Rogers Big Adventure

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

After the drama in Mercer a tiny town south of Auckland where my alternator craped out, I arrived in Taupo to check things out. What a lovely little town. People on bikes and running along by the lake. Its amazing how rough lake water can get, these two shots are over two days, first day rough next day flat as glass.

And I did a beautiful walk along the Waikato river to Haka falls.

Walking along the track in the woods you can hear the falls, then you pop out at the edge of the river and there it is. It's is a huge amount of water going through a very small channel, something like 300 billion million trillion gallons every second! Ok I don't know, but somewhere on a sign there it says its a lot. As usual the falls dont look half as impressive in the pictures, made a note to come back in about 100million years when its more Grand Canyonee!.

Looks a little ominous in the night.

On the walk back I stopped at a hot water spring, these are all over New Zealand, but usually someone builds a spa around them and charges $10 to get in the ugly concrete pool they have tamed nature too, so finding this one was a jem. Even better the next day when I came back with my swimmies and towel there were all these cuties lounging around!, sorry no pics of them.


The water was uber hot. I could make a number up here, but you'll just have to believe me it was really hot, just a few feet away the spring emptied into the Waikato, which is freezing, but you really didnt care after the heat of the spring. When you got back in the spring you totally had that tingly feeling..no that wasnt just from the cuties in next to you!