Yay, my camera turned up again.. quite the relief really.. really wasn’t looking forward to buying a new one. Ok, that’s a slight lie, I was looking forward to having a new digital, but not to paying for it. I think I would have gone for a PowerShot SD500. I’ve decided that I want a smaller camera that I can easily bring hiking etc. with me.. but I’ll wait until my one dies before buying a new one.

Anyway, here’s a pic of my cousin Hannah with James on her lap – and Aunt Mary with Bridgit (the 6 month old arrival).

Also headed out with my friend Sarah for a mountain bike ride. This is something I have to get into when I come back.. there’s a place called Bottle Lake. Named because there’s absolutely no lake anywhere near the place!. Well, actually, that’s not the real reason (funnily enough), but I’ve no idea why it’s called that… anyone know?

But anyway – mountain biking, lots of fun.. might well get my own bike when I come back.

lovely time in Palmerston North hanging out with the family.. didn’t get to set up the wireless network as some of the hardware had been faulty – and had been returned.

no pictures unfortunately.. y’know the way when you leave your camera under a plane seat you just know you’re going to forget it?

Well, this time I did.. went back 15 mins later.. plane was sealed up.. I figured they’d totally find it when they opened it up.. but it’s gone. This is slightly annoying. Good excuse to buy a new camera – but I was quite attached to that one (plus all the extra memory Lorcan had just brought over…)

Flew up to Wellington this morning.. got there eventually even though the pilot decided they wanted 2 attempts at the runway (something about wind..)

So for the last year or so I’ve been developing web based systems for the contact centre.. Mostly around logging calls and raising requests and managing them in a structured manner. It’s been fun, mostly!, and now seeing as I’m off for 6 months we need to get another group to take it all over.

That’s where this trip to Wellington comes in.. I was meeting with some in house (within the ministry) developers who may take over from me. I was happy, and surprised I guess, that they seemed pretty happy with how I’d developed things, and the architecture I’d used to make things work.

Happily.. I’ve been able to take tomorrow off (really, it’s my last day off work!) and I’m going to catch a bus up to Palmerston North and spend a couple of days with my family. Because I love them? Well, I do, but the real reason they want me up there is to install a wireless network. Or die trying. Still… should be fun.

For a while now I’ve not put this link up – but I’ve decided to now, seeing as mum and dad are getting their act together (in a blogging sense!)

A week before I left Ireland, my parents set off for Uganda – to an area called the Mountains of the Moon. Dad’s job was to set up a university. From scratch. They have made simply amazing progress, which has been very hard at times. Mum – while initially with no project to work on (like that was ever going to last) has been trying to find funding to create an IV Fluid production plant. Tens of thousands (at least) die all the time from an inadequate amount of IV fluids (e.g. patent gets sick from malaria – but dies because they do not have the fluids to keep them alive). So far she has raised, I think, about half ($150,000US) and needs the same again. She is investigating some avenues of funding, but, if anyone out there does know of any places which are worth checking out – please pass them on.

Anyway, that’s what they’re up to. I find it amazing – and I hope that when I am 60 odd that I will be able to do the same sort of thing. It’s really never too late is it?

If you’re interested, their weblog (which is basic – I haven’t made time to really swish it up yet) is : http://mountainsofthemoon.blogspot.com.

What a day.. In fact, what a great weekend. Well, ok, Saturday wasn’t great – headed up to Porter Heights to go snow boarding. Much against the advice of Warick and Co – who explained that as a norwesterly was coming through it’d be far too windy. Ahh well, an hour and a half drive later we found that he was totally right :) However, I did get to meet up with my friend Emma Towey who works there – hopefully get up there again before I leave NZ.

But bettern’ sat was today (Sunday!) when I headed off on a 3 hour flight around Mt. Cook with pilot Leo (friend of Dave Humes), Till and a friend of Leos (Brian)

So after pulling the plane out of the hanger it was time to fill up with petrol..

It was a totally stunning day – hard to describe.. I’m only going to put a couple of pics up – but there’s a whole slideshow here. Really worth a look even if I do say so myself. We flew from ChCh up over Methven (where Mt. Hutt skifield is) and headed on up over some stunning scenery..

towards Mount Cook. Here you can see a pic of one of the many braided rivers that you get in NZ.

At the end of the last glaciation, 10,000 years ago, rivers carried alluvial outwash down the valleys of the east coast and deposited it to form flat basins between the mountains and coastal plains.

Apparently only North America and the Himalayas have such extensive braided rivers systems.. anyway.. they sure are purty to look at :)

There were so many examples of the extensive impact the glaciers have on the Southern Alps – here you can see a moraine on the way up towards Mt. Cook. Still, like everywhere else, the glaciers are retreating..

I’ve put a short (3meg) video of mount cook here us flying past the summit. In this next picture you can see the summit ridge is quite long and flat – the actual summit is on the left hand side of the picture.

Then we landed at a place called Glentanner (by the top of lake tekapo) and had lunch. It was good to sit and just relax for an hour – I think it made the return flight more enjoyable than doing the whole thing in one go. I was glad of getting sustenance.. as on the way back Leo asked me did I want to fly for a bit (once we were safely in the air.. funnily enough)

Not really sure how far I flew – perhaps a hundred km or so – … the updraught / turbulence over the mountains was a tiny bit scary – but *nothing* compared to the bouncing around we were doing before coming in to land for lunch.. that really was .. exciting (to say the least)

We then flew up over Ashburton and up the coast, over the banks peninsula and over ChCh itself. You can see our house from the air (circled in red).. you can see just how run down it is (and the big patch of earth outside is where they lifted up a house and took it away).. but also look at the river running by the bottom of our big garden. Sure the place is freezing – but what a house – what a home? it is.

Finally a word on pilots’ senses of humour.. after 9/11 – well may 12th 2005 according to this article a Cessna plane (tiny) strayed over restricted DC airspace and caused a panic (F16s (not tiny) were scrambled).. anyway – here’s a bumper ish sticker that was in the office..

Well I thought it was funny.. Anyway – thanks to Leo for a truly amazing flight – do check out the slideshow here… there were just too many pics to put up on this post.