Sept Swim

Trying to go in the water every month for a full year can be harrowing, especially in winter. But we never thought we'd have trouble in September which, after all, is spring. But the weather was awful practically every day, and when it was sort of fine, then the tide was wrong and we wanted to go when it was high tide as it's easier then to plomp straight down into the water from the steps at Hataitai Beach.

So, we waited ... and waited ... Finally the last few days of September rolled around and we knew we had, like two days to do it in. We were very worried.

Finally, we did it! Yay! And what's more - wait for it! - we swam right across the bay and back again. No dilly-dallying to half way (like July) or quarter way (like August). We actually played around in the water, too and, dare I say it, didn't feel all that much like getting out. Wow.

October, here we come!!

My Las Vegas (Star Trek) Holiday

I went to the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas at the start of August 2010. I should be in to knitting, and cooing over grand-children, and watching "Days of our Lives", right? Wrong. To heck with all that aforementioned stuff, I'm a "Star Trek" fan, in all its incarnations. I'm not a rabid fan, I just feel comfortable watching the shows.

So many stars. Seventy of them. From Shatner, right through to practically every woman Kirk had ever kissed on classic Trek (he was on stage in front of 15,000, the women were in the dealers' room hawking ancient photographs of their moment of glory). Attendees at the con ranged in age from about 10 years to, well ... me, and older (many of the stars would have topped me in age!)

What amazed me about Shatner on stage was how quick, witty, sharp he is. He ran rings around everybody. I thought his talk with Nimoy might have been scripted, but when he answered questions from the audience, he was just as quick and witty, running retorts out so fast that my head was reeling (we all have friends like Shatner, yes?: we love them to bits but within a half hour of greeting them, we just want to shout 'slow down, I've got a headache'; we couldnt possibly keep up with their sharp wit and intelligence on a longterm basis).

Present were Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, Jeri Ryan, Jonathan Fraikes, Leonard Nimoy, etc.

I went to three "Beam Me Up Breakfasts" with about twelve stars, including James Darren (my childhood idol. He's still delicious). The breakfasts were like speed dating. The stars took turns sitting at every table (of about six) for five minutes. You had something like 15 seconds to take photographs at the beginning of the breakfasts. (In total, I took 169 photos, of which about nine came out, the rest were blurred because I zoomed in most of the time. Damn, my new Canon camera which I figure I hadnt learnt how to work properly!)

I went to a dinner at the top of the Stratosphere (equiv to our Skytower) where several of the Star Trek stars did some filking (putting different words to popular songs). Armin (Quark) and Max (Rom) were brilliant, especially dressing up in their Ferengi 'heads' and singing "Viva the Nagus" (the Nagus is the boss of the Ferengi race) instead of "Viva Las Vegas" (see photo).

One of the most stirring moments was at the dessert evening when four (male) fans who couldn't sing, bellowed out to karaoke "Faith of the Heart" (Enterprise theme). Everyone joined in, waving arms to music, swaying cigarette lighters, etc.

The entire convention was worth double the price and is on every year. Next year it will be at the Rio Suites instead of the Las Vegas Hilton because it just keeps growing and a bigger venue is needed. I believe NZ's Karl Urban will be there in 2011.

August Swim

Yep!! Done it again! Because I was away on holiday (more about this in a later blog) my friend and I couldn't do our August winter swim until the last half of the month. The weather was bad, we were getting a bit worried that what with the cold and low tide, and friends at the gym badgering us about had we done it yet .... So on Saturday, with a temperature high for that day of 13c, and a nice high tide at Hataitai Beach, we took the plunge. My goodness, it was cold! We went to about quarter way across the bay but then I worried that I might get caught out with hypothermia and not be able to make it back. So we returned triumphant. At least we never do quick plunges in and out like most of the so-called swimmers do for the mid-winter swim. We actually swim! We did it!-we did it!-we did it! It should be plain sailing (make that 'clear swimming') from now on in. The water should be warmer in September, surely? We are determined to say that we've swam (swum?) every month in a full year. We are the champions-we are the champions-lah-de-de-dah....

My every-month-a-year swims!

Hey, was I stupid, or what? Nope, don't answer that. Let me explain: my friend and I, not wanting to be out-swimmed by the other, both agreed to pop into the sea every month throughout 2010. All very well if you live somewhere up the line or in Auckland, but we're in Wellington (so 'nuff said, yeah?)

It was okay in January, February, March and April, of course. We always swim in these months. I tentatively slipped into the water in the first week of May. Mmmmm, not too bad, lovely in fact. It was balmy weather.

During the weekend before the shortest day in June, we looked snootily down our noses at the majority of the mid-winter swimmers (me, from in front of my tv, my friend before actually coming out of the water to be interviewed by a tv reporter). Most mid-winter swimmers hopped in and out of the sea with such alacrity, they could scarcely have got wet. We were determined to beat this.

We went into the water on the actual shortest day (21 June) - see photo. Swam to quarter way across the bay, and back. We decided on another swim on the 22nd. This time we were determined to get to halfway across the bay. Boy, it was cold both days. Still, we grinned at the shore, pretending the cold icy water wasn't worrying us, just in case folk - younger folk! - were watching from behind curtains. Outside temps for successive days, 13 and 14.

And, now, we've just done our July swim. Cold-cold-cold-cold-cold.... Brrrrrrhhh.... Outside temp 10. I got to quarter way across the bay and then remembered an aquaintance telling me about her uncle who'd had a heart attack during his own mid-winter swim. I swam quickly back to shore.

The water's going to be probably colder in August (we're-going-to-do-it-we're-going-to-do-it-we're-going-to-do-it- there's nothing like positive reinforcement!). So wish us luck, huh?

Getting that new passport photo

Hi. I have to get a new passport, and this means getting a new photo. I've never had a good photo taken of me. How come people like actor Hugh Grant can look cute in mug shots when they get arrested and I look terrible when I actually pose?
I picked the most well-known photography shop in town. No slap-dash chemist-shop-across-the-road for me, no siree. Nothing could be left to chance to obtain the photo that naturally would be bad but, hopefully, wouldn't be utterly terrible.
Well, the photo was absolutely positively utterly utterly utterly terrible!
Was it truly me in the photo? It couldn't be. I looked ancient. My hair was... grey! (oh, thank goodness that was just the light but what sort of photographer allows a subject to have grey hair?) I had crow's feet. I had wrinkles. There was a sort of a wart-like lump under my eye
I had practised non-smiling for, well, minutes before-hand. Practise didn't help.
To make matters worse the photographer had said "No glasses allowed. Take them off."
"What?" I'd rather have taken off my top. "But my glasses are me. I can't take them off."
"New rules," said the photographer. Glasses show a glint. No glints allowed."
I hadn't plucked my eyebrows. The photographer moved in close. Real close.
He was loathe to let me look at the finished product. After I'd all but wrestled the digital camera from his hands, I understood why. He obviously figured I would run from the shop without paying.
I was told to return in 20 minutes for the photo. I perked up. "You can photo-shop it, yes?" I beamed. "Make me beautiful. Make me like Jennifer Aniston please..."
"Sorry," the guy said. "That's not allowed."
There's one bright light on the horizon. I'm going to the chemist-shop-across-the-road next week for another go at a passport photo. And if that photo's terrible, I'll try another place. Then another ...
byeeee

Torrent Bay Abel Tasman National Park, NZ

I won 7 nights at any holiday home or bach anywhere in New Zealand! Okay, I did tear the perforated entry form out of a baches-to-rent library book, but don't tell a soul!

I chose "Fernbank" at Torrent Bay, in the Abel Tasman National Park, top of the South Island. ($160 a night for folk who don't win compeititions). Torrent Bay has this teeny little village of holdiay homes because it was there before Abel Tasman was declared a national park ... so it stayed. Nearest (basic) shop, something like a five hour hard hike. Or a half-hour (expensive) boat-ride to Kaiteriteri. (departure point). I took my food in with me, all the way from Wellington, and carried out my rubbish . No phone reception but there is a free phone for the Motueka area on jetty. A resident told me she climbed to top of hill above Torrent Bay, at 4 pm every day to contact her family. But I think she could only use Telecom mobile, and maybe only texts???

There are only a couple of holiday homes to rent at Torrrent Bay (Torrent Bay, being roughly in the middle of the Abel Tasman Walking track.) My place was a unit, one of two. Upstairs and downstairs, and takes six or seven people, and no electricity as such (solar roof panels instead). There was a fridge with deep freeze, a proper gas stove (I'm scared of flames so I only used it to boil water for my instant mashed potato). Compost bin. Nice furniture, nice beds. A deck. Proper bathroom, with shower., barbecue, separate toilet. Two sit-on kayaks (I picked a choppy day to go out, capsized twice, and swam back to shore, towing kayak!). No television. No washing machine. Brought in my own radio (good reception), i-pod. A hop, skip from the sea. All water has to be boiled hard for several minutes.

I swam half a dozen times a day. Golden sands. Lots of great walks: Cleopatra's pool (with natural rock slide); Anchorage (beautiful bay. Half hour walk away at low tide, one and a half hours at high tide); Bark Bay (I miscalculated here. Booked a boat to return to Torrent Bay when I could have walked back as well as walking there - it wasn't very long to hike it and the boat fare was expensive).

Maybe fifteen other holiday homes. All having evolved from small family-built baches (a bach is a hastily slapped-together one-roomed holiday home, in kiwi-talk). Nowdays most of these baches, having been handed down the family line have turned into houses. One, even cost seven million!!! The time will come, I am positive, when ordinary people won't be able to afford to come here. So grab the chance while you can.

I didn't have a scrap of rain in the seven days I was at "Fernbank" in February. Temps: 26c-29c. I loved the fact that all these weary trampers trudged through, hot and bothered and I was just lazing on the beach all day (that's how I originally fell in love with Torrent Bay - I trotted through it hot and bothered, too!).

At low tide, you have to tramp out about a kilometre or so for the boat with your luggage. The last few metres, you are maybe, in ankle to knee deep water, so check that you arrive and leave at high tide - unless you want the fun of it! Look at my photo, see the big rock with the tree on it that is roughly in the middle? Well, that's where the lowest of low tides finishes up. You will have to walk to there with your luggage.

There's a wonderful 'swimming hole' at the end of Torrent Bay (the 'channel' where the boats go through to get to the lagoon) that is used at low tide when the normal sea-swimming is, like, a five minute slog away from the beach.

Food I took from Wellington for the week ( went solo): 3 Maggi 'Mash' Instant mashed potato packets (the mix-with-water type), tin of mixed vegies , 3 small tins tuna, 3 small tins chop-chop chicken, small tin deli ham, cucumber, tomatoes, onion, packet of sponge fingers (yum!), half-a-dozen little 'parfait' tub-thingees of sliced peach and/or cinammon apple (these come mixed with a cream sort of stuff that was lovely - but these parfaits are also quite hard to find in supermarkets), couple of big pats of both mango chutney and peanut butter, a block of 'bubble' chocolate (hehehe; I had a 'line' a night, straight from the fridge, wonderful!), 3 pkts of lemon cordial mixture , loaf of sliced bread, a packet of a dozen little bread rolls (the almost-ready type that you 'bake' for ten mins - and I did, before I left home), two hiking meals that I had to abandon they were so revolting, packet of cheese slices, cornflakes, and 3 little packets of long life milk. I don't drink hot drinks.

Do go to Torrent Bay because it's really lovely. Oh, there is a lodge there which looks nice and is owned by Wilsons. It's on the beach. Meals for guests only. I think it's expensive. You can erect a tent behind Torrent Bay but I think you get permission beforehand from DOC and can, maybe only stay overnight. There's a proper camping facility at Bark Bay which is definitely DOC booking.

those new hiking boots

I had some new hiking boots and yesterday decided to 'christen' them by walking from Days Bay to Valentines buffet restaurant in Petone for lunch. Only, probably, an hour's walk, I told myself.

I'd been on the ferry from Wellington to Days Bay (about a half hour journey) , oh, three times, over last couple of months and each time I wondered why it wasn't crammed to the rafters with tourists. Auckland ferries are always full, maybe they advertise better?.

(Wellington Harbour is so beautiful and the ferry across the harbour to Days Bay is so cheap. Several of the journeys stop at Mat.-Somes Island mid-harbour. It's a protected island with no predators at all, has a nice history too. Only takes about an hour and a half to traverse and except for one optional steep track is not difficult to walk at all. Sandals are fine to walk in.)

It was very hot when I alighted at Days Bay, and the coastal track was extremely narrow in places, with cars whizzing past, missing me by centimetres. Okay, okay, maybe it wasn't that dramatic, but I'm a dramatic person, so bear with me a little, huh?. I was re-listening to the last Harry Potter book on my MP3 player. (Oh, a note for solo walkers: this is a semi-urban track, with houses on one side, sea on the other. It's not scary in the least, no chance of being attacked . )

I started off singing that hiking song that val-de-rees and val-de-rahs all over the place, truly enjoying myself. "Only a couple of headlands to weave around and I'm in Petone," I figured.

But there always seemed to be another headland to weave around, and step by step, underneath my left sole, it got hotter and ticklier and pricklier. Oh, no, a blister was forming!

It formed. And not just one blister came. But two. I don't do things by halves. The walk, in the end, took 2 hours, which to me should have been a nothing walk really. I'm used to two hours' hiking. Can do it on my head. Usually. But after my first hour on the Days Bay to Petone walk, I was in agony. I threw curses on my new hiking boots. I wanted to throw them into the sea, but walking barefoot would've been worse.

Okay, I could have hopped on a bus but that was cheating, surely? I limped, stumbled, staggered around the industrial area of Seaview and the marina, cursing every person who went comfortably past me in a car. I stopped to apply a band-aid and turn my sock inside out. I glared at a guy who dared to break off his whistling (whistling? Whilst I was in pain, dying? Folk have been killed for less) to wish me 'good morning' as we both traversed the connecting bridge between the Hutt Valley and Petone.

Opposite Valentines, on Petone beach, I applied another band-aid to my foot, and tried to spruce myself up. After all, I was going into a restaurant. I was in casual (by now wet) clobber, was sweaty, obviously stinky, with hair damp, and no make-up. The hike had only taken 2 hours, but because of the blistered foot and the heat, it had felt like 20.

Maybe in future, I'll try out new hiking boots on, say, a half hour walk instead. Bed today, I guess, as I can hardly step my foot onto the ground. Ah, the pain. But, maybe - maybe - I might go on a little hike again tomorrow!