So I got to thinking

I just read Mario's blog about not just posting a chronicle of what you have done because it is like bragging and crap like that. I thought about that for a few minutes and I thought, nope... I am fine with bragging. This isn't so much for other people as much as it is for me. It is a way for me to write down what I have done and let other people know was well. I have friends and family who read this because they want to know what is going on in my life. Simple as that... If people want to take it as though I am bragging, well, fine. I know that I am not completely self-centered. So, here goes the chronicle...

Friday night I hung out at home and crashed out early so that Simon and I could get up for some mean tramping in the morning. We got up at 6 am and headed out at 6:30. We stopped by my work and made a cuppa for the road. Took us about 1.5 hours to get up to Thames on the Coromandel Peninsula. From there it is about a 30 minute drive on a gravel access road to the Webb Creek Track to the Pinnacles. We had to ford several rivers on the way up the road in my car. Great first mission for the car. We stopped at the visitor's center to be told that the track from the Pinnacles Hut to the top of the Pinnacles is closed for maintenance. We were obviously gutted. The girl also told us that the weather would be crappy. I didn't believe her. We had seen the weather reports and the skies in Thames were clearing nicely only 15 kms away.

We continued on up the road. There was a huge slip across the road and we had to pull a tree out of the way so that we could keep driving:


We started the track about 9:30 am. We made it up the the Pinnacles Hut and ate a snack. There was a sign there saying the track wouldn't be closed until Monday the 21st. Stupid DOC girl at the office... We made it up to the top and the skies had cleared. We got some incredible views and some lunch then headed back down.


What a great tramp. We were really lucky with the weather and the slip and the top being open, and everything really. I'm ready to have some more missions with Simon soon...

Today I just sat around most of the day. I went over to Samantha's house to watch a movie with some people and I fell asleep during it. I did some grocery shopping and figured I would come to the internet cafe to write some stuff down instead of doing this at work tomorrow.

Can't wait until the mountain opens...