Training Log Archive: Bash

And home at last. What a fun few weeks that was! :-)

If you get the choice, take Air New Zealand instead of Air Canada. We got two flights on each airline, and there was no comparison. My favourite part was when Air Canada woke us up at 5 a.m. today, just before landing in Toronto, to offer us the chance to purchase dinner. They were out of breakfast foods like muffins. Why? Because we got on the plane at 10 p.m. in San Francisco, so it was a "dinner flight".

This was the heavy-duty winch grinding portion of our 2-hour sail in Auckland on an America's Cup yacht. Awesome!! The main sail weighed 180 kg and took a couple of minutes for eight of us to raise, working hard on the winches. Then we had various other sails to raise, drop and rearrange during the sail. Nasty weather, but that gave us a taste of what real ocean racing would be like. 'Bent took a shift at the helm. He looks like a real sailor these days, now that he's grown a beard. He'd better not start smoking a pipe.

Courtesy of the International Date Line, we were able to spend Saturday sailing around Auckland's harbour, including a tight squeeze under their big harbour bridge, then we spent an hour at their Maritime Museum and went to a seafood restaurant at the harbourfront.

Then we flew to San Francisco, where it was Saturday morning all over again. We couldn't find a sailboat to go out on, so we took a harbour cruise that passed under the Golden Gate Bridge, then we visited the Fisherman's Wharf Maritime Museum and went to a seafood restaurant at the harbourfront.

Thus we spent our two Saturdays in two different hemispheres in virtually identical ways. Great symmetry!

Our time in Christchurch was all about Antarctica. We spent a couple of hours in the visitor wing of the International Antarctic Centre. Most scientists travelling to Antarctica pass through the Centre, which is adjacent to the airport. Lots of good info on the international stations, current research, and issues in the deep south.

Then we spent a couple of hours in the Antarctic Hall of the Canterbury Museum, where they have exhibits on Antarctic history. Some of the cooler stuff was gear and clothing from famous expeditions - Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton.

Hmmm... I may have to start posting my weight in my training log when I get home. Tonight we pigged out on excellent Indian food (for the 3rd time in two weeks). Last night it was awesome Japanese food. The night before, it was fresh seafood...

Brilliant sunshine, so we had to make a run for Mt. Cook, the highest mountain in NZ (3750 m or so). I was here years ago as part of a business trip, and I didn't see a darned thing due to clouds, so there was unfinished business! ;-)

We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day - sunny, crystal clear views of mountains, glaciers, and thunderous rivers after the previous day's storm. We hiked up the Hooker Valley - not the most strenuous trek we've done, but one of the most scenic. In the Mt. Cook area, you really can't go too far unless you have technical mountain climbing equipment, but that's OK, because the valleys are stunning. We hiked up to Hooker Lake, then back again, with lots of agility training as we leapt from stone to stone to hill to stone, trying to keep our feet dry as a stream came down the middle of some parts of the trail.

There were two places where the trail crossed the Hooker River on a swing bridge (somewhat unstable pedestrian suspension bridge), and the wind gusts funnelled through there so hard that some hikers would just grab the side of the bridge, frozen in fear. We clutched our hats, cameras and the side of the bridge as we walked across, and I really don't think I've ever felt such a strong wind - except maybe those 80 knot gusts on Milford Sound a few days ago (although 'Bent thinks the gusts were stronger today).

Huge storm last night! We were thinking that it was typical NZ rain, but it turns out that it was the biggest rainfall in the Mt. Cook area in 3 years. They got 25 cm (not a typo) in a day, and there was a tonne of flooding downstream. Also there were 150 kph wind gusts that ripped roofs off houses and downed trees. But we didn't get a newspaper, so we were blissfully unaware. And then the sun came out, so we had a good afternoon.

Rented mountain bikes in Wanaka and headed out along the lakefront trail, then climbed into a local MTB play area. It turned out to be a dark tamarack forest, and after about 45 minutes of climbing and descending on single track, I really wanted to see some mountain views again. So we did some route-finding back to the lake (almost trespassed on a REALLY expensive property, but found a legal way around). Then we continued on the lakefront trail, which was more of an ATV trail that turned into a rolling double-track trail as it started to follow the Clutha River. We could have done that for hours, but we needed to get the bikes back by 6 p.m.

Probably the 2nd most popular backpacking trip in NZ is the Routeburn Track. (The Milford Track is the most well-known.) We decided to hike from the eastern end of the track up to the highest point, Harris Saddle, then go back down again in the same day. This meant hiking past two huts that some people were spending the night in. That's something to put on our to-do list for the future - more time in a beautiful place.

The Routeburn Track is quite varied over a relatively short distance. We started in lush native beech forest, and had several swing bridge crossings of fast-moving streams. In this section, we saw several parakeets, who seemed quite interested in us. The trail followed the wall of a river gorge for awhile, with azure blue water spilling over large rocks.

After the first 90 minutes, there was a stiff climb to the Routeburn Falls Hut, just above the tree line ("bush line" in NZ). After walking past a cool series of waterfalls, we were in an alpine amphitheatre surrounded by large peaks. After skirting it and climbing steadily, we followed a narrow path along the side of a cliff above Lake Harris, emerging at Harris Saddle. On another day, we would have had a stunning view over the Hollyford Valley, where the road to Milford Sound runs. (We'd driven it a few days earlier.) However, today the snow was flying, and we only saw the views on the east side of the pass where we had come from.

The Routeburn is one of NZ's Great Walks, and it offers guided and unguided facilities. So it was kind of weird to be at this alpine saddle, far from the road, and there were two shelters right beside each other. They looked almost the same from the outside, but one of them had a numbered keypad to get into it. That was for the guided groups. We went into the adjacent shelter for the riff raff, and enjoyed a snack before heading back down. The sun came out, and then it really was a Great Walk! Hmmm... now that we've done two Great Half-Walks, I wonder if that counts as doing one Great Walk. ;-)