It’s been announced, the date for the most important election of the year.
Tag Archive for 'new zealand'
I’ve been playing with Hugin, an application for making panoramic images from a set of overlapping photos. Here’s an example, which shows how the images are screwed around to make things line up… in this case I didn’t take different exposures into account when the photos were taken.
Part of the reason for going back to NZ was to walk the Kepler track with my brother and cousin. The Kepler is about 60km long, making a loop in the mountains rising from the shores of Lake Te Anau. Easter is a pretty busy time, so we did the walk backwards (like Spike Milligan…). This post is about our trip, and hopefully gives some useful info for others intending on doing the walk.
We planned for the walk at a bar, writing out a shopping list of stuff which we then went and purchased. Doing so at a supermarket we probably ended up with too much ‘normal’ food, and too little light camping style freeze-dried stuff. This turned out to be a bit of a pain for me, more due to lack of fitness and practise than because of extreme weight. We paid for huts on the DOC website weeks beforehand.
We stayed overnight in Te Anau at the main holiday park, and caught the bus to Rainbow Reach the next morning. We got some info on the bus when we picked up our hut tickets (needs to be done prior to the walk). The bus left from outside the DOC center across the road from where we stayed. The first day promised to be pretty easy, a leisurely 1.5hr walk to Lake Manapouri. We left early so had the whole afternoon to relax on the beach (relaxing involves DEET to repel the multitude of sandflies of course).
We found the huts to be well set up, with cookers, mattresses, and even a few pot scrubs to do the dishes. They also have running water and flush toilets! The mattresses are a bit noisy due to covers, but at least the bunk areas are warm due to lots of people. After some cheese and crackers with a few games of cards, we had dinner on the beach. We lit a fire and watched the sun set behind the hills.
Day two had some real walking, 5 or so hours up the valley to Iris Burn hut. Most of the day was in Beech forest, with the spare space taken up by ferns. The first half was much faster than we expected, probably since we found we went quicker earlier in the day.
We stopped for lunch by the river, finishing off the previous days lunch. At this point it was starting to dawn on us that we hay way more food than was necessary. Sometime around this time my pack was starting to feel pretty heavy too, partly due to the 80l capacity which I always seemed to fill most of.
There is a stretch of the day out in the open, near the imaginatively named ‘Big Slip’. This part gave us the first real look at the surrounding hills. There is a little hill at the end of the day, and then a little drop down to Iris Burn hut. The area around the hut is very nice, with hills on all sides and a short walk to the (very cold) river where some people had a (very short) swim. Again the hut was well appointed. We met up with some friends, who told us of the joys ahead the next day, which involved a 500m climb via 97 zig-zags.
We managed the climb out of the trees reasonably easily the net morning, things being much easier first thing in the day. We were rewarded with some wonderful views when we reached the tree line near the end of the first climb. The rest of the day goes along the tops toward Luxmore hut, with two emergency shelters along the way. We stopped at the first for lunch, and the second for afternoon tea. I found the going pretty hard on my feet, with lots of rock underfoot instead of the more leafy/dirty stuff of the first two days. The best views came from the top of Mt Luxmore near the end of the day as we approached Luxmore hut.
This being our last night, we continued to eat as much food as possible to make our final day as easy as possible. In the end we still finished the track with tonnes of scroggin and a loaf of bread.
The last day was a big drop down to the lake, and a walk around some of it. Before leaving we had a look at the caves near the hut. To get to them requires a few steps along the trail back to Te Anau, and a walk off to the right to where the caves start. The caves are quite spacious, aside from a little squeeze down to about 1m near the start. We didn’t have tonnes of time, so I turned back after a while. It seemed like the caves went on forever!
The walk down was pretty hard on my legs, being pretty much a constant downhill for about 1000m. Upon reaching the lake we had a quick bite (so did the ever present sandflies) and pushed on to the end. Ewan went ahead to collect the car…
We arrived at the control gates near the end eventually, and waited for our ride to appear. I had an Easter egg and enjoyed the view over the lake.
The rest of the photos are here.
Yesterday I went for a drive up the Otago Peninsula with my dad. It’s very nice up there…
More photos when I get somewhere I can upload them in a finite time…
So the coolest thing about snowboarding in places that aren’t New Zealand is trees. I just spent three days snowboarding through trees at Sugarbush resort in Vermont. Some times they were spaced nicer than others, but there was generally a ton of powder on the way through… it’s times like those that there just isn’t time to take photos, and I can’t be bothered carrying my camera, so you’ll just have to picture me cruising through silky powder in beautiful birch and pine glades…
I’m exhausted. My weekend trip to visit Amanda in Chicago turned into a tour of some of the local drinking establishments… with a little sightseeing thrown in on the side. I also left my mobile phone in a shuttle, so am phoneless.
I arrived slightly later than planned on Friday. My flight out of Boston was delayed by some gum on a seatbelt, and I consequently missed my connecting flight by a few minutes (despite running and skipping the security queue). I was put on the next flight about ten minutes later thankfully. I caught the Omega shuttle down to the University of Chicago’s area of Hyde Park. Being on the south side, Hyde Park is something of an oasis of middle class surrounded by poor/rough neigbourhoods. There are certain streets one just doesn’t go past…
We started the late afternoon with free post-doc beers (one), and a few greasy fries. The evening saw us off toward Wicker Park, a popular eating and drinking area. We first sat outside at a bar for a pre-dinner drink (two), and then had some pizza and beer around the corner (three). We only got the medium size pizza, since the large ones were about the size of a table. Following dinner we met up with some others at a generic loud bar with lots of televisions (four), before moving on to a German place (five). This was one of those places that serves 1 liter steins. More curiously it had aussie rules footy on one of the tv’s.
We were eventually kicked out (at closing), but since we weren’t done we went on to a blues bar (six) until they finished up too. Don’t ask how we got home, well to where we stayed anyway since we didn’t make it home…
We headed back to Hyde Park via town, using the “L” for a tour around the town loop. Being a few floors off the street, the train is a great way to see some of the buildings in the middle of the city. The Chicago River runs through the middle of town, and looks very cool with skyscrapers rising from right next to it, and being crossed regularly with old iron bridges.
The next evening started quietly, with good food and a beer at a restaurant (seven). We then started our tour of some more local bars, hosted by local Ken. He first took us to what looked to me like the American “idea” bar (eight), where we started on some of the incredibly cheaply priced midwestern beer. Next was a very local feeling place (nine), where we sat outside on plastic chairs at plastic tables and drank margaritas from plastic cups. After that was a place with lots of Elvis stuff on the walls (ten), but also other junk. Apparently there was another New Zealander, but my Flight of the Conchords tee didn’t draw them out… The last bar of the evening (eleven) had $3.25 gin and tonic. We made it home after giving a taxi driver blow-by-blow directions, which is a little odd in a city set out like a grid with numbered streets.
Sunday started slowly, but we eventually made it toward town, and walked up to some beaches. Hunger drove us to a bar (twelve!) for some meat and a beer. We went to another local person’s house for a bit of a wine tasting party after that, before heading home much in the same manner as Saturday night (i.e. giving directions to a Taxi driver).
Thanks Amanda for an awesome weekend!
A few more photos are here. There are also some from drinking wine on Sunday night here.
NZ seems so much funnier when I’m not living there…
Flight of the Conchords has a show on HBO coming up, the trailer is very funny, as is the music video…
I went with some people to see the movie Black Sheep recently, it was everything I expected it to be. It had blood, my old mate Nathan as the lead, and of course sheep jokes.
Thanks, Independent Film Festival of Boston!
So I arrive in Boston, and my friends show me a photo of a poster for a new movie, Black Sheep. I look at the picture for a second, and then realise I grew up about two doors down from the lead actor. We used to skate together back in the day…
Nice one Nathan!
My trip has (not) started with a delayed flight. We were supposed to leave at `9:40 but now it’s going to be 21:45. The lady assured me any connecting flights would be rebooked, which matters since my flight through to Boston doesn’t exactly have a lot of wiggle room. It would be rather a pain if my trip started with a missed flight! They have started giving out free water, orange juice and biscuits. The type one gets in flight unfortunately.
I’m not excited yet, more nervous than anything else I think. The hassle of going through numerous security checks doesn’t help, though at least in NZ the people are friendly. I hear this doesn’t apply to American security.
The weather appears to be mild in Boston, only 1degC tomorrow. This should make it possible to wander around with pretty normal clothes, rather than a big jacket which I don’t have.
I’ve had an excellent trip through NZ the last week. The only person I missed seeing was Tom. Hiring a car was the best thing I’ve done for a trip like this, rather expensive but worth it for getting about and having freedom. A whole bunch of people are likely to come visit while I’m there. Julie is gong to be in Canada, as is Simon so they may visit. Laurie said he’d come over, despite never visiting me in Canberra. There are also a bunch of people who I can contact when I arrive, who are mates of people I know.
