Windy Tops

  • Ambiguous measurement in the media

    A couple of weeks ago I was listening to the 7am news bulletin on National Radio and heard the phrase “five times deeper than”. It was part of a report about a new earthquake detector installed in West Auckland. The phrase caught my attention because it’s ambiguous. Strictly speaking, “five times deeper than” should mean “six times as deep as”, but I think most people would probably assume it means “five times as deep as”. Judging by the report, which states the depth was 250 metres, it seems likely that the actually did mean “five times as deep as”, which would have put the original figure at a nice, round 50 metres instead of a confusing 41.666666666666666666666666…. metres.

    It’s unusual to hear this kind of ambiguous grammar on National Radio (at least the parts that I listen to), and to be fair they were supposedly quoting a GNS Scientist. Inaccurate, misleading and ambiguous grammar is rife in other New Zealand media, however, particularly around maths and logic. There’s an aversion to good maths and logic in New Zealand journalism, and I find that frustrating because it’s opening up information to be mis-interpreted when there’s no need for that to happen.

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  • Weather-beaten Tinakori Hill

    I walked home over the Tinakori Hill again this evening. I haven’t been going home that way as often in the last couple of weeks, maybe only three or four times. This is probably a little to do with the onset of winter, and also that it’s become more apparent to me over time that it’s almost certainly more direct to go around Tinakori Hill rather than over it (about 35 minutes’ walk instead of 45 minutes), and that’s been tempting given I haven’t been feeling as energetic lately. There have been a couple of small deluges of heavy rain over the last week or so, and I’m often quite impressed walking around the place a good 8 hours later, still being able to hear the water running through the various channels near the surface as it seeps out of the ground.

    This afternoon the hill was looking rather weather-beaten. It wasn’t anywhere near as destroyed as I’ve seen it in the past, but there were certainly a couple of tracks with fallen trees partly blocking them and perhaps it’s a sign of things to come over the next few years. It’s just a reminder that trees fall over, I guess.

    We’re off to Cattle Ridge in the Tararuas to do some navigation-like things this weekend, on another club trip, and it looks as if it might rain. I’m not sure exactly where in the vicinity of Cattle Ridge because I haven’t been concerned enough to find out, but I’m sure Sam (who’s organising it) has some ideas and I’ll find out tomorrow evening if not later on. I guess if the shape of the land doesn’t let us easily walk around in circles, he probably has a backup plan for us to walk around in triangles or hexagons or icosagons, or even something non-symmetrical if we’re so daring. It’ll be fun.

  • Trip: Rangiwahia, Sawtooth and Pourangaki

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    Distant silhouettes after Sawtooth.

    Dates: 11th – 13th April, 2008
    Location: Ruahine Forest Park, Rangiwahia road-end.
    People: Alistair, Sarah, Illona, Jane, Amanda, Dirk, Paul, Harry, Craig and meeeee.
    Huts visited: Rangiwahia Hut (1 night), Pourangaki Hut (1 night).
    Route: Past Rangiwahia Hut to Maungamahue, over to Te Hekenga and around to Taumataomekura and Tiraha. Over Sawtooth Ridge to Ohuinga, then along to point 1632 and down the official track to Pourangaki Hut for Saturday night. Straight up to point 1614 on Sunday, then back along to Maungamahue, and out via Rangiwahia Hut.
    [Photos]

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

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  • Daywalk: Korokoro to Dry Creek, Belmont Regional Park

    This is going to be a quick trip report because it was a fairly quick trip. The fact that the park was getting completely thrashed by a southerly helped to ensure this, I think. We didn’t really want to stop.

    Date: 19th April, 2008
    Location: Belmont Regional Park, Cornish Street to Dry Creek (Haywards Turnoff).
    People: Sarah, Mari, Edwin, Nicole and me.
    Intended route: Start at Cornish Street, walk up to Belmont Trig via Baked Beans Bend, continue around Cannons Head and Boulder Hill via the Puke Ariki Track, then exit via Dry Creek at the Haywards turnoff from State Highway 2.
    [Photos]

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

    I’d originally had 9 people interested in doing this walk, but as the weekend approached we eventually filtered down to 5, through a combination of flu, weekend work issues, and one person simply not showing up. It was a good trip, albeit a little windy.

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  • Outdoor First Aid was fun

    Last weekend I hopped onto a first aid course being run by the Mountain Safety Council, which I thoroughly recommend. Thanks to Bridget and Richard who ran the thing, as well as everyone else who would have been involved behind the scenes. Among other things, I reinforced my belief that I’m not a very good actor. My worst effort was when I was supposed to be playing a person with a broken leg. When asked about my age, I somehow accidentally pulled age 14 out of nowhere, momentarily forgetting that another aspect of my character was that he was supposed to be suffering from angina. Overall it was a good weekend, though. There was a lot to it and I’ll really only learn things properly with experience, but I’m hoping I’ve picked up some good ways to structure my thoughts rather than panic if and when bad things happen. (Acronyms like DRABCS, SAMPLE and WRAPT are good ones to remember.)

    In other news, I finally busted my relatively cheap altimeter a couple of weeks ago (during the Renata trip), which isn’t entirely unexpected given I haven’t been going to great lengths to look after it. That particular one was a bit unreliable on occasions in any case, including when compared with other altimeters on the same trips, and more of an interesting toy and something to practice with rather than something I’d want to rely on for an accurate reading. Now I finally have a good excuse to go shopping for something worthwhile.

    Anyway, we’re off to the Ruahine Range this weekend, to make another attempt at getting from Rangiwahia over to Sawtooth, and back around via Pourangaki. We first attempted this about 6 weeks ago in March, but it just rained and rained and a couple of things unfortunately went wrong.

  • Trip: Fenceline, Kapakapanui and Renata Hut

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    Marie and Allen walking down
    from Kapakapanui.

    This weekend was going to be a great navigation trip, which I’d been looking forward to because I’m really keen to get some good navigation experience. A couple of people had to pull out on late notice so there were only the three of us in the end. We hadn’t decided exactly where to go until Friday night at the railway station, but the basic idea ended up being an approximate anticlockwise loop starting and ending at Otaki Forks. I’d looked at the forecast on Thursday afternoon and it hadn’t actually appeared too bad, maybe with a bit of rain around Saturday night or so. It didn’t quite turn out that way, though.

    Dates: 28th – 30th March, 2008
    Location: Tararua Forest Park, Otaki Forks Road End.
    People: Allen, Marie and me.
    Huts visited: Kapakapanui Hut (0 nights), Renata Hut (1 night).
    Intended route: Up the Fenceline Track to point 476 above Otaki Forks, then south-west around the ridges to Pukeatua, past Kapakapanui and down to the saddle near point 822. Cross the road and head on to Renata Hut for the night. On Sunday, walk along the Renata Ridge Track to point 925, and head north up the ridge for about 1km before hopping west onto another ridge and going north to Waiotauru Forks. Jump over the footbridge, and back out to Otaki Forks.
    Actual route: Well the first day went okay, but we ended up walking down the 4WD track towards Waiotauru Hut until we could see that the river was well up after a lot of recent (and continuing) rain. At that point we turned around, and hitched a ride out to the Akatarawa Road in a grunty Toyota LandCruiser.
    [Photos]

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

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  • Hanging out at Castlepoint

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    Stick figures being drowned by
    tsunamis at Castlepoint Beach.

    For some reason this Easter weekend, many people we know have been visiting Castlepoint. This included my manager (at work), a couple of Stacey’s friends, and Amelia. Considering Castlepoint is such a small place, I was a bit surprised that we didn’t actually meet any of them, except for Amelia, but that was because she and her family had very nicely invited us to come up and see her family’s beach house. (The full set of photos that I’ve uploaded are over here.)

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  • Trip: Aorangi Crossing, Pinnacles to Cape Palliser

    I enjoyed the weekend about a year ago when we crossed Aorangi Forest Park from the Pinnacles to Cape Palliser… so much so that finding myself without much to do for the weekend, I ended up joining a group of nice happy people who were doing exactly the same thing all over again. Of these people, Sarah and Alistair had been part of the same trip a year before.

    Dates: 7th – 9th March, 2008
    Location: Aorangi Forest Park, Pinnacles Road End to Mangatoetoe Road End.
    People: Sarah, Alistair, Sylvia, Jane, Kevin, Jackie and me.
    Huts visited: Washpool Hut (0 nights), Pararaki Hut (1 night), Kawakawa Hut (0 nights), Mangatoetoe Hut (0 nights).
    Intended route: Pinnacles up and over to Washpool, up and over to Pararaki to stay the night, up again and down again to Kawakawa Hut, then up the river, over the saddle and down to Mangatoetoe Hut and out via the Mangatoetoe River.
    Actual route: Hooray.
    [Photos]

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

    The whole weekend is a DOC-endorsed orange triangle track, but it’s very steep in places. The first day involves two climbs and two descents, with one of the climbs particularly draining of energy. The second day also stretches out and involves quite a lot of climbing, as well as pushing through over-grown river beds. It’s a great trip for people who like hut-bagging. Over two days, the walk passes 4 separate huts. Each hut is placed on a separate river which leads out towards the coast to the west, and the popular way for hunters to access the huts is by walking (or driving) up the rivers. For our trip though, we were traversing the track from north to south between all four huts.

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  • Trip: Rangiwahia, Maungamahue, Te Hekenga, Triangle

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    12 people in a 6 bunk hut.

    The weather report for the weekend indicated what looked to be quite a violent deluge of a front smothering the entire country all at once, from north to south. The met service was issuing weather warning’s galore. Forecast chart visualisations available through Jim McGregor’s metvuw.com website might have implied that all of New Zealand would be bathed under a combination of beautiful sky blues and majestic sunset reds during the weekend, but unfortunately the colouring on those charts was artificial, and in fact indicated quite the opposite. Our party was affected too, with two members pulling out late on Friday afternoon, having decided they were too frightened at the prospect of spending a whole weekend playing cards against the rest of us at Rangiwahia Hut.

    Dates: 29th February-2nd March, 2008
    Location: Ruahine Forest Park, Rangiwahia Road End.
    People: Alistair, Sarah, Marie, Jeremy, Dirk and me.
    Huts visited: Rangiwahia Hut (1 night), Triangle Hut (1 night).
    Huts seen: Pourangaki Hut.
    Intended route: Up to Rangiwahia Hut on Friday night, then past point 1635 to Maungamahue. West to Te Hekenga, around to Taumataomekura, along Sawtooth Ridge to Ohuinga, then down to Pourangaki Hut for Saturday night. Up to Pourangaki on Sunday morning, then back along to Maungamahue, and out again via Rangiwahia Hut.
    Actual route: Shortened a lot due to weather and injuries, we reached Te Hekenga then followed the spur down to Triangle Hut for the night. Back up to Rangiwahia Hut via the main DOC track, and out.
    [Photos]

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

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