So Heather (Mike Carrigans Fiancée) has just graduated after a long and involved degree (humanities) mostly by correspondence. Mike organised a surprise dinner and beach party for her (and the weather too). Heather looked deservedly chuffed :)
Dinner was yum – and the beer was fantastic. I’d forgotten quite how good The Brew Moon is. Then afterwards we camped at the beach a couple of kilometres south of the pub.
I slept in my van – quite soundly until at 01:30 some lousy drunks (Mike and Mikkel) started shaking the van. Took me a little while to get back to sleep after that – and was then woken at 7am ish by some horsey people arriving to ride on the beach. Peering out through my curtains I saw that there was a decent pink glow in the East – so decided to go take some pictures.
For the last few years there has been a really excellent rogaine series in the Spring and Autumn months (roughly November and March).
Rogaining is like orienteering, except there’s no fixed route. You have a map, maybe 40 to 50 controls to choose from – and away you go. This latest one was in Sumner – which is a beautiful suburb of Christchurch – it’s very much its own little community.
The weather started out nice and warm, and then gradually got colder and colder – until we saw this rather ominous front moving in. Katrina (my scrabble nemesis – she thrashes me practically every Tuesday) is pictured here.
About – oh, 5 minutes after this picture was taken it got very cold, started raining, and then about a minute later started hailstoning. We were all in shorts – and those hailstones sting. Lots. So we sheltered in.. a shelter. With a tin roof and metal beams for supports. Always fun when the lightning had about.. oh, 1/2 second, if that, delay between flash and boom.
So we sheltered, our Nemeses (pictured at the start of the evening planning their route – Amy and Michelle who have beaten us in every rogaine to date (and probably this one too)), sheltered for about 4 minutes – and then headed out into the hailstones. That’s dedication.
After a while though it did clear up, and we had some beautiful, beautiful views. An utterly stunning double rainbow. Bright and clear. Just stunning. Also a very nice sunset to boot.
As I only had my little camera – and it was hailing, and my wee fingers were cold – it wasn’t really possible to get a decent panorama or wide-angle shot. However, I did take a very short video – so you can hopefully see just how stunning it was.
So, that’s it for us – will be packing next Wednesday for the 7 weeks of holiday. It really is a tough, tough life sometimes.
Dawkins was here first – promoting his latest book, and giving a talk on the origin of life – and how amazing it is. How we have to “give thanks” (to who(m)?), how incredible it is that we are here at all etc. He talked about “A great knob twiddler in the sky” in relation to a God. While his talk was interesting – and there was little I disagreed with – I did think his.. ego and vanity got the better of him. I mean if you want to talk about Bubbling Metaverses and so on – as a substitute for God – fair enough.. but neither he nor any other atheist will come any closer than First Cause than can the rest of us.
So there.
On the other hand – I am just back from hearing Professor Rees talk – and he was simply incredible. He’s the president of the Royal Society of London (the oldest scientific society – celebrating 350 years this year). He has an incredible talent for distilling knowledge and then dispensing it in a way that the rest of us could understand. He was humble, interesting, witty (rather than Dawkins’ often crass / provocative offerings) and supremely passionate about his chosen subject.
It just made me want to go back to university and study astronomy / cosmology – or to quit work and try to find something vaguely useful to do with my life. I mean it seems to me that it’s obvious looking around that there are real pressures on our world and that we all need to do more to help out.
So I bought Professor Rees’ book Our Final Century: Will Civilisation Survive the Twenty-first Century?.. I’m sure humans will survive- but in what state? Do we have the capacity to be altruistic now – for the future children? What are we doing about the oil & water & population pressures? Or are we just a blip on the history of our planet – and something else is bound to take our place once we wipe ourselves off the map (so why worry?)
I dunno – but I am certainly looking forward to reading the book. He inscribed it for me:
I hope that this book is too pessimistic
I think hope is wonderful, but perhaps it’s well beyond time to think about how to act.
Glynn was off for Oracle induction in the US – so he and Jayne came down with little Isla for a week. Had a lovely lovely evening with the proud parents – and Graham and Myra came by too.
Last weekend headed up Avalanche Peak with Kylie, Maaike and Simone. It’s great to be able to drive just a couple of hours and be well up into the hills.
It’s quite a grunt up to the summit – the track climbs steeply from the valley floor in Arthurs Pass village.
So, the valley floor is at about 700m, and the top of the bush line is about 1200m… so, very roughly, everything in The Netherlands would fit within the area marked in red. Well, everything physical – obviously the personalities would never fit in such a space ;)
Ehem.
Onwards and upwards we went – the ridges can be quite spectacular.
There is quite the view from the top – though the cloud could have been a little kinder. Mind you, I tend to fry in the sun here – so a bit of cloud cover is probably quite a good thing for me really.
And a quick video of the panorama from the top.
All in all it took us about 3 1/2 hours to get to the top.. and then there’s about another hour to walk down from the top and further along the tops until you get to a scree slope you descend to the valley floor. There are *lots* of different scree slopes coming off – so it’s quite important to find the right one – otherwise you end up being caught by cliffs. Which is never a good thing.
On the left one of the scree slopes you don’t want to descend – and on the right – the one you do want to.
Running down a scree slope is a practised art – and one I’d not tried until coming to NZ. On nice scree (which this wasn’t today) with small sandy / pebbley scree it’s extremely pleasant. Basically you rest on your heels and slip and slide down the hill. It’s a fast convenient way to descend rapidly. This slope sees a lot of traffic, so it’s not quite so pleasant to get down.
At the bottom Maaike and I realised that our friend Mike had caught up with us (he said he would probably join – but not definitely) so started a little chant pf ‘we have a secret, we have a secret‘ – which Kylie and Simone didn’t quite understand (understandably) to begin with.. Simone looked at Mike for a good 10 secs when he did finally catch up with us. Hilarious.
Also, and at least as importantly – Mike had been testing cakes for his wedding, and brought along a delicious (and miraculously intact) cake for desert. Very very impressive.
Not the best nights sleep (brought my winter sleeping bag when it definitely should have been the summer one) – but a great trip nonetheless, and great to be out stretching the legs before solid socialising for 7ish weeks. Can’t wait.
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