Bloody Telecom

Okay this is a near unique reason to be peeved at Telecom.  Nothing to do with phone service.

Auckland Girl and I decided to go for a little jog, and I suggested we go to Shelly Bay, go up the path to Massey Memorial and then climb the track to the top of the hill, by the prion rugby league field.  Then after that you go over the hill a bit more and then go down a track by the pine forest, which eventually comes out on Fort Dorest Road next to the Telecom satellite there.  From there you go down onto Massey Road and it’s just 2 or so kms back to the start point along the coast.

The (Google) map above  gives a general idea of where we we planning to go from and to.

I’ve been over the trail many times, but not for over a year.  Anyway we took off at 1 pm and headed up.  Eventually got to the top, and then a faster pace going down the track.  It is always a bit overgrown so you can’t go too fast, and it was rather swampy also.  Auckland Girl was less than pleased with her now stinky shoes.

Then I could see the Telecom satellite dish just 50 metres away and we were just about down to Fort Dorset Road.  And what the hell is at the end of the track?  A fucking great big barbed wire fence, stretching as far as one could see in each direction.

Now the satellite dish itself has of course always been protected, by both an electric fence and barbed wire.  But this is a totally new fence which blocked off all access to the road from the trail. Grrrr.

Couldn’t they have put a sign up at the start of the track saying it is now a dead end! So we had to turn about and head back through the swampy trail again back up to the pine forest.  We then decided that rather than go all the way back the way we came, we’d cut into the pine forest and try and get down to the road from there.  Not necessarily the safest thing we have done as the slope in places is oh 70 degrees or so. But we did find a reasonably safe route which got us down around 1 km from the start, so we could at least finish it with some flat road.

For some reason Auckland Girl is now not so keen for me to choose the next route.

Have actually been getting to do some nice routes over the last week.  On Friday  finally went and visited the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary and did a 2 hour loop track there.  They also have a track up to the Brooklyn wind turbine which I am keen to try out.

Saturday I explored some of the more obscure tracks on Tinakori Hill, going up from the top of the Park Street stairs, up until it joined the Northern Walkway and then north along that until you come out in Wilton.  It’s wonderful having such superb bush walks and tracks just a few minutes from the CBD. The town belt is a wonderful treasure.

Anyway NYE Party tonight, so best go off and get ready for that.  See everyone in 2008!