Last couple of times out have been just Alice and me, Miranda playing stork at the time. I’ve selected tracks that would throw me into the hilly stuff and these indeed do that, but in very different ways.
The Anderson Track features a warm up km to the junction, then a very long and at times quite steep uphill slog from the Auckland City Walk to the Scenic Drive. The return trip, when you’re a bit on the tired side takes you down the hundreds of steps you’ve just climbed up.
If you don’t understand what a “descending contraction” is when you start, you will by the time you’ve finished. It’s your leg muscles putting the brakes on as you slowly lower yourself from one step to another. Normally I lead with the same leg as much as I can, as thyat is the stronger, but after a bit of Feldenkrais work from Gillian, this time I was able to make it all the way down, first one foot, then the next.
The Chateau Mosquito Track off the Anawhata Rd was named, I believe, after an ancient hut/shelter along its way, to take the piss out of the then-newest jewel in NZ’s tourism crown, the Chateau Tongariro. No sign of it today, and no mosquitoes either, but hundreds of wasps down by the stream, one of which became stuck in the hair on Alice’s face and stung her a couple of times. A pleasant and generous track, a little scruffy at first, and then heading very steeply downhill to the stream.
The uphill push on the way back was a real lesson in energy management, and I found myself briefly in that place I recall fron school cross-country races of just wanting to vomit. I had brief fantasies of being helicoptered out, but all was well after a 15 minute rest. I had been in a hurry because of the wasps to move on after eating and I hadn’t given lunch time to settle properly.
Haven’t done the full writeups on either of these yet. To come when things get wet and cold and slippery I tell myself.