Sun, Sea, Sky and Surf

Last week Paul (a friend from camp) and I headed up from Sydney to the Sunshine Coast to meet up with Richie for some serious sun and surfing. He delivered on both fronts, big time.

This was the arsenal of which we had to work.

The man, the myth, the legend.

Paul on the right and me on the left heading for some beginner waves.

I think Rich knows everyone who lives on the coast. Everywhere we went we were meeting people that he knew somehow. Everyone was really nice, especially his 6 roomates who graciously let us crash in the living room. We watched a bunch of "Flight of the Concordes" between hanging out with internationals and eating. If I were to move to Australia, it would be to the Sunny Coast. I can't say anything bad about it.

Waiting for a wave.

The Grand Traverse through the Southern Alps

Remember that 6 day hiking trip I told you about a while ago? Ya, well this is the account of it:

It began on a Monday morning at 7:30 when we all met at the meeting spot with our bags packed and ready to go. The group consisted of a 8 old people from their mid 40's to mid 60's, a Japanese lady in her 30's and then me. Oh, there were 3 guides too. So basically we walked alot, climbed mountains, checked out waterfalls and alpine lakes. The weather was amazing and only threatened to rain the first day unlike the 5 days of rain the forecast had predicted. Everyone was really nice, the guides did a great job and it was an excellent time. Here is the photo essay of the trip.

View over Lake Wakatipu. This was on our way there.


The Greenstone Valley. Those white specks are sheep.

The view from Ocean Peak Corner

Alpine Tarn on Key Summit

Josh, one of the guides at the summit of Conical Hill.

A stream in the rainforest in Fiordland National Park.

Lake Howden


Lake Mackenzie. This is two pictures stitched vertically.

Earland Falls, it's 174m high but you can only see a piece of it here.

One of many falls at Falls Hut.

The morning view from Falls Hut down the Routeburn towards Glenorchy.

Facts and Figures

By the end of this trip I will have:

Changed the time on my watch 19 times
Skipped September 20 then had 2 May 15ths
Been on 17 different flights with 7 different airlines
Lugged a tent around for over 6 months and used it 4 nights, carried a plastic plate and never used it
Traveled with: sports marketers, physicists, investment bankers, nurses, doctors, lawyers, teachers, geologists, engineers, graphic designers, accountants, national ice hockey players, postal workers, ironman triathletes, golf pros, a venture capitalist and a hospital clown
Taken over 7000 pictures
Eaten crappy takeout food billions of times
Skipped countless meals
Worn the same t-shirts and boxers hundreds of times
Gotten stuck on the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the rain
Climbed a palm tree to get a coconut and then ate it
Pet a sea turtle and swam with sharks
Flown over 41000km
Eaten kangaroo and crocodile
Slept on the world's largest sand island
Climbed a volcano
Climbed a glacier
Climbed mountains
Followed a stream underground for 3 hours
Gotten lost in the rainforest
Hung out on a beach 24hrs after a croc attacked someone there
Hitchiked
Swam with dolphins
Slipped around two fighting sea lions
Driven on the beach for hours
Been woken up by cows
Bungy jumped
Seen more sheep than can be counted
Chased sheep, thrown rocks at sheep, yelled at sheep, eaten sheep
Swam in glacial streams and hot spring streams
Seen wild penguins
Longboarded on the Sunshine coast
Worked out with the South African Sharks (a Rugby team)
Been asked if I was American hundreds of times
Dropped a camera in the ocean
Stayed on the island where "Castaway" was filmed
Peed in the Pacific Ocean
Found out what Cassowaries were and heard about them non-stop for 4 weeks
Handfed Lorikeets
Seen huge rats inside restaurants
Been eaten by bed bugs
Slept in a hammock on the beach between palm trees
Absolutely cooked, absolutely froze
Driven a 3-speed column shift on the wrong side of the road
Lost a usb key and a shirt

Funny things about Kiwiland

Grilled cheese sandwiches are known as "cheese toasties"

Cookies don't really exist, only "bickies" (short for biscuits)

Over Easter there is a 24 hour rabbit hunt

No commercials are allowed on the radio or tv on Good Friday. No alcohol can be bought either, they rope off that section of the grocery store like a crime scene.

Weather forecasts almost always describe nice weather as "fine" not cloudy, sunny, or partial clouds. Basically, if it's not raining it's "fine". That word is so subjective though, one person may see a torrential downpour as fine, I certainly don't.

99% of the showerheads in Australia and New Zealand were made for people 5'8" and under. Anyone taller has to duck.

Movies come out WAY behind the rest of the world for instance, in Australia the release of "Death at a Funeral" was about a month behind North America. In New Zealand the delay was about 4 months. In Queenstown "American Gangster" is now playing (mid April), it was released October 1st... Are people swimming these movie reels over?

"Ta" means thank-you.

Kiwis pride themselves in typos. Apparently editing is optional for they can be found in almost everything from the front page of the paper to the company brochure.

No one knows what a "timbit" is. (I wasn't surprised)

The Misty Mountain Experience

A couple weeks ago I saw this awesome picture of The Remarkables. The picture was taken on the Ben Lomond summit and they were surrounded by low level clouds. I thought I could get a picture of that if I could get the right type of clouds and climb the mountain again. So after the past few days of perfect clouds and checking the weather I set my alarm clock for 4:30am.

I left a little after 5am and couldn't see anything. I didn't have a flashlight either (great planning). The first part of the hike goes up a road so I could follow the lighter sky above through the trees as it snaked it's way up the mountain through a really thick and extremely dark forest. Only in New Zealand would I do this, nothing can eat you here. I couldn't even see my feet. The only way I avoided "high stepping" it the whole way and thus moving extremely slow was by using my two walking sticks to "feel"the ground in front of me. As I walked all ghost stories I have ever heard came into my mind along with what I was going to tell the police if I stumbled across a body. I started to laugh at some points about how ridiculous I was thinking.

Anyways, after stumbling around in the forest I did make it to the track at the top and was in the middle of a cloud. After a few more minutes I was not disappointed. I was just above the clouds and the sun was about to come up. Absolutely incredible view! I would've paid huge money to see that but the best things in life are free.



Then I continued up the ridge a bit and heard this weird thing that sounded like a sheep or something. I knew there were goats around but this sounded different. Then I saw this bird flying in. I could tell by the colouration on it's wings and the profile that it was a Kea, the world's only alpine parrot. cool. I know they're really curious about stuff so I whistled and waved at it and it circled around to check me out. Another one came and I was able to get really close and take some awesome pictures. By the time I left I was about 8 ft away from them which was close enough for me. Look at that beak! They could probably chomp through my hand. It was an awesome experience!

Sort of looks like Chico here.

I lined them up for this one.

Like I said, I got really close.

I continued up to the top and snapped some pics. The air is much clearer in the morning especially when it's crisp out.

Looking back towards the birds.

There were wild goats part way up. Not too friendly and they smelled like a barn.

Lake Wakatipu is under there.

180 over Lake Wakatipu. Click on it to make it bigger.

Here are the goats on the way down having a nap.

On another note, the ground up there was frozen! First time I've seen that in a year or so.

Cha-ching

I haven't really been up to much lately, just working. I am counting the days until I'm done, not that the work is bad but I'm anxious to get moving again and doing cool stuff. I haven't left Queenstown in over two months. I think it's the longest I've ever been in one town without leaving.
I lined up to go on the Grand Traverse; a walk that we run at work, before I leave. It's going to be pretty cool, six days on the hiking track. Hopefully there will be some snow on the mountains and 6 clear, warm days (I'm not holding my breath). The weather here has just turned cool with daily highs barely making it into the 20's. This has proven a challenge for my wardrobe which caters to sun and surf. Only a few more weeks though.

I recently took out a membership at the local movie store where you can get a ton of movies and tv show seasons for really cheap so I've been watching a lot.

I find the mountains fascinating, no matter how many times you look at them they always look different and cool.

Oh, last weekend at home Boys' Camp hosted a stockmarket game for staff and alumni. I got to help out by filming some "insider" tips here and emailing the video home to be shown between the trading rounds. I messed it up a bit but I thought it was alright for one take on my lunch break.

What's new at home? No one tells me anything. Just because I'm gone, doesn't mean I'm not interested.

Fonthill, Benjamin Lomond and a really big fire

The other day at work after one of my briefings I was standing around talking to people and answering questions as usual. One of the most asked and most annoying questions is "how cold is it going to be?". After being asked this for like the millionth time I started into a "my definition of cold is probably alot different than yours" speech with a couple aussies. Anyways, after asking where I was from in Canada and a few other questions we found out that a couple years ago while they were on a teaching exchange to our great land that they live like 20 houses down from the first house I lived in. I lived in number 28 and they lived down the street in number 65 or something. CRAZY!! None of us could believe it. We were instantly friends, although I forget their names already.

Yesterday it was that time of the week for a couple days off. I decided to rehike the Ben Lomond peak that I climbed a couple months ago.

The peak right in the middle.

I've been eating healthier and exercising (sort of) so this was a bit of a test to see if I could do it and not almost die like last time. Well, good news, I made it up WAY faster and didn't die. It was super windy on the way up, although the top wasn't which didn't make any sense.


But anyways, when I got up there I noticed someone was burning something on the other side of the lake, no biggie right? Well, by the time I left like 45 min later (after calling home on my cell phone from the top) the fire had grown by like 5x's and we could see flames. We were on the other side of the lake and like 7km? away. Whatever the exact distance, we were really far and if we could see the flames they had to be HUGE.

Turns out that a few days ago some old coal burning tractor or something went by and didn't have a spark filter or something and started a small fire. It kept flaring up for a few days and they had a helicopter in to try to douse it but to no avail.

Those winds must have just fanned the flame and by the time I went to bed last night the grass fire (there aren't really any trees that naturally grow around here) had reached the top of the mountain but was getting smaller. Today there is a MASSIVE black spot on the side of the Remarkables. Thanks lame, old tractor thing.

The view at night from my room.