The Flying Scotts – Page 2 – Chris and Gemma Scott

Race Time

A little late, but I thought I’d share with you my first taste of racing in New Zealand…..Somehow racing the Panasonic triathlon after a 3months absence from riding my bike and after a set of 7night shifts turned out to be quite enjoyable. The race took place at Mission Bay, a 30min drive from our house. It was a lovely calm morning when we arrived at the beach and we were treated to a lovely sunrise while setting up my spot in transition.

I was a bit unsure about whether or not to wear a wetsuit as it didn’t really seem worth it for 500m but I changed my mind once I saw that everyone else was wearing one. I probably should have stuck to my instincts as I struggled to get it off in transition and probably wasted more time peeling myself out of it than I saved by wearing it!

I managed to exit the water as first individual female and then made my way out on the bike course. As mentioned previously, I haven’t ridden my bike for the past 3 months so I was expecting to lose quite a lot of time to the other girls! There was a LOT of drafting going on with some huge packs forming. Determined not to be part of it I would drop back when overtaken by a pack, or sometimes try and overtake the packs (with little success!). It was quite frustrating to see other girls freewheeling behind a pack of guys and going at the exact same pace as me!! It wasn’t until after the race that I learned that it was actually a draft legal race and that I should have just sat in with the packs and use them to my advantage! That will teach me to listen to the briefing next time!! Despite my lack of bike fitness and solo ride, I managed to average 36.1km/hr over the 20km and posted the 5th fastest female bike split.

I definitely paid for the tough ride during the run and really struggled to find my legs. I managed to lose 5minutes on the run to the fastest runner, which was a little frustrating, but not unexpected given my lack of preparation.

I ended up finishing 4th in my age group and 6th overall. According to the results the 3rd place in my age group was only 4 seconds ahead of me – a little strange as there definitely wasn’t anybody right infront of me on the finish line! I was 3minutes behind the overall winner, an encouraging thought as I’m fairly confident that I could knock off 3minutes once I get some fitness back.

It was great to get back in the saddle and get a taste of the sport I love in this beautiful country…..next time though I’ll be much fitter! It is the end of season now so I have plenty of time to get my fitness back over winter.

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.

Easter Travels

After a tiring few weeks at work, we decided to make the most of the Easter long weekend and headed south to Lake Taupo. We set off from Titirangi on Friday afternoon and drove the 300km down to the Motuoapa Bay campsite on the south east end of Lake Taupo. We pitched our tent close to the lake and after getting eaten alive by all the bugs decided to hide in the tent and read our New Zealand travel book (thanks Mum!) and make some plans for the weekend.

On the Saturday morning we got up early and were greeted by grey clouds and pissing rain – standard camping trip for us! Fortunately the rain disappeared as we headed 40km north to the town of Taupo. Our first stop was at the Huka Falls on the Waikato river. Although the falls are a lot smaller than High Force back in the UK, the colours of the river were spectacular and it was definitely worth a visit.

After the Huka falls, we headed to the nearby ‘Craters of the Moon‘, an impressive geothermal area with lots a large craters and steaming mud. We were quite hungry after all our exploring and so headed into Taupo to get some food. We ate (far too much as usual) at a lovely little Cafe down by the waterfront and then did a wee bit of shopping in order to buy some hiking clothes in preparation for Sunday’s expedition.

Sunday morning was another early start as we got ready to do the famous ‘Tongariro crossing‘. We drove to the finish of the track and met with Rosemary and Katrina, two of my friends from work, before catching the shuttle bus to the start of the hike. Initially we were a bit sceptical about doing the walk as the weather looked quite poor, but we are both glad that we went ahead with the hike as it actually turned out to be a beautiful day. The Tongariro crossing is said to be the ‘best one day hike in New Zealand’ and we can certainly see how it has earned that reputation. In general the hike is not particularly technical and the views are simply stunning. Particular highlights include the views of some active volcanos (including the famous ‘Mt Doom’) and the Emerald Lakes. The hike was approximately 20km in total – it is safe to say that we have definately earned our easter eggs this weekend!

See below for some more pictures of the weekend.

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.

Gem arrives in Auckland

After three weeks of living out of a suitcase and reminding mum what it was like to have my mess scattered all over the house it was finally time for me to head out to Auckland to join Chris.

I was really pleased that Mike was fit enough to join me and mum on our trip to the airport, it meant a lot to me. I had been dreading saying goodbye for weeks and it was just as difficult as I had expected. I was really lucky to have Chris’ mum and dad come to the airport to see me off too, and to be honest, it made the goodbyes a little bit easier as they stayed with me for a bit after mum and Mike left. I will have to take Chris’ mum to the airport more often as she made for the easiest trip through airport security I have ever had – we were chatting for so long that I was the final person of the day to go through security and they were all waiting for me!! Thankfully there was still plenty of time before the plane was called for boarding.

After 3 flights and over 24 hours of travelling I finally made it to the other side of the world. I caught the SkyBus into town and met Chris outside his work. We then caught another bus which took us to our beautiful house in Titirangi. There was even some Lindt chocolate waiting for me in the fridge – thanks Chris! We had a wee walk to the shop to get an ice-cream and had a chat with our neighbour, Steve, who seems really friendly. After all my travelling I was desperate to get some sleep and managed to fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow! Unfortunately the sleep was short-lived as Chris managed to press the ‘PANIC ALARM’ next to the bed, which looks exactly like a light switch!!

The picture below shows the sunrise, as viewed from our spare bedroom. Taking bookings now!