Lions and the luck of the draw

Friday-like antics got going on Wednesday for us both, with Roger's work's client party and my E(lectric) V(ehicle) Team celebratory dinner. We recovered on Thursday evening, then were treated to Mexican at Lucy and Rich's place on Friday, followed by drinks at the boardgames bar where we played a Cyanide & Happiness-themed version of Cards Against Humanity. 

On Saturday we reached a swimming milestone - 1.5km in the pool - despite the best efforts of erratic children in the "slow" lane. The endorphins from the swim were channeled into excitement ahead of the first Lions - All Blacks test match.

We found ourselves back at Rich and Lucy's with pizza, a host of Lions supporters and two token ABs supporters. Torn as usual, I did the British thing and supported the underdogs. An exciting first half, including what Steve Hansen would later call "one of THE best test tries I've ever seen" was followed by some game-changing literal and figurative dropping of the ball by the Lions, letting the flexible ABs take over the game. Various beers were won and lost (but mostly lost).

Sunday started slowly but accelerated with a call from my colleague, who needed to give TalkSport radio access to the offices ahead of the evening's Lions Press Conference, which we were hosting. I've ended up helping to organise our end of things, so the afternoon found us buying black table cloths for the conference tables. However we did have time to dash up Mt Kaukau for a constitutional in the clouds.

A tricky question from the sports media

Jonathan Joseph

That evening we ran an excellent press conference and writer's briefing room for the Lions, hosting a mix of British and NZ journalists and TV. The focus was on Tuesday's game against the Hurricanes, so we had Gatland and Rory Best in, then Jonathan Joseph and Courtney Lawes, then Jack Nowell and Joe Marler. It was a really interesting event to be part of, and to see how what was said got written up the next day.

 

By Tuesday the red-jacketed Lions fans had well and truly landed in Wellington. The city buzzed all day and what seemed like the entire population trooped down to Westpac Stadium for the Hurricanes match. Hedging again with a Hurricanes shirt and Lions beanie, by a crazy fluke of luck we ended up sitting next to Matt and Phoebe, out of all the thousands of seats! We'd bought the tickets before we even knew each other.

Lots of tries, excitement and a comeback from the Hurricanes made it the perfect match to be at, though the draw meant that ultimately only rugby won. Undeterred the now merry thousands trooped back into the bars and specially set up marquees of town. We enjoyed Belgian beer and a boogie at Leuven before remembering it was a school night and reluctantly heading home.

Luckily the Lions had didn't need the Wednesday Press Conference they were going to hold at our offices during the day, so my day-after suffering was weathered at my desk.

I'm looking forward to my old friend Kiwi arriving this Friday, the second Test and the second press conference.

How did they know to seat us together?!

Twenty-four hours later

Turere Lodge under the southern skies (photo cred: Matt)

Last weekend, the usual post-work Friday dash took us into the Rimutaka range. We’d convinced Matt and Phoebe to join us in our ascent of Mt Matthews.

This is a challenging walk/tramp, which can be squeezed into a long summer’s day, but not a short winter sun-glimpse. We therefore did the sensible thing, and spent two hours walking in the dark to a hut, Turere Lodge, along the river valley and nearer the base of the mountain. This was less treacherous than it seems, since the track to the hut was well formed and our head torches were the finest a Kathmandu sale had to offer.

Encouraging the wet log to catch

The remainder of the evening was spent exploring the 32-bed hut, in which we were the only occupants (a source of great excitement), and its surroundings, including a flame-retardant log in the fireplace, a nearby possum and an audible but invisible kiwi during our amateur kiwi spotting walk, and a big dark drop to the Orongorongo River in the valley below. Dinner consisted of pre-prepared chilli con carne and carbon zero wine from Yealands, and post-dinner entertainment consisted of cards, waiting for the timer lights to go off so we could use candlelight, and doomed attempts to set fire to the aforementioned unburnable log.

Orongorongo river valley in the morning light

Morning dawned bright and early, but we opted to rise a bit later. By 9.30am we were well on our way, fording the Orongorongo several times and pumping our legs up through bush and native beech forest to the South Saddle. A picture stop to appreciate views back to Wellington was followed by another slog through mossy goblin forest to the summit.

Appreciating the views back to Wellington (Dora can see Mt Matthews from her desk)

At the summit with views to the Wairarapa

Our lie-in meant we couldn’t dally too long if we wanted to spend the night in a proper bed (the car park gate is locked at 6pm) so we headed downhill then downstream then down-path to arrive back at Matt's warm car exactly 24hrs after we'd set off.

Mossy goblin forest

The steep descent

That evening we dined at the General Practitioner, where you can quaff and scoff while admiring medical implements from the 19^th century. We watched the Lions convincingly shut down the Maori All Blacks, then retired, our drowsiness enhanced by mulled wine.

Sunday was much more relaxed. Odd jobs consumed the morning, while the library consumed my afternoon. We Skyped and Netflixed the rest of the day away.

A sporty, jazzy, muddy week

The Lions-Blues game and Carmen opera provided diverting mid-week entertainment. The defeat of the Lions was unfortunate, but the good company (Rich and Lucy and flatmates), delicious hotpot and fact that Rich was wearing his Lions shirt for the first time made up for it. Carmen at the St James Theatre, courtesy of Tim and Sophie, was suitably sultry and intense, with a set of huge moveable white walls and rickety staircases. Sophie and I did come up with a better ending though, so I'll be letting Bizet know.

This week we launched the electric road trip videos that I've been working on for several months, including on-location filming (sometimes, when you can see the car but not the driver - that's me). The Wellington episode is above (1min30). If you would like to watch all seven amazing hilarious and key-message-nailing videos, head to https://powertrip.meridianenergy.co.nz/ and please watch each one for at least 30 seconds (so it's recorded as a 'view'), thanks!

Guerrilla jazz with stuffed wallabies

On Friday we went to some Wellington Jazz Festival jazz with Matt and Phoebe. It sounded really edgy and exciting - guerrilla jazz with a semi-well-known drum & base drummer. Like much edgy music these days (i.e. as we approach 30), however, it turned out to be quite loud and repetitive. We still had a good time photographing the taxidermied wallabies in the venue though.

The jazz was simply the warm-up gig for Matt and Phoebe's housewarming on Saturday. We'd limbered up (Roger's football team won 4-1 and I swam 1320m) so we were fighting fit for beer-pong-themed drinking games and cheering on the Lions, who won against the Crusaders (phew). The house is now well and truly warm (and slightly beery). 

Photo credits: Lucy

Alarmingly early on Sunday morning Roger went to run the final Xterra trail race at Makara mountain bike park with Tim. A few hours later, sustained by Tinakori Road brunch, I joined Lucy for a mountain bike also at Makara. We slogged up to the summit, via the new swing bridge (left), for the view (right) and for the downhill on Peak Flow that was generally fast and awesome and then quite hairpin-y at the end. Muddy but proud.

Roger cooked a huge pork roast with his second-best-ever crackling, perfect parsnips and impromptu apple sauce.

And we started plotting next weekend...back to the wilderness (the wilderness close to Welly that is).

Mueller, Hooker, Tasman, Ball

First, an announcement. I managed over one kilometre of front crawl in the pool last week! 

Second, our weekend away, a Mueller, Hooker, Tasman, Ball epic that John le Carré would have envied. We arrived into Christchurch on a ‘Koru Hour’ flight: a 40 minute hop in which the flight attendants frenziedly dish out wine and beers to those who enjoy necking their beverages. Sculling a Pinot Noir while landing in an A320 is a unique experience.

Our stomachs were settled by some excellent soup and crumble at Diana and David’s house. Refreshed by their hospitality, on Saturday we took off across the Canterbury Plains, snatching an underwhelming quiche in Tekapo before heading into the heart of the Southern Alps, Mt Cook Village.

We spent the afternoon walking up to the terminal lake at the bottom of the Hooker Glacier. Aoraki/Mt Cook towered above and below us – the tallest mountain in New Zealand and a pretty cool reflection respectively.

Dora below Aoraki/Mt Cook, in front of
Hooker Glacier, holding a bit of it

We got back to the car as dusk arrived, driving to the nearby Glentanner Holiday Park, where a well-insulated cabin awaited. I was unsure what had attracted Dora to this particular accommodation, until we ‘discovered’ it had Sky TV on which to watch the Lions v NZ Provincial Barbarians. The game was great fun, as the ‘Baabaas’ demonstrated phenomenal determination to be only narrowly defeated by a decidedly shaky/jetlagged Lions.

Ball Shelter in red

The next day some cloud hovered threateningly atop the surrounding peaks. Our planned flight (more on this later) was unsurprisingly postponed, so we took off to the relatively low-lying Ball Shelter, which sits at the foot of Ball Ridge which is next to Ball Glacier. 

Dora peers at dirty Tasman glacier

The walk took us along the lateral moraine of the Tasman glacier, which is partially accessible by 4x4s but then degenerates into a fun windy path through scree-scattered wilderness. We then made a short ascent up Ball Ridge before being sensible and turning back – the remaining four hours of light wasn’t nearly enough to attempt the 2-3 day Ball Pass.

Our return was relatively easy. This may have been because it was largely downhill, or because we were lured by the temptingly-sounding Chamois restaurant/bar/mess hall in Mt Cook Village. Once there we dined out on hot chocolates and meat, as the snow came down almost as fast as our eyelids.

Monday morning was a bank holiday for the Queen’s Birthday (thank you Liz). Nature celebrated with blue skies, a perfect backdrop for a helicopter out  onto the Tasman glacier to do some ice-walking! We were led by the friendly Kirsten, and joined by three affable, if wobbly, Chinese women. While it was somewhat disheartening to travel the entire length of the walk of the previous day in about 3 minutes (by chopper), the view more than made up for it.

Once landed we donned crampons and set off across the snowy ice, poking through the fresh powder to the ground for bottomless crevasses as we went.  Kirsten occasionally wielded her ice pick to cut steps in the folds of the glacier for us. She also took us into an ice cave, hollowed out by one of the myriad streams than run through the Tasman. The compact glacial ice was eerie blue and smooth. We also bumped into some climbers who were making their way down the glacier having spent the night further up where “they used to ski in the 60s” (Dora’s Mum included!).

The helicopter picked us up, generating a mini-snowstorm as it landed. We were whisked back to the small local airport, where we de-donned our gear and set off for Mueller Hutt.

Mueller Hutt sits atop Sealy Ridge, where it overlooks the Mueller glacier. It is reached via 1846 steps (yes, we counted on the way down), followed by a couple of kilometres of scrambling. The steps end at the Sealy tarns, where some large boring puddles contrasted with a small exciting man who threw himself off the side of the mountain as we arrived!

Luckily he was wearing a parasail, and landed safely near the car park far below. We continued up to the top of the ridge, passing through an increasingly white landscape and passing by some increasingly judgy people wearing crampons and the like. However, our cheapo walking boots kept us well gripped until we reached Mueller Hutt, which was well worth the exhausting hike. It sits on the ridgeline, a hard red box on a soft white background.  Some friendly Eastern Europeans (we presume because they were friendly) took our photograph.

The descent involved purposeful bum-sliding and step-counting in equal measure, before a drive back to Christchurch, punctuated by (takeaway) pizza and (petrol station) ice cream! A ‘Jucy Snooze’ hotel near the airport recharged our batteries enough for us to make an early morning flight, for a coffee fuelled day of ‘productive’ work.

Next weekend we’ll be resting up in Wellington, sorting through a thousand photos of snow-clad peaks and researching the cost of crampons for our next winter adventure!