Turning 40 with a Bang!

Rob had a pretty bad road bike injury the evening before the actual day of his 40th birthday.  Using his new triathlon watch he was travelling between 50 and 55km/hr coming home from work when another cyclist did not see him and cut across the road with no time to avoid.  Rob collided with the other bike and got launched off his bike flipping in the air and landing on his left upper back chest and arm.  Given his cracked helmet and the speed he was travelling, he had to be taken to the Emergency Department by ambulance as a major trauma and was taken to the Resuscitation Room to be looked after by all of his colleagues. You can see the cracked helmet below.

Those road bike shirts do a pretty good job of saving your skin.  It only wore through in a small area.  Maybe long sleeves would be better.

It was certainly an eye-opening experience being on the other side of the bedrail.  He received excellent care and was surprised at just how many people are involved in the care of one patient (we counted 25 individuals along our 5 hour ED journey).  The IV contrast for the CT is also quite an experience.  'You will experience some warmth and flushing' actually is more like 'your body will feel like it is approaching the sun and you will think you have peed your pants!'  

Summary of injures (all on the left): Broken 7th and 9th ribs, small hemo-pneumothorax, small area of pulmonary contusion, lacerations of his left knuckles and lots of minor abrasions on his arm, lateral chest and upper back.  Despite cracking his helmet, he did not lose consciousness and did not have any headache or amnesia.

So overall pretty lucky as it could have been a lot worse.  Then the recovery phase began.  He had to take a lot of pain medication and had to sleep on the couch.  He also used up a lot of energy just breathing and healing as one morning he made breakfast, then promptly fell asleep on the couch for 3 hours.  A far cry from his pre-accident conditioning.  

On his actual birthday, he got a celebratory song.  It was a little difficult to blow out the candles.

It's been a week now and Rob is essentially off pain medications and much more active.  He is hoping to go back to work soon.  He has certainly appreciated being an 'employee' as opposed to a 'contractor' as he had to miss a week of work, but still got paid.  Rob's first full triathlon is in a month, so that is the next goal, but we are being realistic that it just might not happen.  Thanks for everyone's warm wishes on his recovery.

Rob had to replace his helmet so he made a point of trying to be more visible!

Happy 40th Birthday Rob!

Well 40 finally came for Rob.  Despite being half-way across the world, we managed to be surrounded by friends from back home who came to visit and celebrated 4 birthdays!  Kunal, Jenn and 2 yo Ellie (Jenn's birthday is in early March), Ryan and Kim (Ryan and Rob were both born Feb 21st, 1977) and Mark, Tracey, Logan, Cole and Kate Wahba (Mark's birthday is Feb 21st, but not 1977!) all came to Auckland to celebrate.  We are so thankful to all of them for making the trek to see us.  We have such amazing friends in our lives.

We were fortunate to spend the day at the beach and pool in the sun, as New Zealand had been constantly under rain for 5 days prior.  Not surprisingly, the boys were even able to sneak in a Mini-MANathlon competition as no year is complete without one.  The four events were underwater hand-stand walking, breath hold, back flip and fish toss.  Rob managed to win narrowly edging out Greg Malin. Greg wasn't ever there but he is so awesome that he got 2nd place despite being half-way around the world.

And it wouldn't be a 40th Birthday without some impromptu shirtless wrestling!

Now that Jonah is 11, we have a babysitter!!!  The kids watched a movie while the Adults walked to Mexico (the restaurant not the country).

Then we played trivial pursuit Australasian edition.  Needless to say, we struggled a bit...

Epic birthday party in New Zealand comes to an end.

Queenstown Part II

So after surviving the Humpridge Track we took a well deserved break.  We arrived in Queenstown, showered the smell off and enjoyed fresh food for supper!  Despite what Dad had remembered, our hotel did NOT have a pool, much to the dismay of the kids.  Thankfully Queenstown has an amazing aquatic centre that is really warm, so the next day we spent the afternoon there.  The day ended with a famous Fergberger for supper.  Although the line was 30 minutes long, it was worth the wait.

After a nice relaxing day, it was back to adventure.  We had planned to drive to Lake Manapouri to do some Kayaking, but when we called ahead, it was too windy.  Instead we took a detour and drove to Te Anau.  It's a sleepy little lake side town that is half-way to the famous Milford Sound.  The road from Te Anau on to Milford Sound is REALLY windy with the distance of 118km taking 2.3 - 3 hours!  We've already spent enough money on Gravol.

A bonus of this detour was that there were Alpaca's at the tourist information site, and food to feed them.  They are pretty hilarious animals and each of them seems to have their own interesting hairdoo.

We spent the day checking out souvenir shops (the kids don't seem to get bored of the same NZ souvenirs in every town) and took a boat trip across Doubtful Sound to some Glow Worm Caves. This inland Fiord lake is majestic and the water is actually drinkable (so they say)!  The caves were amazing!  Massive amounts of rushing water flowing over limestone with walkways that wind 3km deep into the darkness with only the glowworms as a light source.  After the boat ride we devoured some meat pies (one of Jonah's new favorites) on the beach and a quiet ride home.  Driving along the lake coming in and and out of Queenstown is stunning so the adults enjoyed the scenery while the kids had their noses in their ipads.

The next day we enjoyed the beautiful weather and continued our Triathlon training with a run along the lake.  Then it was an afternoon of Canyoning!  We couldn't leave the adrenaline adventure capital of New Zealand without experiencing it first hand.  We don't have a go-pro so we have no pictures of this adventure, but it was definitely a highlight.  Here is the promo youtube video which is an excellent summary of our adventures.  It might have even topped horseback riding, but we'll let the kids decide.  4 hours of ziplines, abseiling, natural waterslides (or 'hydro' slides in NZ) and cliff jumps (Erin screamed the loudest)!  The kids managed to stay warm in the cold canyon water with their own wetsuits under the the provided wetsuits.  Then we had to pack up and get ready to fly home.

The Humpridge Track

We've been training for this hike for 8.5 years and the day had finally arrived.  We've been psyching up the kids since we've arrived in New Zealand as we needed to have them trek 60km in 3 days.

Day One was the most challenging with almost a kilometre of elevation gain.

The kids each carried a pack with their own clothes and some food.  Thankfully the huts had cookery and crockery so it limited how much the adults had to carry.  In fact the huts were a welcomed luxury when the rain and wind arrived that first evening.  Naysa was blown right off the wooden track when we arrived to the unsheltered top of the ridge!  She held on tight to our hands after that.

To entertain herself, Naysa counted the number of bridges that we crossed and by the end of day one she was counting in the 90s.  The kids were also entertained by Rob's watch which counts kilometres and elevation gain.  We stopped for candy every 3kms (I am sick of gummy worms)!

Only in New Zealand, can you refill your water bottle directly from the flowing creek and not worry about parasites!  However, by this point we could have collected rain water.

This shows you just how steep it got.

Warm in our hut at the end of evening, we enjoyed some chicken noodle soup and hot chocolate as an appetizer and rehydrated tacos as our meal beautifully and proudly prepared by Chef Jonah.

On Day Two, we awoke to brilliant sunshine and could finally see the views we had worked so hard to get to.

Okaka Lodge where we stayed...

The first half of the day was spent trekking over undulating hills surrounded by spectacular views before we descended down through the forest towards the ocean.

We love the sun...

More candy...

Another rest...

MANathlon training never ends...

We descended many of these on day two and the adults felt the consequence of these eccentric calf muscle contractions for days after the trip!

Our accommodations for the evening of Day Two.  The lodge is just up from the beach on the historic site of an old logging mill.  We were fortunate to see many Hector's Dolphins in the bay.  Once again Chef Jonah prepared a fabulous rehydrated meal!

Day 3 was the final walk home, which was mostly flat and often along the beach.  We needed to get to the trailhead by 2:30 in the afternoon in order for our shuttle to pick us up.  We made it at 2:20 and didn't take many breaks.

One of the bridges was out near the end, and little feet preferred to stay dry.

Rob told Naysa there was around 3 km left so she counted down from 3000.  When we weren't yet at the end of the trail her little feet suddenly got pretty tired...

But we made it!  And nobody complained at all in 3 days, so we got to watch TV on the drive back to Queenstown. It distracted us from our own smell.