Howdy. Zak's the name. This is my little space on the web. The navigation links at the top of the page are the gist of the things you'll find, but I throw in some random thoughts and ramblings too.
Green Lake Overnighter
Date: 8 Jan, 2022
- Distance: 56.17km
- Elevation: 4,228m
- Moving Time: 16:27:18
- Elapsed Time: 30:24:22
At the carpark I farewelled my mates heading out to Green Lake hut along the main track, hoping to meet them there later. I took off north along the flats towards Borland Lodge Road and after about 10km started the climb up Eldrig Peak Track. The forest eventually opened up. There was a yellow sand which I wasn’t expecting. Must be something special going on here.
This then turned to some cracker ridge scrambling requiring my focus and attention to Eldrig Peak and Mount Burns. I hadn’t read or seen if anybody had done this route so was flying in the dark. It was just the right level of challenge for me. Sidling was an option for a lot of the way but for the most part I could take the ridge.
After Mount Burns I started my decent to Green Lake, stopping for a dip in a tarn before the main decent and the final slow slog into the hut through all the hidden creeks under the tussock on the flats.
Bunkered in with the girls and another hiker for the night, sharing our days stories and banter that goes with, said farewell again in the morning and took off up and over Mt Cuthbert, Rocky Tops and Cleughearn Peak. After the initial scrub bash, this leg was a bit smoother on the tops compared to the day prior, though fatigue had hit me pretty good. It was a grind..
The flats from Rodger Inlet Hut back to the start took a lot longer than expected. Got a classic Fjordland dumping of rain and made it back to the car within 10 minutes of the others!
#trailrunning #bigslog
Some things that come with a tourist destination:
- Traffic cones in monuments
- Views
- Developments
- Graffiti
- Ducks
#lunchwalk #queenstown #urbanism
Afternoon trots up past the launchpad. So good to be back at it.
#trailrunning
Urban ducks #walking
Trying my hand at coding again
Back in 2020 I started making these spinning 3D models out of my running gpx files. I’m not a programmer, and my code is ugly, but sometimes I can spit out cool little outputs.
Historically I’ve used Jupyter Notebook, but I’m quite liking this Spyder interface.
#coding #python #spyder
Weeknote 2024-21
👨👩👧👧 S and her fam visited. Was fun being host and spending more time with my niece especially, who is a happy little camper at 7 months old. Highlight was completing a 8km/370m Mt Crichton loop hike resulting in a M falling asleep in the carrier strapped to me.
🏃♂️ Ran 31.3km/1,849m - Continue to ramp up the running post Covid. Bit more vert this week. Although I run solo most of the time, it is always social running around the hills here. Ran into a couple locals, J, who I’ve met before, and another who had used one of my Strava gpx files to map out an FKT route they subsequently knocked off. Probably got another running buddy for summer. They were doing “vert day” knocking off as much vert in 24 hours they could muster. Looking at Strava looks like they got upwards of 6,000m. Solid effort.
💻 Trying micro.blog for the first time. I am over the GitHub deployments sporadically breaking on Vercel and Jekyll so I’m going to try something easier. I’ll be sacrificing posting from Obsidian but I may be able to reverse this by pulling my micro.blog posts back into Obsidian via the RSS plugins.
💻 Started coding again, installing python and the Spyder IDE. Toying with my old 3D gpx plotting scripts.
🥕 Harvesting carrots, beets, rocket, spinach, silverbeet.
🌱 Planted garlic.
🌱 Removed more spent summer crops. Adding compost.
🚴 Walked and rode more this week as I lent my car to S for their visit. Enjoyed sunsets and sunrises more because of it.
🏢 Projects at work are ramping up but I’m enjoying the pressure.
🍿 Watched Late Night with the Devil (2023) and Asphalt City (2023). Both fantastic.
📚 Continue to read Data Grab (2024) by Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias.
#weeknotes
Morning shadows
This 200m stretch runs through private land but the owner let’s people through. Usually gates are open but sometimes there’s sheep inside so we have to close gates behind us. It’s a regular for commuters into town cutting off a small distance and hill.
This morning I rode this way to spend the day with my sister’s fam. I went for a jog while they got ready then we hiked the Mt Crichton loop track followed by a pub feed. Lights were on for the ride home. Everyone’s truely knackered.
#DesireLine #DesirePath #psychogeography
Sunset and moonrise
Watching the moon rise as the sun sets on Remarks.
#walking Watching the moon rise as the sun sets on Remarks. ![[IMG20240522171654.jpg]] ![[IMG20240522171801.jpg]]
#walking
Early rising
Started my day at 4.30 this morning. Forgot how much I feel on top of things when I do this. Will try and get this routine back.
Wintery trot
Bit of a dusting yesterday making for a good wee trot around the local hills today.
#trailrunning