Kayak or Bust!

On Monday, I decided that I needed to get out and do something this week, after doing not very much last week.

So decided to head back over to Te Aroha and see how the kayak loader was progressing and do some walking and mountain biking while there. I decided that I needed to get this under way so I can start my Christmas trip.

Brenda and Roger agreed and on Monday afternoon after completing the “nana’s lemonade syrup” and the grape fruit rollups, we had lunch and headed off. On arrival I went and saw Mike and he told me that they were awaiting the laser cut main struts, which should be arriving overnight, then they needed to assemble the thing and then we would be fitting it on Thursday hopefully.

Once that was sorted we went to the domain and visited the iSite and gathered up a whole range of brochures and then headed over to Boyd Park, where we intended to spend the night and wandered around the wetlands track. A really nice 45 min wander through some interesting wetlands and came across some awesome plum trees with tiny but nice plums.

Lovely bacon, potato and egg pie for dinner!

Will post the recipe, it’s the Countdown one and really nice cold and hot!

Lovely quiet night and headed out in the morning for a quiet bike ride towards Paeroa. Brenda and Roger hadn't been there and I was interested to see how different it would be when I was not tired, hungry and thirsty. We parked by the old railway station and headed out early.

We had a good trip only travelling 17km towards Paeroa and then returning after a muesli bar and drink. Roger was feeling his bike seat by the time we got back to the buses and Brenda’s leg was starting to give her a bit of worry.

It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, mainly because it was nicely overcast and a very light breeze was blowing keeping the temperature down and not having to grind into a headwind on the return.

We headed back to the domain and had some lunch. Brenda had found the Mokena Geyser and it spouts every 40 mins and runs best between 12 and 2pm, so after lunch we went up and waited for the geyser to do its thing. We waited for nearly 40 mins and just as I had a call from a budgeting colleague, yup you guessed it away it went.   So grabbing the camera and saying goodbye to Marlene I managed to get a couple of shots of the only soda geyser in the world.

Not sure whether it was worth the wait but at least I can now say I have seen the Mokena Geyser do its thing.

So after that bit of an anti-climax we headed up to the Wiarongamai Valley to have a quiet afternoon beside the bush.

Nice little afternoon and we decided to have dinner there as well, so it was beautifully peaceful, despite the number of people heading out for a walk.

We then headed back into town to set up for the evening in the car park behind the Te Aoha Library, where we were treated to the noises from the athletic meet happening across the way. Loads of young children competing in a full range of athletics and again a lovely peaceful night until 5am when two guys arrived to mow the grass in the nearby carpark!

So an early start to the day, but I managed to doze again but when someone arriving at work slammed their car door, I was wide awake and not that happy about it!

So we headed off to have a bit of a walk , Brenda saying that she would go as far as her leg would carry her!

We headed up to the Bald Spur Lookout and managed to get as far as Whakapipi Lookout.

I wandered up the track a little to see if we had arrived at the right place but didn't seem to be anything further up except the Te Aroha mast so we headed back down. Looking at the map, we missed Bald Spur by about 15 mins! Not to worry, it was still a nice walk up the hill.

On our return Brenda and Roger headed home and I decided to get the gas bottle filled and head off to have a bit of a mountain bike blat. Did about 45 mins and then headed back.

I got a call from Mike about the kayak loader and he invited me over to see the progress to date and we would have a look at how things would go from here.

So I wandered over to see and it looks great, bit of work still to be done, but its going to look great and work well!

Mike then had a look at the bus and started to worry about the measurements so we got out the ladder and re-measured some and yup we had it right, but it was going to be a tight fit with all the stuff on the roof of the bus, indicator lights, vents and solar panels!

Headed back to Boyd Park and then got a call from Mike, asking me to come in at 9am tomorrow so that they could at least ensure that the measurements were right!

Damn, there goes my walk all the way up to the top of the hill to the transmitter mast! Ah well, maybe tomorrow afternoon.

So due to lack of internet connection this is now posted today! My 3G wireless router works! So I am now on wireless throughout the bus on 3G! Works on all my devices. Must now keep my eyes pealed for cheap data cards.