Big walks in Dunedin!

Christmas wasn't spent just sitting around eating and drinking.  No sirree!  With a view like this from my sister Kate's house in Highcliff, Dunedin, and the weather being amazing how could we not go on some nice big walks? 

Our first walk was down the road to Larnach Castle and back, then we took a track down to McAndrews Bay.  After a brief fish and chip stop (how could we not indulge in some good old Kiwi fish and chips by the sea?) we walked it off by climbing back up the hill!  A bit of a tough climb it was, but great hill training, and we worked out it would have been about a 16km round trip.

A couple of days later, the whole lot of us (6 adults, 3 kids and a dog) took a walk up Flagstaff.  The weather was amazing and it was a pretty easy walk.  Had a picnic at the top.  Here's the view:

A couple of days after that we took a trip down the Buskin track to the coast.  Normally you could get right to the beach but it is Yellow Eyed Penguin breeding season so it was closed off.  Still, some great views on the way down.  It took us about one and a quarter hours with a nice climb back up the Paradise Track.  This is Anton near an old hut:

The last walk was a quickee up the hill at the back of the kennels.

We have realised from doing these walks that we need to do:

A) More hill work!
B) Longer walks (will build up from 2-3 hr walks to 6-7hr walks)

That's all for now, roll on 2012 and more training and fundraising!  6 months to go!!

XXX
Helen

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Me and Anton did a nice train mission out the Woodend on Saturday morning.  Stopped for a few brews and lunch at the Holgate Brewery (would have been rude not to!)  We then decided we should walk it off / get in some Kilimanjaro training by walking out to Hanging Rock (8kms)  The first part of the walk was great as it was on a track meandering through trees.  However the track soon ended and we found ourselves with no choice but to walk along the highway.  Still, it was nice to be out in the fresh country air.  We saw 2 dead snakes and a dead wallaby but no living wildlife apart from a coloured parrot and some magpies.  Not to worry.  The walk took us about 1.5hrs.  Climbed up to the top of the rock when we arrived.  A nice steep but short climb.  A lot more people there than I thought there would be.  It started to rain when we were on our way back down, and we weren't able to fill up our water bottle anywhere do we decided to hitch back to Woodend rather than walk.  A bunch of guys in a ute picked us up as soon as I stuck my thumb out, so that was good luck.  That afternoon in Kyneton Anton proposed to me, so it looks like I'll be trekking up Kilimanjaro with my fiancee!  :)

We are off to NZ in less than a week for Christmas.  My sister lives in a semi-rural area on the top of a ridge overlooking Dunedin so there will be many opportunities to go on nice long walks down to rugged beaches etc.  Looking forward to it!

I have an RDO today so plan to call around a load of businesses to request donations of prizes for our raffle.  Wish me luck!

Helen