First thing was to get 4 sea kayaks onto the boat.. and then it was time to cross the Foveaux Straight. I’d never have even thought we were going to have to kayak across. And, of course, we didn’t – good thing too as it can get pretty nasty in the 3 hours it takes to boat across (God knows how long in a kayak!).

Dave being Dave (ok I so should have) said in passing to Dennis ‘Can I get in the dinghy’.. I’m not sure if he was really ready for the answer which was ‘Yes, but you have to wear a lifejacket’

I also put a short video of dave in the boat up.

None of us had taken seasickness tablets, but the crossing was pretty ok all told. I did take Waricks advice though and sit outside at the back of the boat and keep my eyes on the horizon!

By the time we got across and were set up (anchoring that night in Vaila Voe Bay) it was… time to go to the pub. Ok, so it wasn’t going to be quite as adventurous as I thought it was! but still, I suppose there are times for comfortable fun holidays sometimes ;)

This poem has nothing whatsoever to do with Stewart Island..!, but my primary school classmates should recognise it..

Inchcape Rock

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The Ship was still as she could be;
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.

Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flowed over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.

The Abbot of Aberbrothok
Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock;
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung.

When the Rock was hid by the surges swell,
The Mariners heard the warning Bell;
And then they knew the perilous Rock,
And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok

The Sun in the heaven was shining gay,
All things were joyful on that day;
The sea-birds screamed as they wheeled round,
And there was joyaunce in their sound.

The buoy of the Inchcpe Bell was seen
A darker speck on the ocean green;
Sir Ralph the Rover walked his deck,
And fixed his eye on the darker speck.

He felt the cheering power of spring,
It made him whistle, it made him sing;
His heart was mirthful to excess,
But the Rover’s mirth was wickedness.

His eye was on the Inchcape Float;
Quoth he, My men, put out the boat,
And row me to the Inchcape Rock,
And I’ll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok.

The boat is lowered, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape Rock they go;
Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,
And he cut the bell from the Inchcape Float.

Down sank the Bell with a gurgling sound,
The bubbles rose and burst around;
Quoth Sir Ralph, “The next who comes to the Rock,
Won’t bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok”.

Sir ralph the Rover sailed away,
He scoured the seas for many a day;
And now grown rich with plundered store,
He steers his course for Scotland’s shore.

So thick a haze o’erspreads the sky,
They cannot see the sun on high;
The wind hath blown a gale all day,
At evening it hath died away.

On the deck the Rover takes his stand,
So dark it is they see no land.
Quoth Sir Ralph, “It will be lighter soon,
For there is the dawn of the rising Moon.”

“Canst hear,” said one, “the breakers roar?
For methinks we should be near the shore.”
“Now, where we are I cannot tell,
But I wish we could hear the Inchcape Bell.”

They hear no sound, the swell is strong,
Though the wind hath fallen they drift along;
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,
“Oh Christ! It is the Inchcape Rock!”

Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair,
He curst himself in his despair;
The waves rush in on every side,
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.

But even is his dying fear,
One dreadful sound could the Rover hear;
A sound as if with the Inchcape Bell,
The Devil below was ringing his knell.

Robert Southey

At about 3pm or so Dennis (one of Waricks friends) arrived and we were off for the long drive down to Bluff. Dave had just flown into ChCh after 3 months around Asia, so good to see he was getting straight back into the life down here!

So after loading up the kayaks on the lawn (nice lawn ‘innit? ;) we set off. The first stop was to the Cookie Time Factory. It’s an NZ owned and operated factory – also currently the world record holders for having the worlds largest cookie..

Cookie Time’s World Record beating cookie was…
• 487.15 square metres in area
• 24.9 metres in diameter
• 2.5 centimetres thick

And it contained…
• 13 tonnes of ingredients
• 2.5 tonnes of chocolate – over one million chocolate hips!
• 3.1 tonnes of sugar – enough for 600,000 cups of tea!
• 2 tonnes of butter – enough to spread over 400,000 slices of toast!
• 24,000 eggs – enough to have one a day for 65 years!
• 4.5 tonnes of flour – enough for 12,000 batches of scones!

And it’s also a place I wish I’d discovered a little earlier! here you can buy monster bags of broken cookies for cheap… hmmmm.. so much for getting fit again.

The van didn’t exactly have what you could call seats. Well, in the front it did, in the back we had two deckchairs and Waricks mattress.. comfortable though :)

We also stopped off at the Moaeraki Boudlers – south of Omaru. These boulders were formed in much the same way as a pearl is – layers of mudstone formed around a piece of wood / shell / something – on the sea bed ages ‘n ages ago… There’s also the much more beautiful Maori legend..

According to South Island accounts the Moaeraki boulders were formed when kūmara(sweet potato) brought in the Ārai-te-uru canoe washed overboard and became petrified on the beach.

It did take the best part of 9 hours to drive down and arrived into some pretty windy weather and our first night on our boat – The Crystal Voyager

Catchy title? I thought it was anyway. So last week was definitely one of the hardest I’ve had in a really long while. I was pretty stressed with being back at work. See, last year I did get a reasonable amount of decent work done, but I took things pretty handily. For this year I asked my boss to give me more work.. (harder and more varied) and he has willingly obliged!. Anyway, I was a little worried ‘cos some of the work I’ve done is being opened up to wider systems to use – so it’s all getting a little more useful to business processes – with attendant performance and quality assur..

what is this? A Frickin’ work blog. Nope.. Anyway suffice to say had a wee chat and that’s all sorted. I was also feeling quite a long way from family and friends.. but now that I’m back hiking and climbing – phisio has given me exercises and the back I put out playing squash is feeling heaps better.. in fact generally alls pretty damn good.

Also got away at the weekend hiking up in Lewis Pass… the weather wasn’t really all that kind to us – but it was just great to be out walking again. I’m ridiculously unfit after 6 months of travel.. but will enjoy getting back to the level I was at – and then pushing it out a bit.

Oh, also during the week I learned about The End Of The House (Queue mourneful music). Sadness.. ok so the place is totally run down and a little bit of a firetrap.. but still.

Now, Mr. Bennett (our landlord) is one of the .. oddest and tightfisted people you are likely to meet. That said (hello if you’re reading this Mr. Bennett ;) hehe). He has spent roughly $0.15 on the house in the last 50 million years. Now.. a while ago our neatly hidden decrepit house was exposed to the posh neighborhood we live in when the house infront was taken away. A few weeks later the council were round to see about fire safety (I reckon the neighbours want the place torn down). The result was that last week a guy came around and we’re having an integrated fire system put in – so if anwhere in this massive house has a fire – we’ll all hear about it.

The plot thickens somewhat by the fact that the system will only be good for 3 years apparently – after which time I am informed by the builders (not the landlord!) that the house will be torn down and subdivided. Which, to anyone who has been here – will be a shame.

In the words of my new flatmate – Mark – it’s one of the few places he has lived where, when he has been down the country, he actually looks forward to being back in the house – it’s that kind of place. Sure it’s run down – but the house just has a happy – feel good factor etched into the peeling paint and rusting corrugated iron roof ;)

So – off tramping with 3 ppl I’d not met before, James (oz), Duncan (Kiwi) and Natasha (UK).

Duncan was great – he’s a real kiwi – tough and completely ingenious. He basically made his tent, uses a small drinking tube to suck water from small streams (less Guardia there apparently!), makes guy rope clasps from old toothbrushes and even seals his Petrol MSR canister with Duct Tape (but it’s ok.. apparently it’s not a safety issue! ehehehe, though he made damn sure it was pointing away from him :) hehehe…

Yeah, heaps of fun.. up onto a ridge and looked down into a lake. Steve Pawson & Esther, Ben and Mike all from the Tramping club all arrived later on in the afternoon.. so ’twas a good old party. Camped overnight through howling winds and rain (NorWester coming through).. and then back to ChCh via Hanmer Springs.

I must admit, I’ve been a Maruia Springs snob when it comes to hot springs – and I still reckon it’s a far nicer setting – but after the rains etc Maruia would be cold.. and Hanmer was nicely toasty.

So yes, there was nothing particularly hard or special about the hike – but again, it’s all about the people – and it was really good to clear the head, and again remind me what I love about this country.

Oh, did make a small slide show (really for the other ppl on the tramp the pics are ok – but nuffink partic special) here

So finally finished a Google Earth tour of my round the world trip. First click on that link (or go to earth.google.com) and download the free Google earth program. It’s amazing. Basically it gives you satellite images of the whole world. In some places it is possible to zoom in to building level.

Then download the google earth bookmarks that I made. It plugs into google earth and you can see all the places that I went on the way back home to Europe (and back again to NZ – up to the White Water trip).

Matt sent me a couple of interesting links on the whole Google in China thing.

Search Tiananmen from Google Images:

http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen

Search Tiananmen from Google China:

http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen

Oh, and the first day back at work went well!

Photos in this post reproduced with permission from Chee Chang Ho and Darren Rooney! so thanks to them.

All organised at last. Well, pretty much anyway. Chee Chang and Annabel, two friends of Andrews (my boss) picked me up on Friday and we drove down to Haast on the West Coast – an hours drive or so South of the glaciers. Andrew having done himself an injury (2 broken ribs) just after Christmas wasn’t able to join for the trip which was a shame.

However, the trip itself totally rocked. SO much fun. We even got helicoptered in. There was a bit of excitement at the start as one of the raft guides hadn’t turned up – and there wasn’t a repair kit for the two rafts that we did have. This meant the trip – at least for the people who were to raft – was going to be cancelled… Now, I’ve just finished reading Against the wall and Yates is quite honest in that book – so I thought I might try that too. I was.. honestly! ;) momentarily, slightly relieved that this meant I mightn’t have to terrify myself for the long weekend! However, it passed as I couldn’t bare the thought of spending the weekend in ChCh either…

So the helicopters came in to pick up the gear. A blue one and a black one. The guy in the black one did a really steep dive coming in, so I decided that was the one I wanted a go in. The guys in the WWCC (White Water Canoe Club) were really really friendly – and even let me have a go in the front. Our guy on the final approach went with the rotors perpendicular to the ground. It was amazing. Afterwards all I wanted was to quit the day job and become a helicopter pilot. It was so so so so so much fun.

We were around about 250-300 feet above ground (according to the altimeter). The rapids don’t look so munchy from up there.

Then it was straight onto the river (after being told the various calls etc which everyone got quite confused by). The first day had one pretty big rapid at the start – 3+ anyway, and then a long flat section (thankfully with the wind) before some more challenging 3+/4 rapids. Our boat got stuck a few times, filled with water etc. etc. but never flipped. Darren – from 39 Fendalton – was our guide. He’d been roped in at the last minute – but was super.

The first two pics are before and during a rapid. I’m the one in the blue climbing helmet! The below left pic is L->R Kirsty, Darren and Anna.

My petrifiedness subsided over the course of the day, and I was quite enjoying it really by the time we got to our camp. It felt really great actually to take out my trusty trangia stove – from old scouting days, fire it up, and cook a delicious meal of packet noodle stuff. Ok, while I was a lazy cook this time, that’s another leaf I’m determined to turn over once and for all. In fact, I made a resolution this week which I’ve managed to carry out so far.

No personal emails / skype from 9->5

Just incase I ever do return to working in Europe, I feel that if I can keep that resolution it’ll make the transition all the easier. And in fact I’m quite enjoying it so far.

Those two pics were of random scenery and the camp. After the drive down, and being out there in the wilderness again, seeing waterfalls coming out of the valleys, terminal moraines from glaciers perched high above the river.. I remembered pretty rapidly what I do love about this place. It’s funny – I mean I’d been back 6 days and I was rafting down a river in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of people I’d never ever met before (except Darren) and it was all totally natural and friendly. I love it!

So the second day.. I’ll just put up a bunch of pics. The main scariness this day was when we got stuck on a rock at the top of one of the rapids. A really nasty one actually. The boat totally filled with water, and we had lines thrown to us and we swam off the boat. Darren and Fletch (one of the other guides who hopped onto our boat) rigged lines, and with the help of pulleys we pulled the boat off the rocks.

Getting back on again to head back into the munching rapid (we had got stuck close to the top) took a little determination. Sorry! but it did (I’m not really that heroic!)

In this last one you can see our raft right up on its side.. really thought we’d had it at this stage (though in this case falling out would have been ok as we were at the end of this partic piece of white water)

Many pints were consumed that eveni
ng.. and then it was time for the long drive back to ChCh this evening. All in all an excellent trip – just so much fun.

Though.. after 6 months of holiday.. it’s strange, but I really am looking forward to being back in work!