A royal west coast trip Part II

Tauranga Bay

Punakaiki

I'm struggling to stay awake this afternoon and I've pretty much run out of procrastinatory options, so should really be relishing the opportunity to blog stuff but...meh. it can wait. but enjoy the pretty pictures

frostbite

This poor little bugger suffered a little frostbite in the garden but warmed up when i was taking pics in the sunshine. Unfortunately for him(?), i then put him in the freezer so that I could put him in the scanner. He's still there (in the freezer, that is) but i'll hopefully post some fun scanned pics when i get around to doing it.

snow on the foothills

27 things

I've been going through a phase of writing lists recently of things i want to do. not like "i need to buy toilet paper and go to the library" but real things that i've been meaning to do for ages but never really get around to. Only i've discovered that the writing of the list doesn't necessarily translate into doing the list (surprise! surprise!). To overcome this problem, I've written another list. A list of 27 things that I want to do while i am still 27. It took me a while to come up with a list of things that could be achieved in 2.5 months in the middle of winter but I've done it and now I'm working on ticking things off. I've posted this list in the sidebar of this page as a constant reminder of things that need to be done and I'll cross them off as they are. I've also, quite cunningly I think, put them onto a photo which is on the desktop of my computer, so they are there staring at me all the time. There will be no escaping the list!!

So now i'm off to complete number 19 and work on 21 :o)

A royal west coast trip

We headed away for queen's birthday for a monster west coast road trip which involved 1000kms of driving and surprisingly little rain. Left chch on a gorgeously sunny day with snow on the hills and headed over lewis pass to the coast. Spent quite a bit of time driving backwards and forwards in karamea trying to find a camp ground that wasn't on a rugby field or in someone's back paddock before heading up to kohaihai and the end of the road. This turned out to be the world's best campsite (shhh...don't tell anyone) - right on the beach with nikau palms and hardly anyone else around.

Kohaihai is at the start of the Heaphy Track (which looks ripper and is totally on my to do list), so spent a bit of time kicking around amongst the nikaus along the first bit of the track.

The Oparara Arches and the promise of blue ducks beckoned, so it was off on a fabulous drive along a windy, steep-arse gravel through some superb podacarp forest.

Unfortunately the ducks weren't playing the game but the arch was pretty impressive and I spent lots of time salivating over interesting duck habitat. There were also some pretty impressive spiders hanging out in some of the caves in the area. Those things were massive!!

After an encounter with a couple of insistent weka, we headed down then coast to punakaiki with various stops along the way. Here ends the first installment of the royal west coast trip. I am supposed to be writing 2 papers today and so far I haven't even opened a single relevant file. I'll be back with more pics soon :o)

dentistry

Things have been busy and mostly unfun stuff, like getting 4 teeth pulled and the attachment of braces :o( Oh well...at least my teeth won't fall out on their own accord. The pulling out of teeth was mostly uneventful apart from the last one which he broke and then had drill and then lever out in little bits. One bit of it got stuck to the ceiling! That's how much levering was involved!! The grand lack of sufficient painkiller was not really so helpful and made the whole process somewhat less fun. The braces attachment process was fine apart from the three days of toothache in all of my teeth. They are relatively unobtrusive which is nice but i'll be railroad track girl for the next 18 months or so - yay!

On a more exciting note, have been out and about in the hills quite a bit recently. Have posted a few panoramas from our avalanche peak trip in the weekend - stunning views and knee deep snow in places which was fabulous!! Will post more pics in the next few days when i get them organised :o)

nick on the ridge below the summit

270 degree view from the top of avalanche peak

cass

So dear michelle got a cold and i got guilted into taking her place as a demonstrator on the 270 ecology fieldtrip at cass. This was not an entriely bad thing in itself as it's four days of being paid to hang out in a nice part of the canterbury highcountry and id plants and bugs. However, little did i know that....

1. the other demonstrator wouldn't show, leaving me to do the work of 2 people
2. at least two of the students plant plots would end up on top of wasp nests
3. i would have to walk up woolshed hill twice (once is seriously bad enough)
4. the only time i would get to myself in four days without having to answer incredibly basic questions about excel would be when i went for an 1.5 hr run to escape

But i got some nice pics and didn't have to think about my own stuff for a while, so it wasn't all bad....

the view from woolshed hill

mount cook early in the morning

... and again

Mt Cook

Spent the last 4 days playing down at Mt Cook with the Lovely Clio and Nick. Climbed a giant hill, attempted to find some kea and ate a whole lot of cheese. 215 pics to sort through, so will be posting them for some time to come. What a fabulous procrastinatory tool :)

1000m up and 1000m down leads to very sore legs but fabulous views!!

the view from the hut with Mt Sefton in the middle and Cook to the right

I had to schmooze this morning with some kinda weird people but i got to hangout with some fun critters

Yes I've been slack

but I so knew (and presumably you did too) that the regular update thing wasn't going to happen. And besides, I've been busy. But here are a few pics from my jaunt up to Castle Hill and through Cave Stream yesterday to keep you entertained until i get around to posting for real.

cave stream

crags at castle hill

me in the womb

The view from castle hill

New Years Resolutions

So I'm not really one of those people that does the nyr thing because I know that I'm not going to keep them, so what really would be the point. Besides, if you're going to do something, why wait until ny's to get around to making it happen.

This year, however, was an exception. I didn't come up with the usual "get fit", "eat better", "be nicer" sort of list tho. This year I resolved to write a list of things that i have always wanted to do but been too wimpy/unorganised/just damn lazy to get around to doing. This list-in-progress has been stuck to the fridge in my flat and i have to cross off at least two things a week. My original plan was then to blog the list and subsequent crossing off to make sure that things didn't slide after the first few weeks into the general state of laziness that i tend to live in.

So things kinda started out well....except for the blogging bit, which you may have noticed has slipped a little. Well, to be honest, never actually started. So this afternoon (when i really should be doing work) I shall start this venture in earnest (or some other wanky bollocks like that).

The completed list (thus far):

1. go swimming at the beach in knitted 1930's swimming togs
2. complete a hard sudoku
3. buy a gps and go geocaching
4. ride my bike wearing my spd bike shoes (they still scare me after the cracked rib incident)
5. become a journal editor (nz natural sciences look out)
6. go camping up the hawdon
7. stay at cass and help out with bug picking
8. start working on my sturgeon manuscripts
9. sell one of my screenprinted t-shirts
10. get a photo printed onto canvas
11. start learning spanish
12. start a cookie selling venture
13. make pesto from my homegrown basil

The uncompleted list:

1. try kite boarding
2. make a stunt kite
3. learn to use fire pois
4. send a letter/email to everyone in my address book
5. see bad jelly the witch at the theatre
6. brew beer
7. make custard squares
8. host a cranium/cocktail party
9. bike up dyer's pass road to sign of the kiwi
10. learn to play another song on the guitar
11. skydive
12. walk on fire
13. go camping at least once a month
14. do volunteer work on the hen & chicken islands
15. join weedbusters
16. organise a luuce event
17. buy a macro lens

This is a list in progress and i'm sure there is a bunch of stuff i've forgotten but the piece of paper is stuck to the fridge at home. Suggestions welcome.

fantail

nz falcon up the hawdon valley