Rock Oyster, River and Scenic Hills Feb 3/2/18

Manu had offered some training at Rock Oyster, near Mannum, so we were keen to go. We took our standard route along the Onkaparinga Valley drive to Mt Pleasant on the way there. We even arrived a little early!! (Not bad, after getting to bed after 1am that morning)

Rock Oyster is called that because of the many fossilised oyster shells on the ground there. A very slippery side slope coming out of the many parallel creeks, just to make more of a challenge. 

The first training was a middle distance training - with a choice of distances - I took the shorter distance, and Trevor the longer one. The challenge here is always to find the best route choice, and alleviate danger and climb, while managing to stay in touch with where you are on the map.  If you leave the creek systems it is really easy to lose touch and hard to figure out where you are again,as everything looks the same.

As you can see the terrain is rocky and pretty dry at the moment.  I didn't hear about any snakes seen.  The mallee country has its own charm and I couldn't resist taking a picture or two on the way around. 

Manu used these small hanging controls and SI units so we had timed legs and an accurate time for our courses. 

 The seed pods on the ground catching the sun were stunning.

 After the first run we all gathered, had a good drink and a snack for some. At this point I called it enough as I had been feeling sick before we left home and was not any better for the exercise.  I took advantage of the peace and quiet and sat down by the car and enjoyed some quiet reading time, while Trevor went out on his next course.

 I would have loved to have done this course as it had all sorts of tricky challenges where Manu had formed corridors you had to stay in (control 1-3) ,windows you had to navigate to (12-15) and a contour only section (9-12). Beats me how the kids (who have less experience) can still whip around these types of courses while us oldies struggle.  I guess it is all about the rate of brain development and how good they are at picking up new information.

After a good sit down and recuperate (and sharing of spare water with those who hadn't brought enough) we headed to the Swan Reach pub via the ferry at Swan Reach. 

South Australia provides a number of ferries as part of our road network.  They are free to travel on, and save building bridges.  I've always enjoyed the fun of a ferry ride, and you just have a little time to park the car and hop out to enjoy it before you have to hop back in and be on your way. 

Trev and Zita enjoying the ferry ride and view of lovely Murray River cliffs

 The pub sits overlooking the river and you can sit out on their deck and watch the ferry coming back and forwards.  Very relaxing , but a bit warm for doing that for too long .
The white cockatoos screeched and partied in the big gum tress by the river.
We moved inside and took advantage of the pub air conditioning for a while and then were on our way. 

We headed home on the Swan Reach side of the river, following along as close as possible to the river itself.  There are some great viewing spots (lookouts) where you can pull off and admire the mighty Murray.

Big Bend from the lookout

Trev, Al and Zita enjoying the view.  Soon after this we parted ways with Al and Zita when they stopped to buy fruit at a roadside stop. 

Trev and I made our way down to Walkers Flat, where we crossed again using the punt, and then meandered our way as closely as we could along the river again to Mannum.

Here we stopped for a while at the riverfront reserve, where we admired some of the swanky riverfront architecture and read about Captain William Randell and his amazing riverboat adventures.

At the reserve

Instead of coming home the usual way we decided to take some of the less travelled roads, winding our way home via Lobethal and Uraidla. 

It had taken us all day, but another excellent retirement adventure. 

New Zealand Day 2 of competition -Long Distance event

Today we headed North of Auckland to the sandhill and forest map which I have been anticipating for so long.  This one was the drawcard to the whole event for me, and it was as baffling and difficult as expected.

At some stage we chose to register for the short courses rather than the long and we both had had enough at the end of our short courses today.

We drove the hour or so from "home" locked in a stream of traffic (guess where they were mostly  going?) Winding around through towns and across mangrove areas and lovely rolling green hills and flats with pretty pampas grass dotting the landscape.
Finally we were met by a parking marshall a long way from the parking area who warned us to park now or take chances on a boggy paddock.  We opted for common sense with our little rental car.  It might be called a Honda fit, but being bogged is never fitting. This meant we had just added at least 1.2 km of walk to our entry into the event.

Along the way we admired the huge bucks in the deer farm, and the views across the lake nearby.

The brave ones driving in

Views to our right on the way in

Eventually after a lot of walking in squishy mud the event centre came into view. 

I had a fairly early start and Trev was a bit over an hour later, so I headed off soon on my 1000m walk to the start.  This was partly a single dirt track winding through the hilly forest (dodge around the fallen trees etc) and partly a dirt track with thick green grasses towering above head height thickly on either side of the track and a delightful pine needle covering with fresh bright green leafy plants showing occasionally.  We also passed a lovely beach of the lake. I wished I had my camera to show you how tranquil and beautiful it looked. The views into the forest on either side of the track revealed thick vegetation and many lumps and bumps. It was a scary sight which did not reassure. 

The courses were tricky as it was very hard to keep in touch with the detailed map and relate the map to the ground. When I finally get home and download my course it will show lots of little loops and hesitations along the way. I think Trevor managed to stay in touch with the ground better than I did.  

We both came back wet from sweat and the moisture from the vegetation. We think it may also have rained at times, but we  don't really notice it that much once we are out on our courses. 

We both returned to the finish feeling that we had taken way too long, but we were not the only ones who had trouble out there today and in the end we were both 6th!!!

Here are our maps from today. Trev was on course 17 and I was on course 19.

It wasn't a great spot for photos,  and the rain coming and going didn't help the situation either.  In the end we packed up and walked our extra distance again, heading home and doing some "essential" shopping on the way home. (Wine and snacks)

Here are a few of the other sights from today.

Andrew Slattery in the finish chute! 

Chris Franklin

Dante putting in another good finish chute performance.  

Deer on the hill as we walked back to our car.

We saw lots of letterboxes in different colours of plastic.

Scenic view over the lake from the assembly area

On the way home we stopped for fresh strawberry icecream (mixed while we waited from vanilla and frozen strawberries ) which was like having tangy strawberry soft serve.  It was delicious and just what we needed. 

Tomorrow is the relay event.  We are taking a break instead and will have a nice restful bacon and egg morning before heading off from this lovely airbnb and meandering south towards Monday's event. We may not have such good wireless coverage for a while but will upload more when we can. 

New Zealand 2017 -Travelling to Auckland

Thursday 130th April.

A very early alarm had us up and doing the last minute prep before the taxi arrived at 5.20 am to take us to the airport.

As we stood in the check-in line Virgin called our names. We found that they had changed us on to an earlier flight (boarding right now) so that we could catch our connection in Melbourne. Our scheduled flight was delayed. This meant a rush through security and to the other end of the terminal (Murphy's law) with Trevor doing the best he could on his troublesome ankle. It also meant sitting in the spare seats in the middle of 3 on opposite sides of the aisle in row 3.  More leg room ☺ but the company wasn't so good 😕.

In Melbourne we had to find our way to the T2 international terminal and to our flight gate.  We stopped to buy toasted sandwiches (just as well). Our bargain flight did  not include meals , so by the time we made it to our digs in Auckland we were hungry.

The warnings of cyclonic winds had us a bit worried, but the flight was calm and smooth, so we were pretty happy about that.

We had along wait at the international airport for our rental car company to fetch us and take us to their office in the industrial zone near the airport. This gave us a quick catch up with Toni Brown and David Poland etc (also waiting). Then a longish wait for the rental company to check us in, for us to pay the unexpected $1000 bond and pick up our little black Honda. It is pretty underpowered, but should get us around OK, and our bags do fit in the hatch at the back (just).

It took us about an hour to make our way to our home for the next 3 nights (airbnb Bronnie and Andie's sunny upstairs flat). There were a number of road closures- some appeared to be due to planned roadworks, and some due to flooding from recent downpours.  We took a large number of back streets and wondered if our Garmin navigator actually knew where we were going.  We could hear the flood evacuation orders for the Coromandel Peninsula being issued over the radio and felt very sorry for those who had planned a nice relaxed long weekend in that beautiful part of the world. Also happy that we have a roof over our heads and not a tent or swag.

Our location in relation to airport and sprints

We found our place just as expected and it has reliable WiFi which is good and very helpful as we still needed to figure out where the event was for Friday and how we were going to get there! This is certainly not the most organised trip we've been on. We find it really stressful in an unfamiliar place, to try to figure out how long it will take, where we will go etc. They have suggested public transport for today, but we've decided to drive as finding the correct bus, and correct place to get off and then where to go from there is just a bit too much. We still need to register before our runs and expect there to be lots of orienteers in the same boat, which could cause quite a hold up.

It still felt early, but we were tired after a short sleep the night before, so we tipped into bed to rest our tired bodies in preparation for the start of the orienteering tomorrow.  (Sprints at Unitec).

Here are a couple of shots of our living space.  It has lots of window and the sun is streaming in on my back as I sit here this morning writing this catch up blog.I'm lulled into a sense of hope that maybe it will be a lovely day with no rain by the time we are racing early this afternoon. Certainly seems to be shaping up that way right now.

Trev's twisted ankle is holding up to the walking (still painful) and hasn't got very swollen or bruised, so we are hopeful that he will manage the events ahead OK. Will keep you posted on that after today.

WA day 9- orienteering at Malmalling and catching up with the Castelijns

For the first time in the entire holiday we set the alarm to make sure we were up in time. We had planned to orienteering at Malmalling,  which meant and hour and a half to drive, skirting Perth city and heading to the east (towards Kalgoorlie).
Our trusty navigator came to the fore once more, and we arrived at the orienteering in good time. It was good to see the familiar direction signs as we neared the event. Surprisingly, we followed a ute with SA number plates to the event. It turned out to be Gary Ettridge from Pt. Lincoln!!

The WA orienteers made us very welcome as we registered our SI sticks into their system and they already had our names on file!!!

The area is a mix of native bush and pine, but we were all in the native bush for our courses (running across one open area of felled pine early on). The native bush was largely made up of grass trees, which hid boulders beautifully, and gave us some excellent experience with low visibility orienteering.

It's hard to pick out a rock between the close growing grass trees. In many places they were much thicker than this example.

Trevor and I both opted to do the H3 (third hardest) course which was 4.9 km long according to the notices. It is always a good experience to orienteer somewhere new, and this area certainly taught us some more. It was difficult to move fast amongst the rocky ground and thick grass trees, and easy to lose contact with exactly where we were on the map,  as we couldn't get a clear view of the terrain. This caused us some difficulties, but the locals appeared to have as much trouble as we did.
We both took a good long time to complete our courses (Trevor took 1 hr 35 in and Erica 1 hr 43, but Trevor covered almost 2 km more ground at a much better run rate!). Erica was surprised by a mispunch result, having not checked the control  number at 2, and punched 6 instead. (Trap for new players still catching out an old player). Control 5 (low visibility, and hard to tell where on the hill you were), 6 (a long leg with some vague areas, where you really needed to stay in touch with the map) and 9 (we both had to relocate at least once to find the small boulder which  was hidden nicely between the grass trees) were controls where we both wasted time.

Trev's  course download. 

Orienteering WA have a volunteer run shop with basic O supplies. All profits go to the juniors transport fund so that they can make it to the national events each year. They also have a caravan/trailer which is the registration and download point, with info and results on one side and the people with the computer on the other side.

We liked their easy registration procedure where each person comes to the window, pays their money and "dibs" their SI stick to register, and personally tells the person doing the computing which course they are running .

Results were printed out from the splits printer and placed on the info side of the van (small to read, but available if people wanted them)

Results in course order from the splits printer

The event was a schools selection race, so the kids were out in full and the juniors were selling soup and cakes to fund raise for their travel.

Having taken much longer than we had anticipated at the event with our time out on the course and our chatting with the WA crowd, we made a  quick lunch stop at Mandaring on the way in to Perth to catch up with our good friends Maggie and Nick and their lovely daughters  Sarah and Rebekah.

We spent a lovely few hours chatting, eating and helping them to complete the jigsaw puzzle they were working on before reluctantly saying goodbye and leaving them to their preparations or school and work today.

Another excellent day in WA.

Day 7 and 8 of the great Diment Easter road trip.

Since we had very little Internet coverage last night this is an overview of the last couple of days.

We had a lovely leisurely breakfast with Bob yesterday morning before heading off on our separate ways. Below is a map showing approximately our travels for the day.

Planning the drive

As is our way, we tried to find some back roads that we hadn't been on before, and cut through between the  main highways.
You can't really avoid some long and boring stretches when travelling across the country. There is a limit to the time that it is fascinating to consider the numerous open irrigation ditches (carrying water from the Murray River , over 100km away in some spots). The lovely large trees dotted across the paddocks, with their branches reaching to the sky with such balance are beautiful, but once again,  100s of km of them lose their effect. We switched on the ABC news every few hours and drifted along quietly, working away at the kms, enjoying each others company and silently watching the slowly changing landscape. The flat open irrigation gave way to the larger trees around the Murray,  and then the fruit blocks of the Riverina region.

At such times you have time to wonder why the kangaroos always seem to be frozen with their limbs at strange angles as though they died in the middle of some uncontrollable spasm. We tried not to think about why they stink so much.

It is almost meditative, and one of the few times that I have time to let my mind wander where it will, with no pressure of time or planning to be done. The kilometres will not be hurried, so why should I be?

We stopped for lunch at Finley bakery- beating the midday rush, by about 15 minutes and lingering over a shared chocolate  milkshake and cryptic crossword, before getting out of there as it started to get noisy and busy, and admiring the local lake (should have had lunch there instead) with its grassy banks.

We crossed back into Victoria at the river between Barham and Koondrook, and stopped for a cuppa by the river,  watching a big fish trolling along in the shallow muddy waters edge, before heading north a little way towards Swan Hill, passing big lakes. We zig-zagged our way via the narrow Victorian back roads, getting off the road when trucks came along, and toying briefly with the idea of detouring into the eastern part of Wyperfeld National Park.  We decided instead that we would head for a sure destination, and made our way towards the Murray Sunset National Park and the campsite we have used before by the pink lakes.  As it turned out the main camp was pretty full, and we decided that we would drive on in a little further and found an empty camp site near Lake Becking  which seemed to have our name on it.

We had time to climb the sand hill and admire the view over the salt lake in daylight, to unpack, and to do the same again as the sunset put on a show for us.

A very quick and lazy tea was had, as we had filled our stomachs with fruit mid-afternoon before we crossed the border, finishing off the last of our plums and apples rather than throwing them into the fruit fly bins. (Eating fruit at the border is a great SA tradition, but this time we were caught a bit by surprise as we were protecting the interstate orchardists  rather than our own)

Although the internet was too weak for a blog post, a quick Facebook update was composed, and once again we climbed up the slope (this time in search of a better signal) . As we came down Trevor pointed out lots of sand coloured spiders who were reflecting the light from his headtorch like tiny stars from the ground.  Had it not been for the shine we would have no idea they were about as they were so well disguised.

There was a bit of a breeze as we climbed early into our swags,  but it was the first camping night that we had had a clear sky, and I greatly enjoyed lying in my swag admiring the milky way spread out above me while snuggled warmly in my sleeping bag until finally sleep overtook me. It got cool enough to need the bags by about 5am, when we guess it was down to about 7 degrees C.

This morning we broke camp after a more leisurely start, and were on the road by about 10am. With only just over 300 km to go, we knew we had plenty of time, but we stuck to the familiar highway and stopped only for a cup of tea and a loo stop at Lameroo.

We reached home around 2pm and set about washing up, cleaning up and generally getting ourselves sorted out. As I write this Trevor is still washing the Prado, and the second load of clothes are on.

The final leg of the journey

Now all I have to do is figure out what on earth I did on the last day

Here is the map showing control number two which was never found.  (That will come in another blog) and learn from my mistakes.

...Oh, and plan the next trip of course  😊