Getting home

I don't recommend buying flights separately. A through ticket would have reduced my worrying a whole lot on my final day in the States!

My final day was planned like this:
2 hr drive from Glenwood to Portland
1 hr wait at Portland
1.5 hr flight to San Fran
3.5 hr wait at San Fran
Fly home

Unfortunately there was fog at SFO which delayed lots of domestic flights. This meant leaving 3 hours late from Portland, which would have been fine if my international flight had been delayed! Because I didn't have a through ticket to NZ (Portland wasn't part of the Grab-a-Seat deal) I had to get my bags from the baggage carousel at international and get the all the way to Terminal 3 in 30 mins!

Ahh!

Fortunately AirNZ held the checkin open an extra 15mins. So after a nervous 15 mins waiting for my bag, then a race to the airtrain (an automatic train that does a ring of all the terminals) and a whole lot of running later, I got to my gate just as business class was being called. phew. That was my closest call yet. In fact if there had have been a queue at security that would have been it for me... who knows what I would have done!

Lucky for me enough things went right so that I didn't miss my flight like I'd done 4 days earlier... ha! What a ride.

Status Report #5

Glenwood

The second part of my trip takes me to a teeny tiny town called Glenwood in Washington State. My sister stayed here 8 years ago with a family (the Humphrey's) who I have visited before.

The plan is to stick my feet up and enjoy small town life for a few days. Drive around a bit, see a few sites, eat some home made cooking and enjoy the fresh air.

Unfortunately for me I missed the actual leaf fall by a few weeks so I didn't get to see the "Fall Colour" which is supposed to be pretty impressive but what is left is still pretty impressive. You'll see in one of the photos below that the big tree in the front yard has recently lost all its leaves, and raking up the leaves is actually a big job, just like in the movies! haha.


View Larger Map

Status Report #4

Adventures of Day 5

The train to the airport is later than expected
When I get to the airport I have to get the Airtrain to another terminal
Once in the right terminal I get in the wrong line
Get in the wrong line again
Get in the right line, e-check in but its too late! Has to be 45 mins before hand.
Put on standby
30 min security line
Get through security, see my plane at the gate that was closed 5 mins beforehand
4 hour wait for next flight
Call friends picking me up in Portland to let them know I'll be late, phone swallows my 4 quarters and cuts out
Call friends mobile, phone swallows my 4 quarters and cuts out again
Fortunately my mobile is on roam
Get to Portland faster than expected
Friends wait at arrivals but miss me coz my flight was faster than expected
Call friend but they had left their phone in the car...
Wait 40 mins out in the cold
Eventually get found
Pick up trailor and one of the friends who has been waiting outside in the cold and rain for an hour
Trailors lights dont work
Leave anyway and get on to the freeway for 2 hour drive back to Glenwood
Trailor falls off on freeway! (Lucky there is a security chain)
Chain holds
State trooper turns up
Eventually the three of them get trailor back on truck
Trooper follows us while the lights on the trailer aren't going properly
Tooper doesn't pull us over
Stop for something to eat at Arby's burgers
1.5hours later get home.

Curious #2

Don't go partying with the B and T (bridge and tunnel) crowd. They come from outside the peninsula. Which means they either crossed one of the many bridges or arrived on the BART which is a train that goes under the bay. They party harder, for longer and are more obnoxious. Just as well I stayed with locals otherwise I'd never know...

The Mission

The Mission is a district of San Francisco where I stayed for 4 days, see the map on the right. It has a few similarities with my suburb Newtown in Wellington. Its an urban area with an eclectic mix of people, shops and food. Gentrification is kicking in with many young professionals moving to the area.

This is what wikipedia had to say about the Mission:

The Inner Mission was viewed as a Hispanic neighborhood through much of the 1960s and 1970s. However, the Mission today is both the nexus of the Chicano and Latino community and a neighborhood of artists and hipsters. While Mexican, Salvadorian, and other Latin American restaurants are pervasive throughout the neighborhood, residences are not so evenly distributed. Traditional residents, including most of the neighborhood's Hispanic residents, tend to live on the eastern side. Hipsters center around Valencia Street and Mission Dolores Park on the western side. However, there are certainly no distinct racial lines. A fusion of the conceivably disparate cultures is evidenced by the many colorful Mexican and Latin American themed murals throughout the neighborhood.

These murals are what fascinated me about the Mission so I took a few photos and I've embedded them below. Most of these murals come from Balmy Alley where many of the fences and walls have been painted with amazing murals.

Status Report #3

Golden Gate
Number 1 on list to do, is to get some decent shots of the GG bridge.
Last time I only had a disposable camera, so this time I would definitely do it properly.
Got the bus to the waterfront and hired a bike. Rode all the way to the bridge (bout 20 mins with photo stops).

Just as I was riding to the point where the bridge is, a dude pulls up in one sweet looking ferrari. Now that was a photo op I could not miss out on! So I asked him for a photo and took about 30!

After that, was keen to get some wave action in front of the bridge, so I crossed the chain fence which says not to cross, when I saw the perfect wave coming in... mistake numero uno! After that I spent the next 30 mins cleaning the salt water off my new digital SLR!

After riding the bridge and taking lots of photos, rode down to Sausilito (see the map in the sidebar) and took the ferry back to town.

Status Report #2

Day 1 in San Fran, it felt just like home, drizzly, overcast and about 14...

Staying in the Mission, took most of the arvo to adjust and recover from flying. Great evening in the Fillmore at a "pre" thanks giving dinner party. Bout 30 people there, and some awesome food!

Curious #1

First experience of U.S Government(on the plane, filling out immigration form):

“Have you ever been arrested or convicted for an offense or crime involving moral turpitude...”

Without looking at a dictionary/webpage anyone want to take a guess what that is?

"...or a violation related to a controlled substance, or been arrested or convicted for two or more offenses for which the aggregate sentence to confinement was five years or more?"

Hmm, I won't even contemplate what it would mean if I ticked yes!? I should have expected curious questions though, last time I was asked if I had any experience with biological or nuclear weapons...

"Have you ever been involved in terrorist activites; or genocide; or between 1933 and 1945 were involved, in any way, in persecution associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?"


Supposedly, this form, the WR1945 green form has a computed burden of 6 minutes per response. But i don't think that counts the 10 mins it takes, waiting for the air hostess to bring another form because I filled in the wrong field... for me, or the 3 other travelers in my vicinity who all filled in the wrong field! Bah.

Perhaps I should tell the Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reduction Project, OMB No (1651-0113) to talk to my friends at Optimal Usability. That form needs some work!!

Status Report #1

Its 8.56pm and I'm cruising at 30,000ft on a 777 to the U.S
Macbook on plane comes in handy (published after the fact).

Mission: Make the most of super cheap airfare
Agenda: Whatever pops up, meet some people, take some photos, post some blogs...
Accomodation: Diana's (ex-workmate from when I was here last) place in The Mission, SF and the Humphery family in Glenwood, Washington State (sister lived with them for a bit). Check out the map on the blog to see how Glenwood contrasts with SF!

Off to the U.S of A

Next week, I head back to the West Coast after an absence of 4 years. Thanks to Air NZ's super cheap Grab-a-Seat site I managed to score myself an awesome 800 buck return flight to San Fran from Wellington! Woop woop. So United States here we come (well for 9 days anyway)!

On the right is a few places I'll be going to

Daphne Hut Tramp

Ok so, these posts aren't exactly shakespeare... but I gotta catch up quick, so I'm ready for the States!

Its been a big tramping (hiking if you come from the north...) year for yours truly. four tramps in four different forest parks. The latest park to be discovered was in the Ruahine's. The team consisted of Neal the organiser, Fiona, Nyree, Simon, Andre and myself.

We had plenty of practice crossing rivers on this trip as we had to go up the Tikitiki (a river that a couple of us floated down a couple of years ago but much further downstream). We prolly crossed it 30 times in total!

Day 1 was a 500m climb, a few ups and downs and then up the river for a good amount of the way. We arrived at the first hut way later than expected so stayed there overnight. Enjoyed a good spag bol and some mousse for dessert.

Day 2 everyone but myself went on a daytrip up to Howletts hut, a 700m climb. Once again I had issues with my leg so took it easy for that day and enjoyed the peace of an eerily quiet valley. That evening we had a great vege curry on rice care of Nyree. Plenty of cards were played also.

Day 3 was the walk out the way we came. Fortunately the leg was charged up and ready to go and I got faster the longer I was tramping for. Weather was pretty good as we were sheltered from the intense winds of that weekend.

Stag Tramp

Its a few weeks ago now... Manu collected together a "band of brothers" to head off on a celebratory, last tramp of singleness! So off we went through Wainui to Rimutaka Forest Park on an early Saturday morning. Included in the team were Myself, Ben, Luke and Tom.

Here's a video intro:



We tramped up the Orongorongo river from the Forest park entrance to a private hut(which took a while to find, hidden in the bush) of a family friend where we stayed over night. Once we'd had lunch there, we dropped off some gear and headed up to Mt Matthews. The summit track was not far from the hut so we powered up there. Unfortunately for all the effort the view from the top wasnt that amazing. It took a long walk across a bushy ridge to find the 2nd summit (I didn't get there as I had a really sore leg).

Once we got back down (I was in super slow mo with a very sore ITB (leg muscle)) we put up our feet in the hut and chilled out with a well earned Cascade Stout. :) Beer has never tasted so good!! Later we had a salad and burritos with a chocolate mousse for dinner. Oh yeah! All class.

The final day was a simple case of walking back out (or limping if you were me) and crossing the small river a few times.

A great days tramp had by all

Mitre Peak and adventures in altitude

Recently I went on a bit of an exploration...

Friends * Manu, John and I went on a weekend mission to the Tararua's (*north of Welly over the Rimutakas, get to Masterton, turn left*)

We walked in Friday to Mitre Hut, climbed the summit (1571m) on Saturday stayed at Mitre flats hut Friday and Saturday night then walked (limped) out on Sunday.



To see a bigger version of the above map. Click here

Here's some photos:


Here's a vid from the summit:

Easter 07

Every Easter, a group of people stay at a place called Erua in New Zealand's National Park. Its in the middle of nowhere and a great place to get away to. This is the 4th year of these adventures and each time we tackle a decent day tramp (hike) in the area. So, below is a multimedia exhibit of what we got up to.

Check out where we went by looking at this interactive map!

Click on the photo to see some of our pics:

Easter 07

And here's a video of some of this craziness that went on at the lodge we stayed at:






Big ups to Apple, without whom this would not be possible. ;)