A Dubber at Duders

Last Wednesday Mick and John thought they’d do the walk at the Duder Regional Park. They asked Jenny and me if we’d like to join them. Jenny is a member of a small elite sewing circle and it was her turn to host their fortnightly bee so had to decline. I accepted for the same reason.

The park is at the old Duder farm, which the family donated to the Auckland Regional Council, out at the headland just past Maraetai, on the way to Clevedon. It’s been open for a couple of years and nothing much in the way of development has been done so far. There’s still sheep and cattle grazing. There is an information office (unmanned) with maps of the two walks available. There’s also a couple of beaches, but very tidal.

One of the walks is along the shoreline to an old Maori pa. The other longer one circles along the shoreline for a bit, climbs up a steep hill to a trig station, then back along (up and down a couple of hills) to the carpark. We chose the latter.

Thirsty work!

It was a lovely sunny day, but windy when we got up to the top of the hills. Not too hard a walk though.

Time to take a picture (I think it was an excuse to rest for a moment)

When we reached the highest peak by the trig station the view was magnificent. Across to Waiheke and Coromandel.

View to Waiheke through the trig station

The sea was like a sheet of glass and, surprisingly, not a yacht or fizz boat to be seen anywhere. But then again, it was a Wednesday.

Coming back down to where we parked the car was tricky. It was so steep we had to zig zag to stop falling over and rolling down.

As you can see from this we haven’t had a lot of rain this summer!

The recommended time they allowed to do this walk was 1hr 50min. We did it in 1hr 10min, and that included stopping for rests and taking pictures. We’re fit!
After the walk John drove us round to Clevedon. We had planned to have lunch there, but decided of the two eating places, one was too upmarket and the other a fish & chips takeaway, so we carried on and had lunch in Whitford. After that we did a drive round the side roads to look at the mansions, and there are quite a few around that area. There’s a lot of people with plenty of money to spend on their houses.

Back home in time to make afternoon tea for Jenny and her three guests.

On the Thursday Jenny had her turn. Pam and she had been invited to make up the numbers to fill the bus the Howick Horticultural Society hired to take them to Morrinsville for a floral art exhibition. The fact that there was also a quilting exhibition on in Morrinsville at the same time was an added attraction.

I gave Jenny a lesson on how to use my digital camera (her camera has died again, she’s planning on buying a new one before we leave for Greg’s Wedding) and off they went. Whereas I took five photos on my day out, she took 40 on hers. Here is one of them . . .

Knock knock, who’s there, Isobel, Isobel who, Isobel on a bike!

And lastly, but not leastly, Aaron and I played in the parent/child tennis tournament yesterday. As we had won it last year, and Aaron the year prior with Darryl, and as it was supposed to be a fun day, I didn’t think it would be political to win again. I needn’t have worried.

There were a lot more entered than last year, with a big range of abilities, from 9-year-old beginners playing with unfit mothers to Aaron’s age and level playing with competent parents. It was a knock-out with a plate and consolation so everyone was guaranteed three games. To get through the amount of games, the first two rounds were to be first to three, then first to six in succeeding rounds. We were given a reminder that they didn’t want to see anybody hitting the ball hard at the younger and lesser ability players.

Aaron and I were drawn against a boy slightly younger than Aaron and his father. We started tentatively and both Aaron and I hit pit-a-pat shots to the boy only for the father to rush across and smash away winners. We were 2-0 down before it dawned on us that this father was taking it rather seriously. We rallied a bit, but lost 3-1. Oh, the humiliation, knocked out in the first round. But we felt better when we watched Darryl and Lucas win their first match. Aaron was so proud of his little brother!

We did win the plate event without too much trouble, and the pair who beat us won the title.