Anzac Day

Last year Katarina, Zach and I were at Transformers camp. This year, Janine, Zach, Hannah and I went to the dawn service at the Timaru memorial, by the hospital, before Chris and I took our regular services. In fact, our services were fuller at Trinity. The St Stephens service was depleted by the RSA service. I shared some stories from grandad's first world war diary, which one of my cousin's has had transcribed. It was eerily prescient to hear him writing about April 25 being a red letter day in Australia a month after, as he landed at Gallipoli and started to hear the stories of what had happened. He slept that first night with his boots on, rifle and 200 rounds at his side, with men who had not taken their boots off for three weeks.

It is raining today for the first time in ages. Soccer was canceled on Saturday. Chris and I have been out for lunch today and we are planning a birthday party for my dad who is 70 on the 29th April. Hopefully all the family will gather, well, at least the ones who are in New Zealand!

Term Two in view

Who puts swimming on the first day back? Who remembers over two weeks of holidays to pack togs? Gleniti School need either more efficient parents or to look at their scheduling. The good news is that I found Hannah's missing reflective vest in her tog back. I'm not sure why the vest was hidden in there, certainly had me stumped!
I was kept up until all hours last night as Katarina suddenly decided her English homework needed a sounding board at 10 pm Sunday night. Not impressed!
Janine was also frantically painting yesterday.
However, they do have a great excuse - we were dragged into Cheese Roll making for Scouts. There was a hiccup with the bread order so they were a day late getting started, poor things. I'm not sure that the girls would have done their homework anyway!!!
The children were all pretty keen to get back to school and see their friends, there weren't too many moans and groans!

Rail Trail photos

Rail Trail Report

We knocked off the short stretch between Clyde and Alexandra on Easter Monday, a shake down ride after a day spent packing and traveling. After a night at the Alexandra Tourist Park, we headed off in the morning. Zach left his backpack at home, and we discovered his shoes were disintegrating so we nipped into town to pick up some new shoes. Chris put the brand new cycle computer on my bike, and Dad got the kids started. We were off!
We cycled as far as Ahripo, after the tunnels, and it was the prospect of those two tunnels that kept Hannah going. We walked some of Tiger Hill - hey, it's a long way for an eight year old! Dad thought he'd lost his medication,so they back tracked to find it. Turns out it was in the car all along! The computer stopped counting distances after a while but I managed to get the cadence function online.
Finding our accomodation was a challenge! We stayed in the Moa Creek Hotel, which is pretty basic, but up a step from the stone cottages. We took the long way around to find it, but got there in the end, lovely big warm fire, it was all good.
The next day, we picked up where we left off, a nice downhill run into Oturehua, after refueling at the local transport place. No tunnels today, but interesting country all the same. We reached the highest point on the trail today, and Nanny arrived just in the nick of time to encourage Hannah to the top.
The third night we stayed in Ranfurly, mum and dad in the motor camp, and we stayed with our friend Stephanie, who is the minister there. We had a great time catching up.
Finally we hopped on the trail again. Hannah was pretty tired, so we popped her bike on the trailer when we set off through the long straight bit from Ranfurly, and she jumped back on again at Daisybank for the interesting bit through the gorge and another tunnel! The big girls weren't that impressed, but kept going, despite sore muscles and sore posteriors.
Zach was awesome, had a great attitude, and saw the whole adventure as good training for soccer.
Finally, we managed to get the cycle computer back online - turns out the position of the sensors is Really Important - who knew!
We were a week too early for fabulous autumn colours but the weather was wonderful, either no wind or a gentle breeze from behind most of the way. There were lots of famiiles in all sorts of combinations, and we've had a great family adventure.

Before the rail trail

The dog is booked into the SPCA.
A borrowed trailer sits in the driveway, ready to be loaded with bikes.
The bike gloves and bike computer arrived on Saturday.
Two boxes of food are ready to go - just the chilli bin to go. Drink bottles cleaned - check. Tires ready - check.
We're not ready, but we are getting there. We're off to Alexandra today for the first leg of the Otago Rail Trail. We may even get to do the Clyde leg if we manage to get away at a reasonable time!
Easter has been a busy week, and we are all due a break. The kids are pretty excited about gold panning, although I suspect that will last about two minutes when they discover how cold the water is!