Nearing The End Of a Busy Week

I'm buggared! but I feel good, content and still excited. This week had interviews and appointments, enrolments, BOT meeting and normal challenging work

The most important decision I made since starting was the appointment of Claire, Di and Lea. We've had a great 6 months. I wish I had captured our thinking and our expectations and our inter-connectedness from the start because I am convinced I would be surprised by the huge growth and shift we have experienced. Both as individual leaders and collectively as a team. We are much more different in our views and ways of operating than you might think. This is good and the challenge is to recognise and allow for those differences. For all of us it will be ongoing work.

The most important decisions they have had to help make was in the appointment of our 8 Leaders of Learning. I was always confident in our rigorous process and our collective ability to nail it. We certainly did that. Steve, Yasmin, Sarah, Sally, Jill, Megan, Kylee and Lisa have really added to our team. I find myself sitting back often while the work is under way and admiring the full team in operation and feeling very privileged and proud. I once got told off by a staff member for talking about the staff as my staff. We are definitely a team, but when no one is listening to me I do refer to the team as my team - I think just because of the pride I feel.

Moving on!

The next and equal most important decision we have had to make is the appointment of our next and final (in the meantime) group of teachers. When Danielle, Cindy, Bryce, Liz, Martin, Ros and Pete join us next term we will be even stronger and even better balanced. I like the way several of the LOLs are already getting excited about bringing the new team in.

This morning we performed our first ever public ukulele performance of our school welcome song (sung to the tune of Under The Boardwalk) to our visitor and critical friend, Mark Osborne. After a neat round of introductions when I learned even more about each of the team, Mark heard from the LOLs on their work on developing the sense and meaning of our Hobsonville Habits.

What did I hear:

• vision without management is hallucination
• the use of space should reflect our values
• sustainability is built by protecting the vision
• displayed work should reflect our values - do we value product or process?
• teachers, learners and whanau should be able to develop their own metaphors that best help them understand the values/habits
• the challenge for us is to change "hope to" to "ensure that".
• be wary of being the best school only for the first cohort

Time for a meeting with Di, then off to the clubrooms for a beer!

The Fun Just Keeps Coming!

I had a real feel good feeling going on all day today. By 9.00pm last night I had made all of the calls offering teaching positions at our school. The 7 successful candidates were all excited and reacted passionately and positively. As individuals they all have an open mindset and are passionate about what we are trying to do. As a group they are diverse and will add to the diversity of our existing group. Knowing how even stronger our team is going to be and feeling really pleased with the process we ran has put me in a contented place.

Today was usual business with Finance Meeting to kick the day off followed by 2 more enrolments (now 71). It was great to hear a father say that he hoped that in our sort of environment kids will be addressing us by our first names. This was in contrast to a mother who hoped we would consult the community on that issue as she had some strong views on it!

I am continuing to be impressed with the open-minded approach of the parents so far to what we are going to try to do. Many are reflecting on the boredom and irrelevance of their secondary school experience and some are comparing what we are offering with what is occurring for their older children in existing schools. They resent the inability to have regular, relevant feedback from schools and feel, in many cases, that the schools don't want them too involved. I have promised we will be different!

Steve and I went on a tour of our new school with some MOE suits. Even more progress is being made. I was so impressed with the full glass walls I saw. This made the place more visible and even larger.

The school day finished off with a BOT meeting about which I will keep my thoughts private, but it was positive. Unfortunately it was a bit long and I arrived at the Primary School parent workshop as it was finishing. I'm sorry, primary colleagues, for missing what I have been told was an awesome workshop. You guys, rock.

Time to go home. See you apopo.

Tired But Not Weary

What I missed about today was a formal catch-up with the whole team. We didn't meet first thing because the SLT began interviewing again at 9.00am and needed time to get Lex up to speed on the candidates. As well, the LOLs were very clearly up to speed with what they were working on. You can check their thoughts on their work in their blogs. After our interviews we spent time making decisions about the appointments and by then it was the end of the day. I think I missed being together as a team.

As for the SLT it was a great day as we concluded our appointment processes. We interviewed another set of great candidates and by the end of the day we had settled on our 7 successful candidates. I'm not only rapt with the quality of the staff who will be joining us next term but very impressed with how the SLT worked so professionally, confidently and competently through this important process. I can't wait to skite about our new people. I also acknowledge the great qualities in those candidates we were unable to appoint.

I then went on to enrol another 6 families during the evening. This has been such an affirming process as all of the families are very excited by the vision of learning we have talking about. I feel very pleased with the strong level of consultation and information-sharing we have gone through with our prospective parent community. It has been hard work and sometimes challenging, but I think is already paying off.

Tomorrow will bring another round of excitement beginning with a Finance Meeting at 8am and concluding with a BOT meeting at 6pm. In between our LOLs will visit Albany Senior High School and we'll all have a catch-up after lunch.

Moving On

It may seem gentle being a Principal of a school with no kids and only a handful of staff but reflecting on today I'm not sure how a day could be more rigorous.

Following on from yesterday's great day with Julia Aitken (see Sally's views on that activity) where we inspected our brains we came together this morning. Our LOLs were set the task of taking our Hobsonville Habits and drilling down through them to create a series of 'I' statements which will end up forming the basis of our learner and teacher profiles.

While they were doing this the SLT had the privilege of interviewing 4 of our candidates for our next round of teaching positions. The calibre of the candidates is outstanding. We finished this about 1.00pm. As I walked past our LOLs quite regularly to collect the next applicant I was observing them in action as they had worked out a process for them to deal best with the Hobsonville Habits.

Just before lunch I checked my computer to find a shared document they had created to which they had all contributed. It made excellent reading. Steve's blog gives a neat description of that process through the eyes of Steve who joined us late last week after his Japanese excursion.

After a roundtable where they shared how they were going we were treated to the background stories from Jill and Sarah, after having heard from Megan and Yasmin on Friday. These stories have been a great process in learning about each other. Can't wait to hear from the others in the coming days.

From there Claire and I headed into the city for a very stimulating 2 hours with the ChallengED crew at Cognition. We were treated to a great presentation on Personalised Learning from Western Springs College and a very stimulating presentation from McAuley on Authentic Assessment.

After a trip home via school to bring in some of the primary school kids' painted wood things that had been left outside I got home just before 8pm feeling very satisfied with another great and varied day.

Now to re-read 4 CVs before tomorrow's interviews and write a referee's report for a colleague to make the day complete.

You should also check out this great video on our school zone created by our LOLs in their first week.

See you, apopo.

My Brain

According to Hermann I'm a 1,2,1,1 brain. My thinking style preferences have me mainly in the quadrant that is described as Imaginative, Spatial and Intuitive, followed closely by the quadrant that is described as Logical, Analytical, Rational and Factual and the quadrant described as Expressing and Interpersonal. The 4th quadrant is not as strong, but still significant and is described as Detailed and Organised.

The summary of this particular combination of quadrants identifies work that would be most satisfying as including solving tough problems, explaining things, taking risks, designing, seeing the big picture, being part of a team and helping people.

That description almost perfectly describes the job I'm trying to do now! Makes me even more confident!

However, what makes me even more confident is that the Senior Leadership Team is really well-balanced and that our desire to attract a wider team of visionaries who care about people has been achieved.

Other highlights of today:

• 2 of the team drilled down through their beliefs about learning and came up with, "Personally significant learning is powerful learning". Yeehah!
• Julia's reminder to not be practice driven, rather be driven by values and principles

I'm happy with my brain, Hermann, but after today it hurts (with pleasure)!

Tomorrow's job: appoint more staff. The fun and excitement just keeps on keeping on.

New Beginnings

It's time to bring Principal Possum out of hibernation!

I have been given this great opportunity to be Foundation Principal of Hobsonville Point Secondary School and have wanted to blog about this journey but for many reasons this hasn't happened. However, there are others who are doing this and if you want to track the journey I suggest you follow the blogs in my Blog List to the right.

Even though I'll reflect on how things are going I'll most probably do a Maurie and spend more time blogging about my interests and crazy escapades, including how Leigh and I are making the most of living in our new town, Auckland.

Brief Summary So Far
I started as Foundation Principal last October and spent a couple of months deschooling and reading and planning with Daniel Birch, Lisa Squire and Sharyn Afu who lead Hobsonville Point Primary School.

Leigh and I bought a wee whare in Massey and moved in in mid January and set about exploring the area by visiting local beaches and trekking in the Waitakares. Our daughter, Lucy, came home from the UK for a few weeks to join us but too quickly returned to the UK.

At the start of February I was joined by my fantastic DPs, Lea Vellenoweth, Claire Amos and Di Cavallo. Since then we have been working very hard on planning for our school. They bring a great range of experience, skills, knowledge, experience and personalities. We travelled together to New York, Rhode Island, Boston, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver visiting some great schools. Claire and I then travelled on the Apple Schools tour to San Francisco.

One of our most important jobs was to appoint 8 Leaders of Learning and these passionate teachers joined us 2 weeks ago. After a few days they shared how they were feeling and I ahve included some of their comments:

• have enjoyed exploring why I got into teaching
• discovering I am different to what I thought
• enjoying talking about great practice
• have been pulled back into the energy of teaching and learning
• real sense of whanau
• great buzz and level of enthusiasm

One of the neat things we did was present all new staff members, including ourselves, with a ukulele and we have formed the HPSS Ukulele Orchestra which all new staff members for ever and a day must join!

This week we appoint 7 more teachers for our school.

Learning Matters

Last week the government announced another $4 million will be spent on combating truancy amid claims that each day 30,000 young people are absent from school.

It is welcome news that more money is being allocated to this area. Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft has been pointing out to government for many years that the majority of youth crime, which often moves on to become adult crime, begins with young people who are truant from school.

Opotiki College’s analysis of its students and the level of qualifications leavers have shows a clear co-relation between attendance and qualifications. The simple fact is that if a student attends school each day and remains at secondary school for four years they will receive national qualifications. In Opotiki College’s case in 2009 just 2 students left without qualifications after four full years of secondary education.

The opposite is equally true. 100% of students who leave before three years of secondary education have no qualifications. 50% of leavers who leave after just three years of secondary education, in Opotiki College’s case leave with no qualifications.

Almost all students who leave before these necessary four years have a pattern of poor attendance throughout their time at secondary school. The pattern begins with lateness to school, followed by missing the odd class and then moving on to missing full days.

In many cases by working closely with whanau who are keen to have their child do the very best the pattern is able to be broken and the student return to full attendance and get back on the pathway to qualifications. In a few cases the parents are either disinterested or even support the non-attendance. It is these students who don’t see out the four years and who leave without formal qualifications. They are , therefore, destined to a life time of irregular employment and low income.

It is unfortunate that the vast majority of those who we see with irregular attendance patterns began them very early in their schooling. In fact, Ministry of Education statistics show that the worst year for truancy is in a child’s first year at primary school. The pattern is difficult to break as it peaks again in years 7 and 8 and then again in years 12 and 13.

Obviously, then, something has to be done. I am not sure if throwing more money at schools to keep doing the same thing will be useful. As a school we are not certain that we can do much more for the 10-15 hard core truants we deal with as their pattern has been well and truly embedded.

Somehow, families of these children need to come to an understanding that it is their expectations of their child, their support of their child and their actions in making sure their child gets to school every day of their schooling from Year 1 that will break this negative, damaging and quality of life affecting pattern of poor attendance at school.

Schools can’t do this work. The community, its support agencies and the wider and individual families need to promote the belief that missing school without an acceptable reason is unacceptable. We need to do this for the sake of our young people’s learning and learning matters.

Latest Learning Matters

If we accept that age old saying that it takes a whole village to raise a child it makes sense that schools and families have to forge a close relationship if we wish all of our young people to realise their potential.

The Ministry of Education requires schools to develop close relationships with whanau and when ERO visits a school it meets with community members to assess how strong that relationship is.

Traditionally parents have quite a strong and regular relationship when their child is at primary school, but for a range of reasons this relationship weakens and becomes much less regular at secondary school. This may be because a secondary school is a much larger institution so may not seem as welcoming or even that parents themselves didn’t enjoy their secondary school experience so feel a little daunted.

In many secondary schools the relationship concentrates on supporting the school with fund raising. At Opotiki College we do very little school-wide fundraising and prefer to have our parents form a relationship with us in other ways.

As with most schools we have a number of parent teacher report evenings at which we get between 25-35% of our families present. We do, however, run Bilingual whanau hui every term which are well-attended and other evening sessions to explain subject choices, enrolment and qualifications. The attendance at these is still at about the 25-35% level.

Our parents have other opportunities by attending sports events and kapa haka practices and noho.

It is important that parents and whanau find a way to make a link with their local school. Last week we tried something different at Opotiki College. We had a mix and mingle evening for the parents of our Year 9 students. It was quite informal with a shared supper and introductions followed by parents meeting and chatting with the teachers from their child’s class. 50% of our families were present and there was a neat buzz as teachers and parents got to know each other.

I explained to the parents that it was not important if they could not assist their child with some of their homework but that it was important that they were active in taking an interest in their child at school and being present for them wherever possible. Those parents who turned up last week had taken the very first important step in being present for their child and showing their strong interest.

We now expect stronger turnouts from these parents at future report evenings as we have broken the ice with them.

One interesting question asked at the evening was about decile rankings and what it meant for schools. The Ministry of Education assesses each school’s community as to its socio-economic status and then groups the schools into ten (decile) groups with decile 1 being in the lowest 10% socio economic group and decile 10 in the highest. It doesn’t mean the decile 1 schools are in poorer condition, or get less money or get poorer teachers.

Many schools are burdened by such a label and as a result have lower expectations and settle for less. Consequently lower decile schools tend to have lower achievement levels. Opotiki College refuses to be limited by such a label and operates under a belief that our students can and will do as well as students anywhere in the country. We prove this with our results year after year.

Students, schools and communities cannot be limited by labels such as decile rankings. The way forward is by learning and learning matters.

Latest Learning Matters

Right now there is a large debate going on in education circles, especially in the primary sector, around the National Government’s policy of introducing national standards at each year level up to and including Year 8.

There is a huge amount of overseas experience, notably in the US and the UK, which shows such a policy has a negative rather than positive impact on student achievement so it is being treated with caution and, in some cases, hostility in the primary sector.

The Minister of Education claims that what is being introduced in New Zealand is quite different and has been developed fully aware of the faults in overseas models. She may well be right as New Zealand has a record of leading the way in educational practice.

Primary teachers are worried that they will be forced to ‘teach to the test’ and that the inevitable publication of league tables will show some schools, typically those in lower decile areas, are falling quite short of the national standard.

Good or bad; welcome to the world of the secondary sector. We have been operating in such an environment for ever with the national standard determined by School Certificate and now by NCEA and the publication every year of league tables.

One of the arguments against pay equity between the primary and secondary sectors is the lack of any external accountability for student achievement in the primary sector, something which secondary schools are faced with and fall or stand against every single year.

I don’t think I like the new policy but I will wait and see.

My advice to colleagues in low decile area primary schools in New Zealand is to take the opportunity to throw off the yoke of low decileness and show the Minister and your community that this does not limit achievement opportunities for your children. There are plenty of places where this happens.

Once again, decile 1 Opotiki College students have done impressively well in NCEA from 2009. With 83% of non-Maori gaining Level 1, 75% gaining Level 2 and 77% gaining Level 3 and with 62% of Maori gaining Level 1, 83% gaining Level 2 and 68% gaining Level 3 our students have done our school and community proud. In all but one of the groups above this puts us at or above the average level of achievement for deciles 8-10 schools (the highest grouping) and in the other we are above the average for decile 4-7 schools.

These figures are not a figment of my imagination and will soon be available to the public on the NZQA website.

The primary schools in Opotiki are doing a great job and despite their best efforts our Year 9 students do arrive well below the national average for their age group. This is normally the case in a low-decile community.

A combination of innovative programmes, committed staff, supportive parents, great resources and a ‘never give up’ attitude help our students to achieve these great results. The most important thing, however, is that we have learned to ignore our decile ranking and to operate in a way that shows we expect all of our kids will achieve national qualifications. This is the learning that matters.

The table below shows how tremendously well we have done with NCEA. The first column shows our % achievement of NCEA at each level, the second column shows what the national average % was and then the next three columns show the national averages for low, mid and high decile schools. Opotiki College is a decile 1 school but, as you can see, our figures put us in either the mid or, in many cases, high decile groupings. The achievement of Maori students in particular is well above the national levels.



The table didn't copy too well, but you shoukd be able to make sense of it.



ALL STUDENTS
Opotiki College National Deciles 1-3 Deciles 4-7 Deciles 8-10

Level 1 68 71 55 69 80
Level 2 81 75 60 73 83
Level 3 71 68 52 66 76

MAORI STUDENTS

Opotiki College National Deciles 1-3 Deciles 4-7 Deciles 8-10

Level 1 62 55 52 53 66

Level 2 83 62 59 61 72

Level 3 68 52 52 50 60

NON MAORI STUDENTS

Opotiki College National Deciles 1-3 Deciles 4-7 Deciles 8-10
Level 1 83 79 68 75 84
Level 2 75 81 69 78 86
Level 3 77 74 60 71 78

NCEA 2009

Once again we have punched well above our weight for a decile 1 school. With 66% of our Year 11s gaining NCEA Level 1, 81% of our Year 12s gaining Level 2 (with all but 4 of the rest gaining Level 1) and 64% of our Year 13s(!) gaining Level 3 (with all of the rest gaining Level 2) we have done wonderfully well.


The keys, I am certain, are strong leadership across the whole school, an emphasis on strong and positive relationships with our students, and a 'dog-with-a-bone' belief that everyone of our students can succeed.


When you consider that 60-67% of our students arrive at the start of Year 9 in the bottom quartile of nationally-normed literacy and numeracy tests I don't believe there would be many, if any, schools in New Zealand which 'add value' as much as we do.


Let's see what ERO's view is when they arrive in Term III!

Curse on Valley Station Rd

Two weeks ago I was charging down Valley Station and my derailleur was snapped off by a branch and I ahd to single speed back with my chain breaking on the last hill at home. So I missed the stream ride.

One week ago I attempted the same loop and had to turn around at the stream and walk back up to help Kurt look for his sunglasses. So I missed the stream ride.

Today I was hurtling down Valley Staion at a section known, by me, as the dip which has a fast downhill followed by an uphill which I alwayas attempt to coast up using my downhill speed. Half way down I lost my front wheel on the edge of the rut (Aaron should have trimmed the grass from this!) and hit the ground hard on my head and right shoulder. I did the squirmy, writhy, groaning thing rthat Barry has witnessed before and was helped to my feet by Lea. I has a bar end brand on one knee, my right fingers were sprained, my head hurt (thank god for helmets!) and my shoulder and ribs were complaining.

It was an agonising walk ride back to Waiaua where Lea arrived with the car. The Boss and Amber stuck with me - sorry for wrecking your ride. So I missed the stream ride for the third time.

Leigh was not happy when I got home and had a view that I do these things on purpose! Coffee, anti inflammatories and ice have helped. I have a suspicion that my shoulder may be worse than I am accepting, but don't tell Leigh.

Very disappointed that George, Brian and Dennis couldn't spend last night drinking beer and still make the ride. You all need to do better, especially you George if you aspire to be a possum!

Great to see Paul (Tegel) join the real hard man's club by spewing after yesterday's time trial!

Mangakirikiri Mystery

You really need a knowledge of this looped mtb track to fully understand this comedy.

Jarrod and Aaron thought they would clear the windfall from the Valley Station Road loop so..... Jarrod dropped Aaron off at the top of the hill at the start of Valley station and, armed with a hand saw, sent him along Valley Station on his mtb and told him they would meet somewhere along the stream. Jarrod then drove back to the skid site and hopped on his mtb with Shane's wee trailer and his chaainsaw in it and headed down stream clearing fallen trees.

When he had finished he had not seen Aaron so assumed he had backtracked to the skid site. Jarrod rode back up Mangakirikiri and at the skid site discovered the chain guard had come off the chainsaw so biked all the way back to find it then biked back to the skid site. But, no Aaron. Jarrod jumped in his truck drove up to Valley Station Rd and then along the newly cleared Valley Station as far as the truck would go without sustaining more damage than some scratches and a broken aerial. He the got on his mtb and carried on in the same direction looking for Aaron.

In the meantime Aaron, who had been meticulous about his clearing arrived at the stream and then rode up it until the skid site to find no Jarrod or truck. He assumed Jarrod had driven up to Valley Station Rd so he rode up this huge hill to get there but no Jarrod or truck. He then headed back down the hill, past the skid site, through the gate and ended jup at my plaace at aabout 6.00pm absolutely shagged and hanging out for a beer.

In the meantime Jarrod turned around at the little sisters, returned to the truck and drove baack out to Hermanssons cowshed and rung George who had no idea where Aaron was. Jarrod feared the worst and headed back to the skid site. At about this time Aaron rang George to come and pick him up who informed Aaron that Jarrod was back in the bush looking for him while swearing loudly.

In the meantime Jarrod rode back down the Mangakirikiri and near the first creek crossing saw Aaron's tyre marks so assumed he was out, rode all the way back to his truck at the skid site and drove out. Once he got cell phone reception he discovered Aaron and George were at my place drinking beer so turned up in quite a rage.

I was able to intercept him with a cold beer and was able to avert a family fall out!

When you are biking the newly manicured valley Station circuit please have a wee thought for the Teddy boys!

Surf's Up!

Yesterday Lucy and I went to surf lessons at Ohope and graduated successfully!

We had a one hour lesson on land taken by Beaver and the lovely Lucy. We learnt how to paddle through the waves, paddle to catch a wave, steady ourselves, get to our knees and then to stand and haka hula.

We then entered the water for an hour of surfing. Our instructions were to go out to where the waves were breaking and catch them after they had broken. To my surprise I stood up and stayed standing up right into the shore! Lucy proved to be as natural as I was!

After about 20 minutes of doing this we headed a little further out (still not quite over our heads!) and started catching waves before they broke. A couple of nosedives showed that it was important to stand quickly so both of us dispensed with the kneeling stage and got used to going straight to our feet. These rides were cool!

All too soon our hour was up and we got our certificate and headed home hugely pleased with our new status as surfies! Wicked dude! Lucy and I both agreed we were the two best surfers in the class of 10 and that she wasn't too far behind me!

Highly recommended dude! Now where can I get a board from?

Spot X

Spot X delivered for Pete, Kurt and myself this morning. I was up at 4.00am and Pete picked us up at 4.30 and we were off to spot X. We drove for somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes and walked for somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes to find ourselves perched on a great rock, with great water and nice swell and got the berley out quickly. It was a bit slow for an hour and then Pete and Kurt landed fish between 4 and 6k and then 2 casts later Pete pulled in about a 3kg fish. I was a bit slow off the mark but pulled in 4 up to 2kg ( 2 were only 30-33 cm!).

It was great fishing and the walk in and out, while strenuous, added to the adventure. Snapper on the BBQ tonight.

Thanks for the guiding, Pete!

New MTB!

I finally bit the bullet and bought a new MTB from Hedley. I got a Giant Anthem X2 and it looks pretty sharp. This morning Lea, her brother Danny, the Boss and Kurt and I went along Valley Station Rd with the plan to come back up the Mangakirikiri.

I felt really comfortable on the Giant. It climbed very well and it is a comfortable ride - once I get used to turning the shocks back on again!

When we got to the Mangakirikiri Kurt discovered he didn't have his sunglasses and he last remembered tucking them into his shirt before the big climb to Valley Station. Since it was his birthday I offered to go back the way we came with him while the others enjoyed a nice ride up the stream. This involved a 20 minute walk back up the track to the top of the little sisters and then a more pleasant ride along the top. We had a good idea they would be lying in the grass somewhere near he had a good fall and sure enough I spotted them in the grass.

We then charged down Valley Station and hurtled down the road towards the skid site almost colliding with the others coming back up to look for us. Kurt was a bit behind me so was chasing hard down the hill when he lost control, leapt over his handlebars, catching his foot on them, landing on his head and seeing his bike hurtle on by itself. Most of this was viewed by the boss who couldn't believe seeing an unmanned mtb heading through the trees!

What a great birthday treat for Kurt!


It was quite a slog home into a stiff wind but we had coffee, the Boss' homemade Xmas mince pies and Lea's Mud cake to dine on.

Danny biked strongly and technically very well, but it was good to see him stuffed at the end. He's certainly got those Vellenoweth calves!


The one drawback with the Giant is that it is a pain to clean as it has this complicated set of pivots and arms for the rear suspension.

I've been feeling great about last night's summer cycle race as we were caught early by the scratch bunch, but I was able to stay with them until hospital hill and was able to break from the rest of my group. I expected a fast time but was disappointed to have done 23.04, which is my fastest yet, but only by 2 seconds. That 23 min barrier is proving hard to break and I am not sure how I can go any faster!

Time for a new MTB?

It was Lea's idea to do a Boxing Day ride in the Blue Mountains to justify her huge servings of Xmas pud. So I set the alarm for 6.30 and the Boss and Lea turned up for coffee and we headed to Vallet Stn Rd for a pleasurable, enjoyable ride.

All was going well until the top point of Valley Station when a windfall tree's branch hooked my chain and snapped off my rear derailleur! We expertly broke the chain and relinked the Kona as a single speed and I headed back while the other two carried on to the Mangakirikiri. However, I was so enjoying the single speed sexperience that I turned left at the creek to meet them coming up stream. I had a great time hurtling down the track, getting some air and coping with the windfall.

When I met them I noticed the chain was super tight and the pedals could hardly go around. After some tutuing we were off again, but by the time I got to Gaskill's Bridge I could hardly pedal again.

William Ellis stopped in his truck and delivered me to the bottom of Tirohanga Road so at least I could ride the last kilometre, but the strain of gettin up Hanaia Rd was too much for the chain so it snapped!

Is it time to give in?

Xmas Day

The fun syarted on Xmas Eve when Lucy and I conducted a great secret manouver to liberate a Xmas Tree to our lounge. A couple of bevvies for Dutch Courage and the complete action took less than a minute from stopping the car, leaping out, cutting the manacles and liberating it to the back of the car before speeding off with high fives!

You can see it in the photo with an awesome santa at the top.

The actual day was spent with Leigh, Lucy and Thomas, MumnDad, Janine and Emma and Adrian S who joined the Abraham Whanau. Pete and Lea and Maia dropped in for a drink and we all drank fine champers. gewurts, temparillo and cabernet sauvignon, threw the frisbee and had mussels off the BBQ and ham and chicken and spuds and Xmas pud. We had a great, relaxing stress free day and I was asleep by 7.30pm!

Lucy got me the Chris Knox tribute, Stroke, which I really wanted and Leigh bought me a trilogy of some dead guy's only novels which are hugely thick and will take months to read. I think she wanted them for herself.

Xmas MTB

General 005
Originally uploaded by mlabraham@xtra.co.nz

Eventhough the ride was a bit more subdued than last year's (fortunately) it was still a great ride and a great time in the pub. And to top it off we had the annual semi-serious injury. This photo shows the gash to Ben's leg which required 5 stitches.

Most of the ride was heading south up the Waioweka river bed with 5 river crossings and a lot of bone jiggling time riding over the rocky river bed.

The highlight of the ride was the awesome swimming hole where we escaped from the heat of the day. The young bucks tried to outdo each other on the swing until Old Man Dennis showed them how to do it.

Heading home down hospital hill we were met with the high pressure hose from the fire engine. Somehow I knew there was going to be some skullduggery and escaped a major wetting.

Photos here.

The feed and beers at Craig's bar were great but because Leigh was hungover from the night before we headed home before getting caught up in the mayhem later in the night. Mark may have had a technicolour yawn in Kim's car and George would have woken up very thirsty.

Middle-aged Lea, who pulled out after one lap last Tuesday, didn't make Thursday's MTB at Te Waiti and missed the Xmas ride, Dennis, who made the Xmas booze up despite it being his 25th wedding anniversary, Brian, who really joined in on the festivities and myself met at the Waioweka Bridge this morning and had a great two hour ride around Paerata and Ohiwa followed up with coffee, cake and biscuits at Dennis'.

Holidays are great!

Te Waiti Pre Xmas

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Originally uploaded by mlabraham@xtra.co.nz

It's been a while but it is time to blog again. I've got heaps to post about but I'll start with the pre Xmas MTB ride up Te Waiti followed by BBQ and beers.

This track is in great condition and is one of the best single track rides in the district. And to finish off with some snags and beers was great.

Just a sit was getting a bit rowdy a young couple in a camper van drove down to the boulders and joined us. I think they thought they were going to a quiet secluded spot but came across a bunch of hillbillies and escapees.

Click here to see a few photos.