Running (Mission) 6:00:00 [3]
new years day missioning with the crowd.
started up the end of moonshine creek where nat rogaines started. climbed up the track a bit before heading off track and scrambling up to the top of the ridge. Here I tried the possum running technique, but found it a bit tiring after last night so reverted back to human scrambling technique. We lost greg on the way up, but that was alright, as it gave me a chance to rip out a rendition of "i see greg" when he re-emerged. ( i see red, get it?! he has red hair too, making it extra funny, or not) He didn't seem as impressed as I'd thought he'd be with my serenading, i'll blame it on him just being tired.
we then followed the 4wd tracks for an hour, passing a couple of hunters and a good number of hunting dogs. one of which seemed to mistake us for its hunting pack and followed us for a fair bit (do we smell like dogs?). I was jealous of the garmin that the dog had around it's neck. maybe i should run with one around my neck?
after 70mins we came to a jn and went onto smaller, muddier track which lead us down to the whakatikei river. this is where any real running ended, and we spent the next 4.5 hours splashing, rock hopping, rock scrambling, and swimming down the whakitikei river. Which was real fun, but damn tiring! Casper pulled out his waterproof camera and took some pics. he tried to capture an eel (on camera, not literally, though that woiuld have been cooler), but i think failed. guess we'll have to wait for the photos to see.
I managed to refrain from having to swim for the large part of the trip by scrambling along rocks and occasionally climbing out of the river. Glad I did, cos Tessa and Penny looked freezing after they'd swum through some deep bits. After over 4 hrs in the gorge we came to the last canyon, where the only option was to swim. So i reasserted my swimming dominance over casper :D
very relieved to climb out of the river, and we got to pretend we were a bunch of gulls drying out in the sun, so the trip was totally worth it :)