Windy Welly lives up to its name

After the best summer in decades, Wellington showed its dark side last night. The forecasters had warned that a 'weather bomb' was on its way.

And a weather bomb hit the bullseye.

Winds gusted up to 200km/h and the Cook Strait had 11m swells. The inter-island ferries were cancelled and moored in the centre of the harbour to protect them from being slammed against the docks. The airport was closed. Trees, benches and trampolines found new homes of their own accord.

It was classed as a Category 1/2 Atlantic Hurricane. Wowsers. But we bet you didn't hear about it on the news. Wellington has carried on functioning as normal. The coffee shops are open so all is right with the world!

We came away unscathed (so far). But others were not so lucky.

Annalie's Mum and Colin may recognise these pictures as being right outside the dive shop in Owhiro Bay (for those who haven't been, it's at the bit of coast at the bottom of our road).

We have a new toy

It doesn't have a name. Or a gender. It's just more practical for our needs. We figured our Scooby wad just a little too big for our requirements. So now we've got a mint with a hole...

Another month, another half marathon

Annalie's third half marathon in three months was the Vineyard Half in Marlborough. This region is reknowned for amazing Sauvignon Blanc, which is made possible by the cool nights and warm, sunny days.

The autumn weekend that greeted Annalie over the Strait typified this - although she hadn't counted on the 1 degree Celcius temps as she got up that morning (thank heavens we'd recently invested in an electric heater for The Bach!).

Her walk to the start line rendered her fingers inoperable, despite the glorious sunshine that drowned everyone at the start/finish line.

 

Once the race kicked off, the rest of her body started to warm up. However it took a full 9kms to regain fully-functioning fingers! Not ideal during a pee stop at 7kms, when she had to try and pull up her compression tights over sweaty legs with hands that didn't work properly!

Eventually they regained a pinkish colour, but they weren't really required too much, except to reach out for some of the samples of the local, ahem, fayre that was on offer. You'll be pleased to hear that no alcohol was consumed on the course, but some yummy food samples were not refused (it's called sustainance!).

She wasn't aiming for a time and even turned the volume on her running app down so she didn't know what pace she was running. It wasn't until she crossed the finish line that she knew she'd done around 2 hours again. The official time was posted a couple of days later at 2:00:01 - if only she hadn't needed a pee! (Because the Sauvignon Blanc gelato was a necessity ;) The official course photos make it look like she finished strong too.

The course was incredibly scenic and it was a wonderful event - as she keeps telling everyone! We don't think she'll be alone next year! And when you get a "medal" like this, why wouldn't you?

The Bach heads south

Considering The Bach is an ex-rental, we are certain it has ventured onto the "Mainland", aka the South Island, before. However, this was its first trip with us. Well, with Annalie anyway. She had to leave Ian and Maddy at home due to work reasons.

Annalie was heading to Blenheim in Marlborough to participate in her third half marathon in as many months. This one, however, was called the Vineyard Half, and if you're aware of what Marlborough is famous for, you'll understand why!

Annalie travelled over on the ferry on the Friday morning to get settled ahead of the saturday morning race. She managed to wander from her campsite to the start line as a loosener on the Friday afternoon, but mostly to check she didn't need to take The Bach with her and avoid the traffig/parking queues that were bound to happen. A pretty splendid afternoon in general.

 

 

Here's all the "medals" waiting for everybody who completes the HM

 

Some crazy Kiwi-ness - but it was worth it

On July 30th, we're going to train with the All Blacks. No, that's no lie. It's the truth. Annalie and some friends won a competition to train with the ABs conditioning coach and three of the team - nice!

To win this, Annalie and her friends had to put together a video stating why they wanted to win. We did a parody of the Air New Zealand safety video featuring Richard Simmons! We hope that the competition sponsors, Powerade, had a good giggle when they got it!

The competition was supposed to see the top five finalists go to a public vote, but for some reason, the other four finalists were ineligible so we won outright! And Annalie was lucky enough to be picked to bring a friend, so Ian gets to go too.



Annalie also thinks it shows off her weight loss a bit too :)

Some more photos of our run

Last time we showed you our results, but we wanted to show you that, in actual fact, we do run. So here's the proof of our attempts at crossing the finishing line...

Going round the forest this time

It would appear that the Round the Bays run wasn't a one-off for either of us.

This past weekend we headed up the coast to Waitarere to participate in the Great Forest run. Annalie managed to win a free entry into the half marathon via Twitter, so we headed off in The Bach to revisit the campsite we'd stayed at for our first night of campervan ownership.

With a range of distances to choose from, Ian decided to plump for a 5km sprint. Given that he's recovering from a hamstring injury, he didn't want to push it.

Annalie set off first at 9am. This time there was nobody to keep her company or stop her running too fast. The game plan was set to beat 2 hours 10 minutes, hoping to shave around 5 mins off her RTB time.

Her lack of running conscience buddy showed though, as she completed the course in under 2 hours! A goal she wasn't aiming for until the Wellington half marathon in June. Oh well. She'll just have to set another goal for then.

She finished just in time to see Ian off for the start of his race at 11.30. Waving him off with good luck in his ears, she thought she had about 25 minutes' respite before he crossed the line. 21 minutes later, a familiar figure crested the final hill and Ian sprinted for the finish line.

Even more impressive than a 21-minute finish time was the fact that he was placed 17th overall! Not bad when you consider he was up against club runners too. His biggest gripe was that 8 girls beat him!

Yes there are more runs in the pipeline, so this blog may now take on an additional agenda of updating you on our progress too! But having The Bach means we have so much flexibility, allowing us to combine our tiki tours around NZ with our newly emerged hobby!