Mind: Blown

Somes Island overnight camp

Party: Just me!

04-05 November 2017

After trying (not very hard) and failing (with no great disappointment) to get a couple of families together for an overnight camp on Somes Island, I instead wound up booking just for myself for the night of the city Fireworks display.

Mark and Spike dropped me off at the ferry wharf with a few minutes to spare, and a family of 4 who were staying at one of the houses and I were soon disgorged on the wharf at Somes with our bags full of food, gear, and potential pests for inspection in the Rat House.

The walk up the hill soon had me plenty warm, despite the overcast and somewhat cool weather, and arriving at the camping area I discovered 5 other tents already set up – obviously those I was sharing the site with had already arrived. Picking a spot a little away from the others that was reasonably flat, I soon had my tent up, despite the seam sealing tape disintegrating, and the inner making at least one attempt at flying away.

It turned out that everyone else staying on the island for the night was part of a large group – the other 11 spots in the campground were taken up with a family++ group, and a social group had the 18 spaces in the two houses. I was the only person who had gone to the island alone. But I was far from lonely – in fact, both groups adopted me at different times, welcoming me into their groups in different ways!

By this time it was pretty much dinner time. I went for a short walk down to the lookout I was planning to shoot from to ensure it would work, then past the lighthouse, the mini DoC Hut, and back up over the gun emplacements first, then joined the family and friends group in the kitchen for dinner. Turns out I could have gotten away with not taking any food except snacks with the amount they had spare. 

After hanging out there for a while, reading and chatting, it was time to get changed into warm clothes and head to the various lookouts we were all watching the fireworks from. The family group split, with some going to the smaller south-end lookout, and others watching from the top of the hill at the gun emplacements. I was joined at the larger lookout by the group from the houses, who were amazed that I was camping on the island on my own.

After the fireworks display had ended, a couple of the adults invited me to join them in a meander around the track on the west side of the island to see if we could spot any tuatara. With nothing else happening, and my hoped-for long exposure photography written off by the increasingly ferocious wind, I opted to join them, and am so intensely glad I did! While on our wander around the edge of the island, we found a single tuatara, and 5 Little Blue penguins – the first time I have seen them on the island (despite 3 previous overnight visits), and even better, they actively walked straight past us on the track – because they happened to be going somewhere behind us.

What an amazing experience. I have a handful of grainy photos, and one where I accidentally used the flash on my cellphone (new work phone, didn’t realise it had flash, the other doesn’t!). We were all buzzing.

 

After a quick cup of tea back in the campground kitchen, it was time to get changed for bed. I was very glad to have bought my thermal sleeping bag liner with me, as it was not very warm in the tent. In fact, it was the first time I have slept in a thermal in my sleeping bag for a very long time! 

That said, “sleep” would not be a good description of the following 7 hours. Sometime around midnight there was a short burst of rain, not that you could tell in the morning, and not enough to test the now non-existent seam-sealing of my little tent. All night there was wind. And masses of it. You could hear it coming, as it set off the trees further north on the island before hitting the tent, rattling everything and on occasion, fluttering the floor to boot.

A restful night was not had, I think I finally had a sleep of more than 30 minutes at a time from about 4am! Then suddenly the sun was up and shining in my tent. I had wanted to be up for sunrise, but obviously that didn’t happen.

A wander around the island to plan some future photography trips, a cruisy breakfast where I could have had cold steaks with bacon if I had wanted, packed up my tent and it was time to head down to the wharf to wait for the first boat home.

Summer Camping at Martinborough

27 December 2015 - 02 January 2016
Team: Mark, Spike, Me
Martinborough Top 10 and greater Wairarapa area

We ummed and ahhed for a really long time about this camping trip last year. Did we go? Where should we go? We originally planned Rotorua, but the campground we wanted was booked out by the time we made a decision. So we thought more laterally, and wound up at Martinborough Top 10 – nice and close to home, but still far enough away to make it an adventure.

We chose the Top 10 because we wanted facilities – hot showers, cookers provided, powered sites, playground equipment – rather than seeing about joining other friends at their annual site up the road which was a farmers back paddock. And the Martinborough one didn’t disappoint (we had been there as a couple for a wedding, so we knew what we were looking at).

The weather was stunning when we arrived, and tent pitching didn’t take too long at all. Our site had morning sun and afternoon shade. While we wished we had bought the blackout blinds to darken things a bit more for better sleep, it was nice that the tent stopped heating up not long after lunchtime, so was a comfortable temperature for sleeping in at night. Tenting with a toddler, we anticipated later nights and early mornings, but they largely weren’t too bad, and we even managed a couple of nights to get some time to ourselves to enjoy wine and cheese at the picnic table adjacent to our site.

We spent a lot of time just chilling out at the campground as a family and with Rebekah (a friend from playgroup) and her family. It was bliss. Between the campground, the nearby school playground, bike rides around town and the pool next door, our days were reasonably full.

We only had two outing days while we were there. The first was to Mt Bruce, inspired by our quest to capture all the “Wild Things” that were around the region. It was a lovely, quiet spot. Not as good as Zealandia, although its biggest advantage was how friendly the kaka were – you had to actively stop them from stealing your food if sitting outside at the café, which was a very neat experience.

Our other outing was New Years Day, when we took the car out to Cape Palliser and the Putangirua Pinnacles. It was HOT and both walks were challenging in our slightly-tired state. I wound up with Spike on my back climbing the 200-something stairs up to the lighthouse at Cape Palliser, which was a workout and a half. We stopped for ice-creams on the way back at Ngawi and they were MASSIVE and awesome.

Late evening on New Years Day it started drizzling. Our first rain of the trip. And it just got heavier overnight. New Years Day Holiday dawned overcast and wet, and we somewhat regretted the fact we hadn’t opted to head home the evening before while our tent was still dry. Several more wet weather days followed while we tried to get the tent dry and laundry sorted, which was probably the biggest challenge of the entire experience!

All told, we learnt some good lessons about camping as a family, and will take those in to this summers camping trip. Here’s hoping we can make it a regular experience for most summer holidays!

Family Camping

17-18 January 2015

Battle Hill Farm Forest Park Campground, Paekakariki

Team: Mark, Spike, Myself. Assorted other tramping club families to total 27-odd adults and children

Saturday lunchtime, and Spike went down for his nap. It started raining. Mark and I spent the whole time he was asleep debating as to whether we should still go the half an hours drive up the coast to go camping as planned. Because of this dithering, when he woke at 3, I had just put a cake in the oven that needed to cook for an hour and a half, and the car wasn't packed - half our stuff wasn't even organised.

We threw everything together, and organised for my Mum to come over and get the cake out of the oven, and dashed off just on 4pm. When we arrived, we discovered the campground was "full" for the weekend, and there were several large groups set up in the different parts of the campground. Having come from a summer-holiday stay at Pounawea, where the tents and caravans were packed in like sardines, this was a breath of fresh air. The open space was fantastic.



We pitched the tent, set up the beds inside, and sat down to chill out with the other families near the fire (which was only needed because most groups needed it for cooking dinner). We did some exploring, over to the toilet block and down to the river, then sat down to our cold bacon and egg pie for dinner (yum!). At some stage, Spike made friends with a mother from another group (by vanishing across the campground), enabling him to "borrow" their ride-on bike for the late afternoon / early evening.



Eventually we tried to put Spike to sleep, which he was not keen on. Not surprising, given how light it still was outside, and the noise of all the other kids still running around outside, and enjoying the jumbo swing immediately behind our tent. We finally got him to sleep at about 10pm, after several attempts. He tended to stay quiet in the tent (happy to be closed in on his own), mainly because he was figuring out how to escape his portacot!

Sunday morning we were awake stupid early - sometime around 6am, since thats when it was light - with Spike demanding to get up and dressed and do stuff. Thankfully we weren't the only ones awake early, and Spike managed to stay fairly quiet for a while, mainly by riding around the campsite on the bike he had "borrowed" the night before. We passed the morning with a moderately long walk with Spike in the Tula, where we found a fantastic stash of drop wood for the fire for those who were staying Sunday night, and participating in a water fight.




At some point while we were wandering around the campsite, a random gust of wind came around the side of the trees and blew away the gazebo we had up - a big 6x3m thing. Picked it clear up, pulling up the guy ropes, twisted it around and threw it towards another group of tents - which we knew had people inside. We were far enough away at the time that there was nothing we could do about it except pick up the pieces afterwards and check no-one was hurt (thankfully the answer was no).



When Spike refused a nap, we opted to drop camp and head home for Sunday night, rather than trying to stay again with an over tired toddler.Other than that, the weather was perfect, the lightest of breezes, lovely and warm. Fantastic camping, fantastic company, and even the long days weren't enough to put us off the idea of doing it again.

So much for 5 days...

Our plan for the summer break from Christmas to New Years this year had been ambitious. Too ambitious, the weather gods decided!


Original Plan

Day One - Holdsworth Road end to Jumbo Hut via Atiwhakatu Hut and Raingauge Spur

Day Two - Jumbo Hut to Mid Waiohine Hut via Mt Holdsworth Summit

Day Three - Mid Waiohine Hut to Maungahuka Hut via Aokaparangi Biv

Day Four - Maungahuka Hut to Totara Flats Hut via Neill Forks Hut, with possible detour to Tararua Ladder

Day Five - Totara Flats Hut to Waiohine Gorge Road End

So, it rained, or blew gale force winds the whole period between Christmas and the return to work...


New Plan

Head to Ohakune for a couple of nights and see about fitting in the Tongariro Crossing, plus a couple of day walks (hopefully beating the bad weather to that part of the country) and then head to the beach, hope the weather clears and go into the Tararuas later in the holiday break...

Well. We didnt beat the weather.

We set up our tents in Ohakune in hot, sticky and claggy weather mid afternoon, wandering off to the supermarket in shorts and t-shirt, almost hoping it would rain on us without our umbrella or raincoat. It didnt. After picking up the bits and pieces we needed for the next couple of days, we started looking into options for doing the Tongariro Crossing - debating the merits of taking our own car around and getting a one way shuttle, then heading to Tokaanu for the hot pools, or just getting the shuttle both ways.
Given that going to Tokaanu would quite possibly have had us back in Ohakune so late that we would have had to go to Waiouru for dinner (everything closes at about 8pm in summer), we decided to do a return shuttle. The company we wanted to book with said they werent planning on going the next day because the weather was going to be too bad, but to call them after 6.30 the next morning to reconfirm.
I admit, I went to bed sort-of hoping that when we rang at that ungodly hour they would say the weather was still going to be too bad, and I could go back to sleep for a while longer, but they didnt. Instead, we were told we had 30 minutes to get organised and be outside the campground for pickup. Cue rushed bolting down of half-sized bowls of porridge and quick filling of waterbottles and being thankful that we had made lunch the night before!
The weather was looking pretty nasty, and was on the edge of being bad enough that the shuttles wouldnt go, but we went on anyway, being dropped at the road end unable to see anything up the valley. It did not look much like it was going to be fun.
The weather stayed bad all the way up to Soda Springs, where most of the others in our shuttle were stopping to have the breakfast they had not had time to have before they left. Under my raincoat, I changed clothes at least once along here, swapping my warm thermaplus for a running top since it was quite muggy. I was really glad of this all the way up the devils staircase. I was also really glad to not be able to see the top as we were climbing up, as I really just wanted to stop and go back for most of the climb!
Once in south crater, the cloud clagged in even further. There had also been quite a bit of rain as there were some large puddles around. Interestingly, it was better to walk in the middle of them, where the ground was still solid with a layer of water on the top, than around the edges, where it had become mud. Once at the turn-off for the Tongariro Summit, we saw a brief couple of moments of sun, but Red Crater was still largely hidden, even when standing on the edge of it!
The drop down to the emerald lakes was longer than I remembered, and I was glad of the bad weather putting so many people off, so I didnt have to weave among slower walkers. When we got down there, we stopped for a museli bar each, and I changed back into my warmer thermaplus, as the wind was getting quite strong and cold on my now-soaked-to-skin body.
Beyond blue lake is the cairn valley, very cool and very odd. The zigzags down to Ketetahi Hut weren't as bad as I remember, although this could be because we couldn't see the hut, so there was no agonising "Oh my god, another zig zag." or thinking of dropping down the ridge direct to the hut. We had lunch on the deck in occassional sunshine, which was lovely and then missioned our way out the last of the track in time for a 4pm shuttle, as did all but one other couple from our morning shuttle.
I was very sore in the backs of my knees after the tramp, with an awful burning sensation. We discovered that I was badly windburnt when we had a bath at the campground. It certainly made for an interesting night in a little tramping tent, especially when I had to get up and go the toilet at 3am and had to crawl, crying, out of the tent!
It started raining heavily overnight, and we packed up the tent wet, quite early, keen to get to the beach house, real beds and the care of my Mum for my legs! Mark drove because the pain was so distracting. We stopped briefly at Te Apiti windfarm, and then again in Woodville for cheesecake and toilets, but other than that, it was pretty much straight through, arriving at the beach early enough for us to peg the tents flat to the ground in the gale force winds and sunshine and watch them take 30 minutes to dry!
So, we didnt even look at the Tararuas! By the time my legs had recouperated and I could walk properly again, it was time to go home and get ready to go back to work! (they are still peeling in places though!) In any case, the Tararuas had had nearly half a meter of rain over 6 days while we were away, along with low cloud and gale force winds. It really wouldnt have been a nice time to be in there. I'm still dissapointed at missing all those new huts - but now I'll just have to go later instead!
Photos to come (written at work, all the photos are still on the computer at home!)