OPUS rowing

Hey all,

The last two weekends have been all about rowing. Believe it or not, I actually made it through 6 weeks of getting up at 5:30am every Tuesday and Thursday. And Andrea, bless her heart, managed to make it through 6 weeks of having me getting up at 5:30am every Tuesday and Thursday and didn't actually kill me. So all the training culminated in two weekends of races. The first race was all indoors on rowing machine (ergs). Our team of 8 faced off against several others at one of the local bars in town. Each person was required to row 500 meters before switching off to the next teammate. During our instructions we were explicitly told the location of the chuck bucket just in case.

This could be the worst picture of me...EVER. Truth is nobody looks good on an erg machine. Right?!?!?

We ended up coming in second place to one of our local rival engineering companies. But I happily didn't succumb to the chuck bucket and was able to enjoy a well deserved beer afterwards.

Before the start of things on Saturday.

The following weekend was the outdoor race. We arrived at Lake Waihola (30 min south of Dunedin) at 7:30 in the morning 'almost' ready to go. The morning started out with a mild wind that got progressively stronger as the morning went on. We were the third race of the morning and by that time the wind had developed to the point where white caps were starting to appear on the water. Our first race started out very poorly with us running into the boat on our left after 3 strokes. We were slightly ahead so we continued on into the wind. We caught up to the boat on our right that was in the lead and then, of course, we ran into them too. All ahead ramming speed!!! We didn't come out ahead in that one and ended second. We were luckily not disqualified and then unluckily told to rerace. Boo. The rerace was exhausting and totally pointless as the results mirrored our first race.

As we waited for our next race one the wind picked up even more and one of the other teams boat actually sunk.

Glad this wasn't us.

After waiting around for another hours as they removed the crew and boat from the water they decided to scratch the rest of the races that day and finish up on Sunday.

And what a difference a day makes. The weather was beautiful without wind. We had three races sunday. I was in the first and third races and got to sit out the semi finals. We won the first race although I broke the bracket holding my oar in place on the first stroke. (I wish I could say it was because I pulled so hard, but I believe it's more likely the craftmanship of the boat. One of our rowers blew his stirrups out during the finals and some of the other teams had some problems as well)

Here's us during the first race on Sunday. (I'm second from left)

The semi final race we came in second but were fast enough to qualify for the 3 team final race.

Here's what happens when you catch a crab. Despite doing this the team below still managed to beat us (we're the top boat).

The final race was pretty exciting by rowing standards. We got off to a good start and were neck and neck with another engineering team all the way down. We narrowly edged out the other team by fractions of a second.

Team Opus

Now it's time to catch up on some sleep!!! Woo hoo!

Love to all,
Dave

the pineapple track

Hey all,

Last Saturday before going to ultimate we finally hiked the pineapple track. The track goes up to the top of Flagstaff hill which overlooks Dunedin. This was our third attempt to hike the track after two prior attempts failed due to poor planning and our running out of time. It was a nice hike up through stands of native bush to the tussock and flax covered hilltop. We had lunch up near the top before heading down for our regular Sunday ultimate game. (Although for future reference it's impossible for me to run fast after hiking all morning). Here's the pics (you may have noticed that some of the pics in here seem to have gotten a lot better in quality. You noticed right. Several of these were taken with Drea's new camera)...

Interesting tidbit from the New Zealand Travel website: "The Pineapple Track is a walk along Dunedin's skyline with magnificent views of the city and Taieri Plains. It passes through the tussock country above the tree line of Flagstaff Hill.The Flagstaff Hill vantage point, high above the harbour and inland plains, proved useful in pioneering times. When a ship was entering the harbour, a flag was raised on the hill signalling the ship's arrival to the people on the plains and surrounding areas. Given the shortage of women at that time, bachelors from the Taieri Plains would make a hasty journey to the port in hope of getting a wife. The Pineapple Track's name comes from much later. In the 1920s a local grocer guided people up the track and provided a snack of tinned pineapple for the hikers when they rested at the top of a steep section. They would often leave the tins hanging on trees or fences."

Drea and Coco relaxing in the back yard.

Aramoana Cleanup and Harbour Bike Ride

Hi All,

The other weekend Andrea heard about a beach cleanup out at the little town of Aramoana 15km north of Dunedin. It was being organized by the local scuba diving group so it was a cleanup both on the beach and in the water. We thought it sounded fun so we hitched a ride with the group up to the beach and got to work. The weather out was gorgeous so we wandered up and back the mole (the constructed spit that prevents the channel into Dunedin from silting up) and then up and down the beach before breaking around 12pm for a barbeque.
Besides garbage, the people in the water were taking out invasive weeds. Andrea was inspired enough to climb down the on rocks and negotiate the tides to grab some of these from the shoreline.

Dave and Jeremy cleaning up on the mole

After the barbeque we were able to bike back home along the lovely coast road along the Western side of the Dunedin Harbour. Here's some pics from our ride...

A flax plant along the road.
A cute boatshed on the harbor
We stopped about half way for hot chocolate at a nice little hotel bar
Some public art along the road
Yay for Spring!!!!
We stopped off at the university on the way home. This is the Leith River as it runs through the university.
The Magnolia's were in bloom!
We also had some fun taking pictures around the university

Last stop, Dunedin botanical gardens (I think this is a statue of Peter Pan)

Miss you all,
Love,
Dave and Andrea

Yay Molly!

Congratulations to Molly (Andrea's sister in law) who is either:

a) the only person who actually reads this blog
b) the only person who knows how to leave a comment
c) the only person who wants a postcard from us
or
d) all of the above

The answer to the trivia question was that 204,000 current residents of new zealand were born in England. Molly won by being the only guess at 50,000. So we'll try this again for those of you that actually might want a postcard...

The current NZ population is roughly 4 million people and 40 million sheep. A ratio of 10:1 sheep to people. But how many sheep does Australia have? No fair googling. Closest guess gets a postcard.

Baaaaa,
Dave and Andrea