Off to the West Coast this weekend to walk the inland pack track. The Inland Pack Track was created in the mid 1800’s for gold miners to move through the area. Unfortunately the didn’t seem to have left any massive nuggets lying about to be picked up.

Unfortunately for us, it also happened to be the Wildfoods weekend, so the traffic was pretty thick getting out of town. Mikkel, our fast (but safe) driver decided that it would be more fun to cut back across to the Lewis Pass. I suppose it added an extra hour and a half to our drive (even averaging about 120 all the way!) – but there were certainly less cars. The other car in the group opted to sit back an extra 2 seconds from the boy racers in front and go through Arthurs Pass – and arrived that hour and a half ahead of us.

We stayed at the excellent Te Nikau Retreat. Definitely the best backpackers to stay in if you’re in Punakaiki. No pictures (bit slow this weekend!)

So, some pictures (yay)

There were lots of river crossings – it’s definitely not the tramp to do after there has been a lot of rain. We also went into Cave Creek Cave? There was an accident about 15 years ago where a group of students were on a platform which collapsed, killing quite a lot of them – and led to a review of all the DOC platforms and bridges around the country.

It is amazing the difference between the West and East coasts. It’s a lot more tropical / rainforesty on the West – it gets many buckets more rain than the East. Still, when we run our of water in ChCh after drinking our aquifers dry – we’ll all be off over there. Note – in ChCh the water is filtered not treated – comes straight from the aquifers and is really lovely to drink.

Come to New Zealand. Come to Christchurch. Today! ;)

ehem.

We also had Dave Aubrey’s girlfriend Maria along for the trip. I suspect it was all a little cruisey (if fun)… she has now taken off with tougher friends off into Arthurs Pass.. but I suspect she is looking forward to when Dave arrives for some adventures in a few weeks time. His blog is well worth checking out – the latest pictures from *way* up in Northy North Northern Canada are pretty amazing. Ice roads ‘n the like.

Thanks to Volker for organising an excellent weekend.

Not that I have a plan to move back to Ireland… but this is just scary…

Bank of Ireland tumbled more than 30 per cent yesterday to €0.125. Its share price 12 months earlier stood at €9.15. AIB slid 21 per cent to €0.27, compared to €13.29 a year ago.

So this weekend it was off to Wellington for Glynn’s stag weekend. On the Friday we went and got fitted for suits (well, I did).. and had some general chillout times. There was plenty of time to be thrashed at darts.

I also managed to meet up with my friend Mandy who I went to Thailand with back in January 2005 for rock climbing. Anyway – great to see her back in the country again, this time married to a bloke wot seems pretty groovy (and fun).

So yes, the stag itself.. so it started for Glynno with a shot of rum at about 8ish, followed shortly afterwards by a pint – and then off to paintball Wellington. Now.. I’d never done paintball before – and hadn’t quite realised what it was like.

It’s more painful than you think it’s going to be. That said, it is fun. Mostly. This place was mad though – I mean upstairs (it was indoors) was something straight out of James Bond. Deserted corridoors with lots of little rooms… smashed windows!! glass on the floor. I’ve not yet rung them up about that.. but I think someone needs to. I know kiwi’s have a … quite refreshing… sense of “She’ll be right“… but honestly.. that was a little too far.

So – I have no pictures, but at the end of the time we joined another stag group and all lined up (about 20 testosterone filled blokes). The stags then had to do a relay out to a point and back. It was great fun shooting an unarmed stag.

Then someone (Mikey) had the bleedin’ great idea that the best men (me) should do it too.

Silly, silly idea.

Anyway – off I ran .. then I did something sneaky AND CLEVER. It was clever, honestly… I ducked out to the side of the room and, sheltering behind pillars made my way mostly back to the start. Then I lined up for the finish, put my head down, and ran into a hail of bullets.

Unfortunately I also ran straight into a concrete pillar, and shortly after, fell down.

Bleeding.

Head wounds bleed a lot – even if non serious (as mine was). So.. besides scaring the shit out of all the other punters in the lobby (honestly, their faces were priceless) it wasn’t that bad. I did have to go to A&E; to have my wound glued shut.

The rest of the party continued on – and I met them in the Beer Festival later on that evening – where Glynn was well and truly on his way into intoxication.

This is what he looked like at the end… not tooooo bad all things considered.

It was fun though – but slightly tempered for me with my little mishap with the pillar. Concrete 1, Patrick 0.

A much needed break away to Akaroa. I think I’m getting old. I think that should, in fact, be the definition of getting old – needing weekend breaks. Gone are the days of tramping every weekend (or climbing, caving, biking).. oh no, now it’s a long slow slippery slope to sipping iced drinks on the verandah rocking slowly on a wooden chair.

Sounds ok to me ;)

Kidding.. still, it was a nice getaway… many games were played.. Pente and Tantrix being the main two.. the Almost in the title comes from the lapse in concentration on the 17th hole at Mini-Golf, but sure, that’s pretty unimportant – and the wind was blowing (my) shots off course.

So yes, some good fridge art.

Ok, so I’m really not that philosophical, but – I did like this picture. To me it represented a struggle between the natural (left hand side) and man-made / sterile on the right… with what you accept being the dividing line… Feel free to add your interpretations (even anonymously if you like!) :)

There’s a really nicely carved church down by the sea at Onuku, and the house is Halfmoon Cottage – a BBH hostel. It was a really nice place – about 110 years old (which is old for here!) nice high ceilings, original fireplaces from ye olde country.. more expensive than Onuku, but a pretty nice venue.

Finally, on Sunday went to Bryan and Mindy’s goodbye party. They’re heading back to the States – I suppose with Obama pumping $700 Billion into the place, there will be a few jobs there soon enough. Though their children’s children may not thank them for the debt!

Also, my good friend Maeve from college climbing days got married to Andy.. would have been great to be able to celebrate with them. I know I’ve said it before, but would someone, please, just hurry up and invent teleportation.

Well, well well.. Another friend down. Poor thing ;) Hehehe, kidding.. lots of weddings coming up. This weekend it was David Forde & Vicki getting married. Dave is a kiwi with a wicked and sharp sense of humour. But then he does have Irish blood in him. It was a small and simple ceremony – perfect.

Afterwards Maaike and I went on to a free summertime show. This one was the complete history of film (abridged). It really was quite fun. It took us right from silent films and slapstick..

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=1324494256849020176]

All the way through to that Titanic of films – Titanic. Good name for it. Biggest grossing ever apparently. I suppose that’s just box office rather than merchandising too?

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=4437380078392950642]

If you’re going to play a video – then the above one (Ice-T Titanic Rap) is probably the one to play.

Then on Sunday, Warrick and Hannah and Neil kindly took Maaike and I for a blast down the Hurunui. No pictures unfortunately, but it was a great day. My roll somehow came back (though I only practised in calm water) – and I didn’t have to swim once. Really – a great great day.