Chris Scott – The Flying Scotts

Visitors

Mum, dad and Lucy came to visit in August. They flew into Auckland for a few days and then hired a campervan and travelled around the North Island for about 10 days, before returning to Auckland for a few more days. It was the middle of winter so the weather wasn’t great but there were still some nice days while they were here.

One of the days they were in Auckland we went to Piha beach, a west coast beach close to where we live. Apparently there had been some seals on the beach before we arrived but we just missed them. While we were there the tide came in and we had to climb over some rocks to get back to the car (Lucy was happy about this).

We then went for a walk to Fairy Falls, which involved a stream crossing and a large number of steps, but was quite impressive.

Another day we walked to the top of Rangitoto Island, a volcano just of the coast near Auckland. We got a boat over to the island and then spent a few hours walking around.

It was great to have them here visiting.

Whatipu beach

So far we have been really impressed with the western beaches near Auckland, having visited Piha, Bethells and Karekare beaches already. Last weekend we visited the southernmost of the western beaches, Whatipu, for the first time.

The beach was stunning and was quite quiet compared to the others, probably because it was a bit harder to get to. It took around 35-40 minutes to drive there and the last 6-7 km were on unsealed roads. We stopped at Huia Lookout Point on the way, which gave a great view of Manukau Harbour.

We went for a nice walk along the part of the beach – it goes on for many km’s – and will definitely be returning to do some walking/running on some of the trails in the area.

Rangitoto Island

We took advantage of a public holiday (the Queen’s birthday) to head over to Rangitoto Island, a 25 minute ferry journey from Auckland. Rangitoto is a volcanic island that last erupted around 600 years ago. We took our running kit and, following a route we found online, ran up to the summit, did a loop around to some lava caves and back up to the summit again. The views from the top were amazing, with great views of Auckland and the surrounding area. Not bad for winter.

We then ran down to the eastern side of the island, close to Motutapu Island. At this point we had to decide whether to retrace our steps and follow the road back to the ferry or to carry on as planned and follow the longer “coastal track”. The sign said the coastal track would take 2 hours 15 minutes and we had 55 minutes till the ferry was due – we’d been going about 3-4 times quicker than the signs so thought we would easily make it. Initially everything was good but the track turned out to be much rougher than the others on the island, consisting of large, loose volcanic rock. It was very difficult to run over and we started to wonder if we would make it back to the ferry in time. Fortunately the path eventually improved and, with a fast last couple of km’s (and a slightly delayed ferry), we just made it back in time!

Home sweet home

We have (pretty much) got all the furniture we wanted now so I thought I would put up a few pictures of the house. The dining table and chest of drawers for the bedroom were delivered this weekend – watching the delivery man single-handedly run up the stairs with the chest of drawers was impressive. We even sat down at our new table for our evening meal.

Sea swims

A couple of weeks ago we joined a local triathlon club for a swim at Mission Bay, on the other side of Auckland. The swim was at 7am on the Saturday so it was an early start but it was definitely worth it. We had a great time swimming through the sunrise. The water was really calm and very warm (no need for wetsuits). We swam for about 2.5km (although my watch only said 2) and it passed really quickly. We went for breakfast with the triathlon club afterwards and will definitely be going back again.

One of the swimmers in the tri club mentioned that there is a series of swimming race starting from the next beach along (Kohi Summer Swim Series), on Thursday nights throughout the summer, with distances from 500m to 2km. We decided get straight into it and went along on the following Thursday, along with Gemma’s friend from home Catriona, who was spending her last few days in New Zealand before returning to the UK.

It was way bigger than we expected, with hundreds of people taking part, and there was a really good atmosphere around the event. We all did the 2km race and were in the minority without wetsuits. It was good fun, although very choppy (the course was 1km out and back), and definitely showed a lack of fitness on my part. We all enjoyed it and we’ll be going back to the final two races in the series over the coming weeks (there are 18 in total).

Needless to say, we are both very impressed with open water swimming opportunities here.