Climbing!

A slightly more exciting week! Videos and stuff to follow once Doug finishes the edits but right now you've got some BIG FAT WORDS. As people close to me know, 'I'm a climber' and since white water boating will for the next month hold an unacceptably high risk of injuring my shoulder further, I've spent the last week dragging Doug around and going climbing.

So after a flying visit to Des and Doreen on monday night, we left Rotorua and blasted down to Wharepapa South, a small town more or less in the centre of the North Island. This was a small town in the New Zealand sense; five or six houses, a school (!) and most importantly, a climbing shop with a camp site. Eight bucks got us a place to sleep for the night, but the A4 printed guidebooks and Bryce's expertise were free so on his advice we headed with over to check out the local crag with dusk drawing in.

Spot the van! Froggatt Edge is undoubtedly a pretty cool crag, with grades ranging from 10 to 28... French 4 to 7c. Happily, it also dries super quickly. It was raining pretty hard as we drove up the farm track that leads to the car park, but by the time we'd unpacked all of our climbing stuff and walked from the van up to the crag, the faces were dry (even if the pockets in the rock that formed the holds were still a little wet). This meant that I could quickly work my way up a couple of 16s, or French 5s before it got dark. The shoulder was a little bit tender when I got up the next day, so I volunteered Doug for the first lead climb of his life, on the second day he'd ever climbed outside. Hero!

This was his third route of the day, a little 15m 14, which weighs in at French 4 ish. Climbed with only a small amount of terror, it was nonetheless a pretty strong lead.

Video of Doug and friends the Kaituna and a little more on climbing coming up in the next update!

Catch you all soon,

Sam and Doug.

Misadventures

So Doug and I drove down from Auckland on Saturday morning, camped out at Okere falls, and Doug put in a couple of runs on the Wairoa on Sunday. No footage or pics I'm afraid due to some technical camera issues (Doug forgot it), but thanks to the many friendly reminders from the rest of the boaters on the water, Doug successfully managed to avoid the undercut that he swam into last week and got away with just a couple of rolls on his runs. Meanwhile, I ran the shuttle for our group, and once word got out that I was the shuttle bitch, other boaters unknown to me would run up and throw their keys at me and get me to run their shuttles too. A nice way to get to know people from the rest of the scene!

So that's the last two days in a nutshell. We stayed last night at Rotorua Thermal Springs, the camp site we stayed at in our first night in the van, and today we have nothing much planned apart from some washing and a visit to Leigh's mum and dad up on Tilsley Street. On with the montage!

We were in the far north when this photo was taken. We'd got back from a trip up to Cape Reinga the night before, had packed up and left the camp site and got about 10 clicks down the road before running out of fuel. Bugger! It wasn't a total surprise. When the fuel gauge has hit empty about 100 clicks in the past, then gone past it to hit the stop about 20 clicks before the camp site, you've got a pretty good inkling that you're running low on gas the next morning. Now we can usually run the 60 litre tank down to the point where we have to fill up with 58 litres or so, but there was no such luck on that day. The petrol station was still 40 clicks south and faced with a long hitch hike, we decided to ask a farmer to come out and give us some premium rate gas. 

The previous day, and about 60 clicks north of the camp site (probably with a couple of litres left in the tank) we parked up and explored New Zealand's largest sand dunes. It was windy, sandy and steep. Doug fell over a lot. Not much more to say.

Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of New Zealand is where the Tasman Sea to the west meets the Pacific Ocean to the east with some seas that look spectacular even from our viewpoint 130 metres up. You can see a big tidal rip off the west end of the cape and the lighthouse on the peak of the headland at the end of the path. The cape lies at the end of a long peninsular with ninety mile beach (which you can drive along in a 4x4) to the west and wild coast to the east. 

One last photo JUST BECAUSE I CAN! 22 hours travel, 9,700 nautical miles away. New Zealand dude! More montage posts soon.

Catch you all soon,

Sam and Doug

A week apart

We left Pahi and drove back down to Takapuna on the North Shore, just outside central Auckland. Doug disappeared off for a day on the river with the Auckland University boys and girls, while I headed over to the outboard boating club to sit in a classroom on a super hot day and listen to how to use a radio. Not jealous at all.

Doug managed a couple of runs on the Wairoa (a fun Class III/IV), one of which didn't go so smoothly.   This video of him on Rollercoaster rapid speaks for itself...

Super smooth. It doesn't look like a nice place to be headed when you finally pop up after a couple of rolls. The undercut apparently claims quite a few swimmers, hence the rope that Doug was able to hold on to while the lads bagged him out. 

After that exciting day, Doug flew off to Sydney to hang out with his friend Joe, and I took the time to head up to see fellow blogger (and evil genius) Lauren up in Paihia. I met up with her and a local guy called Craig at a cafe in town, but was promptly whisked off to pick up some crates at the supermarket before heading up to the prize giving for an annual rugby match between Waitangi and Russel, two fierce rugby rivals from opposite sides of the water in the Bay of Islands. With Craig's car a crate of beer lighter, sober driver Sam Farrow drove over to the ferry and crossed to Russel, trophy on board for the first time in 6 years! I then hung out with Lauren, Craig and his house mate Jared for a pretty cool weekend. 

Reunited at the airport with only slight complications at one am this morning - Doug got all the way to the airport in Sydney the day before, wondered why his flight wasn't on the boards, and realised he'd got there a day too early... I was already coffee'd up by the time he texted and as such haven't had much sleep for the last two days - Doug and I are going to spend tonight in Auckland and then head down to Rotorua tomorrow for a weekend on the Kaituna and Wairoa. I will of course be official shuttle bitch for Doug and the Auckland Uni lads as my physio says that I shouldn't to anything beyond flat water for the next two weeks, minimum, and then to build it up slow. So it'll be a while before I can join Doug on the water. In return for my services as shuttle driver extraordinaire, however, I fully expect to get a free weekend on the beer. Swings and roundabouts!

Catch you all soon,

Sam and Doug.