Day 41 park run, manawatu gorge , patties and monopoly

Sat feb 10
Jono was determined to do a park run in New Zealand and to his joy there was one in Palmerston North. Teresa was going with him but the kids had looked at him as if he was crazy. As Jensen had said, you want me to get up at 7 to drive for half an hour to do a 5k run and then drive half an hour back on a Saturday????
However as Teresa and Jono were leaving, Molly came flying out and joined them. Molly of course then beat them both around the course!

Teresa, Molly and Jono waiting to start.

Afterwards they went for a coffee before coming back via the vets to pick up a drench for the sheep for barbers pole.
The sheep had to be moved into the next paddock and into the race, everyone helped move the sheep but some of them still escaped and had to be rounded up. Teresa, Jago and Jono then treated the sheep and discovered two that were fly blown. The treatment for this is called mago and it realy stinks. So did they afterwards as it got on their clothes. All the clothes went into the washing machine with the rest of the normal washing straight away.
We now know never to to put mago clothes in a washing machine again. Everything  came out stinking of it and had to go on again. And again. Finally the washing machine had to be cleaned out and the clothes soaked separately before having yet another wash!
Molly had to go to work at the leisure centre at 12. Jono worked on getting the photos recovered from the phone she'd dunked in a waterfall while in Costa Rica.
Jensen and Kai had friends over, Caitlyn and Riley and after lunch all 8 of us went out in two cars to the Manuwatu Gorge.  We had Kai and Riley in our car going out and a competitive game of yellow car and swifties was quickly in place.
The gorge road is permanently closed due to slippage and as it was the main route over the ranges now it is closed too much traffic has to go through a route a few km north that is not as stable .

Jensen and Kai demonstrating road closed

Kai

Jensen and Caitlyn

However the loop walking route is accessible and lovely to walk through culminating in a large statue near the top. It's also possible to walk the whole length of the gorge as long as you don't mind walking all the way back again!

Riley, Kai, Caitlyn, Jensen and Jago

And with Teresa and me

A few steps to climb

Great view 

Climbing on the statue

Jago, Jensen, Caitlyn,Kai, Riley, Jono and Teresa

Jago got to the top 

Jensen gave Kai a piggy back

Kai being Tarzan

We then drove up through the ranges past the turbine and wind farm. We tried to visit the bridge cafe which was a thriving cafe on the end of the closed road but the road closure meant it wasn't  open so we back tracked a bit to Yummy Mummies cheesecake shop which pretty much had been the kids motivation for doing the gorge walk. We chose cheesecakes to take back for dessert since the shop was only doing takeout that day not eat in.

Back at Fielding Teresa made gorgeous patties (onions and mushroom sauteed plus grated raw beetroot, cajun spice and beef mince)  on the bbq followed by our cheesecakes.

cheesecakes were a big hit

not easy getting a photo of Jago sometimes

Teresa and Jono wanted to make 30000 steps and were both slightly short so despite the slight rain, the three of us went for a walk. We walked around the block critiquing the newer houses that had gone up squashed into quarter acre plots which seemed really small after being on Teresa's lifestyle block. Of course in the UK a quarter of an acre is a very decent sized plot!

Molly got back from work and a family game of  monopoly commenced. After a really poor start where I couldn't buy anything for a few turns, I managed to monopolise everyone :-)