Learning to Love a Lockdown Lifestyle…

After plenty of busy weekends with Em’s parents visiting and some very overtired children it was nice to finally reach a weekend where we had no plans and could relax and get back into normal habits. The forecast looked too nice not to go away though so we headed two hours north to Kaikoura and a great campsite just south right on the beach complete with amazing dolphin acrobatic displays each morning, the noise of crashing waves and amazing stars. Kaikoura itself is a stunning spot with the mountains meeting the ocean and there is plenty to see and do here. We opted for surfing at the famous point break of Mangamaunu just North of town which we had all to ourselves, not the biggest waves but pretty fun surfing for Em and I with great views in all directions. Kids loved crossing the railway line to get to the beach and building rock towers but despite Ethan’s enthusiasm it wasn’t a kid friendly beach being rough shingle with a nasty undercurrent and lots of rocks in the shallows.

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Next stop in an action packed day (not like us I know!) was the peninsula which had a great coastal and cliff top walk with plenty of seals to spot and an amazing ice cream van parked up by the car park. We also found a better sandy beach for the kids to do some body boarding before heading back to the campsite for a slap up dinner. Sunday we had time for a quick bike ride in the woods south of town which took a while to find but was a great track and a first taste of NZ singletrack. Em and I walked (more like a run at times) and tried to keep up with “Rocket Girl” and “Rocket Boy” as they like to call themselves! We headed back South and tried to surf again just North of Christchurch at pretty Leithfield beach but it was far too messy and windy for more than one quick ride so we headed home for what would sadly become our last weekend away in a very long time, the world was about to take a turn for the worse…

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The following weekend we all felt pretty ill (most of us had been off school during the week with colds, being man flu mine was of course the worst!) so we stayed local and had a great two family biking expedition to Bottle Lake Forest Park with Heather and family. I found an old mountain bike guidebook from 2004 and I’d written that it was great riding but I’d got badly lost in the woods. Heather also said she’d got lost every time she went there so we concentrated hard and set out determined to find the right way…

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The whole team rode really well (especially Iona cycling about 10 miles off road on her own!!) and up until lunch everything went to plan, but in the second half we split the team and everyone got very lost in the woods, we all met up again while lost and got back on track and found our way to the end finally, a great adventure and definitely one to come back for as nice and flat for kids though undulating enough to be interesting. The big kids (Duncan and Chad) also enjoyed the north shore at the car park! Sunday was a final ex-EUMC reunion with Heather, Steve, Sarah and all the kids and we enjoyed another day on Taylors Mistake beach (average surf this time, and not at all sensible with a head cold!! No names mentioned!!) and yet another epic barbie back at ours. Great to have a house big enough to host guests so easily both daytime and overnight, makes a change from our cosy Queensferry pad. Though snow on the hills made us feel like our double summer was finally winding to a close?

News was coming through from both UK and NZ governments about an impending lockdown for the (soon to be a global pandemic) Covid-19 virus, lessons were being learnt by events in Italy and China, interestingly the UK and US governments very slow to get into lockdown whereas NZ and the always impressive Jacinda Adern decided with only a few hundred cases round the country to move us up to Alert level 4 or full lockdown with 48 hours notice. So after a Monday at work which mostly involved talking to students about the science of viruses and the likelihood of them catching Coronavirus (My year 10s who are on disease in the Medical Science topic being especially apt!) , we were sent home too and told to prepare for distance learning. Impressed with how well set up my school is for this with everyone well-versed in Microsoft Teams and OneNote and being ill last week had given me a chance to test the system already!

On the final day before lockdown we thought a final adventure was required and without properly checking the weather (it looked sunny out the window!) we set out on a boat trip to Quail island in the middle of Lyttleton Harbour. Bit bumpy on the way out and a great island to explore – especially as we had it all to ourselves as no boats running and hence no tourists! After much fun on the beach was had and all corners explored we got back in the boat and noticed how much choppier the water had become. The harbour is super sheltered in nearly all wind directions except an Easterly and you’ve guessed it the strong Easterly made for some exciting waves on the way back and the boat gradually filled with water as we crossed the one mile channel. By the far side we were pretty much sat in waist-chest deep water (depending on size) with no way to bail the boat and were very relieved to reach dry land and get some dry clothes on. I had to go straight into a video conference with my year 11s on the beach, not the best lesson I’ve ever taught for sure!! 🙂

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And so like many people across the world we moved into the dreaded lockdown, very fortunate to be living in such a big house with a great garden for hide and seek, a trampoline to work off some energy and some great local walks, bikes and runs in the hills and along the local beaches. The first two weeks we managed to do a different adventure every day close to home, though our one attempt at surfing was short lived as the police arrived just after we’d surfed to ask us if we knew the surfers out in the water. They seemed to forgive us despite the fact we had a large surfboard and two bodyboards next to us and the next day surfing (and all watersports) were added to the banned list. Lockdown would affect you really badly if you need social or urban occasions such as pubs, parties, shopping, cinema etc but if like us you spend your whole life “self-isolating” in the outdoors it’s not much of a change really is it? Also got to spend plenty of time with the kids and although the surfing holiday to East Coast Australia we’d planned would have been ideal for Easter, Mount Pleasant’s great selection of mountain biking, road biking, coastal and hill walks/runs is pretty hard to beat.

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We also had plenty of fun making videos (links if you missed them!)- a few musical numbers (https://youtu.be/34ZhEdxbH0M and https://youtu.be/eCn4fcugl_M), a home biking production ( https://youtu.be/5PQzPShrlSs) and best of all a lockdown song and music video (https://youtu.be/zUvGM8Q4kPA) which filled the post exercise hours nicely along with some creative ideas such as recycled marble runs, lego crazy golf courses, dens in the garden etc. Impressed with how well the kids entertain themselves to be honest and we’ve done plenty of Cosmic Yoga and Jump Jam Aerobics to keep us active inside the house too. The rules of lockdown are a bit vague at times, are we allowed to drive to local beaches and parks and then walk? Do we have to walk or cycle from the house? Seems a bit harsh on the little people if they have to cycle up our hill to go anywhere? A few of our adventures involve holding our breath and hoping we don’t meet any angry policemen but we never do, just lots of other like-minded kiwis out enjoying the fresh air. Lockdown has made the normally friendly locals even friendlier, there is a pleasant “all in this together” attitude all round, which will hopefully last till the end of the lockdown.

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A final holiday treat for Dad Chad before distance learning and school starts up again – I was allowed a day off to try another one of my Chad Challenges, stretching the limits of the lockdown self-isolation bubble to the max! I’d planned a triathlon starting at Taylors Mistake and finishing at Diamond Harbour on the Banks Peninsula but with watersports banned and no driving allowed a revised “Daddy Duathlon” was born – I cycled the scenic summit road westwards and down to Gebbie’s pass (20 hilly super scenic miles), then I hid my bike in the woods, switched to running gear and ran 13 equally scenic hilly miles over Mount Bradley and Mount Herbert the two highest peaks in the Banks Peninsula. These broad summits made for generally fast running and great views but not the best summits being large and flat on top and I still have nightmares about the ocean of dense gorse covering Mt Bradley – not easy in short shorts!! Retracing my steps to my bike I had a well-earned lunch break and lots of water as it was a hot day and I hadn’t taken enough up the hill. The sting in the tail was the final 20 mile ride home again – this time via Lyttelton and Evans Pass to make more of a loop route, with tired legs I found the headwinds and hills on the way back tough and I hit a few mental lows but dug deep and got there in the end, total of about 52 miles (85km), 8000ft (2500m) and 7 hours of fun, shorter than some Chad Challenges but tough enough! Em disapproved with being such a large distance from home though we don’t have distance or time restrictions on daily exercise in NZ and I hardly saw a soul all day except for one other fellow masochist who bizarrely had come up with the same plan on the same day and cycled and ran almost the same route from town! Also met the landowner on the top of Mt Herbert having fun in a quad bike with his family and he said “G’day!” so overall definitely kept my 2m from everyone all day, harder to avoid people on narrow local paths on a sunny Easter weekend to be honest! Strange and sad times indeed this horrific global pandemic, hoping everyone comes out the other side and maybe the world will end up a nicer place for it, we can but hope. Onward and upward….

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