South Coast

Spur of the moment adventure is great!

I was called up by a friend a couple of weeks ago and invited to go on one of his regular walks...
This walk was a little different though. For starters we got going at 10pm! And we slept outside with no tent!

So the deal is, we walk for 2 hours. Aro Valley, Turbine, Radome to a grassy slope on the south coast above red rocks. Then we sleep in the bivvy bags and come back early the next day.

It just so happened that we picked the perfect day. The sky was clear (we could see the street lights in Kaikoura!) and there was no wind (I know, it does happen in Welly!)

Perfect night to sleep outside in a cosy and warm bivvy bag and sleeping bag (plus thermals, shirt, jersey and balaclava...). Turned out it was 2.3 deg C at the airport that night. Fortunately we were on a slope so didn't get frost on our heads... that would have been interesting!

Managed to sleep from 1am till 6.20 when my alarm went off. It was a solid sleep too. Amazing. We got up early because friend wanted to get back to take kids to school. So after a good 2 hour fast paced walk down through the fog far below, we were back in the city (and I was rather sore due to friends pace! ha!).

Whanganui River 2

Highlights from the trip:

• My first trout, donated to us by a friendly angler on the river
• The sole survivor! I was the only one to stay vertical (and dry!) for the whole trip.
• Paddling through a gorge that has amazing shell fish fossils buried under 20 metres of rock! In the middle of the central north island.
• Wondering how the cow walking up stream on the bank of the gorge would get out (it couldn't turn around coz it was too narrow)... or in fact how it got there in the first place! It was pretty steep.
• Tasty snacks!
• The big rapid! Lots of fun there. Especially watching the others tackle the eddy not realising that the current goes in the opposite direction... which led to 2 capsizes and one near miss!
• A cave full of mud! Even more fun!
• Another cave with a waterfall inside it.

  From malcyb's travels

Whanganui River

This past Easter I took on a different adventure for a change. For the last 5 years I've organised a group to stay at Erua in National Park and then done some 1 day tramps. The Crossing, Ngauruhoe, Ruapehu Crater Lake, Tama Lakes and others. This year however, I joined up with Sarah's Whanganui River trip.

3 of us were from Welly and 4 from Orkland for a 5 day 4 night paddle down the river from Taumaurunui.

The first day was a little bit too eventful for our liking! Due to some dubious help from the company that put us on the river - late, rushed, little to no tutoring o

n how to use a canadian canoe! Great! This led to a number of demoralising capsizes throughout the day which slowed our progress considerably, made most of the group cold and wet (except my boat, thanks to 7th form P.E! :) and left motivation at an all time low by the end of the day.

Fortunately on Day 2, by about mid day we'd sorted things out. Canoes were starting to go in the right direction and the scenery started to get a bit more isolated.

And man was the scenery worth it, or what!? Day 3 and 4 were really impressive. Canyons with vertical faces, amazing geological features, wild goats, paradise ducks, trout from a friendly fisherman, gentle rapids to make the trip quicker, cosy camp sites and many waterfalls!

Hitchhike map

View Dre and malcy.b go south in a larger map

Hitching in the south island #3

Day 6
To go to the wedding or not. My decision for Day 6...
I went, I wasn't invited but I went anyway. Caught up with a few people I knew, had a good time, afternoon tea was in an aerodrome hangar. cool. Biplanes from a long times ago, refurbished and lookin slick. And the canvas wings were amazingly thin!
After the hangar sesh went back to the house for the evening while the others went to the reception. Ah the serenity. Serenity. What a great word.

Day 7
First thing we go to Terri's parents for a cooked breakfast with all the whanau. Choice!
Then we get dropped off next to a BP to start the next leg of the journey. It was a good 45 min wait this time...
Eventually a north island (this is important, we got to talk about non-south island stuff) lady in her mid forties picked us up. She drove a prius. Great mileage! She worked at Min of Health so we talked about policy, politics, economics, china etc etc. She took us all the way to Dunners.
We stayed there a couple hours. Had lunch. Checked out Andre's old digs.Off again at about 4pm. Waited ages. We stood next to the two lane highway going out of Dunners. Eventually a young guy sees us. He's in the wrong lane. Starts to swerve across. Sees car in the lane closest to us so he stops. In the middle of the two lanes... Cars stop behind him, SUV squeals to a hault. Woops. He says as much when we open the door, lucky him. We would have rejected him if he didn't realise he just pulled off the dumbest move of the day.
We cruise with him, hoping to go inland to check out the lakes but expecting to not get far as its late already. He's going to Twizel. Inconceivable! We dole out our 2nd lot of petrol money for the whole trip (10 bucks) and he takes us all the way to a sweet camping spot next to some motor homes by the Benmore Canal (see the picture). Get there at 9, dinner 9.30, take photos, setup tent at 10, still light. We sleep.

Day 8
Pack up, breakfast, chat to old codger with a motor home next to us. He tops up our water, tells us about building the canal, and crazy stories about lake ruataniwha and how it wasn't supposed to be built and when the govt found out they fired the foreman, then the whole town boycotted the work... etc. lots of drama and intrigue. Good guy. We leave, get a ride with a dude from stewart island, his puppy is very happy to have andre in the back as a licking post. He takes us 2 mins down the road to Twizel, a better hitching spot. 5 mins later a German father and daughter pick us up and take us to Tekapo. Amazing scenery! The lakes are stunning and so is Mt Cook. How does the water get to be that colour...?

From Hitch hiking

It looks like someone has poured a whole lot of milk into the lake and mixed it up to a bright bluey/white colour. We have lunch by the lakeside at Tekapo. On our way to the road we bump into Andrew a guy Andre knows from Chch and I know from Welly. Small world. Again. He's mountain guiding, based in Tekapo. We wait 20 mins then get picked up by a guy our age heading home to chch in his new holden. We drive for 5 mins, then turn around and go back for my DSLR camera sitting on the side of the road... We drive some more. Turns out we are the first hitch hikers he's picked up, his stereo had stopped working and with the long drive was very bored! haha. We keep him entertained. He takes us to Andre's friends place in Chch.
We relax, chat, go out, have dinner with friends of friends, watch Dark Knight. Good night. Sleep

Day 9
Catch up day. Andre and I split we have different circles to move in today. I catch up with a cousy - Aaron at UC campus. Mini tour of the area. Amazed with the pumpin effort going on, a new construction site is in the chch water table so lots of water pumped out into nearby stream and myriads of dry bores. Then I catch up with friends Paul and Anne, go their home, meet their 2 week old Enda, go for a drive south, catch up with friends of friends (this needs an abbrev. FoF perhaps...?), back to their home, lend a hand on fence project, dinner, TV, dropped off back at home base. Relax, buy some trip snack for day 10. Sleep

Day 10
The final day of my trip. Starts off bad. I ate the wrong thing the night before... hitch hiking and super fast digestion are not so compatible. I wait. Say goodbye to traveling buddy the Dre. Wait some more. And finally... off and away. A good 15 kgs on my back. Walk. Bus. Walk. SH1. Thumbing. 10mins wait. A young bro pulls up. He's heading north to his fathers deer farm to work. Sweet. He offers me a puff on his joint... I decline. He's very relaxed. Good guy apart from the occasional lapse in concentration... We chat, we agree that my skin colour helps with getting rides, he tried once but waited 6 hrs, he asks "its darker in the north eh?", I agree, and its prolly easier to get a ride there.
He takes me as far as Cheviot. I wait 20mins including food stop and toilet. A young girl picks me up. Turns out she's an FoF (that abbreviation will be handy this year) from Timaru, knows Josh in Welly. We chat. We stop to see seals 20 metres from road at Kaikoura. She dops me at Blenheim. Another 20 min stop, do the usually stop stuff while I wait... Get a ride with a young guy from Ashburton. He's from the country. Yeap. He's got a real country accent! We drive by a river bed, it smells real strong, like there's a rastafarian national love in or something! He tells me its actually a yellow flower in the river bed and says he'll take me to have a look... Ok. Why not...? Go for a cruise down a dry river bed in a pickup with a slow drawlish speaking, 18yo from ashvegas. So we cruise down the river bed. Maybe not cruise. We lurch and bump and slide down the river bed. Yeah. Cool. This is a good story. If only we could find the flower... Oh well. Back to the road and drops me off at a major intersection. 10mins down the road from where he picked me up. As I get my bag off the deck I keep one thumb out. An SUV pulls over as the ashvegas kid leaves. Score! Its a semi-retired couple from isle of man. Cool. I'm semi-retired too! :) Very nice.

The last leg of the journey, its about to become a super bendy road and I'm in an air-conned comfy car with a sensible older driver. Nice way to end a great adventure!

Hitchin in the south island #2

Day 1
2 rides - 1st waited 15 mins, middle aged local lady took us from Hope (Nelson) to Tapawera. 2nd ride was a german backpacker been working in Mot. Took us all the way to Hokitika with stops at waterhole, lookout and punkaiki (pancake rocks).
Camped on the beach.

Day 2
1 ride - Waited 1 hour, got picked up by a local lad from Greymouth heading to Wanaka for new years. Got us very quickly down the line to Wanaka! 2 days, 730kms! Found a quiet spot in a public walkway (in a well to do area of town) but the neighbour said there was no camping allowed... so they let us stay in their basement! :) warm beds, hot showers and toast. oh yeah.

Day 3
2 rides - 1st ride local hippie picks us up in 5 mins and drops us at the main interesection down the road. 2nd ride, couple of loose unit young rural blokes pick us up, drop us 10mins down the road, in Luggate... middle of nowhere.
We wait 4 hours, nothin (apart from some young boy racers without seat belts in a dodgy van (they got rejected by us)). It rains, we get wet. We give up and go to the bar. Drink. Watch cricket. Andre scouts out a site for the night. Farmer lends us his hay barn. New years eve. Haha. A dry and breezy night. My bag smells like hay...

Day 4
Thank farmer, he offers cooked breakfast... we have our arm twisted, very easily. Chat to the locals crowded into a flash homestead. Bacon, eggs, coffee. We chat, then thanks all round and off we go. 40 mins later one of the lads from the homestead picks us up. Nice ute. 20min drive to Cromwell.
5 mins later 2 girls pick us up. Its the bride for the wedding on Saturday that Andre is going to! (I met them in March after I had stayed with her sisters boyfriend in Dunedin! Small world) And her sister in the car has just been tramping with my friends from Welly/Palmy. We have picnic lunch with the couples friends on the shore of lake Hawea. Good times.
They drop us at a gas station. 4 mins later a young norwegian girl picks us up and takes us down the road to qtown.
And here we are.
A few photos here:
http://picasaweb.google.com

After Qtown we hitch with Canadian (who thought qtown was cold...) and two Brazilians to a major intersection. We wait an hour to get a ride with a cousie bro in a big Ford with a shoe lace holding down his car boot (trunk).
We went back to lake hayes where we had picniced earlier. The sign said no camping... we camped.

Day 5
20 min walk to highway. wait about 15 for a kiwi based in Cairns to pick us up. He took us all the way through Central O down to an intersection at Raes Junction. Sweet drive, ate fresh cherries in Roxsborough, saw lots of dust clouds in Alex, saw the big dam in Clutha.
At Raes junction a trucker offered one of us a ride... dang it. Wouldve liked a ride in a truck. That would've been worth a lot of hitching points! As it worked out we ended up following the truck all the way to Gore with a local builder. He gave us the low down on dairy conversions, milking logistics, southlands economy and how south islanders are friendlier than north islanders (I attempted some mind broadening dialogue to no avail)...
Day 5 weather was damp, then super hot, then soaking in Gore. 4 seasons in one day...
We got some supplies from the super market. While i stayed with the bags Andre shopped, many people walked passed me in the foyer, and said hello, or acknowledged that I was there... curious. maybe southlanders are friendlier!
Eventually made it to Andre's friends house (Luke and Terri) and were welcomed by a very lonely cat! With lots of molting fur. It wouldn't leave us alone!
We stayed there, we chilled, we enjoyed a kitchen, and a bed, and a shower.

Hitching in the south island #1

This is a record of the adventures of Andre and Malcolm over the summer of 08/09.

Day 1

2 rides - 1st waited 15 mins, middle aged local lady took us from Hope (Nelson) to Tapawera. 2nd ride was a german backpacker been working in Mot. Took us all the way to Hokitika with stops at waterhole, lookout and punkaiki (pancake rocks).
Camped on the beach.

Day 2
1 ride - Waited 1 hour, got picked up by a local lad from Greymouth heading to Wanaka for new years. Got us very quickly down the line to Wanaka! 2 days, 730kms! Found a quiet spot in a public walkway (in a well to do area of town) but the neighbour said there was no camping allowed... so they let us stay in their basement! :) warm beds, hot showers and toast. oh yeah.

Day 3
2 rides - 1st ride local hippie picks us up in 5 mins and drops us at the main interesection down the road. 2nd ride, couple of loose unit young rural blokes pick us up, drop us 10mins down the road, in Luggate... middle of nowhere.
We wait 4 hours, nothin (apart from some young boy racers without seat belts in a dodgy van (they got rejected by us)). It rains, we get wet. We give up and go to the bar. Drink. Watch cricket. Andre scouts out a site for the night. Farmer lends us his hay barn. New years eve. Haha. A dry and breezy night. My bag smells like hay...

Day 4
Thank farmer, he offers cooked breakfast... we have our arm twisted, very easily. Chat to the locals crowded into a flash homestead. Bacon, eggs, coffee. We chat, then thanks all round and off we go. 40 mins later one of the lads from the homestead picks us up. Nice ute. 20min drive to Cromwell.
5 mins later 2 girls pick us up. Its the bride for the wedding on Saturday that Andre is going to! (I met them in March after I had stayed with her sisters boyfriend in Dunedin! Small world) And her sister in the car has just been tramping with my friends from Welly/Palmy. We have picnic lunch with the couples friends on the shore of lake Hawea. Good times.
They drop us at a gas station. 4 mins later a young norwegian girl picks us up and takes us down the road to qtown.
And here we are.
A few photos here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mdshearer/HitchHiking?authkey=v2kr6Fsu9I4#

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!!