Wellington Area Trail Riding Club

This blog has moved

2010-03-16T20:31:00.001+13:00

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Blog migration tonight

2010-03-16T20:22:00.002+13:00

There doesn't seem any point putting this task off any longer - it has to happen and now's good, so tonight's the night.

The old blog will continue to be hosted on the WCN site, but all updates and new posts will go to the version hosted on Blogger.com. Once the migration has completed successfully, I'll update the sidebar links on both sites to point to the new location.

The way this all works, you should not notice any disruption to your access to the blog, but to get future updates you will need to resubscribe once to the new location. I'll signal when you should do this.

Fingers crossed we all make it to the other side ;-)

Change of dates for Waitohu and Waitarere events

2010-03-15T22:56:00.003+13:00

We've just been advised that the Waitarere and Waitohu events will swap dates.

The calendars on WCN and on Google Sites have both been updated.

Waitarere will now be held on 11 April, and Waitohu on 25 April.

We trust this change will not disrupt your plans for those weekends and hope to see you at both rides.

Newsletter 133 and Turakina results online

2010-03-13T21:55:00.003+13:00

The latest newsletter and results from the Turakina ride have been posted to the website. Photos from Turakina are still some days away as we navigate our way through a few more social events than we're normally accustomed.

What a fabulous venue is Cluny Farm - we missed it last year and it's really great to see it brought into the main calendar this year. A well designed course, well marked, and terrain varied enough to be interesting and a challenge, but not so tough as to be off-putting. Well done, Aimee and Brenda and helpers.

Some time before the end of March, I aim to have this blog moved off the WCN host and onto the Blogger.com host. That move will be followed fairly rapidly by the migration of the entire website onto Google sites.

There are a couple of drivers for this aggressive time table. First, as advised previously, Blogger.com is withdrawing suport for FTP publishing as of 1 May. Second, Wellington Community Network is ceasing to provide free hosting for community websites from 1 July. And third, Leslie and I will be travelling overseas for some weeks from early May. The hope is that by completing the migration by the end of March, it still leaves us April to iron out any glitches and get our back-up webmasters up to speed.

The Blog migration is expected to go fairly easily as Blogger.com have provided a migration tool to help with updating the blog and the hosting site. I anticipate having to change the main links from sidebars, and there may be a few embedded links that will break until I can track them down, but disruption will (I hope) be minimal.

The migration of the website will be a bigger exercise and may be a little more disruptive. Much of the new site has been built already in Google Sites, but there is still some work to be done. You're welcome to take an early peek at the new site. It's not that much different to look at than the old site in fact, but some links still take you back to content on the old site until the migration is complete.

Aside from the website URL changing (I suggest you bookmark the new site and the old one in the interim), the demise of WCN also means our email addresses for club officers will have to change. I'll be setting up the new addresses and placing them on both sites for the transition, but the old addresses will continue to work up until the day WCN pulls the plug. When you see the new addresses, I suggest you update the contact details in your personal address books.

For the time being we are maintaining the two sites, but a tipping point will be reached at which the main pages of the old site will carry advice that you should start to use the new site, and a link to take you there.

Please bear with us as we make the transition, and by all means let us know if something appears to be "broken" so that we can fix it.

Belmont Photos on Flickr

2010-02-26T07:32:00.002+13:00

Belmont attracted only a small field of competitors, which was a pity really, as it's an excellent venue with well marked trails and fine views over the Wellington, Hutt and Porirua cities and surrounds.

It's a challenging ride with a few more than the usual number of climbs and descents, and this was compensated by allowing all classes additional time to complete the distance. The course layout was in the reverse of last year's and covered some of the same ground, dropping out parts and adding in a few new sections.

Despite the patchy and uncertain weather we've been having this summer, it was a very good day if a little breezy on the exposed tops.

The photo set was uploaded overnight last night and is now available through the photos page as usual, or direct via this link.

We do hope as many of you as possible will make it to the Turakina ride. This venue was a late addition to the season last year and got excellent reviews from those who were able to attend. This year it's been brought forward into the main season and promises to be a "not-to-be-missed" event.

Hope to see you there.

Changes to WATRC website and Blog hosting coming soon

2010-02-19T11:55:00.003+13:00

We've recently received notification of changes at Blogger.com that will affect us slightly. As you may have noticed, when you open our WATRC blog, you are still on the WATRC website. That's because, when we set up the blog, we've chosen an option to publish the website to our own web server rather than using a Blogger.com server.

Blogger.com have announced the withdrawal of support for that option (FTP publishing) and will shortly be offering a tool to help existing FTP publishers to migrate to the Blogger.com servers. While we could do so pretty much any time now, we've decided to wait for the tool to see if it offers any benefits to us before making the move.

When we make the move, we'll make sure the links from our site are updated. If you have bookmarked the Blog you'll need to update your saved URL. If you subscribe to the RSS feed, you'll probably need to update that too. Aside from opening at a new URL, nothing much else about the blog should change, and it will deliver the same irregular and quirky updates as ever.

Of far more significance to us is the recently confirmed withdrawal of funding for the Wellington Community Network (WCN) by the Wellington City Council. The effect of this is that WCN will cease to operate, and we are now in the process of looking at alternative website hosting services that fit within our budget.

One alternative is free hosting on Google Sites, where you may stumble across an in-progress build of a "look-alike" WATRC site. This is not a done deal - more part of a "learn-by-doing" exercise for me as I work out what's involved in moving the site from it's current off-line site editor style maintenance to an on-line site editing basis.

So, this note is simply a "heads-up" to let you know that some site changes are coming and we're working to ensure that our website remains functional and serves our club through the transition - nothing to worry about here ;-)

Brights Farm photo set uploaded

2010-02-13T22:43:00.002+13:00

A smaller field than we've been accustomed to lately. Doubtless a few folk put off by the venue's reputation, and others by the undecided weather. Brights is certainly a tough ride with a lot of climbing and decending, and for the longer distances there's the psychological hurdle of doing it twice. Nonetheless it's a wonderful venue, and a worthy test of horse and rider.

With time at a premium, I headed out on the trail with riders initially catching me up, and then headed back against the flow and up the final hill. That way I could be assured of seeing everyone at least once, but still within easy distance of the base for when I had to get back. Of course, I tarried a while at the top after Leslie and Sharon had gone past so that I could catch a few more competitors, and then had to run down the hill and take a rather steep shortcut to get back in time, at the cost of one slip and painfully stiff muscles for the rest of the week - the things we do!

So now we watch and wait on the weather to see the outlook for Belmont. In the meantime, enjoy the photos from Brights.

Pikarere Photos on Flickr

2010-01-31T00:31:00.002+13:00

Pikarere photos were uploaded earlier on Saturday, and I've just now completed the finishing to the set and update of the photos page. I have mixed feelings about the set. Although the day was comfortably cool, the major challenge was again low light, but this time compounded by fog and at times a very light drizzle (fog with lumps, you might say).

So, on the one hand I'm disappointed that the number of shots is well down, and I've had to compromise the standard yet again, while on the other hand pleased that I got as many as I did in spite of the conditions. So, mostly grainy and fuzzy shots, but a fair indication of the conditions.

I missed some of the later starters, sorry - in the hope that conditions might be better at sea level (they were not) I got to the beach, but then had to make my way back to base via the long intermediate trail, so if you hadn't made it to Liz's checkpoint by 10:40-ish, it was too late.

Anyway, as of today it's beginning to look like we might get a summer - let's hope it holds until Bright's Farm next Sunday. We're still waiting on final details for this event, but it shouldn't be long now.

Photos from Manakau Farm available on Flickr

2010-01-17T15:24:00.002+13:00

Well, it all happened a bit faster than I'd expected (you have 2 days of liquid "sunshine" to thank for that) but after a delayed start I managed to complete the selection and get the Manakau selection uploaded last night. The set is now available to view on Flickr as usual.

Yet again, the conditions were a challenge with the overcast conditions dictating higher ISO, wider aperture, and slower shutter speeds. Consequently some images are again a little grainy and soft at the edges, or the depth of field may be quite shallow and the "in focus" area won't cover the whole subject, so if you're contemplating prints, do look closely at the "original" sized image and decide whether it will give you the results you want. While most look OK at normal screen resolution, enlarging to A4 might not always work out so well. It seems to be the story of the season.

The field was quite large, so with the main loop being extended and the number of loops reduced compared with last season, along with a tighter timeframe for me to get back to base for strapping, I chose an out-and-back strategy to maximise the likelihood of catching everyone at least once. An unfortunate injury for one of our competitors interrupted my return, and I think I definitely missed some folk at that point, but I was able to catch most of those at the end after our vetting was complete. If I did miss you, very sorry - luck of the draw.

We were very lucky with the weather - a few shots show some speckling from the light drizzel that fell around 10:30, but otherwise the rain gods smiled kindly on us for the day. At least the conditions were good for keeping the horses cool.

Looking forward to Pikarere, always a favourite venue not least because of its proximity to Wellington for many of us. It seems unlikely that the trail will be as dry and hard packed as it sometimes has been, but I'm guessing there may be a lot of long grass in some of the back paddocks, so that may slow folk down a bit on some of those untracked farm sections.

Hope to see you all out on the trail then.

Newsletter 129 posted

2010-01-14T23:58:00.003+13:00

The latest newsletter has details of the Pikarere ride coming up on 24 January. This is a lovely venue and handily placed for Wellington riders. It is quite a testing trail with a long tough climb towards the end of the main loop. The long Intermediate is spared a 2nd climb of this hill, which rises from near sea level to about 200 meters, by doing a one-and-a-half loop trail.

There has been a venue change for 7 March - now Turakina, a new venue introduced at the end of the last season. This replaces Bulls, and while it may be a little further to travel, it's reputedly well worth the trip. The Calendar has been updated.

I've delayed posting the results from Manakau to the website - a minor formatting glitch has turned what could probably be 4 pages sheet into 8, with the placings disconnected from their results - a waste of trees if you intend to print. As soon as I have a reformatted version I'll upload it.

Photos are still a little way off - I'm working through the selection but have had a few diversions to contend with. They should be out before the next ride at the latest.

Funeral arrangements - Helen Bain

2010-01-02T00:10:00.004+13:00

Published in Friday's Dominion Post, a celebration of Helen's life will be held in Cornwall Manor, corner of Knight's Road and Cornwall Street, Lower Hutt at 11:00 am on Monday January 4. The notice suggests that in lieu of flowers, donations to the Forest and Bird Society will be appreciated and can be posted to PO Box 631 Wellington or left at the service.

Helen - captured moments 2006 - 2009

2009-12-30T18:10:00.004+13:00

Helen and My Daddy's Tuff, Bright's Farm, November 2006

Helen and My Daddy's Tuff, Waitarere, January 2007

Helen and My Daddy's Tuff, Waitohu, March 2007

Helen and Evo Supremo, Karapoti, November 2007

Helen and Evo Supremo, Waitarere Endurance, January 2008

Helen and Evo Supremo, Tinui, September 2008

Helen and Evo Supremo, National Endurance Championships, Whareama, April 2009

Helen and Evo Supremo, National Endurance Championships, Whareama, April 2009

Helen Bain

2009-12-30T15:32:00.005+13:00

It is with great sadness and not a little shock that we learn today of the untimely death of Helen Bain. Helen drowned on December 29 while crossing the Ruamahanga River on horseback near Masterton. Despite the heroic efforts of companions to rescue her from the river, Helen could not be revived.

Tributes to her work as a journalist have been published online in Stuff, and for her role as Communications Manager for Forest and Bird.

In the worlds of CTR and Endurance, Helen was an active member of the Wairarapa Endurance and CTR Club, a past member of WATRC, and a stalwart in the organisation of Island and National Championships events. She has done much to promote both sports by contributing pieces to various horsey magazines, and was an active and respected participant in HorseTalk forums.

Our heartfelt sympathies go to her partner, Mark, her family and friends, work colleagues, and fellow club members and competitors. We all feel her loss dearly.

Helen and Evo, Karapoti, November 2007

Prize Winners from Battle Hill on Flickr

2009-12-16T23:15:00.006+13:00

Of course some of you have already noticed the additional photos, but in case others were waiting on an announcement, this is it.

I've taken the opportunity to try something a little different with the photos page. When I look at other sites' photos pages, they generally have photos on them, and occasionally (rarely) I've included some in ours. It seemed to me that our page looked a little drab in comparison, so I've made a token effort to change the look.

The images are still hosted on Flickr, but presented on our pages. Each event will continue to have a text linked to the set, and now a "thumbnail" sized copy of the cover image for the set in its original format. The image will also link to the set in the same way as the text, so you can click either on the text or the image but the result should be the same - a new window or tab should open on the Flickr set.

For the Battle Hill prize winners spread (1st placed competitors) I've used Flickr's "small" image size, but in these cases the underlying link is to the image in its place in the photostream. You can navigate to the set within Flickr quite easily. It was the lift these images gave the page that made me think about doing something similar for the other events, but I'm conscious of the impact the increased data transfer may have on dial-up and rural users, so I won't take it much further than I have.

Anyway, photos-wise, that's a wrap for this calendar year. We're just waiting now to add the published results from Battle Hill to the site, and we can take a break for Xmas.

On that note, we wish you a safe and happy Xmas and New Year, and look forward to seeing you all back at Manukau Dairy Farm in January.

Battle Hill Ride photos uploading

2009-12-14T23:13:00.002+13:00

Once again this will be an over-night upload with finishing applied to the set on Tuesday. Just the ride photos to start with - over the next day or two I'll go through the prize winners shots and select from those for another smaller set and a small photos page spread.

The set can be viewed from link on the club photo page or directly

Maymorn Photos Uploading

2009-11-20T23:05:00.003+13:00

Finally caught up with my backlog - a little faster than anticipated too. With a smaller turn-out for Maymorn I had less shots to review, so have been able to get through them in good time. They're uploading as I write and should finish some time around 1:00 am on Saturday morning. I'll do the usual finishing work on the set during the day.

I have to say the conditions on the day were a little trying with heavy overcast and some strong wind gusts to contend with. In response to the lower light I've had to shoot a lot of the time at wide open apertures with shallow depth of field being the inevitable result. That just means that sometimes your horse's head may be sharp in focus, but you might be a little soft - or the other way around. You probably won't notice unless you blow the image up to full-size, but if you intend to print any pictures it might pay to inspect the images closely before making your final decision.

I'm pleased to report that my blisters are callousing up nicely. I always enjoy my walks, but sometimes I push the envelope a little farther than I should ;-) Very glad to have a couple of weekends respite before Battle Hill, another challenging venue.

If you haven't seen them already, the Maymorn results are now posted, and the latest newsletter features the flyer for Battle Hill and the Rhona Fraser Challenge events, the last ride of the pre-Xmas half of our season.

Hope to see you all there and snap you on the trail.

Wainuiomata Photos uploading

2009-11-16T22:56:00.003+13:00

The Wainuiomata set is uploading now and should complete some time in the small hours of Tuesday. I'll put the finishing touches to it some time on Tuesday either before work or after.

Leaving ahead of the briefing meant the change to the trail took me by surprise, and so I ended up doing the inner loop ahead of most of the field. If you didn't overtake me on the trail, you missed me, and I didn't get a picture of you. As you know, I work to a timetable and try to be back at base in time to assist with Dove's strapping and final vetting.

Despite a spotty forecast, the day turned out very well. Some of the early photos were under slightly difficult lighting due to the overcast, and look a bit fuzzy under close inspection, but as the day wore on and the light improved I got some sharper shots. There are some nice sequences of some riders.

I've barely looked at the Maymorn shots as yet. I'll get on to those next, but I have some other committments that will divert my attention this week, so the next set may be a little bit later than usual. It will however be a smaller set, like the Wainui one. Although I think I got shots of everyone, the smaller field means I took less shots overall. Again, overcast and sometimes "breezy" conditions were a challenge but I'm hopeful there will be some pleasing results.

And thank goodness for a break until the next event - my feet are killing me. My mission on the day was to get a look at the tunnel - I've only ever gone as far as the ford before, and the tunnel was not much further. Unfortunately, as I was reading the details on the sign on the other side, my connections on horseback turn up - dang!

So the downside of that little excursion was having to get back to base in a hurry. After battling the head wind and slogging up the hill I had to jog the downhill bits to catch up and keep up. I ended up over-taking some competitors as a result. Anyway, my connections arrived back 2 minutes early - serves them right really ;-)

As for me, I was on time and my heart rate at the end was OK, but a vet out lame was definitely on the cards ;-)

See you all at Battle Hill.

Waikawa results published - photos uploading

2009-11-09T23:07:00.002+13:00

Hard on the heels of the just published results from Waikawa, we have the photos now uploading to Flickr. This is going to proceed over-night Monday, hopefully without crashing, and with luck will be complete by morning. I'll probably do the finishing work on the set on Tuesday evening.

Everyone loves a beach ride - especially the photographer. I should apologise for the size of the set and explain why it's so large. At 598 images, it's my biggest set by just one. The problem of course is the beach - I can see riders coming from far off and I can position myself to get many more shots of each rider as they approach and pass. Often this is not so easy on some of our more confined trails.

That of course is also the reason for the delay - with a huge amount of raw material, it takes longer to select the shots.

One other consequence, which I hope you'll like, is the opportunity to put together longer sequences of shots, showing the horse in its paces. If I have good sequences, I like to use them in the set. And of course, the out-and-back structure of the course means most riders passed me at least twice, so we got a second chance to take some shots.

With 3 rides on successive weekends, I am of course losing ground. I'm just preparing my backups of the Wainui shots and will start selecting on Tuesday or Wednesday evening depending on other committments. Although it was a smaller ride and I got less shots, I doubt I'll have the set ready before Maymorn, so please bear with me.

And if I missed you at Wainui (I know I beat some of you around the course ;-) then make sure you're at Maymorn - another out-and-back that pretty much guarantees we'll meet!

See you there.

Newsletter 126 published

2009-10-21T22:02:00.002+13:00

The latest newsletter has been emailed and is now posted on the website.

Do check it out - ride flyers for the rescheduled Waikawa Beach ride (1 Nov) and Wainuiomata ride (8 Nov) are incorporated, along with the rescheduled Maymorn ride (15 Nov). As we've said already, November is going to be a very busy month, weather permitting.

Note that the Waikawa ride has been brought forward a half hour (first rider out at 1:30 pm) to take advantage of the earlier low tide - indeed the two week delay has meant we now avoid the worst of the spring tide that was close to the prevously scheduled date.

So much nautical science required for equestrian sports - who knew ?

Waikawa Beach - resheduled for 1 November

2009-10-19T23:55:00.002+13:00

There's been some fast re-organising going on behind the scenes as your dedicated committee try to salvage something from our so far soggy Spring riding season.

Waikawa Beach has now been rescheduled to 1 November.
Wainuiomata remains as originally scheduled, on 8 November.
Maymorn remains rescheduled for 15 November as previously advised.
Again, a busy three weekends on the trot.

However, mercifully, the Brights Farm ride, scheduled for 22 November has now been cancelled. Don't worry, you'll still get a crack at it in February as part of the premier points competition.

See the calendar for details

Maymorn Rescheduled - now 15 November

2009-10-18T23:07:00.002+13:00

We've just had confirmation that the Maymorn ride is on again (weather permitting, of course) and has been reschdeuled to 15 November. Assuming everything else stays on track, it's going to be a busy three weekends, with Wainuiomata on the 8th, Maymorn on the 15th, and Brights Farm on the 22nd.

No word as yet regarding reschedule of the Waikawa Beach ride - let's hope for a stunning "go-to-the-beach" day for that one. As soon as we have news, we'll let you know.

Waikawa Beach Ride Postponed

2009-10-16T23:26:00.004+13:00

It seems the weather remains resolutely against us, and again we've had to cancel a ride. It's not so much that the weather is looking a bit dodgey for Sunday (it is) but the amount of rain that we've had in the last weeks, and the expected dump in the Tararuas for tomorrow.

With that kind of precipitation, rivers are going to be up, and combined with a spring tide we don't want to be putting riders or mounts in harm's way. Those of you familiar with the course know that there are two river crossings, and those who are familiar with the photos from the 2007 ride will know what it's like when we get the tides wrong - trust us, you don't want that ;-)

We hope to be able to re-schedule this ride (tentatively 1 November, pending discussions with our venue hosts), but if that doesn't work out then Wainuiomata on 8 November is the next scheduled ride. As soon as we have an update we'll post it.

Maymorn Ride Postponed

2009-10-09T18:11:00.002+13:00

We love our ride venues - we hate to say cancelled - but in effect that's what it is.

With the parking area very soggy and no way it will drain and dry out in time for Sunday, along with high waters in the river and creeks, the Regional Park Ranger has asked that we postpone this Sunday's ride.

So, Maymorn is off until we can find a new spot to fit it back into our calendar.

Sorry about that - stay warm and dry

See you at Waikawa Beach on Sunday 18 October

Waitarere Photos uploading now

2009-10-09T17:26:00.003+13:00

At last - sorry for the delay - it's a busy ol' life and I've had to snatch a few hours here and there to do the selections. Thank goodness for sick days - shame about the sick part of it :-(

Also I apologise to those who commenced their ride after 11:10 am - I have to work to a timetable as I have strapping, trot-out, and general gopher duties back at the base at the end of Leslie's ride. If you saw me on the trail, there'll be a photo (or two) of you somewhere in the set. Otherwise, enjoy the snaps of your fellow competitors, and aim for an earlier start next time ;-)

What a great day it was nonetheless - dead lucky with the weather. I was warned of water on the trail as I set out, but it had all drained away over-night and good going under-foot for horses and photographers was assured.

The Waitarere forest produced it's usual challenges with low light in the trees and high contrast in the places where the light broke through. High ISO ratings, slower shutter and wider apertures tend to produce a little more "noise" and blurring, but overall I'm pleased with the results. I hope you will be too.

The set is uploading as I write this - the final count will be 373, so if it's not complete when you look at it, give it a while and come back a bit later. I'll monitor it during the evening so that, fingers crossed it will be completed tonight - with a set that size there are usually a few breakdowns on the information highway to contend with ;-)

If you haven't already seen them, the results are on the website, along with Newsletter 125

News just to hand - due to the amount of rain we've had, the grounds at Maymorn are very soggy and the creeks and rivers are up. Accordingly, we've postponed the Maymorn ride.

I'll be updating the website calendar shortly

So - start planning instead for the Waikawa Beach ride on Sunday 18 October, and we'll hope to see you there.

Draft ride calendar released with first newsletter of the 2009 / 2010 season

2009-07-30T22:48:00.002+12:00

That's it folks - holiday's over - get those beasties out on the trail again!

The committee has released a draft calendar for the coming season and it's time to get back in training.

Newsletter 123 has now been published and posted, and includes a list of the prize winners from last season.

Annual membership fees are now due - complete a membership form, post your cheque, and it's done.

Also, the club needs an entries person, so if you could fill this very important role, see the flyer and get in touch.

Don't forget the quiz night this Saturday - if you've lost the flyer that was emailed back in June, here it is.

See you there