Back to the West Coast again this weekend, plus my first long drive in my little car in a very long while. Wasn’t really sure how it was going to hold up – but it did well! Has to get it’s WOF (warrant of fitness) in a couple of weeks, have to fix the windscreen (kinda cracked it with a kayak…) ehem, but other than that hopefully it’ll pass easily. Except that it always konks out when the revs get low. But besides that… :)

Anyway, picked up Kirsty & Andy’s friend (another Andy) and headed through Arthurs Pass – stopping off for the mandatory ice-cream in Springfield.. Twas a lovely evening though.

Took a while getting to Punakiki, but we were there by 10, and asleep not too long after (after a couple of jugs of course ;)

Next morning we hiked in to an incredible spot – it was 3 hours of following markers through the bush. No real trails so to speak of.. Had fantails following us most of the way..

That afternoon we went through the cave Armageddon. It was super – huge cave with gazillions of glowworms (hopefully pic coming later). One pitch of SRT but generally it was quite cruisey. Mind you, took me a little while to get back into it – first caving I’ve done in almost a year really.

Dinner never tasted so good! And our shelter for the evening was a huge overhanging rock – with the river down below – and glowworms above. Not too bad!

Sunday – up early and we went into two caves that have just been discovered (doesn’t happen too often) – about 10 other ppl have been through these caves – ever. In one there’s a skeleton of an Upland Moa – one of the smallest (if not the?!) of the Moa Species (a flightless bird hunted to extinction by the Maori)

This skeleton dates back to roughly 12,000 years old (pics were sent to the resident expert! – apparently after the last ice-age the species became a lot smaller..) Still, it was fun being in new caves (though they were incredibly muddy). You feel kinda bad going through new caves though – as *anything* you touch gets mud on it – and it *never* comes off again.. (there’s no water in some of these caves to wash it free).. it’s also quite difficult not to break some stalactites when you move around… but then if no one goes in then no one sees it anyway.. catch 22.

Then a quick walk out – wanted to get to see Billy Connolly on TV1.. drove most of the way back before it became apparent we’d never make it back in time. But then Kirsty remembered that the clocks went back (for us)… so had an extra hour.

So drove to work (I have no tv) and settled down to watch it. Only to find the rugby sevens (whatever they are! :P) have taken precedence and Billy wasn’t on.

St. Me day at last! Had a couple of pints of Guinness with Glynn and Seamus at The Bog for lunch. (apparently it sells the most Guinness in New Zealand.. – and has the biggest 100 pint club too)

Then a slightly more relaxed day in work.. before heading to the pub at 5, and not really being too far from a pint until 1… (yes, I’m not really a hardcore drinker) Still, an excellent evening.. Definitely fun wearing my t-shirt out, does get good reactions.

Oh, and my far too kind (or crazy! – or both!) manager Andrew is lending me his BMW for next weeks road trip. hehehehe, crazy kiwis.

So today Glynn gave me his months notice :) Quite expected (it is cold).. so it’s new flatmate time again. Has been really great living with him for the last 6 months.. It’s been really great having a good friend from home to live with – makes a huge difference sometimes… But I know this place does get quite cold so I can see why he’s off! Still, guess it’ll just mean more pool & pints evenings.. so it’s all good.

I don’t think it’s going to be super hard to find someone else to move in, but if it is then I can always just move out myself too.. though that would be a shame, I do love the place.

Anyway, thanks for the last 6 months Glynn – to anyone out there who might have the opportunity to flat with him, I’d definitely recommend it.. superb chef, comes with a smoothie maker (will have to get one now), and clean too :)

So booked the Kepler Track today, as will be doing that with Mick and Glynn next week. Can’t wait.

Caving again for the first time in quite a while this weekend… should be fun I hope. It’ll be back to the West Coast again – I think I need to learn to fly :)

Seeing as this is a jumbly enough post already – here are a couple of other miscellaneous things…

A pic of the ppl who work in the contact centre

And this fairly awful picture of me ;) is maybe going to make it into an article about the Contact Centre and some of the small projects I’ve been working on. So, obviously it’ll be no time at all before I’m catapulted into stardom.

Honestly.

Finally – a link (his self styled) The Best Page in the Universe. It’s extremely rude (sorry mum ;) and unbelievably un-pc.. but I’m afraid I did find it kinda funny…

Of course it’s nothing compared to my site ;) but, sometimes I like to share.

Friday night headed across to Hokitika with Joe and Dave and Miriam.. for the wild foods festival. More traffic than I’ve ever seen going through Arthurs Pass. After stopping for the mandatory spicy wedges in the Bealey Pub it was on to our campsite at hokitika. We had to endure 2 hours of Burt Bacharach before we got there though, *thanks* Joe ;)

Hokitika has a population of about 3,500. For the wildfoods weekend it grows to about 23,000. So there’s a bit of an atmosphere!! I’d say the average age there (amongst the more splendidly drunk!) was about 16… Quite a large police presence… but no real trouble to speak of.

So – yes – the festival itself started at 11am. We started fairly tamely – trying ostrich (quite tough), snails (taste of garlic sauce), Mutton Bird – a sea bird which tastes of anchovies (or at least our one did), Whitebait (fairly bland but quite nice fish).

This pic is of Miriam eating punga (a fern root – it was – well.. not too bad, but covered in a white goo which was slimy and seemed quite like.. nasal mucus..!

Then it was onto more adventurous foods, not always with happy tasting consequences.. we sampled from the ‘tasty titties’ stand… sounds good I’ll admit.. but it was cows udder… which was really fatty – quite like eating pork fat..

Joe bought a plate of ‘mountain oysters’ (sheep’s testicles) and bulls penis… This was definitely the worst plate!! I steered clear of the oysters.. (unlike Dave in this pic)

But I did try the bulls appendage… and it really was awful. The taste was not good, the meat? or whatever it was – is extremely chewy.. and it’s difficult not to think about what you’re actually chewing on while you’re chewing.

not my favourite.

Then it was onto the hu hu grubs. They were actually quite tasty.. had one dead one and one live one…

They taste quite like peanut butter to be honest.. found in rotting wood mainly. There’s a short video of Joe eating his here (800kb)

Now, the reason – or one of the main reasons that Dave came, was so that he could get a flight up around Punakiki area where he and Joe have been prospecting for (and finding) new caves… Dave’s friend Leo has a pilots license and flew over for the day… so we had a short flight – (an hour) up and down the coast – in a 4 person plane!!! It was super fun.

That’s a pic of the wildfoods site from the air.. then we turned North and headed up the coast.

We also flew over Greymouth, which had just been hit a couple of days earlier by a tornado I *think* this pic shows some of the damage.. but it might just be an abandoned building too…

But mostly the flight was about getting to see a large area of potential caving sites easily and quickly. Mind you, how you’re supposed to match from the pictures you take to what’s on the ground.. tricksy I’d say when it all looks like this…

There’s a short video from the flight here (2.5 megs) I recoded it with divx.. so you may need to download a divx player from here

That was fun though.. then we had a bbq (and more alcamahol) at a friend of Miriams friend :) A guy called Tom. And he has a great little house down on the beach. He works for DOC – and you can see it in the way the house is set up and decorated… I dunno – just wooden surfaces everywhere, a huge veggy garden, an outdoor bath.. etc. etc.

I did go for a wee walk along the beach at night – hundreds of driftwood fires all up and down the beach with lots of friendly people to chat to! – twas a great evening.

The next morning wasn’t so much fun ;) but 2 ice-creams (Boysenberry and Hokey Pokey, and Passion Fuit + Boysenberry) saw me safely home. Unfortunatly, John Loane still holds the record for the biggest servings of ice-cream. Something I intend to work on!