The week of culture, media and sport

Last Tuesday I took Dora on her birthday surprise, a Vietnamese-French fusion restaurant and a Kiwi-Shakespearean fusion outdoor play. The former was scrumptious and the latter was hilarious, which was a good job given it was the comedy All’s Well That Ends Well.

Later in the week we continued our cultural streak by heading to the Opera House to see Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado. Nineteenth century humour proved as good as sixteenth century gags, and glossed over the dubious political correctness of some of the themes.

Dora spent her working week doing a two-day comprehensive First Aid course. It was very satisfying to finally learn how to do CPR, de-choke a baby, ring the Poison Hotline NZ and wrap a compression bandage to avoid the bone sticking out of the flesh. Unfortunately the “pen in the neck” solution is never recommended (not for lack of the tutees suggesting it to the tutor).

Come Friday, I donned my Go Pro to get some weekend media footage (coming to a laptop screen near you…soon) and we headed to Gisborne, with Friends Matt and Rich. Dora met her cousin Nic at the airport, whilst the rest of us headed to the Best Restaurant in Gisborne (source: Trip Advisor) for a risky curry before our ultramarathon around Lake Waimarama.

[Dora here] I think I definitely got the better end of the weekend, chilling with Nic, Jo, Jasper and Freddy on their deck, in the garden, at the beach, in the surf, and at the Gisborne cinema showing the O’Neill Surf Film Festival. Nic taught me the basics of surfing on Jo’s longboard on Saturday, but it was really on Sunday, inspired by 4 hours of surf films, that I progressed (to scrambling around and falling off). The few waves caught were very satisfying, and I mostly just loved being in and on the water. Apparently with a four hour session every day for a summer I might get moderately good!

Cheers!

It was awesome to see Jasper and (how he’s grown!) Freddy again. Jasper was particularly impressive on his bike zooming down hills, leading nature-watching activities whilst on the bike ride, climbing the ladder up into the tree and reciting word-for-word the entire Dirty Bertie book to me. Freddy preferred the Noises book, was adept at covering things in sand and finding the hardest bits of duplo to try to fit together, and enjoyed teasing his parents by walking two steps then pausing, grinning and crawling the rest of the way.

[Roger here] Meanwhile, Matt, Rich and I drove to a campsite near the Lake. We caught a five-hour power nap before heading up ‘The Bluff’ to get it out of the way before the heat of the day made running too uncomfortable. Views from the top were breath-taking, partially because of our rapid ascent. 

We cantered down to the lake side and continued through sun-dappled forest and insect-serenaded grass. The hiking /tramping huts provided welcome places to rest and replenish our water. We made good time, completing the three-to-four day 50km walk in 7.5 hours despite the path expectantly detouring up and down a hill at the end to avoid a recent landslip.

We caught a water taxi back, the skipper unimpressed with our feat and instead keen to made us jump in the lake from great heights to see the petrified tree stumps that lie beneath the surface. We obliged, the cool clear waters no doubt aiding our recovery.

Back at camp, we cooked, drank almost two bottles of beer each and promptly fell asleep for ten hours. The next day saw us lazily eat and drive our way to a vineyard for some tastings, before joining Dora, her cousin Nic and his wife Jo, and Jasper and Freddy for a lovely afternoon of lunch, slack-lining and prancing around in the Pacific Ocean.

Me, Rich and Matt caught a flight back to Wellington that evening. Their respective partners Lucy and Laura kindly prepared a barbecue to funnel some protein into our knackered muscles.

Dora joined the next morning, catching a lovely sunrise over Hawkes Bay (Wairarapa and Lake Ferry in the pic though) - we'll be back!

This week we’re doing yet more dragon boating in the lead up to the Wellington Dragon Boat festival on Saturday.