I meant to say.. on Friday headed out to the funky new NZ Alpine Club building to drink farewell to Richard who has been CEO of the club for five productive years. Can’t quite remember where I met him first, but an incredibly fun and positive person. He hopes to work for the International Red Cross for a few years. At least I believe that’s the current plan.

Those two pictures were taken ages ago. Richard is sitting at the top of the chalice (a sculpture in the middle of the cathedral square) and the article says why they’re up there (protest against the war on terror..). Perhaps it’s the real reason he has been forced to leave the job ;) No, I think not, but it was the perfect time to put the pics up.

Then it was time to catch the bus over to Lyttelton for Bob’s going away. Bob has been in and out of NZ for the last 5 years or so. He’s a really fun guy – climbs, skis, bikes, runs.. the usual really ;) Only he’s pretty gifted at them all. Anyway, he has had to leave back to the UK. Current plans are to return I believe, but who knows .. maybe the bright lights and glitzy core of Yorkshire will hold him there… hopefully not! he’ll be missed.

Someone put a picture up on picaweek of the skelligs in Co. Kerry. I would really love to know who took the pic. It’s a place I have always wanted to go. There are three UNESCO world heritage sites in Ireland.

• Newgrange
• The Giants Causeway
• The beehive huts on Skellig Michael

I’ve not seen the last one! (yet).

Headed up to Porter Heights with Graham & Myra, Michelle and Stefan. I’d never been there before, but had a really great day.. finally consistently (or pretty consistently) linking my turns together. Great feeling. Also trundled up to the top of ‘Big Mama’ – the longest Black Diamond run in the country (or so I am led to believe). I scraped my way down the icy surface – too scared to try a turn. It was a good lesson in humility (pic on right)

Great day though. Sunday was excellent.. I read my book (Fast Food Nation).. wrote my diary for the first time in a while, made some caramel squares, and watched a DVD (Alone Across Australia – brilliant film if you get the chance to see it)

So yes – graffiti… someone (I traced the IP Address.. so I suspect a school kid in OZ!) added all these comments to snowpool bookings.. mostly along the lines of what they would like to do to the posters mother. Hilarious. And quite annoying – have had to change things around now so that it’s all a little more restricted. Was surprised that someone would want to deface a site that is just there to save petrol & help people out. Sigh.

Sunday morning was most lazy, spent in snowball fights, and a short walk to a waterfall. DOC said the path was closed, but we knew better! Definitely worth hopping that barrier.

Spent a few hours messing around with google maps for snowpool. Really pretty happy with the result. It’s amazing what you can do easily these days.

Thanks to all those who have been posting pictures to picaweek Remember anyone is welcome to post.. picaweek/picaweek is the login at blogger.com

Graham and Myra are back in ChCh after spending a few days in Wellington. They have decided to give ChCh a try – so they’re busy looking for flats. Really looking forward to spending some time with them! It only took me 4 hours to clean the flat after getting rid of all their boxes ;)

Up to Arthurs Pass on Friday evening. Dave came over and picked Sylvia and I up and off we went. Neil & Mark – two tramping club friends were having a joint birthday celebration and had hired out a school hostel(ish) for the weekend. It took a little finding but we did make it in time to have a few celebratory drinks!

The next morning Dave and another guy Mike (whom I had not met before) headed off to carve some freshish tracks at Cragieburn Ski field. Another chill pass field in the area. There has been fresh snow here in the last week, and it was the first day it opened – so it was kinda crowded.

As the snow hadn’t really been skied on there were pockets where you were simply buried in drifts. Well, I was anyway. So I spent a large amount of time trying to swim out of 2′ of snow. Still, good times. It was great hanging out with Dave for the day. He *says* he was happy to take it easy and have a chilled out day… but I have my doubts ;)

Here are a couple of videos – one of me snowboarding (as badly as ever) and the other of Dave skiing..

I was pretty happy with my performance though – by the end of the day I was kinda linking turns (ish) on a blue slope.. i.e. pointing downhill and making turns. Oh yes, with a little tuition from Graham I’ll be on my way to 1080’s!

That evening the rest of the posse arrived to celebrate the birthday boys. Everyone brought a plate – and it was a big pot-luck dinner. There was far too much food. Great.

Then some odd games involving trying to pick matchboxes up off the floor, and traversing round a table. Mark(25?) on the left, Neil(26?) on the right.

I tried, managed to pick up the box ok, but couldn’t quite make it back up onto the chair (ok, in other words I failed ;)