New Zealand April 17th Middle Distance race

We started the day heading out from La Valla

where we had enjoyed a quiet night with some heavy rain. The place seemed to contain a few orienteering groups, who were all setting off at about the same time.

As we headed out of town we joined a convoy of vehicles slowly winding their way along between lush ferns, bulging rivers, and the occasional small land slip or road drop.

We enjoyed views over the swollen brown river towards a white span bridge, and views over undulating green hills dotted with the classic white sheep that you picture when you think of NZ.

We admired hedges of hydrangeas and agapanthas as well as the more usual high grasses. At one stage we wound below pale spindly trees which appeared to have already dropped their greenery. As we passed beneath them I caught sight of fluttering in the highest branches and thought it was a cloud of butterflies. It was, however the few leaves still clinging to the highest spots and fluttering in the breeze!The white backs and green fronts of the leaves were alternating and giving the fluttering impression. We found some like them on the way home to give you the idea.

We felt very sorry for the organisers of the event. As we drove towards the arena the weather continued to offer glimpses of sunshine and then further showers.

We enjoyed an outstanding double rainbow for some of the way in. The ground was well soaked and the plan was to park cars in a paddock, but, given the circumstances, this was not an option. The marshals were encouraging us to pass the event arena and to drive on along the lopp road on the exit route. Almost a km further along we were instructed to park along the side of the road. This meant that we were now parked only 200m for the start! The anticipated 1.1km walk to the start was now much shorter (unless we opted to walk back to the event arena and then back past the car again). We opted to be antisocial and to stay dry inside the car as we prepared to race, and then to head for the start at what we thought was an appropriate time. What we had not anticipated was the urgent need to use a loo and the fact that only limited loo facilities were available at the start. Sadly, given the same choice, many were making the same decision, and the loos at the start were in great demand. We had quite a wait for our turn, and by then I had only a minute to my 6 minute pre start time. I totally forgot to look for satellites on my watch and ended up with no track of my course as a result. Very disappointing.

The map offered many boggy creek crossings, and complex cliff areas to confound us. But the most enduring memory will be the mud. Slippery, smelly mud. Imagine soggy rain soaked tracks and thousands of feet. Add a slope (sometimes a steep one) . Then throw in some fences to cross, and intermittent creeks and bogs just to make it even more interesting.

Picture in the finish chute.  Credit to whoever the photographer was. This is not the only part of courses where the ground was like this. 

Maybe the trick was, as Trevor suggests, not to worry about where to put your feet, but rather, to think about where you end up when you stop sliding.

We did not stay around to pick up our maps today, but walked back to the car and headed off. They have since been made available online so better quality anyway. Trev had the course 8.

After the event we backtracked to La Valla to pick up our folder containing travel documents (woops) before continuing on to Hamilton on a mix of back roads and freeways.

We have a whole house at our disposal tonight and made good use of first the back tap (to remove the worst of the mud) , and then the laundry trough (to remove even more of it) before moving on to the washing machine and the dryer.

After our walk back to the car

After the wash and spin

We also managed to find a nice warm spot to eat dinner and a NZ merlot which was quite acceptable.

Now we are home, tired from another day of adventuring and about to fall into our bed for tonight.