With working life for both of us in full flow, weekends were for sleeping and adventuring.

Friday night was spent with James’ work colleagues playing laser tag and indoor go-karting. I was truly awful at the go-karting, even managing to break the go-kart, James was pretty good and was in a 3-way battle with some of the boys. However, I was awesome at laser-tag and had a 17% hit rate, the average was 3% so I did rather well. I was terrible at trying to be quiet and creep around, turns out I’m pretty jumpy (who knew!!! After 2 years of James jumping out and scaring me!)

 

Thanks to our awesome Mama’s we now had our road bikes here with us,

Well, I had my road bike, James’ was still stuck somewhere in Auckland. It only meant one thing, back on the road bike I went. He’s called Casper, he’s white and a ghost so it’s pretty apt. (I also have Sully, a turquoise cross-country bike and Shrek my lime green full suspension mountain bike) Anyway, with James off on a mission to find a really gnarly trail which I really wouldn’t have liked, I set off, TO THE OCEAN!

 

The roads here aren’t sealed so make for some pretty bumpy riding, but boy are they fun. Cars, mostly, give you space but the roads were so empty (I think once I got out of the town I only saw 4 cars on my 30-mile trip) it didn’t really matter. The mountains, the blue skies, it was bliss.

 

I saw some llamas/alpacas (I still haven’t learnt the difference between the two!) sheeps, baby sheeps, big fluffy cows, horses, chickens and my first live possum (And several splatted ones)

 

Basically, my ride was friggin’ awesome! James however got stuck in the carpark for 30 minutes by a man talking at him about his ebike without stopping for breath, cue unimpressed face and ‘I’m not at work, please piss off and leave me alone’ expression!

 

We returned home to find the mains water pump outside going craaaaaazy, so inappropriate pictures were called for

 

Feeling sleepy after doing the longest bike ride since leaving Jersey, Sunday was not for riding, but a trip to the National Museum, Te Papa in Wellington. It was pretty cool, and we spent a good few hours wondering around reading about the animals found here, earthquakes, farming and sporting history and cultural history. We missed out the Gallipoli area because the parking on the van was about to expire.

 

 

However, upon returning to the van, we had something flapping on our windscreen. A parking fine. James had mistakenly only paid for 1 hour of parking so we already had a $12 fine – Shoulda gone to the Gallipoli exhibition after all! – Gives us an excuse to go back on a rainy day.

 

Atfer, we went for a quick venture into town to have a gander at some bike shops (apparently 5 days a week in a bike shop isn’t enough for SOME people)

Before we knew it, the weekend was over and it was back to work for another week of fun. This time, it was fun commuting too.

Thankfully, in the week after some angry phone calls to NZ Post James’ bike turned up! And, 1100 Tetley tea bags thanks to James’ folks.

One thing you don’t appreciate until it’s gone is a good cup of tea!

Our evening entertainment was a made up of catching up on 4 week-behind Britain’s got talent episodes and playing Uno, we have even invented our own rules, which I am rather good at. Beating James with 1037 to my 532 (not that I was counting…) – he is a bit of a sore loser though so this happened!

 

Not once, but twice – ahhh-ahahaha!

Worryingly quickly, the week was over and another weekend was upon us. With the alarm still going off early to make it to parkrun at 8 am. Having been getting quicker for the past few weeks it was time to try and get a personal best. It didn’t start well arriving after the runners had already started but I carried on regardless and set a good pace.

Having been raining the ground was still soggy from the storm the week before it was all going well, until the grass ‘turn around area’ half way through the parkrun annnnnnnd I slipped and twisted my ankle. Having to hobble back to the finish. Muddy socks and all. Somehow still didn’t finish last!

 

Not one to quit when injured we set off on a little adventure, to Pencarrow Head which is the opening into Wellington Harbour. Basically, we’d seen some cool pictures of seals online and wanted to go see them!

The sun was shining, it was about 12 degrees, blue skies were out so not bad for a mid-winters day

 

We made some friends along the way,

 

sadly, we didn’t find any seals though.

 

Sunday was time for some road riding adventures. We head out to Red Rocks, our favourite place in Wellington, its just lovely.

 

Followed by a little coffee stop in Oriental Bay (Where I used to go running, pre-work life) and sat watching dogs playing on the beach and plotted which ones we were going to steal.

James: All of them, even the stupid litle poofy one

 

 

The dog-less adventure continues…