Wrighting Myself

Sunday. A day of rest. Time to gently warm back into the training and take my lovely 11month old niece on a hike!

There is a plan emerging, involving a mammoth 60km trek / walk / run in a fortnight so we (PJ also signed up for this one) get something of appropriate length (where we know the route!) under our belt. This will be a great opportunity to connect most of the terrain I´ve covered - Kaukau, Wilton HIlls, Makara Peak, the Gutbuster and Hawkins Hill (sorry Colonial Knob and Eastbourne - but that´s just getting silly!).

However, connecting Makara to Hawkins means covering some new ground somewhere in the dim, dark recesses of Karori. I´d planned to run Makara Peak to Wrights Hill and, as ever, make it up and discover the route as I went along. However, ¨could you do some babysitting¨ intervened, and my 5kg pack evolved into 11kgs of leaf eating, wriggling and snoozing (!!) niece.

The dim, dark recesses of Karori turned into South Karori Road and the start / end of a lot of mountain bike tracks. Deciding that there were far too many mountain bikers on the path to scale with aforementioned pack - no matter how excited she was to see all these people whizzing past - we headed up Fitzgerald Ave and, spotting the Wrights Hill Summit sign, started up the winding track.

The track itself was pretty easy going, winding back and forth, rising, descending and rising again towards the summit. Having said that, having a lop-sided pack (the passenger kept insisting on looking over my shoulder) added to the challenge. As I chatted to her, pointing out the birds, the view and generally working hard on a continuous monologue (I´m sure she was taking it all in), I became aware she was even less responsive than usual as she slumbered her way through the boring bits (the uphill, not her Aunty´s conversation!).

We arrived at the carpark and made our way via the bushline to the summit where, putting down my passenger, I admired the view while she clambered around the lookout eating daises, convinced her Aunty was the smartest, most gorgeous and fittest person she´d ever met. She´s such a smart wee lass.

We headed down from the summit and onto the Gutbuster track circling Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, looking for a right hand turn that would take us back down towards South Karori Road, but only found the Parade Ground and another route around the summit.

Arriving back at the path we´d come up from Karori, we started our return journey with only a short detour 100m down a ¨difficult¨ mountain biking track. This would have eventually lead us back down to Fitzgerald Ave, but given the rooty, rocky terrain and the ongoing relationship I wanted with my niece´s mother, I decided against it and headed back the way I´d come.



We arrived back at the car - she delighted to have found more daisies to eat, and me, glad that the legs and hip seem to be working again.