Castle Rock solo (first time in 15-odd years)

25 April 2015
Just Me
5.97km, 2hr05min, Guthrie Cres to Guthrie Cres

Things at uni were proving to be hard work and stressful, and a long weekend at the beach with Mark, Spike and my parents where most of my spare time was spent doing homework was not helping. So mid afternoon after the local ANZAC service at Tinui, I headed off for a walk. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was planning to go, or how far when I left, and I was incredibly annoyed that the GPS on my phone wouldn’t connect.

As I was rounding the lagoon on the upper track, I made the decision that (since I had a time and weather window) if my fitbit hadn’t told me I had completed 10,000 steps by the turnoff back down to the water, I would continue up the rock to the summit.

I’m still not sure how far off I was, but it didn’t. So off I trundled up the hill, still waiting on my phone to connect to GPS (it appears it finally did around the top of the hill).

The climb wasn’t as bad as I remembered. The wind at the top was breezy rather than blustery, which was nice, and there were only a couple of other people up there with me. I called Mark while I was up there and watched the little ant-sized people come out onto the back deck of the beach house to wave at me.

Coming down slowly, I turned left at the junction and wandered down to the lagoon itself, where I hit an incredible time of day that made me wish I had my tripod with me – the light and shadow on the wet sand of the outgoing tide in the lagoon was stunning.

About half the walk. Once my tracker finally picked me up. Thankfully I could edit out the 35 mintues I walked before it started tracking me.