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.

Oops

While booking my flights I was using an American calendar online and was planning on being home just before the may long weekend. However, the holiday I thought represented Victoria day was Memorial Day. Crap, I'll be exactly one week late. Doesn't really matter in the end I guess.

In other news here is the latest weather forecast for Queenstown. Anyone jealous?


This is out at Queenstown Gardens, I hang out here for lunch sometimes. I guess the view isn't bad.

The Last Leg

After much humming and hawing about what I was going to do on my way home I have decided and booked it. I will be leaving New Zealand on April 30th and head back to Sydney for a couple weeks to visit some friends there and in Wooloongong and hopefully some family in Canberra. I will then fly out of Sydney back to Auckland on May 15 then, crossing the date line, to Apia, Samoa for 5 days. I then fly from there to L.A. for a couple days and head home on the 22nd to Buffalo (lame town but really cheap to fly to). So, May 22nd I'll be home!

After all that my journey will look like this. 15 different flights on 6 different airlines and a lot of bags of peanuts.

Just Another Day at the Office

Today was awesome. As part of my job I tell people about the Milford track which is a 5 day hiking trip in which people walk to Milford sound. I always get asked how many times I've done it or when was the last time I've done it and sadly I always have to answer that despite the appearance that I'm experienced I have never actually hiked it or even seen it. No longer. Today I got to go check out the track via helicopter as I scored an empty seat while one of the track managers went out to pump shit into tanks or something (I wasn't involved in this).

I met Bill before sunrise at work and we headed out to the Queenstown airport. 6 of us squeezed into the 7 seater chopper and started up towards the Routeburn track, another track that we offer as a guided walk. Along the way we saw the sun rise hit the mountain tops and glaciers while zooming over mountains and valleys. Incredible is the only word I can think of. We dropped off 3 guys and then headed out to the Milford track to Glade house, the overnight stop along the track. Here we got a nice cooked breakfast with the guests and then Bill started his thing and I started out with the group and walked with them for a couple hours.

My ride sitting at Glade House.

A detour off the track to check out a bog.

An eel. This thing was at least 3 ft long and it was a "small" one. I'm skeptical.

Crossing the Clinton River.

Glade House looking back from the cable bridge.

When I came back Bill was still working so I went with Rico (the pilot) to deliver some stuff to other lodges from Milford Sound. Flying around was amazing. The pictures I took suck in comparison to what it really looked like.

We hooked this up to the chopper with the rope and flew it down the valley. It had oranges and stuff in it. Some fell out along the way b/c it started spinning alot. Bombs away.

Apparently this is the technique when lifting a "cage" of stuff, stick your head out the door.

The valley.

Sutherland Falls, 1904ft. Wow.

Nice valley.

This is coming up to Iceberg Lake, no icebergs though.

After we had delivered stuff we picked up some of our walkers and flew then to pick up Bill back at Glade House. The walkers pay 450 bones to fly back to Queenstown by chopper. Total cost to me for the day: $0. oh ya.