To be added to

We did some more to the mini today.

Douglas replaced the battery cable yesterday, & we tracked down the bad earth ( it turns out that Hammerite is a particularly good insulator)

Today we rebuilt the fuel pump with new internals ( & bench tested it) & replaced needle & jet in the carb.

After refitting everything, we still weren't getting fuel to the engine from the tank. Out came the tank, which had rusty sludge blocking the outlet.

Once that was fixed we had fuel to the carb !

Douglas & I spent a little while over the last two days working on the mini.

The video below is the result. (Note, the horrible squeak is the alternator fan just rubbing slightly. It'll sort itself out when it's run a little while)

There was a bit of a process getting to this point. ;)

Just for interest sake. I've done some playing with my GIS system.

Here is a 3D render of Mitre Peak

You can zoom & rotate the view

If you're viewing on your phone/tablet, pan & zoom with two fingers. Rotate with one finger.

On a computer, it's pretty obvious. Instruction under the exclamation mark.

There has been slow, but steady progress on the mini.

Oil went into the engine today.

We cranked it over to check that there was oil pressure (there was).

Quite exciting!

David invited me to repeat the Gertrude Saddle trip today.

The forecast was perfect, and the avalanche forecast OK too, so I managed to rearrange work a bit and agreed to go. Jim Spencer (avalanche forecaster) said he would follow us as he had to get kids off to school before leaving town.

We headed out of the carpark in beautiful weather - shirtsleeves with layers in the rucsac.

For a 60th Birthday expotition, Douglas and Gethin joined me for a weekend trip into the Livingstone mountains - between Te Anau and Mavora Lakes.

There is a ridge I've been eyeing up for years - Rob and I recce'd the descent when he was over here.

The difficulty has always been the logistics; the only sensible way to start is to boat over North Mavora Lake to West Burn Hut. Going in the canoe would have been possible, but that would have left the canoe at the hut. Not what we wanted to do.

Jim kindly agreed to take us in his motor boat.

Not often you can do a bit of avalanche training without leaving home.

I haven't had a migraine for a long time.

A very long time. I don't remember when I last had one in fact.

So this one caught me off guard. I knew it was a migraine, but it was different - all the symptoms except the pain. I was reluctant to take my migraine meds for some reason (brain not functioning probably) and finally caved about 14 hours in. That was yesterday. The pain went and I was left with the familiar feeling of suddenly losing about 80 points of IQ. Brain wouldn't function. And v tired.