I left Auckland again on the 7^th of January, hoping to head into K Bay on Monday the 9^th, but unfortunately the weather gods had other ideas and I was stuck in Rotorua for a whole week!  By the following Saturday though, we were finally ready to go and the weather was on our side at last.  After completing my first puncture repair (yes, I have managed to get to my 30^th year without ever having to fix a puncture; I then had to ride the bike  and the repairs lasted the 30 mins I was on the bike, so I’ll call that a success!) and hitch-hiking* for the first time (don’t have a heart attack, I was with a friend and it was all good), we hiked in hoping that some friends who were already there would have the fire roaring and some spare dinner.  Unfortunately that was not the case and we instead found them half way up a rock face, but I wasn’t complaining.

I’m finding it hard, sitting here, to think of the highlights of the week.  I guess one achievement would have to be lighting my first fire (yes, I did have a sheltered life, as well as never having mended a puncture I had also never lit a fire) and successfully cooking dinner on it.  I rule!

Another highlight, perhaps not in an entirely positive way though, was leading a grade 17 (F5c-ish) on trad.  It was a day that I was feeling particularly lame, with energy levels dwindling, I’d managed to fail every challenge the boys had set for me.  I had decided to retire from climbing for the day (when asked by Gerard what I would be willing to do, I think I said, “I’m willing to give up on life for the day.”), but Dan said, “Why don’t you lead Outboard Crack ,it’s a nice crack climb and only a 17.”  I felt like it was super lame to say no, so I took up the challenge.  I decided it had been a bad idea after all when I got to a hard section about 6m up, with only one piece of gear 3m below me and I had to down climb to try to place more gear and all of the effort and stress led to calf pump and panic, so I ended up sitting on two very badly placed pieces of gear and having a little cry.  Yes.  I actually cried.  I desperately wanted to just give up and get lowered to the ground – I could live with the shame – but for some reason I stayed up there, calmed myself down…and then finished the route!  I think my companions think I was being an idiot, making a fuss over nothing and letting my head get the better of me, but I was proud of myself for finishing it.  The next day I led a lovely 14 with very obvious gear and felt much better about the whole idea.

A list of stand out events would also have to include a six hour ground up** epic which involved me being on belay for well over three hours and climbing for possibly 30 minutes..  The first 45 minutes were in vain as Gerard tried to climb a very skinny crack on a slab, with not enough protection 3m off the ground to be comfortable doing slightly harder moves.  A change of tack and use of a tree meant that another hour and a half later we were both off the ground…about 8m.  Bits of the route were nice, but it needs a good clean of both the lichen and the cracks, plus a bolt on the slab before I think it’ll be worth repeating.

Otherwise, I was treated to typical Kawakawa climbing: a variety of sport and trad routes, mostly around 25m or longer (although there is the odd short route), including delightful multi-pitch sport climbs.  I really enjoyed the simplicity of life out there and being fully immersed in nature.  I didn’t even mind not washing my hair for eight days too much!  There’s something freeing about being away from shops and computers and cars and constant phone signal.  “If you liked it so much, why did you leave then?” I hear you ask; but I’m afraid the answer to that contains a little too much information for such a public forum!

* Hitch-hiking can be pretty amazing as it turns out.  Our first ride took us about 15 minutes to get and was with a middle-aged lady in a BMW.  The lady (whose name, I am ashamed to say, I have forgotten) went around 40km out of her way to drive us all the way to the turn off to Kinloch, rather than leave us in a place more convenient to her.  The second lift seemed to be less forthcoming, until a French couple stopped in their camper van saying they didn’t know where Kinloch was but they could take us some of the way.  However, they weren’t really sure where they were headed and Dan managed to convince them that Kinloch was definitely a better place to be, so score, Rotorua to Kinloch in around two hours!
** The term“ground up” refers to doing a route for the first time quite literally, from the ground, up!  i.e. without first abseiling down the route to look at holds and gear placements or to clean them.

Matt’s family live on Doubtless Bay, looking out over the open sea and the Karikari Peninsula.  I was welcomed into their home despite the whole world descending on them, including Matt’s sister and her husband and 19 month old daughter, Cara, who were over from Tasmania.  My time seemed to be split between playing with Cara, going to the beach, developing a taste for ginger beer and a few random activities.

The first morning, we headed down to the beach to gather ‘tuatua’, a small shellfish which hangs out just under the surface of the sand, so around low tide you can find them by “doing the twist”.  This causes your feet to sink into the sand allowing you to find them with your toes and then duck in to grab them with your hands (some people get wetter than others when doing this…).  They do their best to try to escape, but being molluscs, they don’t move very quickly.  In the afternoon we went to a vineyard and found a good place for climbing up the rocks and jumping off into the sea (oh come on, you put a bunch of climbers together, what do you expect?).  The second day was spent helping Matt with his pizza oven.  He had bought a kit and done the majority of the work leaving just the final layer of plaster to put on before the finishing touches.  I was started on the job of mixing the plaster and then my responsibility level increased as I was allowed to touch the oven itself, laying on and smoothing out the top layer of plaster.  I think Matt was looking for the ‘woman’s touch’, though perhaps if he knew me better…  Wednesday involved an early start to go on my first ever fishing trip, but it was certainly not a case of beginner’s luck, as although I caught two snapper, both were too small and had to be thrown back.  We basically were feeding the fish rather than catching them.  On Thursday we went for a speedy walk to a swimming hole, which obviously involved more climbing up and jumping off rocks and a bit of trail running.  The trip to the far north was topped off by a visit to New Zealand’s oldest building, the Kerikeri mission house, finished in 1836.  I guess history has to start at some point…

In my opinion, it was “about bloody time”: they’ve been together for nine and a half years and everyone has known it’s been on the cards, but it’s just never happened.  I apparently was not the only one to say this.  The wedding was held at a beautiful lodge near the town of Waipu in the north of the North Island, with views over the estuary and out to the sea.  A small group of family and friends were invited from the UK and New Zealand, with Lex’s brother and his wife flying over from the US as well.

I think it’s fair to say that all involved were a little concerned about the weather for the day.  The idea was to have the wedding in the beautiful gardens, but the forecast was looking grim.  Mark had been checking the weather forecast every twenty minutes using seven different iPhone apps since around two weeks before the wedding and all but one said that the day would bring torrential downpours.  Being an actuary, whose livelihood depends on statistics, Mark knows how to work the numbers and chose to go with the one in seven that forecasted sunshine.  Amazingly, apart from a couple of showers in the morning and quite late in the evening, it turns out he was right!  I like to think that was my contribution though: the weather was looking so bad that I bought a transparent dome umbrella for Lex and decorated it with bows that fit the colour scheme; I was hoping that it would be the same as that decision you make every time you go for a hike in England, where Sod’s Law says that if you take your raincoat you’ll just be lugging it around all day for no reason, but if you don’t, you’ll get drenched.  Turns out that worked too!

Those of you who know me well, know that I’m not really one for weddings.  Seems a big load of stress and a massive expense to sign a bit of paper and have a big party.  This wedding, however, really did seem to be a celebration of Lex and Mark’s love and their life together and, touched even me.  It was a civil ceremony, held in the lounge of the lodge (I think this was better anyway as it produced a much more intimate environment than would have been created in the outdoor wedding and meant that the celebrant and those doing readings could be heard much more easily).  They had written vows together which represented them as a couple, being simple and poignant.

A lot of work had gone into the preparations (necessitating quite a lot of blood sweat and tears from members of the wedding party too, but I think they’d all agree it was worth it in the end), with Lex hand crafting all the invitations, orders of service, menu cards, etc and a mega inter-continental collection of crockery – and drilling of holes in plates to create cake-stands – for the afternoon tea party.  The day was full of beautiful and characteristic little touches: one of the readings (which I had the privilege to read) was a poem from Winnie the Pooh (“I can’t think of anyone else who would read it in quite the childish way you could,” Lex said to me when she asked me to do it); the napkin rings were wooden and labelled with each person’s name and the date; there were balloon modelling kits on the wedding breakfast tables; there was pick ‘n’ mix on the bar; and Lex’s wedding ring was, I believe, supposed to have 11 diamonds in it, but she had asked for nine, one to represent each year they’d been together.

Lex and Mark really do appear to be one of the few couples that, after nearly ten years, are as in love with each other as they were at the beginning.  Mark’s speech was truly beautiful (at one point I shed a little tear (yes, despite popular opinion, I am actually a just another soppy romantic) and all of a sudden he was talking about the bridesmaids and everyone was looking at us!), and I think I’m not the only single girl out there whose hope it is to meet someone one day who has those sorts of things to say about me.

To Lex and Mark: congratulations on finding and keeping each other…long may it continue!

Places I have been:

• Adelaide, Mount Arapiles, The Grampians, Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road in Australia.
• Auckland, Rotorua, Taupo, Mount Ruapehu, southern Northland, the Bay of Islands and Wellington in New Zealand.
• Santiago, Valparaiso and San Pedro de Atacama in Chile
• London, Gloucestershire and Hampshire in England; Meribel in France
• Cochabamba, Chapare, La Paz, Sucre, Oruro, Uyuni, the Cordillera Quimsa Cruzin Bolivia (amongst others).

Things I have done:

• Rock climbed in five different countries at 20 different crags
• Skied an active volcano
• Celebrated the marriage of both my siblings and my best friend (and been a bridesmaid each time)
• Become an aunt for the first time
• Had a cold for about seven months
• Hiked to an altitude of 5100m
• Helped to look after and become very attached to around 30 amazing children
• Done my first multi-day hike
• Mountain biked down “the world’s most dangerous road”
• Lived in a refuge for teenage boys
• Paragliding
• Visited some of the major sites of the world (the Great Ocean Road, The Andes Mountain Range, the Uyuni salt flats, the Atacama desert, lake Titikaka)

And, most importantly, this is what I have learnt during 2011:

• I love rock climbing
• Patience really is a virtue
• To trad climb (well, there’s still a long way to go, but I made a start)
• I can get fit!
• I can sleep better when camping than I do in a bed
• I might have commitment issues…
• That I LOVE rock climbing
• I can run and could probably learn to love it
• That sometimes you just have to let things (and people) go
• That the ‘dating game’ really isn’t that straight forward
• Perhaps I could do the whole motherhood lark
• To take things as they come…something always works out in the end
• I LOVE ROCK CLIMBING 

I hope you’ve all had as wonderful a year as I have and I look forward to continuing to share experiences and thoughts with you in the coming you.

HAPPY 2012 EVERYONE!

I would like to know where Jen went though.  It would have been hard enough to get her to run 3km OR cycle 20km OR boulder 50m in a day not long ago, let alone do all three!

I laughed.

We finally arrived back in Auckland 3 hours later.  I got out of the car, started walking around to the back to get my stuff out.  And I fell over*.

Phil laughed and I suspect the Karma Gods did too.

[* Lex has been quite concerned about the effect climbing will have on the state of my legs (the bumps, the bruises, the scrapes and the cuts) which will very much be on show as a result of the short dress.  I have discovered two other extreme sports that I should avoid for the next few days: shaving my legs and getting out of the car.]

Christmas day was a rather chilled out affair, starting with a morning run on the beach for Lex and I (yes, I do seem to have taken to this running lark, it is rather strange) and croissants for breakfast.  The rest of the day was spent either on the beach or on the veranda eating barbecued prawns, chicken and home-made sausages, washed down with plenty of wine and beer.  Once beach cricket play was stopped by the tide, the day was completed with cheese and crackers and a game of Articulate.  Much fun and a very merry Christmas was had by all.

Thanks Lex and Mark!

* Ok, they aren’t so much buses as mini-vans tor cars that cram too many people in, they’re falling apart and there’s no decipherable timetable, but you can get pretty much anywhere on public transport and you can get on and off whenever you like.