Long Time Coming Again

This blog is supposed to be about the interesting adventures a group of us get up to in this piece of paradise, Opotiki. Unfortunately the need to keep blogging has resulted in more and more adventures to blog about, so much so that it is difficult to find time to blog about them now!

Three big things to report on:

Sam has largely recovered from his spinal operation and returned to Invercargill today to carry on with study and life. As aresult of the operation he went from 5' 11 1/2" to 6' 1"! Sad to see him leave so soon but he feels the rest of his life calling him.

Secondly is the national Secondary Schools Mountain Bike Champs which we took 11 students to. The following was the report in the College newsletter:

A large team travelled last weekend to Levin to the National Secondary School MTB Championships. The top performers were Michael Webber who finished 13th in the U14 Boys, Lucy Abraham who finished 11th in the U16 Girls, Gabriel Buzullo who finished 18th in the U19 Boys and Gareth Owen who finished 21st in the U15 Boys. Strong performances were also put in by Hamish Drummond, Glen Baird, Cory Hagenaars, Kurt Hagenaars, Joe Stadler, Amy Podjursky and Ben Foster who had the 5th fastest downhill time for the team behind Gabriel, Glen, Michael and Hamish.

It was a great weekend away with these neat young people. Myself, Lea and Kurt from school went along with Hedley and Teleri. Lea was camp Mum and fed us superbly, Kurt was in charge of delegated logistics, Hedley was mechanic, Teleri was logistic supervisor and I was, of course, general top dog guru. Paul Owen was also there supporting his son Gareth and the rest of the team.

We had a neat atmosphere at the camping ground and everyone got on well and had a good time looking after each other. Hedley got a bit useless when he did his back in. We had to leave him behind on Sunday at camp lying on the ground and when we finally drove off on Sunday afternoon we left him lying in the gutter outside the camp waiting for an aunty to pick him up because he couldn't travel that far home.

We all arrived safely at 1.00am on Monday morning!

The final big adventure is the 24 Hour adventure training we have been doing. My team is myself, Barry, Lea and Trevor. Destry dumped Hedley and Danni and is now with Jenny, Karl and Aaron. Barry has done a great job organising training. Four weeks ago we spent 10 hours tramping from Te Waiti and back down the Pakihi. I couldn't walk for 5 days! Two weeks latewr we spent 10 hours mountain biking to the 16k bridge and heading towards Takaputahi and back to our bikes. I think I described that one in a previous post. Last Sunday was only a small 5 hours MTBing up Amokura and tramping to the Trig and back to the MTBs down the pipeline. Both teams and Jarod took part in that.

The memorable practice was last Tuesday night, you know the night that Opotiki received a month's worth of rain in a few hours? I thought we were going for a two hour run and turned up at 5.30pm in running shoes, shorts and t shirt. It was persisting down! Thankfully Shane lent me a jacket. At 6.00pm myself, Lea, Destry, Roger, and Trevor were dropped off at the bottom of Amokura and we set off. I was hoping to be back at 8.30 for a dinner date. We arrived back at Roger's at midnight! We spent an hour in the same section of creek looking for the way out as the water was rising. At 9.30 just before we slid down a slippery, supple jack infested slope to a creek to come out on the Amokura track again Roger announced we were half way. About this time I was wishing I had brought some food and water. Lea kindly lent me two bars. The dinner date was disappearing. We then tramped across Chev's farm and back to Roger's walking through some very big creeks in torrential rain and navigating several electric fences.

I missed my dinner date, but the chip and bacon butties back at Shirley's may have even been better thatn the venison we missed out on. Where was Barry you ask. He had a cold so didn't come.

PS

Lea was a bit flat on Sunday's tramp and bike. I am assured that there is no truth to the helpful suggestion that Barry made that she might be pregnant!

Do we learn? It is Tuesday again, it looks as if it is about to rain and we're meeting at Roger's again at 5.30. If I survive tonight I'll let you know how we get on.

PPS
I know your'e missing photos. I'll have some soon. Send me some to post you training buddies.

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