Tassie in Pictures

by Alan
Some pictures from a fantastic couple of weeks in Tasmania at the Oceania Orienteering Champs.

New year with Fran, Paul Moira, Keiran and Aiden in Hobart.

Spectacular coastal scenery and wildlife on the Tasman Peninsula.

Geocaching in the lost world on Mount Wellington:

Camping at Freycinet National Park:

Wineglass Bay, Freycinet National Park.

Kayaking to the Hazards at Freycinet.

Bay of Fires

Finally a few shots of actually orienteering and Julia on the podium for winning the long distance and best performance over the week in Women open B.

Running the Hillary Trail

by Alan

Having signed on as a support runner for Mal Law's High-5-0 challenge sometime last year, I needed lots of running miles in my legs and money in the bank for the Mental Health Foundation. Hosting a weekend running the 74km of the Hillary Trail was the perfect way to achieve both in the same weekend. Seven "guest" runners signed up for the weekend so with me & Julia both joining them there were nine of us starting running the Goldie Bush track followed by the spectacular technical clifftop running of the Te Henga walkway. Unfortunately Julia slipped off the path on this section and damaged her hamstring meaning she had to pull out after limping to Bethells Beach.

Leaving Bethells, we temporarily lost Mark & then Mairi and Min went for a cool-down swim in Lake Wainaimu. For some reason that climb over Kuataika is never easy no matter which direction you run it - Jason got hammered by cramp so we farewelled him at Piha off to the 2-cellos gig. Luckily the Piha store was open for those who'd finished their fuel supplies, as there is still one more big climb to get to Karekare. Rain on this section didn't dampen any spirits and was another welcome cooling meaning no one took up the option of a swim in the waves or in the waterfall at Alan & Julia's place.

As you'd expect Julia cooked up a storm for everyone to refuel & it was great to relax and share trail running stories before an early night to prepare for day-2.

After nearly 40km of running and over 1000m of climbing on Saturday, my legs weren't relishing a repeat on Sunday. Still, once we got going the legs loosened up for a cool run down Karekare beach before the steep climb up the Muir track and downhill blast to Wahtipu. The attrition continued with Patrick leaving us before the big climb of Omanawanui. Always a great place to run with spectacular views over the Manakau heads especially on such a stunning day.

The final stage of the Hillary to Arataki is mostly on gravel roads - not my favourite running. However due to a slip on one of the roads, an alternative route took us into tracks I have never run. The steep gnarly nature of the Panto track made me wish for a bit of easy road though. Finally we were onto the Slip Track and the finish at Arataki. I'm glad to say not everyone pulled out and Mark, Min and Neal were still with me at the finish (4 of the original 9!).

Thanks to everyone for coming and to Jacqui for hanging out with the kids. Thanks everyone for contributing and helping me raise $2,300 for the High-5-0 http://www.high50.org.nz/

Highlights of 2014

To start this blog going, a few highlights from 2014 before we get into the 2015 adventures:

2014 started with New Year celebrations at Makaroa with Myriam, Ron, Erik, Leon & Tina. Then mountain biking with Jon and Row around Queenstown. Four days of biking the 160km of the Otago Rail trail with Laura, Paul, Riley, Tara, Granny B, Kev, Clare & Matt was experienced in widely varying weather from blistering heat, to torrential rain and the dreaded headwinds. 4 weeks in the South Island was finished off with a day rafting the Clarence River with Paul as our guide.

At the end of summer, Alan and Julia were part of the Theta team at the CureKids great adventure race. A tough race eventually saw us come in 7th place after an early navigation error put us at 23rd ( of 25 teams). But best of all Theta raised over $14,000 for this excellent cause.

At Easter we were off to our first National Orienteering Champs north of Wellington, here Ryan came home with medals for a 2nd and 3rd. The rest of the week was cruising around Hawkes Bay in a campervan, tramping for a night at sunrise hut in the Ruahine ranges and mountain biking at Eskdale and Taupo.

Winter holidays we were back in the South Island with the Barrett's looking for snow. The White stuff was pretty slim on the ground at Mt Hutt but we managed a day up on the mountain before heading off to Hanmer Springs for mountain biking and hot pools instead. Alan and Paul did get to experience some snow on a very cold mountain biking ride while the more sensible members of the family stayed inside playing games.

One fine winter weekend we tried our first winter skiing and camping trip. Camping at the DOC site below Mt Ruapehu was freezing in the mornings but cosy overnight in our warm sleeping bags. Well worth it for the amazing days of skiing, our first time of skiing all over the mountain with both Ryan and Kyla. Skiing off the top of the far west t-bar at the end of the day was a moment to be savoured.

Orienteering became a big focus this year with the Nationals at Easter, Auckland champs late in the year and Oceania champs in January as well as many of the local Auckland races in between. Ryan is the star orienteer of the family regularly getting podium places while the rest of us make up the numbers and count the number of places above last. As usual we were also at many other rogaines, adventure races and MTB orienteering events. A 12hr event at Whangamata resulted in a 1:30am finish a mere 14hrs after starting and over an hour after our biking lights had run out of batteries. The kids are currently leaving these long races to mum and dad but are happy to join us on shorter races with Ryan and dad completing 6hr Great Forest Rogaine in Rotorua and all four of us at the 6-hour P6 adventure race.

The year finished with Ryan graduation from Lone Kauri School to head to intermediate school. A week after receiving an award from ICAS for the top Science score in NZ we were at the school prizegiving where he had several call-ups to collect trophies then topped it off with being awarded the Dux for 2014. A fantastic end to a fantastic year.

The Mad Moores

Welcome to the Mad Moore’s blog. Blogs by the Moore family from Karekare, New Zealand about mountain biking, orienteering, adventure racing, tramping, skiing, rogaining, geocaching, camping and any other adventures we conjure up...