For a weekend, it was a fairly early start, and I arrived at the VUCC gear shed in the City at 9am. 14 paddlers in total had turned out for the paddle on the Otaki River. During my trip down the Hutt Gorge a few weeks ago, I snapped my paddled. It was still being repaired, which meant I had to use one of the clubs paddles for this trip.

Catherine and I had the most awesome holiday anyone could have. A week in South Africa, 6 days climbing Kilimanjaro Africa's highest mountain and the tallest free standing mountain in the world. We also experienced a 5 day Safari in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro national park, and finished our holiday off with 4 days relaxing at a beach resort on the northern coast of Zanzibar.

The highlight of our trip has got to be our Engagement at the summit of Kilimanjaro :-D

Here is a short video clip from out holiday. There will be more. In the meantime you can check out our Kilimanjaro blog at www.pominnz.com/kilimanjaro

I loaded up my car before work, so that I could get a quick get away at the end of the day. I met Kei and Steven at a car park on the Hutt side of the Haywards Hill road. We strapped on the kayaks and transferred all of their gear into my vehicle and started our journey to a cottage just north of Mangaweka.

Apart from the usual snarl up at Pukerua bay, the journey was traffic jam free. We did however get stuck at both railway crossing just south of Mangaweka, which for the infrequency of rail traffic, is just bad luck.

The directions we were given were ideal for someone arriving during day light hours, but we struggled, and ended up driving 5 km past the turn off, even though Alan had spent time putting up signs, and painting logs pointing in the direction of the cottage. We eventually arrived at the cottage. Kei had already decided to stay at the cottage, but Steven and I had planned on staying at the Mangaweka camp ground, but when we arrived at the cottage it did look very inviting, so we decided to stay.

This weekend was a wet one, but it didn't stop me getting out with my new camcorder and filming Wellington in the rain. I bought an umbrella and went armed with my tripod and camera to the Wellington botanical gardens. Got some really nice shots in the rain.