Monthly Archives: January 2016

Henderson Bike Ride

We went back to the Waitakere Ranges this weekend for some more hiking, but with a change of pace. This time we biked to the park from the train station in Henderson down a quite nice bike trail until we got into the park. Our original plan was to park our bikes at the first trailhead, but there was a guy sleeping in a run down car at the trailhead so we figured our bikes would be safer up the trail a bit. We ended up hiking with our bikes for a couple of kilometers, which felt a bit silly.

The hike, as always in the Waitakeres, was very pretty and pleasant, though next time we go I am bringing a swimsuit as their is always an ocean or waterfall pool to swim in and I don’t want to miss out on it again. Next time we do the Waitakeres, we might be giving the 4 day Hillary Trail a shot.

The Henderson Park bike trail, I am jealous of anyone who could go on daily walks anywhere on this park.

The Henderson Park bike trail; I am jealous of anyone who could go on daily walks anywhere in this park.

It is always fun to hike with a bike. :)

The standard trail of the day. Well the other half of the day was stairs, but I was too tired to take pictures then.

The view from the top of the old carriage trail was awesome. We will have to go back on a clear day.

The view from the top of Old Carriage Trail was awesome. We will have to go back on a clear day.

We found what looked like a giant fiddle fern.

We also found what looked like a giant fiddle fern.

Riverhead Bike Ride

Jasmine and I are trying to start on some longer bicycle rides, mainly to round out our hiking, running, and swimming. In our first long ride in a while, we biked northwest towards Riverhead. It was a fairly nice bike ride; about one third was on dedicated bike path, one third was on bike lanes, and one third was on a wide shoulder. The only major issue was for around 300 meters up hill there was no shoulder on a busy road which proved quite exciting.

All in all, it was a 55 km ride which was quite a bit of fun as we stopped at a cafe and then a park for a homemade tamale lunch. I love tamales but they are a bit dry for cycling food so maybe burrito or sandwiches next time. Plus then we got to sit around for the rest of the day after we got home because 55 km is a long bike and we were tired. I guess we should start some training.

A little bit of hiking in a park out by Riverhead. It gets rural quickly out west of Auckland.

We tried for some strawberry ice cream on the bike ride home but we failed. Next time we will not stop at the last place before we get back to the city.

Sunset Quilt

I’ve been wanting to make a full-size quilt for a while now so when we needed a second quilt for the summer (and guests), I jumped on the opportunity. Lloyd drew up the original design for this and then I turned it into an applique quilt pattern. We decided to go with a sunset theme for the colors and spent quite a bit of time at the fabric store looking for three warm colors that were distinct and looked good together. After many hours sewing on and braiding the applique strips, the quilt is finally done and we are very excited.

The finished quilt!

As I’m slowly working through the solar system in quilting, this one needed a label. The Sun!

I also put my monogram on it.

Pauanui

One of the professors that Jasmine works with has a beach house down on the Coromandel in Pauanui so we went down for a couple of days down around New Year’s. It was a fair bit of fun, a combination of the standard hanging out on the beach and going for a nice hike one day. The beach was a couple of blocks away so we went swimming a number of times, which was nice. There was also some shellfish at the beach so we went clamming for dinner one night. Plus there was a quite nice fireworks show on New Year’s Eve.

The highlight of the trip was a nice hike up in the hills, which is currently a park but used to be a gold mine. The mines were the key part of the trip as there are glowworms in the mine! The largest tunnel was 500 m long and was pitch black in the middle minus the slight blue glow of the worms. Not enough the see by by any stretch, but they looked like little stars on the top of the ceiling. I was very excited.