The mountains in the northern South island are pretty much snow free over summer and autumn so it is a good time to get back to basic’s here away from the bigger hills with tramping trips in our local Kahurangi national park . Generally fairly rugged but mainly bush country with only a few alpine tops, easily accessible and well tracked it is the ideal terrain for trips with the kids. I don’t particularly enjoy tramping in bush for long hours on foot - often with a heavy load so I figure the Kahurangi offers great mental as well as physical training.

In other aspects, although New Zealand is slowly opening up after more than 2 years of closure, foreign travel that many of us look forward to still remains largely out of reach with very few and very expensive flights arriving or leaving from here in the South Pacific. It seems increasingly unlikely anything interesting regards travel will be possible this year and that ever increasing pile of proposed international journeys I plan is more likely to get bigger rather then smaller.

The main idea now in my plans for the next few months is keeping morale together to keep training and improving and be ready for times when it is possible to get out an do some of those projects that are building up in my mind - something admittedly I struggled with last year. Without doubt though and greatly in favour of anyone in this region trying to keep in condition the local environment here is highly conducive to healthy living.

Compilation of a variety of autumn trips.

Almost the last trip! Close call here - not all trips in the Kahurangi are benign.

One interesting project over the last months was heading to Mt Arthur with local multi sport and adventure racer Caleb Hill as he tried to be the first to break the hour running to the top of Mt Arthur.