Winds of Winter?

Tēnā koutou katoa. After a long eleven week term it was great to finally reach the school holidays but with a road trip to North Island rolling ever closer, a “quiet” weekend was needed first which we filled in usual fashion with some indoor bouldering (plenty of dyno practice!) and a walk to Taylor’s Mistake once the sun came out. Em had to work the Sunday so I took the kids back to Mclean’s Island for some sunny mountain biking and they did really well, first time they’ve all completed the full 10 mile (16km) loop. Many varied snacks seems to be top tip for success to keep little people moving.

Time to fly!

Sandy construction project…Ethan special!

Taking full advantage of having a nanny with no more holiday days accrued, I scored a couple of daddy days off and with the mountain bike recently fixed after three months (to get the key part shipped in from the UK) it was a no brainer to get some biking in, first stop was Double Fenceline in the Banks peninsula, a route I’d dragged my flatmate (sorry Peet!) and girlfriend round and remembered it being pretty scenic. It didn’t disappoint second time either after a mere 15 years gap – after a long slog up the steep gravel of Port Levy Road, it follows a scenic ridge, all feeling very Lord of the Rings, with a couple of fun summits along the way and a great descent to finish back to the amazing cafe and tasty treats at Little River. Not a berm or a drop off in sight but technical enough in places and great views in all directions. The next day I couldn’t decide what to do so took biking, bouldering and running stuff and headed west to the mountains. I fancied a run the most of all and drove all the way to Arthur’s Pass hoping to do a loop over the classic Avalanche Peak before the snows came. Sadly there were angry clouds spilling over the Divide (which splits the East and West Coast and keeps the bad weather in the west usually), so I aborted that plan and headed back to the ever sunny Craigieburn Ranges nearer to home and opted for some of the excellent mountain biking to be found there, two excellent mountain blues and two steep blacks was a great combo. The famous Hog’s Back rides well in both directions and Dracophyllum flat is super scenic through the alpine meadows. A long slog up the Mount Cheeseman ski-field road accesses Cockayne Alley and the slightly easier Cuckoo Creek which both feature steep, twisty and technical rooty numbers to keep you on your toes, only one minor wipe out with a thankfully soft landing, and I got back to the car in good time for a feast of a picnic lunch and made it home in plenty of time to get the kids to bed, great to have the bike up and running again, especially in Aotearoa where you are spoilt with world class biking tracks!

The best things come in threes they say (except maybe children!!) so you’ve guessed it Em was quite keen for some biking the next day too, despite having to work in the afternoon, and everyone fancied testing out the chairlift at Christchurch Adventure Park. Sadly it didn’t open till 11am but I had a back up plan and we drove to the top and sneaked in a side gate to cycle down the excellent and very long Duncan’s Donuts. Em shot off to work and we enjoyed the lift back to the car at the top, luckily Iona was just tall enough to be allowed on the lift and I managed to jump them all on and off on my own! A fun local adventure for sure and nice and quiet in the week (and when closed!!)

We headed North the next day for our ten day road trip to North Island and had booked two campsites on the surf highway, hoping to surf and run up Mount Taranaki but the 5m (15ft) swell forecast and high winds and rain wasn’t a very attractive option, so we changed the plan to East Coast instead and while driving up to Picton via Kaikoura researched the best places to stay and the surf hotspots, nothing like last minute planning! After a flying visit to the Top 10 in Kaikoura (longer visit planned on the way back!) we reached Picton in good time to enjoy the mini train and boats while waiting for the Inter-islander ferry. After a smooth and scenic crossing we stayed at Lani’s house for the night before a long drive up to Te Awanga campsite near to Napier, which had a great point break right in front of the tent. So good in fact that I had three sessions there in two days! Super quirky and friendly campsite and we enjoyed a few nights relaxing there checking out the nearby beaches and biking. Plenty of wildlife to see too – a really varied farm park with horse rides and tons of animals including a weird 6 legged sheep(!) and the aquarium in Napier was great fun too, with sharks, giant turtles and penguins being the highlights. We also bumped into loads of really happy and friendly cyclists while out on our local rides and then realised they were cycling between wineries and were well lubricated! Waimarama beach down the coast had some great surfing for all ages (sandy bottom way better than rocky point breaks for little people) and finally Pan Pac MTB park at Eskdale had some wonderful flow trails through the woods, the kids did really well on the beginner loop and Em and I enjoyed the famous roller coaster like Grand Traverse and some of the harder lines. For a last minute plan this trip is working out pretty well!

Small boy vs big wave!

In terms of saving the best till last North Island still had a few more treats in store for us, we’d seen pictures on the cover of the Inter-islander and N Island travel magazines of a famous lighthouse and turned out it was next to our second campsite of Castlepoint, which is in the middle of nowhere on a very rugged stretch of coast between Napier and Wellington. We broke the long rainy drive there (Em had wisely suggested travelling on the worst forecast day) with more wildlife at the Pukaha National Wildlife park where I got to feed some native birds and Em was braver and fed a mass of hungry eels! Iona loved introducing her pet cuddly kiwis to the real ones and the lighting was great for a change so you could see them up close and personal. Castlepoint blew us away with it’s scenic coastal walks, great surf and even a drive onto the beach at the Gap. There was more fun surfing on very clean waves on the main beach in front of the campsite, and we could have easily stayed here for much longer than two nights. We found an “atmospheric” (ie a bit too exciting) cave under the lighthouse with big waves crashing in and the Deliverance Cove walk is a must do with amazing mini summit and stellar views back to the lighthouse. Just our kind of place all in all and sad to leave and head homewards, though with ice on the tent the final night it was really feeling like the end of the camping season even this far North!

Feeding time!

A final stop in Wellington to visit an old Uni friend Andy and his wife Liang and their lovely family, the kids all got along really well and glad to be inside out of the cold for sure! Makara Peak was the best mountain biking of the trip with a brilliant wooded 6km kid’s loop through the pretty forest and even better adult loop to the summit including a suspension bridge and some well designed flowing and technical single-track back to the car, so good I had to keep going back up for another lap! Andy lives right by Mount Victoria which claims to be the best view in town and made for a great sunset family photo opportunity and views over the harbour.

A final stop at Kaikoura on the way home after some fun mini-golf at Picton, and this time we had time to swim in the outdoor pool and soak in the hot pool before a final slap up dinner in town, sadly no crayfish this time but the fish and chips isn’t too shabby either! All in all a great holiday to North island, a bit of a long drive but so worth it when you get there and Napier had never been on my radar as somewhere to go but is actually a hidden gem, without children you could take in the excellent looking wineries as well. A final surf at the lovely Gore Bay on the way home turned out to be another hidden gem and with a campsite definitely one to come back to one weekend in the summer, the water back on South Island is certainly feeling colder now, time to retire the 3mm wetsuit for a bit and bust out the 5mm winter suit methinks! Ethan has voted with his (numb) feet and despite us buying him a full length suit he has called it time on the surfing season! Iona is made of sterner stuff and comes out every time, getting at least five rides on her bodyboard each time before a few naked laps of the beach for a grand finale!

Back to mahi and kura, where Sara continues to impress with her passion for drawing everything from kiwis to the scary gruffalo and the kids have really enjoyed reading “Stories of Kiln Farm” written by their very own Granny Sally. The pain of returning to work was of course softened by my favourite commute over the hills, more tiny yet fun waves to play on at Tumbledown Bay and best of all for a mother’s day treat we all cycled the classic loop from Lyttleton to Diamond Harbour which finishes with a ferry ride whizzing you back to the start. The kids did really well on the hilly 26km loop, with Ethan cycling it all, Sara cycling most and Iona cycling the flatter bits and enjoying the tagalong on the hills. We even had a bracing swim at Charteris Bay, which is very well named as the “home of the optimist”! You’ve guessed it, Ethan said NO WAY, Sara dipped her toes in and the three keen swimmers were the rest of us! Bracing and invigorating in equal measure….

Andy had recommended we try a week of free meals from Hellofresh and despite the ridiculous packaging and some processed ingredients, we were impressed with the tasty kai, and best of all Ethan gained a new enthusiasm for cooking which I hope he continues. More awful news came through from the UK as my great university friend Andy Sims aka the Boy Lard lost his battle with melanoma and brain cancer leaving behind his wife Jane and two lovely children Helena and Robert. I have such wonderful memories of Lard from our twenties where we had some amazing climbing adventures together to places such as Morocco and Lundy Island, and in recent years we’ve enjoyed winter climbing and ski trips to the mountains. Really wish I’d seen more of him in recent years now, but family commitments gets in the way sometimes. Two of my biggest and most memorable days in the hills were the Bob Graham Round and the Chad Challenge finishing with the Cairngorm 4000ers and Lard was there for both of them. He will be very much missed by myself and a lot of his friends but the memories live on for sure…I needed a long surf on some giant waves at Sumner to clear my head and nothing distracts you better than staring over the falls at the long drop! Sunday we whizzed round Bottle Lake with some very tired and whiny children, turns out long road trips to North Island wear the little treasures out!

Seems a shame to burst the happy bubble and finish with such sad news so I’ll finish with some happier times. After a couple of weekends at home everyone was itching for another adventure and we headed to Hanmer Springs for the weekend, with hard overnight frosts we were finally allowed (by the frugal wife) to splash out on a self catering apartment and not camp, and on the way up we had a great dinner at the Amberley Brewery which had an impressive 25 different beers and amazing pizzas. Another last minute plan had me heading into the hills to explore the remote St James Trail and the others headed in to the woods for Easy Rider, fairies and pump track action. I took a bike shuttle up to the start of Fowler’s pass which was a steep thirty minute uphill slog rewarding you with great views of snowy mountains and a technical switchback descent into remote wooded valleys beyond. A hard frost meant snow patches and plenty of hoar frost and the river crossings were brutal with icy cold water and numb feet! Once I popped out in the sun though things improved at the suntrap that is Lake Guyon, with it’s mirror image reflections of the mountains and I could have stayed there all day to be honest! I dropped down from here and rejoined the main St James Cycle way via a cool swaying swing bridge over the Waiau River (more on that later) and headed down the enormous glaciated valley. Disaster almost struck on a south facing rocky section when my front wheel slipped off the track on the ice and I went flying down the rocky track but luckily the bike survived and I just had a few grazes for my troubles. Bad place to have a serious accident to be honest with no phone reception and I saw only one person in the first 60km! A great lunch spot at Pool Hut and then a long slog back up and over Peter’s Pass got me to the Homestead and the final gravel road, mostly downhill descent to Hanmer and a well-deserved soak in the hot pools with the family. A big 75km 6.5 hour day out, but a great one all the same, almost on a par with things like the Paparoa and the Old Ghost Road and far closer to home!

Sunday we woke up optimistic that we could paddle the Waiau River below Hanmer – a classic 15km “beginner” grade 2+ river through some rocky gorges but first I had to de-ice the car which was covered in thick hoar frost on all sides! We dropped the bikes at the finish and headed to the start hoping it would warm up soon! The river was fast flowing and had plenty of exciting rapids to avoid/bounce down and the gorge sections had some sharp corners through the rocky walls so it was more exciting than we’d wanted at times and required a few stops to empty water out of the boat! It was pleasantly warm in the sun though and despite a cold Ethan saying he’d had enough and wanting to get out, we made it safely to the end and had a lovely play on the beach while Em cycled back to get the car. Very late in the season but played for and won and to be honest the boat is now sitting super low in the water with five so we definitely need to upgrade to two boats next season. Thoughts turn to the ski season now, ski holiday booked, new skis and jackets fitted and handed down for ever growing children and psyche is high, kids are even sleeping with their skis in their rooms – see you on the slopes next time! Kia Ora!