So not much going on
Yeah - I’m still alive. I’ve been blogging pretty sporadically though.. That needs to change. Heading to the Prom this weekend –> Should be lots of fun.
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to all!
As it’s now 12:37AM, this comic seems strangely appropriate (note: XKCD always does)
Courtesy of XKCD
Regardless of the early morning - I hope you all have a fantastic and blessed Christmas. (And I’ll try and post something before the new year to wish that well for you as well!)
NZ was sweet-as bro - ay
So tonight is our last night in New Zealand. We’ve spent the last couple of days relaxing around queenstown - soaking up the views (and doing some last minute souvenir shopping)! But tomorrow morning - it’s all over.. We’re off to the airport - onto a plane flying to Christchurch. We should get 2 hours on the ground there (Which should translate into a few beers in Qantas Club) before flying off to Melbourne and home.
3 days ago was our highlight of the week though.. we went off and did the shotover jet - that was just great fun (although really really cold). Twisting and turning (and doing 360’s) through the canyons - it’s really impressive. To point out how cold it was - there were big chunks of ice along some of the river banks.. and the boat would spray all the water up into your face. Freezing!
Following the Shotover jet - we headed up the Gondola again to go Luging. This was pretty good (although they didn’t really have anywhere to fit my knees - it got a little uncomfortable. Still - great fun spreeding round the corners of the luge track - taking the luge up onto two wheels. 
And then Michelle’s highlight of the trip - paragliding. It took a bit of persuasion from me to get her to agree (that and the threat of forcing her on the giant swing) and we were off. The takeoff felt pretty smooth - although we did run a fair way down the hill to get going and we were away. The afternoon was perfect for it and the views were stunning! If you ever do this - and I suggest you do - get the instructor you go with (since we were flying tandem) and tell them to have some fun on the way down. I’m pretty sure that at one point the parachute was *below* me as we looped around.. Think about the for a second.
It’s been a fantastic 4 weeks - but parts of me are glad to be coming home. (Although I really am dreading checking my work inbox - it’s not going to be pretty).
So that’s it for the NZ trip - I’ll probably put a few more photo’s up here from there - but then I’ll go back to posting about all sorts of mundane things as we settle back into real life in Melbourne.
This one’s for Tim… This is the luge track in Queenstown.. It was awesome fun - and the view was pretty awesome too..
(Slideshow after the link)
Continue reading ‘The luge (and some of those views!)’
Paragliding!
More Slideshow Action…
Paragliding was fantastic… even Michelle wasn’t that scared!
The Photo Post
So here’s some new pictures for you (Stuart)…
Again - I’ve zipped them up - but there’s about 26 photos here.. (3.2Mb)
And… Since most of you wont download that… how about this.. a slideshow..
Snow and Ice
The TranzAlpine train did live up to it’s reputation.. It helped the East Coast NZ was bathed in sunshine that day - and that the scenic stuff was all at the start - when I wasn’t sick of it yet. That afternoon - after having the best lasagna I’ve ever tastted for lunch (some cafe i forget othe name of in Greymouth) - we went Quad Biking in the mud. Very fun.
So last week we went Glacier Climbing.. It was awesome! We climbed up Franz Josef Glacier, spending about 6 hours on the ice. And the rain held off for most of the time (which considering this is a place with some of the highest rainfall in the world - is a good thing). Walking through the crevasses over all the blue ice was great. And we saw a Kea.
We did a roadtrip down to Wanaka from there - almost running out of petrol along the way (take note - fill up at Fox or Franz Josef - it’s a long drive to the next petrol station at Haast). Michelle got very very scared. :) But we survived.
Puzzling World in Wanaka was good as expected.. nice way to kill a couple of hours.. We finished the maze in 43min.. not too bad - although we could have done better. Got some fun photo’s as well 
Queenstown is an interesting place… incredibly beautiful scenery and natural beauty mixed with a whole bunch of crass consumerism.. Still - it’s fun. We had an interesting night in a hosted bed and breakfast… Stunning views - but I’m not so sure about the whole hosted/become part of that family thing… I think I’ll pass on those next time.
And then to Snowboarding… First off - I have to say a big thankyou to Miranda for the Deep Heat suggestion… I’m not sure the hotel staff are that keen (our room stinks) - but our bodies feel better for it.
The first day was all lessons.. and the bodypart that hurt most at the end of the day - knees.. I had a bruised kneefrom tripping over my crampoins at Frans Josef - and repeatedly falling over didn’t help it at all. Still - We were up and going… doen the practise slope. Sure - we could turn corners - but we could go downhill kinda..
The second day was a bit more fun.. I had a pretty serious stack in some practising early on - bt then we got into doing the lessons and I got better. We can turn corners now. By then end of that lesson - we could turn and figured we were ready to try out a slope.. so Since it was night-skiing - we stuck around and got on the chairlift…. …only to crach into each other and fall over when we tried to get off.. some things take practise. We got out onto the slope and I was so excited/nervous that I forgot which way I was boarding (I had decided that I was normal and not goofy earlier that day and had been learning in normal.. but that went out of my mind and I started down the slope goofy). After falling over about 6 times - I worked out my mistake and started to get the hang of it properly.. :) Shell was a natural of course.. Day 2 the painfull part was our legs… ouch!!! Hot showers and deep heat help - but they still hurt.
Day 3 was interesting… not too much snowboarding… we decided to go up to the tubing park for a while… That was great fun (easy too).. But Shell’s fingers starting getting frozen so we headed to the charilift to go back down.. Eventually finding the chairlift (We couldn’t see more than about 10 metres ahead of us do to the clouds/fog/snow/wind) - we realised that it wasn’t running… And so we spent a lovely 45 minutes in the chairlift operators hut - with the chairlift guy (from Canada) and 5 other Aussies… That’s something really noticeable about Queentown - almost everyone over here is from Australia…
That’s about it - sorry it’s a bit stilted - trying to fit a weeks worth of stuff into this is a bit hard….
Oh - and we went to Hell tonight… :) https://www.hell.co.nz/index.jsp?city=Queenstown Good Pizza - Great attitude.
Cheers,
Rob.
a few more photos
A few more photo’s for you to enjoy..
We went Quad-Biking near Greymouth - it was awesome. These are the shots from that - taken on our guides waterproof camera - it was very wet - and very muddy!
Wellington was a beautiful city. It was surrounded by all these hills and just very pretty. Walking along the beachfront was fun - as was just wandering around the city pretty aimlessly.
Following our stay there - we got up early in the morning to travel off to Christchurch. First stop - The Ferry terminal. We made sure we were nice and early to get there - to ensure that we didn’t miss it (as anyone who knows me might expect me to do). It was a big big ferry - and a pretty smooth ride too. Coming in through the Queen Charlotte Sound was also quite impressive. It wasn’t as impressive as the milford - but still really quite nice for a ferry trip.
The TranzCoastal was… long. 5 hours on a train is really a long time. The weather was pretty average (read cloudy) and the views just weren’t that inspiring. Shell made a gret point (more about the North Island - but applies equally to the Malborough region of the south..) - NZ is really just a bunch of pretty hills rising out above some pretty farmland. Once you’ve seen the 500th hill - you’ve pretty much seen enough. The coastal view was nice (Although I did hope to see a whale at Kaikora) - but again - pretty repetitive. After the first hour -I’d really seen enough of it.
I think it’s mainly just a timing issue… When I drove down through the Desert Road (past Ruapeu, etc) it was night time and we couldn’t see anything. On the train trip - the view over the sea was pretty drab - and almost all of the way we were next to a cutting/hill of some sort which meant we couldn’t see anything on the inland side. (As we approached Christchurch and went a bit insland - it started getting dark). And it was cloudy most of the day - which didn’t help.
Don’t get me wrong - it was fun… but I think I had higher expectations that the weather and the trip conspired against.
So as yet - I haven’t seen many snowy mountains. That should change tomorrow with the TranzAlpine.. It has to go over the mountains - so I’ll see them then!
Yesterday we checked out Rutherfords Den - the original spot in Christchurch Uni where he did some of his research (Under the stairs/lecture theatre because the basement had a concrete floor and wouldn’t wobble). We also did plenty of relaxing in the hotel. It’s nice to have some downtime.
Today we checked out a market (pretty average - but did buy some sunnies for Glacier/snow/driving) and the Antarctic Center. One of the best tourist attractions I’ve been to - hands down. Most of it was museum-y stuff about Antartica and penguins - but two things really shone.
They had an Antartic Snowstorm room - You’d put on an extra jacket and go in. The floor and walls were ice/snow. Then you’d hear the radio warning about the storm.. and then the lights fell as the wind picked up. The room temperature dropped to about -8 degrees. The windchill took it down to about -20. It was fantastic. (And Freezing!)
The second highlight was a ride on the Hagglund All Terain Vehicle they use for Antartic exploration. It’s a military vehicle drives really quite fast… really really really steep and will even float. Absolutely awesome! Seriously - If you ever have a stop-over in Queenstown (it’s 2 min from the airport) - or you go to NZ - you have to go to this place.
They also had a bunch of little (”fairy”) penguins (injured ones that couldn’t stay in the wild). We saw feeding time of these which was kind of cool - but probably not as impressive as Phillip Island is.
That’s about all for now - off to Lone Star for dinner to see if they have Cheesy Fries like the old Lone Star stores in Vic had… *fingers crossed*
Post some comments!
Hi there everyone - if you are reading this (or another post) - can you post and let me know.. just interested to find out.
