Hidden Old Skool Crouching Nun...

Finished work early at 2 and went to pick up Chris and get changed. Bit of rain about but looked OK and was pretty warm. Made our way over to the bottom of Rapaki and met up with James M on his Tomac. I hadn't been up Rapaki in months so it was a change although nothing much has changed...Found the going easy so that was good. We all cruised up chatting to the top. Was windy as at the top and the last 200m or so we were ably assisted up by said breeze. Headed on up Mt Vernon and I pulled away a little on the steep section as James tired a little due to not much riding. I took the old rough switchback route across the west face and even managed to clean the rocky corner for the second time in a row. We regrouped at the start of the Summit trail below the road and I had a OSM. I lead off across the now super groomed trail and kept up a good pace to make it fun. We quickly got over to Vic park and rolled down the narrow and smooth Thompsons trails. The bush hanging close to the edge making a very cool run through there. Filled up with water at the Kiwi where a chap came out and told us to look out for bad smells along the tracks (meaning we might investigate and follow that to the body of the missing girl up there somewhere maybe...) Up the road again and we had a look out over Worsleys and then up to the top of the Nun again. This time in the light the dust was less of a problem and I felt heaps faster as did Chris, but I was much closer to him this time. I only made 1 or 2 small errors and held pretty good speed along the way. We got to the bottom and waited a couple of minutes before James appeared and reported that he had Pogo sticked off the track and crashed, but luckily not a scratch on him. So we continued on up the summit road to Vic park and dropped into Brakefree for a few jumps before I pulled out and headed down the Rockgarden/Gums old track. I seemed to leave the others behind and they ended up taking a different track but I took the old school tracks right out to the gate to the memorial on the vic park road. Raced back to the skidder site to find the others. Then I followed Chris down Dazzas and onto Ponos I think. I got wrong lined on one of the rises and had to pull up as it was a drop onto rocks if you didn't jump it. The inside line was the chicken route and James and I took that then made our way along the rest of the way to the bottom. Chris had to take off for rehearsals so James and I continued up the Hidden Valley and onto Old Skool. By this time the sun was shining just before it set making for mint as light and it was still warm but no wind. Hoofed down the top section and ran into a guy coming up on a Santa Cruz who James knew so we had a chat for a minute. Someone else was coming so we took off a few seconds ahead of them and shot down the new section. I really enjoyed the flow of it and kept up a good pace seeing as it was my first ride on that part. We dropped out the bottom of the track and got to the gate and waited for the other rider who was about 30 seconds back by then so we did a good job of not holding them up. Headed back to the Bongo and home via shops at Eastgate. Great to ride in actual sunlight!!!!