We did it! After dreaming and planning for months, we finally made it to our very first international parkrun! Better yet, we went with this guy 👇 @run.vince.run, an Aussie residing in Auckland who we met through Hive. He drove us and we ushered him into the world of parkrun with his first ever event. Pretty cool, hey?
We were at Western Springs parkrun, located right next door to the Auckland Zoo. Since we were way early we did a warm up lap around the lake attempting to find the parkrun course (we did most of a single lap!). This parkrun course does three laps and finishes right in the same area that it starts (very convenient!). It was my 131st location, 197th parkrun (run or walked) with a very reasonable time of 32:55 (given my current fitness and overall lack of consistent training/pushing!).
Here's a photo of the lake we walked (and then ran) around. Pretty, hey?
There were lots of birds. I saw pigeons and what looked like dusky moorhens, and some sort of small wren, and a couple of other small birds I didn't recognise. There were also some white geese, but my absolute favourites were the black swans as I see them so infrequently. And they had babies!!!
After parkrun, Vince kindly dropped us back at our hotel apartment so we could shower and change, and then we trekked back down the hill again to Britomart to get a bus out to St Heliers again (where we went yesterday) so we could meet his wife, Kirsty who had done an epic ocean swim while we were doing a little cruise around a park 😄
We had several conversations with several of their friends, including Craig who had made it out to the parkrun as well. We soaked up sunshine. We drank coffees. We enjoyed the sun. We marvelled at the athletic prowess of all these incredible swimmers and triathletes. And we compeltely forgot to take photos. Oh well!
From there it was time to head back to the city, grab lunch (which was a different choice to yesterday, though in the same food court) which was full of veggies and scrumptious...
And then we jumped on another bus that took us right to the base of Mt Eden (Maungawhau): another thing on our to do list.
Walking up this dormant volcano was good training for the mountain we want to climb in Queenstown next week (Ben Lomond) but I was quite tired by this stage. I was happy to start the journey home (to the hotel apartment) and put my feet up.
On the way we passed Albert Park that had some big, beautiful trees within its borders. I wasn't interested in walking up the hill that lead into the park but was delighted to see these pretty moss-covered trees as we walked past, downhill 😉
Thanks to this guy for another great day 👇 And the photos. The photos are all him.
