Soggy camping, alpacas and Sting, and lots and lots of running...

Yikes, how can it be March already? The last several weeks have flown by, and we've been busy. 

Aroha Island
Mid-January we returned north to our favourite Aroha Island for a surprise birthday party for Gareth. Unfortunately, torrential rain dampened our plans (so to speak). We awoke to find our tent securely pegged down in several inches of water! A good waterproofness test...we were essentially sleeping on a giant water bed, but no water leaked its way in.

Party time despite the rain...

Campground turns into mini-lake...

Tussock Traverse
The next weekend we headed south to the Tongariro National Park, where Shelaine and I were running the 26 km Tussock Traverse (a training event for us as we get ready for the Motatapu marathon in March...yikes again, that's this month). More bad weather prevailed, and we ended up running roughly 24 of those 26 km into a stiff headwind. It was even hard to make headway going downhill!


Our bus to the start line, stuck in the sand...

Finally underway...

View at the top of the first hill...25.5 km to go...

Getting close to the end – and running downhill on formed paths (bliss!). A very kind participant snapped my pic for me...

Crossing the finish line...

Happy to be done...

We weren't the only ones at our hotel who'd run the muddy course that day...

Revisiting some of the course the next day...

Mike checking out the waterfall...

Cool kiwi statue we saw on our way out of town...

Mission Concert in Napier
A couple of weekends later we headed south and east on our bikes, again with Xen and Shelaine, bound for Napier. We had tickets to the famous-in-New Zealand Mission Concert, this year featuring Sting. The concert was good, but the highlight was definitely our homestay. When we booked it we had no idea that it was an alpaca farm. I dream of having an alpaca farm one day :).

Up close and personal with the alpacas...

So cute...

More cuteness...

You guessed it...more running, this time at the top of Te Mata Peak. Even on holiday the training can't stop...

That's some serious helmet head...

Nope, no photos from the concert...left the camera at the homestay (oops).

Training on the Islands
And the last two weekends have seen a couple of trips over to Rangitoto and Motatapu Islands for some training runs. The first was a long (36 km) and hot expedition for Shelaine and me – our longest marathon training run. The second was a comparatively gentler (21 km) event with Jean, Mike, and Sara, with plenty of breaks and socializing at the summit.

Pretty views...

We made it!

Phew, I must admit it was nice to spend this weekend primarily at home, catching up on sleep!