Christmas at Ruapekapeka

Santa followed us to Ruapekapeka…but despite the raindaince on Saturday night he forgot to deliver the mud for our fun day. The hazards were challenging and there were soon problems with
vehicles. The landrover's starter was playing up (this is the replacement for the one that got bent at Pureora), so it was being parked strategically on the hills. That didn’t really matter much after Colin sideswiped a totara in the next hazard and didn’t ‘glance off it’ like he ‘normally does’; it dragged all the panels back and the radiator met the fan which is never a good outcome. Too many holes resulted from the impact, so the landy was out. The next vehicle to show signs of fatigue was Syd’s ‘pup’. Colin had jumped in to have a go on the timed section, because it was so much fun, but the pup ran out of go about 5 metres from the finish. Some 13 minutes later, back up and running, pegs already gone from the hazard, we stopped the clock.

Soon after lunch, Brooke decided to take a somewhat traditional line on the national-like sidling (set up by Colin), fell into a hole, rolled off the sidling, popped a tyre off the bead and spent the next wee-while hooked up to Brett’s rover-jack. All that sorted, the day then finished smoothly, those with slightly shinier vehicles – Trent and Kevin – opting out where the need arose, Kevin earning his keep with the winch running on the last hazard to pull pretty much every vehicle out of the creek.