A real southern beauty

The perfect end to a perfect run

Wow, what a weekend. I had been looking forward to some time in Nelson Lakes with my ol’ mate Karen, but this surpassed all expectations. After a cruisy start to the day we arrived in Nelson Lakes late morning and set off around Lake Rotoiti. The mountains were mostly clear and just got clearer as the day went on. It’s a wonderful run up the west side of the lake in beech forest, up Travers Valley to a classic kiwi swingbridge, over the river and back down the other side. All up a 34km run and it warranted a reviving dip in the icy lake at the end.

Real vans have coffee pots!

Later, as we relaxed by the lake, the local traffic policeman drew up and pulled out his notebook, giving us a worrying moment. However he turned out to be a bit of an adventure racer himself and was interested in the RoadCraft van from a purely personal point of view! We sang its praises, for praise is what it deserves, and told him all about the 7in7 too. While chatting with him a rare pair of kaka flew overhead and we all agreed this was a good omen for the big adventure. Then he was on his way and we settled in for dinner and a movie – the fellas are RoadCraft think of everything and our van was even equipped with flat-screen TV and DVD with surround sound system!

When the training gets too tough!

Sunday turned out to be an even better day, kicked off with breakfast by the lake, complete with stunning views to the snow-capped peaks at its head. Suitably fuelled we set off on a run that took us up the 800m climb to the Mt. Robert Ridge, still with large pockets of snow dotted around and yet more endless views that I don’t possess the vocabulary to describe. It was just so fantastic to be up high in prime alpine country with blue skies, white snow, rust-coloured tussock and down below the green of the bush and the sublime deep, deep blue of the deep, deep lake. We’d anticipated this – well Karen had, because she’s run guided trips over here before – so were prepared with a wee picnic that we took time out to enjoy, while basking in warm spring sunshine and that smug feeling of “hey, we’re here and the rest of the world isn’t!” We eventually dragged ourselves away and back down the steep descent to the lake. Another 23kms for the training diary, but more importantly, some great memories to add to the ever-expanding library of the soul.

Today I climb back into the van (I do so love it – thanks Roadcraft) and drive west through Nelson and over the Takaka Hill into Golden Bay. I hope to get a few kms of running on the Abel Tasman track before heading on to tackle the Heaphy… stay posted, more to follow soon assuming I can get

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009 at 7:11 am and is filed under 2009 Blogs, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.