Windy Tops

Tag: meta

  • A quick hello

    Hello.

    A couple of years ago I took down this blog, in part because life had intervened and become distracting and I’d stopped updating it, but mostly because with how I’d originally set it up nearly 20 years ago, it’d become increasingly cumbersome and expensive to maintain and keep running.

    I’ve since gotten back into a little tramping again, though. As well as catching up on a back-log of FMC Bulletins, I’ve also gotten my act together and found a more efficient way to make the blog work again, I hope. I don’t think blogs are quite as significant in the world today as they were pre-2010, especially given how much info is exchanged through social media, but my main reason for this has always been as motivation to scribble down notes about where I’ve been. I think it’s still good for that. Therefore I’ve restored all the backups and will probably spend the next few weeks tinkering and getting various bits on the sides to work properly again. Once I get around to it, I’m also hoping to fill in some space with a handful of reports of trips I’ve done during the time things were down.

    If you happen to stumble on this, then enjoy.

  • You can’t beat Wellington on a good day

    All parts of New Zealand have great things going for them, but the target of my unending bias is definitely the Wellington region. This is the case even though I’ve been absent for the past 2.5 years, living in Melbourne for secondary employment reasons. I’m aware that the region gets its share of weather events which are sometimes unpleasant to live with, yet it’s events like last week’s relatively newsworthy storm which also cause me to feel most home-sick. It’s the type of thing I would have written about if there at the time.

    Sunny and consistent weather is okay for a few minutes, but I appreciate being able to walk around a hill-top in the town belt during a strong wind, or sit on the rocks during a southerly gale under the sheltered northern end of the Wellington Airport runway, watching the flights awkwardly drop to the runway from directly underneath. When living locally, it’s the type of thing I often enjoyed writing about between everything else which ends up here, but it’s been lacking during the time I’ve been away.
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  • Re-visiting New Zealand

    We’re getting ready to go back to New Zealand again, in another of our recurring visits. For anyone who reads these things and has not been aware, I’ve been living abroad for the last couple of years. My plan, having caught up with some friends and family around Wellington, is to visit the Ruahines over Easter as part of a small WTMC group. All of the cool kids in the trampey club like to go south on long weekends for some reason, so we’ll be a more dynamic, small group in what is the second best mountain range for tramping in the world. These are my favourite kinds of groups to go out tramping with, so it should be enjoyable.

    Being the Ruahines, as with many other parts of NZ, I anticipate steep climbs between coasting around on the mildly undulating tops, possibly in cloud and strong wind. Trying to prepare for this type of thing, when based in Melbourne, has been a novel task in itself. When living and working in Wellington, I really didn’t have to think about hill-walking fitness issues too hard, as I could easily organise my life to factor in some good routine walking activities which tended to keep me generally walking fit. I’d have a 200 metre vertical climb upwards every evening when I walked home from work, and an 80’ish metre vertical climb upwards when I walked to work in the morning. A large chunk of the route was in Wellington’s town belt, generally away from immediate clusters of population. It was a nice escape at both ends of the work day, and I think having this day after day worked.

    That type of interwoven landscape doesn’t really exist in Melbourne. Here I have a 40 minute walk into and out of the CBD every morning, but it’s all flat, through landscaped grassy parks with footpaths, sports fields and planted trees alongside busy roads and cycle routes. It’s nice in other ways, but it rarely feels physically taxing as far as getting walking-fit. Therefore, as with the previous times I’ve returned NZ to go tramping, I’ve attempted to simulate a hill-side by climbing up and down the stairs of the building in which I work.

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    An interwoven landscape, November 18th last year.
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  • I’m outta here

    …at least for a while.
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  • Short recovery walks

    A week ago I hoped to go tramping around the Camelbaks in the Tararuas, but wasn’t feeling well and ended up pulling out. By Sunday I thought I was doing better though, and was getting a little bored of sitting around. The weather was sunny and I found myself on a morning walk around the Karori Sanctuary Fence before ending up in Aro Valley.

    [map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/20091011-around-the-sanctuary.gpx%5D

    It’s probably just as well I didn’t go tramping in the Tararuas, though. At times it still felt as if I was only using 2/3 of my lungs. The last time I went tramping with a cold like that I had a rather bad time (also because of silly decisions I made about what to wear at critical times, to be fair), and it wouldn’t have been good for anyone in the group given the yucky weather on Saturday and all the bush-bashing in that region. Now two weeks later I can still notice the effects, and I hate the way the remnants of colds can just hang around sometimes, but I think it’s dissipating now.

    In unrelated news, Stacey and I are about to head overseas to South-East Asia for 3.5 weeks. (Specifically Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.) It’s the first proper holiday we’ve had for a couple of years and it’ll be fantastic to get away for a while. I suspect there’s not a lot of Wellington-based tramping in that part of the world, however, so I’m unsure how much I’ll update this blog during the coming month. When we return in mid-November I’m expecting one potentially stressful week and weekend at work, and after that I’m certain I’ll want to get out for a tramp or two.

  • Yet another attempt at Kapiti Island

    We’re having yet another attempt at Kapiti Island on this coming weekend, after the previous two efforts to get there failed due to forecasts of undesirable wind. I guess it’s the time of year, but with DOC having taken our $22 for visiting permits, we should definitely get there sooner or later. Maybe third time lucky, perhaps? I’m sick at home today which has been a minor let-down, but if I’m still sick then and the weather’s nice enough to go, I’ll be very disappointed.

    Meanwhile, we’ve been down to Otari-Wilton’s Bush a few times recently, which is within an easy walking distance and has helped to pass the time. It’s a very nice place to wander around. I suppose it’s one of the reasons I enjoy Wellington so much, given that between all the population it’s still easy to find places where it feels as if you’re much further away.

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  • Onward to Kapiti Island

    I’m taking a break from tramping next weekend. To help fill it in, Stacey and I are hoping to go and visit Kapiti Island. I’d been put off in the past because my speedy anecdotal investigations had implied that it must be quite complicated to arrange a DOC permit to visit the island and separately arrange the transport. I browsed the online booking system (for DOC permits) last Friday, however, and discovered that rather than having to book weeks or months in advance, there were actually quite a lot of permits available… even for the following day.

    Earlier this afternoon I ordered a couple of permits for next Saturday. I only hope that DOC’s online booking has improved since I last used it about 3 years ago, when we booked some huts on the Abel Tasman Coast Track (aka the Hiker’s Superhighway). That time we booked the huts about 3 months in advance, as soon as the online booking system was opened for that period. This seriously confused the DOC ranger at Anchorage Hut on the first night, who tried to tell us we didn’t have tickets. It turned out that because we’d booked as soon as we were able, the records of our tickets were off the end of her print-out.
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