Bushcraft Camp ATC

 

 

 

 

The last weekend of the holiday saw Eric Stuart and I take part in the ATC bushcraft camp. I was assisting the Unit Commander Matt and officer in training Shelley with the event. The walk started in farmland and quickly got into bush at the start of the Kiwanis track just South of Kaitaia. The plan was to camp after a short walk and give cadets the option of dumping unwanted and heavy gear in vehicles before embarking on the second much longer day of walking.

Stuart and I had a night under a tarp, which I found fairly uncomfortable and cold. I had just had my back put in by the osteopath, so was feeling a bit vulnerable in my spine. In true military fashion, reveille was at some ungodly hour (0530) and the cadets cheerfully made a variety of breakfasts on the concrete pad shown in one of the pictures before being briefed about the walk.

The bush walk had been made more interesting by becoming a rescue exercise where some lost trampers needed to be located and made comfortable overnight. Grid references, compasses and maps were used and leadership opportunities given to the youngsters. It was interesting for me to see how much control Matt gave the cadets and how he devolved a lot of decision making to them. It obviously works because 20 teenagers gave up the last weekend of their holiday to do this walk. They ranged in age from about 13 to 18. Many of them are considering careers in the armed forces.

As it turned out our exercise mutated into a proper evacuation when one of the youngest cadets twisted her ankle and needed to be stretchered towards the road. Our route had to change from going deep into the bush and off the main track. It was still a good hike though and we all learnt how to make a stretcher out of trees and shirts.

We ended up at Ruth and Stephan's far,m coming in by vehicle at the front gate instead of walking into the rear of the place. The cadets took time to have a swim and then walked out to the paddock where they put up communal bivvies. I decided that it might cramp Stuart's style if I shared his bivvy and went to fraternise with the civilians at the farm house.

The next morning the campers were split into their two teams and took it in turns to bridge a stream with some bits of rope. They then climbed up the steep hillside. Again it was interesting watching them work as a team to solve the practical problem that they had been set. A real demonstration of hands-on learning that required leadership and teamwork skills.

That was 2 weeks ago now. Since then we have had school start. The clocks have gone back so our evenings are shorter now in terms of daylight. The sun is setting at about 5.30 and it is dark by 6. It is still pleasantly warm, without the punishing heat of Summer. It is also still dry as. We did get about an inch of rain on Tuesday, which did a little to get the grass growing. My veggy beds are still pretty dessicated though.

Last Sunday was ANZAC day and the boys were back at the ATC for an overnighter and an early morning. It is becoming an important part of our calendar here. They did the dawn parade and the 11 oclock community service as well. I went to that with Patrick. Our College head boy spoke along with the head girl from the other big school in town. They were both thoughtful speeches. I am deeply ambivalent about armies and the use that they are being put to in the world today. At the same time I am grateful that I do not live in a Nazi world. The NZ army tends to take on mostly peacekeeping duties in the Pacific rather than get involved in full on wars.

No pictures of Anzac I am afraid.

Until next time ...

More holiday fun

 

 

 

 

We got a phone call from Merv the fisherman at 8am saying that it looked like a good day to go out on his boat and we would need to be at the wharf by 9am. We had only just got out of bed so it was a manic half hour feeding animals and getting stuff ready. We even stopped in town to pick up cream doughnuts.

Merv took us out into the Rangaunu harbour out from Unahi wharf. We did lots of fishing, trolling lures through water where the terns had been diving. That was the best fun as we hooked onto kahawai with 25plus metres of nylon already out and getting the fish in was good arm exercise. We all had a go and all caught fish. Even Paddy hauled in one that I hooked for him and he had a big grin on as he did so!

He spent a lot of the rest of the time nesting down at the front of the boat or crashed out inside out of the wind. Stuart and Eric both had turns at steering the boat and learnt how some of the instruments worked. We had a go at anchoring up and trying for snapper deep down, but had less success with this. Chantelle caught a nice sized one and Eric caught a few that we put back.

It was a good way to spend a day. Thanks again Merv!

Paddy's walk

 

 

 

 

Paddy and I are just back from his "walk", my attempt to provide some sort of rite of passage as he grows older.
The pictures are the wrong way round, so perhaps I should reverse them. Or perhaps I won't and you can cope with the fact that the pictures in this post show the end of the walk, the second show the middle and the third show the start.

We went to the Warawara forest which is north of the Hokianga Harbour about 80 km Sw of Kaitaia. It is a huge conservation forest bordered on the West by the Tasman. Three predominately Maori settlements are found on its edges. Pawerenga to the north, an old Catholic settlement: they say that the only people who go there are those that live there and those that are lost. Panguru is on the East and has a large school that I had some dealings with as a science video-conference teacher a couple of years back. We started our walk from the coastal settlement of Mitimiti. The pictures show us climbing up above this small collection of houses.

The other boy in the pictures is Lance, who is Paddy's friend.

We aimed to walk from Mitimiti up a ridge path to find a vehicle track that runs from Pawerenga right through the forest. The first day's walk was very tough on us all, we climbed 400m through thick bush. There was a track, but it was steep and semi-overgrown. Trees had fallen across it and it took no notice of contours going up and down very steeply. As a consequence, we made slow progress on day one and made it as far as the vehicle track. we set up camp next to the roadway and were careful to stow all our food deep inside rucksacks so as not to attract foraging wild pigs in the night.

I lay awake partly because my back is giving me gyp and partly because I was trying to work out if that rustling noise was a pig, or a possum, or just the wind.

Day 2 Paddy's walk

 

 

 

 

Day two dawned cold and damp. Heavy condensation left us all a bit wet. But thankfully we had no nocturnal porcine encounters.

We were back on the track with a lot of ground to make up on account of our slow first day. We had left word in Mitimiti of our eta and I did not want to cause a Search and Rescue call-out. Fortunately, it was a lot easier walking along a roadway. It meandered round following the contours much more than the walking track. We even found time to take a detour and climb up Maungapuhotu, one of the peaks named on the map. It was supposedly 625m but I actually think that we climbed a neighbouring unnamed smaller peak. Never mind - the view was panoramic and well worth the detour. See pictures of Paddy and Lance posing with the world laid out below them. Paddy gave the view and experience the highest complement, saying that it would be his new facebook profile - let's see if that happens.

The rest of day was a bit of a grind as we walked along the vehicle track almost as far as Pawarenga and then cut off East down, down down to the beach. What a place to spend a night though! A large sandy bay with a meandering stream populated by pied stilts, paradise shellduck and NZ dotterels. The surf pounding away at a safe distance. Huge logs scattered amongst the grass as evidence of decades old storms.

In the morning 2 horse and a foal moved down from the hills to graze near our camp. Paddy was conviced that it was Mongolia!

We had a leisurely breakfast and then struck camp and had a pleasant short walk down the beach back to Mitimiti, our car and then home.

I enjoyed this little sojourn. There is nothing like getting away from it all to put things into perspective. I took no books and wrote little. The boys babbled lots of boy talk to each other, so there was space just to lie and watch the clouds scudding over and let the mind empty of detritus. It occurred to me this morning as I spent 5 minutes cleaning my teeth, that we are expected to mutlitask so much nowadays, to pack in more and more and achieve ever more, that we don't have time to think about half the stuff that we are doing. When was the last time that you actually concentrated fully on brushing your teeth, and were not doing it automatically while you were figuring out what colour to paint the bathroom, or how late you were for leaving the house?

I will stop now before you start thinking that I am having a mid-life moment ... if you know me, you'll know that I have always been having those!

 

 

 

 

Tryathlon

 

 

 

 

At last the eagerly awaited news of the tryathlon.
We arrived at the start nice and early to prepare our baskets and to dfamiliarise ourselves with the layout. Most of us had done at least some training together and there was a good spirit in the air. Most of us were a little nervous about the exertion that lay in store. I was a bit worried that I would not be able to complete the event, because my training was only as much as each of the individual parts and I had not attempted to do the swim, bike and run together.

To cut to the chase, there were about 40 of us taking part. Photos are not brilliant because our camera picture button has broken off and it is quite difficult to take pictures. I went into the pool in the 9th wave of 4 swimmers. I came out last. Most of the swimmers who were serious were using crawl, and I cannot do 9 lengths of crawl so I stuck mostly to breast stroke and one length of back stroke to preserve my legs.

The transition to bike was slow - about 4 minutes. I think if I was serious about getting a good time, I would change by the bike and perhaps not bother drying my toes!

I liked the 9km bike ride, because it was the bit I was most confident about. I flew round and caught up quite a few places. The last km was downhill and so we all went for that bit.

Transition to run was fast, I scoffed an energy gel and got out on the road. Running with a bunch of other blokes was a revelation. All my training has been done on my own, and it was much easier to keep going whilst trotting alongside a few other blokes.

I stuck with doing the short course 300m swim, 9km bike and 3km run. My time was 1 hour and 27 seconds. There were no placings because it was designed as a participation event and not a race. I guess there is merit in that, but as lots of the blokes said, we are men, so we compete! If I do it again next year I will definitely get training earlier and go for the long course.