Rogers Big Adventure

I’m not sure what to do now. I’ve let this blog go so long now that I don’t really know how to get it caught up. Last time I wrote I was somewhere in new Zealand. Since everywhere I go its always some version of timed internet connection, I’m writing this on my little laptop and then I’ll sign on, and cut and paste it to the blog. But this means I cant look and see where I was up to with my story. I think it was as far back as Queenstown. That means you don’t know about staying with cat and James and mountain biking with james one last time on my bike before leaving both bikes and about 5 boxes of clothes and the campervan all with them to look after until I, umm returned? You also don’t know about my fantastic trip to Hastings and the visit to the sheep station that my dad worked on in 1939. The farmer was the grandson of the owner that was there when my Dad was there. He took me around the farm and I stood out on the fields that he would have rode his horse over. It was pretty emotional and wonderful. I so nearly didn’t go, but Im so very glad I did. To have been there finally at the place he spoke of so many times just seemed so perfect and right.

When I got back to Auckland I only had a couple of days left. I spent them getting things arranged for the trip to Australia and getting packed. Then I went out on a beautiful sunny day on a Americas Cup class racing yacht in the Auckland Bay. I also got the chance to catch up with a very old friend from high school. I havent seen Steve in about 30 years, but it was so good to see him. Theres no catching up that can be done with a meeting like that, but Im really pleased to have seen him and find that he has made a very good life for himself and family. It was nice to have a connection with my past and feel that if we had the opportunity with would have remained friends I think. But I left London and traveled and when I returned he had left and that was that.

Landing in Australia was so different from New Zealand. Theres something very village like about all of NZ, but Australia and Sydney had a big city feel but with a friendly buzz to it. I loved Sydney, but I was so over being cold. It was actually a bit warmer in Sydney than it had been in NZ, but I was so ready for some hot sun burn, get tanned weather.

At the airport when I landed in Sydney I met up frank and Carina, they had just got off the same plane as me and we ventured out into Sydney together to find our first sleeping place for the night. We stayed at a backpackers in the popular Kings cross area for nearly a week, while we explored and made plans for our trips around Aus. In the end we all took the same flight up to Cairns in Queensland at the far north eastern point of the continent. And I don’t use continent lightly. Its so hard to get use to the fact that is not the same small little island little island like NZ. Sydney to Cairns is 2900km. Ive been sort of based in cairns the last few weeks and gone on trips to the north and then to the outback in the west. Ive stayed at 2 sort of home stays both south of cairns. Basically you do a few hours work at peoples houses or farms in exchange for accommodation and food. it’s a great way to meet real locals. I also did a 3 day boat trip out to the Great Barrier reef and did my first scuba dive! Absolutely amazing. The first time I tried to go down I couldn’t equalize my ears and they hurt like hell as I went down. We came back up and I really didn’t think Id be able to dive. But the next day we went slower and I didn’t have any problems and was able to swim around 36 feet under the water and look at all the wild fish and coral..oh and get spooked by a shark that was swimming my way!

Ok well not a very detailed report at all, but if I try any more detail I’ll just never get this up to date and im likely to give up, so this is better than that right?

Leaving Cairns tomorrow to head south and slowly make my way back to Sydney to fly out to Bali. But hopefully I’ll get back to keeping this up to date and have a few more entries in Australia as I travel down the coast.

Ok lets try this again. There's so much missing from this blog that it makes me not want to carry on, but for once I do have a good internet connection, so no excuses, I just need to get on with it and bring it up to date.

Ive been in Queenstown for about 5 days now I think, it was pretty cold here when I arrived and I signed up for a 3 day ski pass on Coronet Peak, the only open ski run at moment. In fact it only opened last week and they may have jumped the gun a bit. I got one days skiing in on somewhat icy slopes and then the temps went up and they havent been able to make any more snow since. So everyone in town is pissed off because we all bought the same pass and are sitting around waiting on the snow and complaining about how nice the weather is!

My first day back on a snow board since I learnt back in January in Utah. I have to say falling off in Utah didnt hurt anywhere near as much as it did here. My first run on the easy slope and I landed on my ass so hard I sat there for a minute seeing stars thinking, "to hell with this, im jacking this lark in now". but I soldiered on and did another run and wouldnt ya know it came off again even harder right down on the same cheek! ouch. Im still feeling that 4 days later.

Decided maybe I needed some refresher lessons and since they were included in the package I wondered over to the group after uncomfortably sitting on my poor ass for some lunch. The lessons were just what I needed and I had a great time for the rest of the day, carving it up with some great views.

Ive not been totally idle while waiting on the snow, since the weather is so nice, its made for some great mountain biking. the first day I rode the gravel road that climbs up behind the Gondola. From here its all serious downhill mountain biking. it took about 35 mins to climb the road and 10 mins to descend on the tracks. So i did it twice!

The next day I headed further out of town to ride at some man made mountain bike tracks. this is about 7 miles down the by edge of the lake, but even with the lake as a guide I got so very lost. Its so densely tree covered and the mountains are so step that your in shade most of the time. You cant see the sun, because at this latitude the sun is already low behind the mountains. I was getting cold and hungry and it was really getting dark. Just as I was cursing my frustration at the useless map from riding in a total circle for the last 30 mins, some guy shows up and shows me the way out. phew. The next day I went out there again and had an awesome ride. Ran into the same guy but this time he was chopping wood. Turns out he is Irish and he and his wife moved out here 10 years ago when they bought some land. They paid $140,000 for 2 lots which now with the house are worth 3.5 million. not bad! But again how can anyone afford to buy into the market now.

There that wasnt so bad, now I need to go back and add a few more posts from previous locations.

Franz Joseph was a lot of fun. I signed up for a full days hike, fully kitted out with crampons, boots, gloves and waterproof..ish pants and jacket. We had two guides, Donkey! and Julie. It was Julie's first day at guiding so she had Donkey to look over her shoulder and take over when we got up on the glacier. It takes about an hour to get to out onto the glacier and the walk up starts through sub tropical forest and then out to the face of the glacier which is all scree, debris pushed down from the glacier and material thrown out through blow holes from the river running under the glacier. the rocks here are carved over thousands of years when the Glacier was lower down the valley.

Although the Glacier is moving forward..umm another fact I cant remember, something like a meter a year, sounds about right, but this could be a small glitch as overall its retreated considerably even over the last decade.

You get a better idea of the scale of the Glacier when you take a closer look here at the people walking down.

At the beginning of the hike the guide broke us into groups depending on our estimated abilities, you know which group I headed for dont ya! I fell in behind a girl from Canada who was holding a good pace right behind the guide, but once we started climbing she let me take the lead. A Canadian guy she knew from home was out traveling with her for some of her trip and he was right on my heels. We ended up all having a great time. When your gloved up and soaking wet its hard to keep pulling out the camera, so somehow I got made the un official photographer, so I have a few shots of both Darryl and Sky.

Darryl and Sky are both in college going through a sports medical programe. Darryl has that competitiveness that kept us both trying to out do each other on the hike. I think we had Donkey a little worried a few times when we'd disappear and pop out on a ice ridge that we wernt supposed to be on.

Julie was a good sport all day, they make the new ones carry the big pack, I felt so bad for her. Another tough cookie who did the whole hike in shorts.

the hike took about 8 hours. I was really surprised that the next day my legs were pretty sore, but didnt stop me from going and giving this a go.


An indoor ice climbing wall! what a cool idea.

My legs and arms were really toast after doing that for just an hour.

The landscape at Kaikoura is quite impressive and mountain range runs right down to the coast with some snow at the peaks and then the rugged coast line full of wildlife.

The small town of Kaikoura is known by all travelers to New Zealand for the Dusky dolphin pods, seals and whales. I drove down from Picton when I arrived in the south Island, but the weather was pretty foul and the swells were huge, no thanks you, no puking on board ship for me. My new mountain bike was waiting for me in Christchurch, care of Cody at Addictive Cycling in Braselton GA, who had built it for me and sent it over. Plus Joana had text'd me that she was in Christchurch for her last few days before heading off to Australia, so I spent a freezing night in Kaikoura, listening to the racer boys and their big exhausts gunning it around town, ( a common past time in all small towns, actually even more so in the big ones, in NZ) took a few pictures of cute seals on the beach, although they didnt appreciate me wanting to be one with nature and climbing down the steep rocks to be close to them, and hissed and cackled at me.


then drove on down to Christchurch for a few days. After getting the bike put together by the guys at Scotty Browns I took her out for a spin.

Got lost as usual, but also met up with some cool mountain bikers on the single track, all English that had moved out here. Seems like everyone out here is British! the views are awesome around here, but Im kind of glad it wasnt any hotter the Limeys where saying it was pretty damn hot in the summer.



So a bit of biking out the way and Joana off on her way and the weather making good, so I headed north again to give Kaikoura and other try.

I signed up for a swim with the dolphins experience where they take you out on a boat to swim with large pods of Dusky dolphin the pods here can be from 300 to 600 in number, dusky's are smaller dolphin, but are the most playful, or as the guides called them "big show offs". They love to jump, and when you splash around in the water they swim round and round you trying to figure out what the stupid human is trying do. Actually they get quite excited and playful. when they come at you and you are down under the water you can seem them flying along straight at you. they purposely head right at you and then at the very last moment they dive down and miss you by inches.

On the drive up all I could think about was how cold it was and how freezing it would be in the water, Joana had swam with a smaller pod of only 12 south of Christchurch and had said it was worth it and you didnt really feel the cold. humm, right even with all the gear they provided I knew I was going to be freezing and when I stepped in the office to sign up and they said Orca had been spotted chasing the dolphin and they couldn't guarantee we would see any, I really felt like giving it a miss. Im soooo glad I didnt. this was probably one of the most amazing experiences Ive had. I've swam with a bottle nose dolphin before in Florida, but this was totally different.

They were a little more freaked out with the orca that had been around and we would get in the water with them, they would shoot around us then we would have to get in the boat and chase after them again. It wasnt until the last time we got in with them that they had settled down more and played around with us. It was fantastic to see them rushing at you and then dive down. Then when you looked straight down into the haze of water under you, you would suddenly see them coming up from the depths straight up at you, then swerve just as they looked like they were about to punch you in the stomach!

Just need to write this and put in the photos, Hopefully I can add more tomorrow, there really has been so much and as usual its impossible to catch up here.

So arrived in Wellington. Some of you might know, my Dad was in New Zealand in 1939. He came for adventure and to find his fortune. All he found was the outbreak of WW2 and he joined up in the NZ air force. i think he pretty much had a great war. Most of it was spent training and at least from what i can piece together 2 years of that training was in NZ at various airfields.

So there I am walking down a street in Wellington and I see a statue that seems familiar. To be honest before I realized what statue it was I had thought to myself, I wonder if Dad had been here. It was always a family joke of his, when we would see things on TV, he'd say "been there". He been a lot of places and I realized he had been standing right where I was now standing 70 odd years ago.

2008

My Dads pic taken from the same spot in 1939