very seriously by some and that can be entered as an individual, or as a team, along with opportunities to just enter one event such as the run or mountain bike ride. Not wishing to let a team down by being the designated runner, Michelle and I decided that the best event for us to take part in was the individual run, conveniently taking place around a lake where no one could see if you walked! We were further encouraged by the fact that our event started at 8am, when the lake was shrouded in mist and most people hadn’t got up!! We were supported in our quest for glory by Michaela (another runner) and Shianne and Jill, who had entered the walk. So although we might not have looked like professionals we arrived raring to go!

Perhaps not taking it as seriously as we should!


We're off!

Now I'm not quite sure what we were expecting but any practice that we had done (and there hadn't been a lot of it!) had involved going running down by the marina by where we lived, a lovely flat run near the boats... however the 2 laps around the lake were a bit of a shock as they included rather a lot of hills, trail running through the woods and even a bit along the beach, along with a hideous section of steps! But it was a glorious day and the scenery was beautiful, although I think if I'm going to be honest it was more of a shuffle than a run for me!! We ran together for the first lap but were then hit by a devastating injury when Michelle hurt her knee and was forced to walk/limp the majority of the 2nd lap, so in the pure spirit of just winning at all costs I left her behind and raced for glory, coming in nearly 12 minutes before her!! (Mich I'll quote your words back to you - its not a race (except it was) but if it had been I won!!!)

The beautiful Blue Lake in Rotorua

Finished at last!

Not looking hot and sweaty at all!

It took me just under an hour and a half, so not great, but it was a great feeling to finish and I was feeling good about myself for a good 20 minutes until Mel finished her race - a half marathon in 1 hour 48 mins!! She was 21st out of about 150 so really was amazing! We were all very much in awe of her and it just shows what you can do if you properly train!

The amazing machine called Mel

By starting so early, we were fortunate to have finished our events by 10am and could then relax for the rest of the day whilst the main event started! We had 4 mixed teams entering the triathlon and Susan Sawbridge doing the whole event as an individual - another machine! The prize for best team name definitely went to Sam, Maria and James aka the Mullet Masters, and for having the best team t-shirt!!

That really is Maria in the picture on the tee!

The order of the day was swimming, cycling and running, and there were a lot of nervous people before the start of the 1km swim, especially Josh who had come in last in 2009 and was determined to break the cycle, so it was with bated breath that the starting gun fired and the water was broken with a heaving mass of people! It was difficult to tell from the shore who was who so we just had to wait to see who would emerge from the water and it was with relief that Josh made it to shore with a few others in the water behind him!! Congratulations as well go out to Davina who came in first from our merry group!

Josh runs out for glory!

The relief!

The triumphant swimmers with a celebratory Guinness!

The bikers were up next and as it took them a couple of hours we enjoyed a lovely lunch by the lake in the sunshine! Next up were the runners, with Natalie setting off first but Colin's team taking the glory by finishing first! Our teams were no where near the top in the league tables, in fact the poor Mullet Masters might have won best name but had the dubious fame of finishing last overall... poor things!

Natalie sets off for glory!

But Colin steals her thunder at the finish!
It was a great day and we returned back to our lodging in the evening for a well deserved soak in the hot pools to ease all those aching muscles and share a refreshing glass of wine!! We also had a hangi - a traditional way of cooking meat in a hole in the ground so that it is almost steamed... it can give it quite an earthy rubbery taste but it was a good experience!

The spring break shot!

The next day gave us the opportunity to relive the experiences of the previous day over breakfast before heading out to take in some of the more cultural aspects of Rotorua. It really is quite disconcerting to be walking down roads and literally see steam rising from the ground in front of you, not to mention always experiencing an odour of rotten eggs on the breeze!

It also seems to be a hot spot for Maori culture and just walking down the streets you see houses with traditional carvings outside, or 'tiki' (apparently this is what the Maori call the first man). A feature of them appears to be having their tongues poking out and they are often found marking the boundary of a house or important site. They vary hugely in size but are quite impressive and can be funny!

Spot the odd one out!

Not the most polite carving to have outside your house!

This one looks like he is in a certain amount of pain!!

I particularly liked the one above and wanted to stand to have my head coming out of his mouth but apparently this might be viewed as culturally insensitive! (Who would have guessed?!) We also saw a marea, which refers to the name of the enclosed space that is reserved for cultural gatherings/ceremonies etc. It is like a spiritual home for Maori's and should be viewed with respect. They tend to have a lot of carvings on the meeting house, perhaps because the carvings can be thought to also represent dead ancestors.

The Marae

We also decided to experience the natural culture associated with the area and went out to Wai-o-tapu (Sacred Waters in Maori) a scenic reserve described as a 'geothermic wonderland'. The first experience was visiting the mud pool, an area that was once a large mud volcano that was destroyed by erosion in the 1920s but where the ground just gurgles and bubbles away - check it out below (this is our first blog video link - we are hoping it works!)

The whole area is covered with collapsed craters, cold and boiling pools of mud, water and steaming ground. Particularly impressive was the Champagne Pool, the largest spring in the district (65m diameter and 62m deep) and about 700 years old. It has a surface temperature of 74 degrees and creates a constant stream of effervescent bubbles, just like a glass of champagne!

Sadly you couldn't actually get a glass of champagne to have by the pool!

Obviously because the earth's crust is so thin in this area the whole section of ground can be quite unstable so there were lots of obligatory warning signs to stay on the paths marked, which were at times ignored by certain members of our group, to the point that I risked life and limb to step over a barrier!!! fortunately the ground didn't cave in beneath me and I survived my piece of recklessness!

There for a reason....

Exhibiting signs of recklessness!

All the minerals in the area can cause different colours in the rocks, like the yellow sulpher cave seen below and a bright green pool from the collodial sulpher! It was literally pea green and definitely not something you'd want to go for a swim in!

Randomly whilst we were walking around the area we stopped to offer to take a photo for a family and the guy stopped and looked at Michelle and I and said - 'I know you two from somewhere'. We were none the wiser until he took off his sunglasses and it turned out to be Joel Smith from Crowthorne way - a real blast from the past and a very odd place to meet considering he also lives in Auckland and we haven't met him here yet!!

The whole weekend was definitely an interesting experience but I for one was glad to get back to the slightly more sweeter smelling air of Auckland!

As cold as ice...

Not content with all the walking we had done over the weekend, come the Monday we decided to sign ourselves up to yet another walk/hike (we really are suckers for punishment!) although this time it was a mere 6km round trip and there were no backpacks in sight, so we felt it was something we could cope with! The most exciting part about it was that rather than just another normal walk we would be exploring the mighty Fox Glacier!



Some of you may know that Michelle, Carey and I all tried to hike the Franz Josef glacier when we were last here a couple of years ago and were sadly thwarted by torrential rain (30cm in 24 hours!) weather so bad that apparently it closed access to the glaciers for over a week, so this time we were relieved to discover that it was dry, the river was low and we were going to be able to go on our 'Fox Trot' half day hike!

The intrepid crew journey to the ice!

The Fox glacier is one of the most accessible glaciers in the world, and was named after a visit of the then Prime Minister of New Zealand Sir William Fox in 1872, rather than as an advertising ploy of Fox's glacier mints - which strangely didn't seem to be for sale in the shop, surely a massive marketing opportunity being missed there??!! The glacier covers a distance of around 13kms and its river of ice falls about 2600 metres as it descends to the base of the Southern Alps. Its difficult to get a perspective on it all but it really is rather large and not without some danger - as you can see!

Note the lack of colour discrimination - you can be killed by white or black falling rocks!!

With that many warnings of impending doom its a wonder I went up at all!

These signs are not entirely unrealistic, as people have died in recent years by being crushed under the ice, however buoyed up by our weekend survival experience we launched forth undeterred! In order to reach the glacier you have to climb many steps (about 800) through some rainforest like landscape, and we were suitably contemptuous of the weak willed 2 american guys that were in our group who gave up after about 10 minutes and decided it was all too much effort and that their legs couldn't take it! Pathetic! We carried on without them, thrilled to now basically have our own private tour guide and stopped along the way to collect the purest water I have ever tasted from a lovely mountain spring - evian eat your heart out!

Proving we aren't scared of anything!

A well earned drink!

Mel demonstrating why this particular rest stop is known as Kodak corner!

The mighty Fox Glacier!

It really was quite high up!

We eventually reached a point where it stopped being safe to just wear our walking boots and we had to strap on crampons for grip and pick up an alpen stock for balance! I think these would have come in useful in Britain over the winter you've just had! Wearing these allowed us to grip the ice firmly (although you do have to stomp down - all those years of sounding like a herd of elephants coming downstairs had finally paid off Mum!) You also suddenly felt a real drop in temperature so we put on extra layers and made our way onto the ice!

Great for standing on someone's foot on the tube!

Walking on ice!

Who put John in charge of the ice pick??!

Its really difficult to get a perspective of how big the ice is from the pictures below but you can put the Eiffel Tower onto it and it would just be a little speck! As the ice melts and shifts it forms arches, crevices and moulins which are cool ice tunnels (like ice log flumes). The more compressed the ice becomes the bluer it appears as the oxygen is compressed. Apparently our guide once was lowered into a moulin where the ice was as blue as John Ketchen's jacket above!

A moulin bleu!!

Check out how small the people look!

It was great fun and very awe inspiring, if a little precarious at times, especially going down hill!
However we were helped by the series of ice steps that had been cut out so that we could get a good grip!

We made it down without incident and were rewarded for our hard work by a certificate at the end! Our guide even said that we had been the nicest group she had taken up for ages and as she asked how we all knew each other I gave a little witness by explaining that we had all met in the same hall and she said that her mum had gone to meetings when she was little so we explained a bit about the memorial! So never be afraid to mention it!

All that walking worked up an appetite so we set up a make shift camp and heated up the rest of our pasta from dinner the night before on the camping stoves, right next to the proper cafe! We weren't ashamed and it all tasted lovely!

The new Braid avenue - minus Jessie!

After lunch there was just the long car journey back to Christchurch to get through, helped by 80s power ballads on the ipod to sing along to (sorry Salini, not a butternut squash in sight!) and the odd 'incident' in Sheffield (our lips are sealed!!!). It was home safe with only a few blisters and bruises to show for our adventure and a couple of days recovery before our next activity packed weekend in Rotorua!

Home safe and sound (and hopefully with firmer thighs!!)

I will walk 500 miles...

Ok, so let's first begin this blog with a little definition of tramping! Now, I'm not sure if I didn't pay attention properly at the pre-meet but no-where do I recall mention of the need to traverse rivers, get knee deep in mud, scramble over boulders, avoid landslides and be chewed on by sandflies!

The first shock to the system was discovering that we would be beginning our 'two days of fun' whilst it was still dark in order to get a good start to the day?!! Then Jessamy happened to mention that we might want to leave on our flipflops and not put on our boots as the first thing we would need to do would be to wade across a river!

Now me and rivers don't really mix and therefore before I even got halfway across I seemed to manage to go one way as my flipflop went another!

We arrived on the other side of the river to find, no not a track but more of a forest for us to then walk through! Still, full of enthusiasm, despite the drizzle, we bravely set off!

Half of the intrepid group (actually - the slow ones, that did strange things like stop and take photos!)

We soon discovered that tramping is definitely easier if you have longer legs to overcome some of the obstacles in your way! Trying to match your steps to people that have legs about a foot longer than you doesn't really work that well as you end up stranded in the middle of the mud rather than able to walk over it!

The scenery was pretty stunning as we walked along - the Copeland track basically takes you 18km along the valley floor, through the forests and mountains to the natural hot pools at the end!

Our motto on the tramp was 'Just because you're tramping it doesn't mean you have to look like a tramp!'. We were really fortunate to be able to borrow loads of clothes off people - I now know that polyprops are the way to go - should I ever choose to go again! - and as you can see, decided to work my '80's tramping look'!! Check out the co-ordinated top and socks!! And despite Jessamy's best attempts to weed them out, there were smuggled bottles of mascara taken too, ha ha!!

Finally after walking for what seemed like hours, we caught up with the other faster group for a spot of lunch! Kz had never been so grateful for a cup of tea! It was shortly after this point that Jessamy came running up to me with a worried look on her face and uttered the immortal lines, 'I think I've broken Katharine! She's not making any noise!' (obviously, this didn't last long!!)

We continued on and just as we were losing the will to live, and after 8 1/2 hours of walking we finally arrived at the hut that we were staying in. Nz has lots of these little huts dotted around the countryside for trampers to stay in overnight. Unfortunately, lots of people seemed to have the same idea as us as so we arrived to find that there weren't enough beds for everyone as it was working on a first come, first served basis, and amazingly we weren't the first ones there!! Therefore a number of our group decided that they would sleep outside under the bivouac rock!!

Now there was actually a reason why we'd walked all this way into the middle of nowhere! Just at the end of the track by the hut were some amazing natural hot pools! A great way to spend an hour or two after walking so far! All it was lacking was a glass of bubbly!

The huts that you stay in basically consist of a sleeping area and a downstairs communal area, with kitchen area (a few worktops and a sink) and that's about it. There is no electricity and the toilet is basically a long drop down a little path! So any cooking is done on camping stoves, water has to be heated for washing up and when it's dark, it's VERY dark! Fortunately, we had remembered to bring torches and candles so we could see as we ate our way through a yummy meal of beef satay and rice (thanks again Einstein!), apricots and prunes with custard and drank lots of red wine (as the boys refused to carry it down the mountain as well as up!)

A helpful map of the route so you can see how far we walked! We walked from A-E!

After a pretty early night, due to general exhaustion, we awoke the next day knowing that we had the same joyful walk before us again on the Sunday! However, this time would be mostly downhill, which allegedly was supposed to be faster/easier. It also had the added interest of the fact that it had rained heavily for most of the night (don't worry - the guys and gals under the rock all stayed dry!) and the ground was now sodden and the river running much higher than before!

The sleeping area - find a spot and hope you don't wake up cuddling the stranger lying next to you!!

The view from the hut was amazing - note the snow on the mountains!

We set off - I'd like to point out that even though my pack may look smaller than the others that doesn't necessarily mean it was lighter!!

So you might be thinking how did they manage to get this far without having a 'near death' experience as Kz is normally so good at seeking them out! Unforunately, this time it was me! I somehow managed to slip going through a stream (see, me and rivers just don't mix!) and managed to fall into the water, which wouldn't have been too bad if it hadn't been for the fact that my pack then shot over my head and meant that I headbutted the rock beneath it! So I was basically prostrate in the water, kissing this rock and not able to lift my head or even really move because of my pack! All I could hear were the gratifying sounds of Kz shrieking, 'I don't know what I'll do if she dies!!' Fortunately, Colin and Maria were on hand to drag me out and return me to dry land, a little dazed and bedraggled! I also then managed to nearly slip down off the side of the hill, which doesn't really look much in the picture below but believe me, there was a big drop there!!

The best part of the trek were the Indiana Jones style swing bridges that we had to cross at intervals. From the middle of the bridge, they gave an amazing view up and down the valley - and were also quite fun to bounce on. Kz of course, did not approve of this 'high risk' activity and made sure she followed the directions to the letter of only having one person on the bridge - or anywhere near the bridge at one time!

Lunch on the last day - only a few more hours to go!

The problem we found as we neared the end was that we started to recognise parts and kept thinking that we weren't that far away from where we had started! Unfortunately, on a number of occasions this proved to be untrue and as the rain set in, it would be fairly safe to say that we were well and truly 'over it!'

However, 36kms, lots of bruises and some very wet feet later we FINALLY reached the end!! After virutally running across the final river, we were very happy to see the car park!!

We made it!!

Then it was home to hot showers, a roaring fire and sorting out the numerous socks that we washed!!

A final shout out to Jessamy and Maria for going and buying food and feeding us all on the Sunday night and also to Natalie for knocking on the chalet owners door and asking them if we could buy some wine off them as the shops wouldn't sell it on Easter Sunday!

Would we do it all again?!! Err.........