A quiet weekend

We had a very quiet weekend. The weather wasn't the best. I managed to get a big walk in yesterday. I went around Centennial Drive and on to Tom Grant Drive. The whole walk was about 9.5 ks and took me an hour and a half. I got home about 10 minutes before heavy rain. Such good planning. (It is really raining now, complete with thunderstorm. I just got home from work in time. It wouldn't have been much fun on the bike!).

Views of Centennial Drive

Views of Centennial Drive

On Saturday we went to a 30^th birthday lunch for the tramping club. It was finger food, so although it looked like afternoon tea, we had to eat quite a bit to fill up. Eddie ate too many sausages rolls and I ate too much white bread, so we both felt quite blobby and windy for the afternoon. Apart from that, it was a nice event. There were quite a few funny tramping stories told.

Of walking a river trail and other notes

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On Saturday we went up to Auckland and picked up a water barrel we had bought. It is quite cool as it has a handle and pulls behind you really well. It came complete with the pump to put the water into the tank on the caravan.

On Sunday, I went for a tramp along a section of the Waikato River Trail. Lovely day and not too hot. There was a zig zag path down to the river side. I had envisioned it to be flat when we got to the bottom, but no. More up and down. The climb back up wasn't as bad as I had thought as it was quite a gentle slope, just a lot of it. My calves were a bit sore first thing this morning, but all ok now.

The starlings have managed to make a nest in the goose neck of the caravan. We must have taken the chicks for a ride when we got the COF. I have found 2 dead ones pushed out of the nest. I suspect they are trying again.

 Some views of my walk on Sunday

lovely fern

Water fall on the way .
Wasn't expecting that.

A view of the river from the track

Certificate of Fitness

We have had a nice week and now we need some rain. Who would have thought that 2 or 3 months ago.

 We got the certificate of fitness, registration and road user charges all up to date on Friday, so now we can go on weekend trips all legal and everything. When we got there we discovered they had brought in a new law and we had to get an engineer to do measurements on the hitch. The law came out on the 1^st November, but it hasn't really been advertised. We went to Eddie's work and got an engineer to do it for us. Bit more of a performance than we had planned. We think the new law is a reaction to the bit of a hoo ha a few months ago where some engineers hadn't done proper checks on the hitches for trucks. 

Eddie has begun to put the diesel heater in to the van. He did quite a bit yesterday. He had his head in a hole swearing at the space he had to work in. But nobody died so all is good.

Ngamuwahine walk

The weather is still very unreliable. We have a strong wind blowing, which makes the air quite cool. Quite a push on my bike this morning to work too. I am very glad I have assistance from my motor.

The caravan passed it's electrical certificate last week, so that's that for another 3 years. The containment is the same. Eddie is taking it to the testing station for it's Certificate of Fitness on Friday, so fingers are crossed that we pass.

I went for a walk up in the Kaimai Ranges on Sunday. It was steeper than I remembered, but a nice walk. Very windy and the trees were banging against each other, which was a little disconcerting. Part of the track has pine trees along side it and a pine cone fell between 2 of the walkers. Oops that was close! We did a loop, so we had to cross a stream twice, but it was easier enough. We just waded through and didn't try to rock hop, so we had squelchy socks for  the day. It was good coming back as it washed all the mud off our boots.

Photos of my Sunday walk.