WOW!

Take a look at these two videos, the sport of cup stacking. It is really fascinating and incredible!! look at the hands go!

Gotta love Fridays

Nothing much to report really, today was manic at work but thats ok as its friday and I dont have to go to work tomorrow. Got home and found a letter laying in the garden from UPS saying they had left my delivery under the BBQ (fantastic, thank UPS soo much for leaving it, nothing fucks me off more than having to pick it up off them or wait until next week for them to try again), so yeah my boots arrived from America today (bloody quick, thanks Sierra Trading Post). Anyway I cant be assed writing too much more as I have been typing quotes most of the day, so here is a good vid off you-tube to finish the week off with a laugh

Household Day

Today was one of those days you knew were coming and were putting it off. The flat decided to get together today and have a massive cleaning binge. The house was such a bloody tip (probably clean by most people's standard but I am such a clean freak!). Anyway we all pitched in and gave mainly the kitchen and bathroom a huge clean, and it is sooo much nicer now! it actually makes you want to be in there. Emma and I also did some appliance shopping at Briscoes where we walked away with a new toaster, bread maker and kitchen scales. Aren't we so domesticated? Cory popped over to say hi and came up with the smart comment of "you two just need to get engaged then you will have all the appliances you will ever need". Thanks mate! but it was good to see him, Wendy and little Caleb.

Quiet Friday

With not much work on at the moment I decided to stay home and do some work for myself. Mainly consisted of assignments for my apprenticeship, however first thing in the morning I went into town to try on some mountaineering boots I found on the net (to see what size I needed), came home and ordered them. They are pretty cool boots, and retail here in Christchurch for $799 so I was glad when I found them on the net (brand new) for approx $250NZD - bargain ay? see photo above for the boot. The rest of the day was pretty laid back, Emma and I went and say The Bourne Supremacy at Hoyts (loved the movie! one hell of a good trilogy, are there going to be any more?). Well that was pretty much my day, exciting! NOT.

Tartare Tunnels

Since the afternoon turned out so nice we decided to go for a walk to the Tartare Tunnels at the end of Cowan street. It was a very easy walk up a 4WD track but very picturesque so it was nice. After 30mins or so we arrived at the outlet of the tunnel to find some peoples CD's, shoes, clothes etc sitting around 'weird!' anyway we gout out torch and head-torch out and set out down the tunnel. It was so dark in there it just at the light from the torch, making it very hard to see. After about a min of walking we met about 6 young teens walking the opposite way in bare feet or jandals (morons!!!!), they said they never made it to the end of the tunnel after 10mins of walking so I was not really looking forward to walking the tunnel if it was that long. However after only a few mins of walking we got to the end of the tunnel (it makes a big difference when you have proper boots on!), the end was pretty uneventful as it was gated off shortly after the end, so we took some pics and headed back. Some more photos, some scroggin and more photos was pretty much what the walk out consisted of. Nothing else to report on this we walk, however its a great walk and if you have an afternoon to spare go do it! (provided you are in Franz as its a long way to go from ChCh).

Franz Josef Glacier

Guess what, its raining again. Today we had out glacier walk starting at 8:45am and it was pretty miserable weather but decided to go anyway. We all got geared up with waterproof gear and horrible boots and silly 'talonz' which are pretty much simple and small crampons (no way near as effective as normal crampons). We all piled on the bus for the short ride to the carpark and headed off to the terminal face. When we arrived at the terminal face of the glacier we all put our talonz on and headed up the precut steps made by the guides. After 45mins on the ice we stopped, had a bite to eat, took some photos, watched the guides cut a massive piece of ice down like it was a tree (as it was unsafe and likely to fall soon). We then headed back down which was nice as my feet were frozen! I wish I was wearing the lovely ASOLO boots I was wearing during ice climbing. We all headed out and waited for the bus to arrive to pick us up, and right about then the sun began to come out and make for a rather lovely afternoon (see next blog entry for afternoon antics).

Hukawai Ice Climbing

Today we are in Franz Josef and its pouring with rain! if you think you have seen rain think again as this place gets on average 23 times the amount of rain as LA (wow I learnt something). Since it was so miserable we postponed our glacier walk until tomorrow and just mucked around the house and town for most of the day. The afternoon (4pm - 5:30pm) we spent at the Ice climbing wall in town learning to do ice climbing, this had to be the most fun I have had in a long time, we had a personal tutor teaching us front pointing with crampons and how to use the ice axes for climbing. Anyway, just have a look at the pics and you will get the idea.

Snow Shelters

Well Emma and myself just got back from an interesting weekend spent up Temple Basin Ski Field (in Bills Basin to be more precise) with the Christchurch Tramping Club doing a snow shelter course. We started out meeting at the usual spot on Saturday morning, followed by a drive to Arthur's Pass and then the 2-3 hour walk up to Bills Basin. Pretty much as soon as we got to Bills Basin it was out with the snow shovels and after some discussion on how it was going to be done we started digging. And about 3 hours later we were still digging into the side of a huge snow drift, slowly hollowing it out to make a snow cave (if we didnt get this done we were going to be sleeping outside in the open, so all hands on deck - mostly, some were slack!!). But finally about 7pm we had finished smoothing out most of the cave and Emma and me had dragged out packs in to secure the best spots. Next was a bite to eat, some honey soy chicken and then off to bed as it was already -7 C. Everyone who was staying in the cave unpacked their Bivy bags, and sleeping bags and snuggled up for what was probably one of the worst sleeps you will ever get. All I can say is that is lumpy, hard and cold! pretty much the perfect recipe for a bad nights sleep. The next day Emma was out of bed by 6am or something stupid, next up was me to find Emma and Jim chatting away outside with a billy of water on the stove getting ready for breakfast. The sun was rising over the mountains and by god it was fresh! (good thing i brought my big downy jacket with me). We had a walk and took some pics, had some hot soup and a cup of tea then packed most of our gear away. Jim and Richard were keen to get everyone into building a different snow shelter (snow mound) so some of us shoveled and some stomped the snow to make a mound which a few of us hollowed out to make another cave (quite impressive actually). The afternoon was spent either sunbathing or climbing Blimit (a 1921m peak behind camp - this is what I climbed while the others watched, why didn't I take the camera up there?) I climbed back down to camp and packed everything up. We all set off and headed back toward the cars for the ride back to Christchurch. I had just stopped to drop a forgotten snow shovel back to Jim, took off and before I realized I was going a bit fast, and hey look there is a cop ahead! FUCK!! nice 1$120 fine for that little whoopsie! oh well shit happens, life goes on. The ride back to Christchurch was ok, seemed to take forever as Emma slept some of it and so did Martin. Anyway, enough blabbering...look at the pics as they are pretty cool.

Work Website

Today was a rather quiet day at work so I spent most of the day at home working on the company website (learnt a lot from Leith about basic html coding which was quite cool). Here is a temporary address if you wish to have a look at it so far, nothing really interesting at the moment but hopefully Dave writes some information in the next couple of days to bulk it out some more. http://pristineplumbing.mywebcommunity.org
A big thanks to Leith who has been sooooo helpful through the whole thing and hooked us up some good deals on hosting etc, so when you are back Leith its my shout for drinks or dinner or whatever you want....well maybe Dave should pay? anyway thanks for everything! Well off now, going to get a few things ready for tea.