Turn an average training run or MTB into an all new wilderness experience by trying one of the following: If you’re planning on putting some of these idea’s into practice please make sure you take a friend, weather sealed cell phone and an emergency blanket…)

Full moon adventures: Leave your headlamp in your backpack and just go by the light of the moon. You’ll need to get up onto ridges, away from town lights (it may take up to 20mins for your eyes to fully adjust). A perfect trail for this in Dunedin is from ‘the bull ring’ across to Swampy summit and down to Pigeon flat (yeh you’ll need to get your headlamp out for the last little bit through the tree’s). Mountain trails in early winter with a light skiff of snow (and a clear forecast!!) are the best – full moon on the snow… it just doesn’t get any better than that.

Storm missions: I’m not sure people actually believe me when I say this but I fully believe ‘the worse the weather, the greater the adventure!’ Without a doubt my most memorable runs have been during storms. Summer storm, warm rain, bare legs are best, t-shirt and light rain jacket – you’re going to get saturated via perspiration anyway and rain wet feels nicer than sweat wet.

In winter you’ll need to dress up in all your merino, leggings and possibly even over-trousers. Gloves and wool hat and a decent seem-sealed actual water proof jacket. You’ll still get soaked with sweat but at least the wind won’t go through and chill you. In a ‘real storm’ keep to low tracks you know well that don’t include creek crossings (even running on footpaths in a good storm can be a wild experience!). My all-time most beautiful life experience was running up Mt Cargill near Dunedin in a blizzard, there were some sections through the tree’s where the snow had settled all through the tree’s and bent the top branches over so that it appeared you were running through a tunnel of snow. Do not try mountain passes during storms – that’s just silly, but running down the valley either side of the pass can be fine – just watch out for rising side-streams!

Crap for taking photos and video in these conditions – you’ll just have to get out there and try it to see what it’s like.