Saturday 30 August 2014

Accidental Trigs - Paku

So, as I mentioned in my earlier blog, I'm spending the weekend as laundry lady, I mean support crew for Tom at the Coromandel Classic.  Today I have wished him luck then deserted him on a cold dark startline and raced him to the Kauaeranga Valley.  I've set up his transition area, given him his runnign shoes, been startled at his cold pale face, and sent him off on a 27km mountain run. 





Then I racked his MTB, drove for nearly two hours to Coroglen, set up another transition area and waited.  I've managed not to sound panicked when he turns up covered in blood and his hands taped up after a wrestle with a cutty grass bush.  Then I realise that the blood on his face is actually because his nose is bleeding.  I give him his road bike and then make my way to Tairua, stopping regularly and waiting for him to go past to cheer him on. 

At the finish line (for today!) I load him into the car, take him to the bach we're renting and send him to the shower while I hand wash all of his clothes.  It takes 7 basins to get the dirt out of his socks.  I give him a leg massage, feed him and leave him tucked up at home while I head out on my own adventures. 

Overlooking Tairua is the fantastic craggy peak, a little bit like Mount Maunganui.  It has some caches hidden on it, so, gammy calf and all, I head off for a run.  I run for all of 15 minutes and my gammy calf starts getting tighter so I walk, weaving my way up this crazy public walkway which goes down people's driveways and apparently through back yards.  As I walk up consecutive flights of stairs, my calf just decides it's toast.  Three weeks of growing tightness reach a peak and I'm done.  (update - the physio says the calf was just so tight, it caused a tear!).  So I'm left hobbling to the top (it has to be done, I can't go home defeated). 

The summit has AMAZING views, it makes me consider moving here.  I share it with some bikies, which is why the trig is leather clad in the photo.  They rode 80% of the way up, while I limped up a million stairs. 
Paku #2, A6LT

The cache has been stolen, but the unexpected trig is prize enough for me.  Although maybe not prize enoughto recompense an injury a few weeks out from a big race.....?



Friday 22 August 2014

Accidental Trigs - Hauraki Rail Trail


Tom's racing the Coromandel Classic this weekend and I'm support crew.  We all know that I'm better at HAVING a support crew than BEING a support crew.  I have realised that I am essentially a selfish person.  So, it took a bit of a gulp and some later regrets to say "Yes, I'll miss my own Adventure Race (the one that I got 2nd at last year and has great prizes) to follow you around the Coromandel in the car, passing you bikes and shoes.)

Things started looking up when he took Friday off work so we could travel up in plenty of time.  A couple of late nights and I had planned a 60km cycle on the Hauraki Rail Trail, and a list of 20+ caches to pick up on the way.

(Geo-caching is my new nerds sport.  I can't believe it took me this long to start a geeky, online treasure hunt using gps and clues to find hidden caches.)

Tom drops me off in Waihi and I head off for Thames.  That's a decent car trip so it's a bit daunting on a bike.  With a gammy calf.  (Long story to do with overuse and finished off at hockey.)  The first part of the trail from Waihi to the Karangahake Gorge is very new, quite peaceful, not much going on.  Needing to be in Thames by dark, I'm on speed caching and have to give myself only a few minutes to come up with the cache or move on.  This is pretty tough going!!

I've got a map board set up on my bike, but no map on it.  Only a nong could get lost on a rail trail.  The map board is a list of caches and clues, with the gps coordinates already loaded into the Garmin so it beeps as I approach.  The watch beeps, I check the clue, jump off and have a search around, find the cache, sign it, and am back on my bike in a few minutes.  Well, that's the plan, but today I fail in around HALF of my caches.  :/  All the caches on this trail were laid by one operator, and I was silly enough to figure that choosing the bridge caches would mean I didn't have to navigate, as a bridge usually stands out.  Unfortunately the clues were as specific as "Where the troll lives", which is pretty bloody general when you're standing on a bridge.  Which end?  On the bridge structure?  In the creek? UP high or down low?  I was a grumpy troll about bridge caches!

The ride through the gorge I've done many times, and is just so pleasant.  I'm a bit surprised to hit a head wind rattling through the gorge, and whistling in my ears as I head through the 1km rail tunnel.  I have a torch in my pack but am too lazy to get it out... the tunnel lights are working but very dim and it's an uncanny feeling racing along in the dark, aiming for a speck of light in the distance. 

The gorge leads to Paeroa.  Where I get lost on my entry into town, missing the riverside trail and braving the main street instead.  McDs is tempting.  I refind the trail and head off on it.... then realise it's curving around to take me back along the river where I was supposed to come.  180 degrees and I'm on track, for all of 200 metres where I head out of town on the road... the wrong road.  Did I mention that only a nong can get lost on a rail trail?  I reckon this is a conspiracy to keep tourist dollars in town.

From Paeroa to Thames is straight and flat.  For hours.  At one stage I go around a corner which was actually surprising as I was just chugging along like a train. There's a head wind, and cows for a view.  For hours.  I plug in some earphones to relieve the boredom, seeing as there's no traffic to worry about.  I sing out loud for a while and scare the cows.  I see a grand total of ZERO cyclists on this part.  And then, whaddya know!!  A trig station!!  The best bit of the stretch.  :)

 Trig A6CH, 4975.



Sunday 3 August 2014

What a day.

I needed an adventure.  So we re-organised our weekend plans at great trouble to everyone else.

A (lovely) late night, saw me wake on Sunday, tired, dehydrated and feeling worse for wear.  Tough.  It's now or never.

I arrive at Blue Lake and it's pouring.  Proper wet, and three hours riding seems a tough proposition.  To liven things up, I duck up a nearby walking trail, and pick up a Geocoin from a cache I had looked up before I left home.

(Note:  Geo caching is a nerds sport, where people hide a 'cache', essentially a container in some random place, and you use a website, a map, and clues to hunt it out.  The cache will have a logbook to sign, and sometimes small 'treasures' to swap.  A Geocoin is a numbered coin, which is released into the caching system with a mission)

The Geocoin's mission was to go to caches on Terrain difficulty 5 climbing trails.  I found it in a forest, so obviously I'm not the only one scared of height.  I figured it would be fun to ride it up to the highest point in the Redwoods though, where I'd marked out a difficulty 4 cache for some Navigation practise.

So basically, I'm a child.  I had this whole 'I'm on a mission' mindset, transporting a helpless refugee to a better place.  Or something like that.  Seriously, I don't like training, have to do something to keep my kooky mind happy.

A big climb, a fun downhill, a grunt again, and I'm in position to head out for the Mount Moerangi Cache.  I pick a spot and head out for a bush bash in tall pines.  It's a trig, on a high point.  Can't be too hard to find, just go up right?

After 15 minutes walking, my gps is doing cartwheels, unable to make up its mind which direction I should go in.  My compass doesn't seem to make much sense, and the gps route says I've gone around in a semi circle, which doesn't feel right at all.  I stand still, with that sinking feeling, that I have no idea which way is in or which way is out.  My navigation tools are more of a hindrance than a help, as everything is contradictory.  It's been raining persistently for nearly two hours, and now I'm spending too much time navigating and not enough time moving, I'm getting cold.  I know I'm within a ring of roads, and a straight line of no more than 2km (worst case) will have me hit the road..... but the sensation of seeing my gps say I've walked in a circle without me realising it has me doubting that I can straight line at all in such dense bush.

I find a slightly open patch of bush and sit down to eat something, hoping that sitting still for a while will help the gps to secure satellites through the high trees and dense cloud.  Heading off cautiously, with one more try to find the trig before I go to Plan B, I'm pretty sure a choir of angels sings when I suddenly pop out at a trig surrounded by dense bush.  Extremely relieved is an understatement!!

A trig, a cache, and a forest.  Three of my favourite things.
 
With a bit more trust in my GPS now, I find a trail and decide I won't risk bush bashing again, following it down to the loop road then running back to my bike.   Then I feel a heavy weight in my jacket pocket, the geocoin which I forgot to drop in the cache.  Back up the hill, and this time I practise my tracking skills to follow my own trail down.  :)


This is what the Garmin says I did when cache hunting.  I don't believe it completely, but maybe a bit....


Just my favourite trail, Split Enz, then a road ride back to my car, 45 minutes or so.  As per usual, Split Enz brings a grin to my face, it's so much fun, even in the rain.  It really is my happy place, in the forest, not a soul to be seen, on a stunning single track with sweet corners and these little jinks where the trail pops around a jutting tree and root.  It's so smooth.  Until I take a tree a little close, veer away and find myself grinding along a small bank with no chance to manoevre and collecting a tree.

Shoulder, hand and knee took full brunt and it takes a few seconds for everything to calm down enough to think.  My knee immediately stiffens up.  A little hobble, a tentative stretch, then the shakes hit and I need to sit down and have something sweet to eat.  I might have a little cry from the fright, but no one saw it so it doesn't count.  I don't do falling off.  I'm a bit of a girls blouse.  I watch  tough ladies who I ride with fall, get back on and keep going.  I have great admiration for them, but think that if I fell off I would stop riding.  Today, I'm in the middle of nowhere in the pouring rain (still), my knee looses up and riding is the only way out. 

I make it back to the car; late, wet, cold, muddy, bruised and a little bit disorientated.  Just what I needed.