Current location:	Wolf Castle
Current mood:	accomplished
Entry tags:	life, travel

Months Passing Quickly
I've been really slack in updating over the last few weeks. This is largely due to the amount of things that have been going on. If you follow seraphs_folly you may have picked up on some of what has been going on.

Basically, of the last month or so, much of it has been away from home, and much of the "away" was with seraphs_folly. But I want to try and capture some of it while I can still remember it, so here goes, an attempt to capture over a months worth of life in a single post. Note that it is huge, and has pictures!

Starting as far back as Easter on the 9th of April I spent a week visiting Christchurch. Two weeks later was Joel's graduation and I spent another three days in ChCh. wasup_bro, Ben, Ele, and myself flew down to Christchurch where seraphs_folly picked us up from the airport and took us into the Botanical Gardens, where we caught up with Doctor ferrouswheel in his robes. seraphs_folly took this photo of the family who were there (only panda_pitt was missing, as he was working and unable to come down)

Then we headed over to the Arts Centre, where Ben and I had a real German Frankfurter while we waited for the Graduation Parade to start. When it did, we got another surprise, finding that ferrouswheel was carrying the sign that helped prevent the PhDs from getting lost.



The ceremony itself was long, as they always are, but I actually enjoyed a couple of the speakers, who managed to find some good things to say. Once it was finally over, we ate the free biscuits and drank the free coffee while ferrouswheel got a frame. Then we drifted outside.



We hung around outside with wasup_bro& Ben throwing leaves at each other while ferrouswheel got rid of his gown, and then trooped into the bar for drinkies. seraphs_folly joined us, and we just managed to squeak in some pizza before we had to drop Ele, Ben, & wasup_bro back out to the airport for their flight back.

The next week was the local book fest, followed by the weekend of the 48hr Film Competition, when I spent most of the weekend at either svendelmaus' place, St. Pats town, or Indigo City. We got "revenge film" as our genre, and we created a noir movie, called Dedication, where I got to play a thug, as well as a number of off camera roles as usual. Still haven;t actually seen it though.

The weekend following that I flew south on Wednesday night to spend three days travelling north with my lady as she left Christchurch and her home there for the final time. We spent the night at the relatively cheap but highly technomological Hotel So. When I was dropped off there by a taxi driver, as my love was at that time saying a messy farewell to her friends, the driver told me the hotel had been financed indirectly by the Inland Revenue. Reportedly the IRD rented the building and then failed to pay the owner of the building. He had them evicted and later got a court judgement against them which forced them to pay him two million dollars, which he used to refurbish the building as a modern hotel.

Hotel So had free internet! Other, more expensive, hotels take note!

We left Hotel So and had parmesan dumplings for breakfast at the Nor'Wester Café in Amberly, and then had a quick coffee and comfort stop at the Two Rivers Café in Cheviot where we found some wonderful art. Expensive, but so far above the level of normal café art that even I could tell that this was special. Some of the seascapes and mountain-scapes were of such colour and detail that I would own such things if I could, even though they were priced n the ridiculous thousands.

We continued on to Kaikoura where my love had booked us on a whale watching tour. The whale-watching was well-organized and a lot of fun, especially as we were lucky to see seven separate sperm whales, when the operators considered two whales all they expect per trip .



While under way, the huge LCD screen at the front of the tour boat graphically displayed the depth of the water beneath the boat, not in feet or metres, but in "Auckland Sky Towers." As we headed out of the harbour this seemed reasonably pointless, with the depth over the continental shelf hovering around 80% to 90% of an Auckland SkyTower. But then we went over the edge, and reason for the choice became obvious.

When you see something you know is that big suddenly decrease in relative size such that within a minute what had taken more than the entire screen is now barely distinguishable at the bottom of the screen, you get a real sense of both the depth and steepness of the Kaikoura trench. Later they played a nicely produced CGI of what the sea bed in the area would like should it suddenly drain of water and the boat we were in become a plane. They also showed graphics and videos of the sperm whales diving in the area, complete with the current best guesses as to how the whales survive the cold and pressure of the trench. Reportedly much is still unknown about how the various odd structures n the sperm whale's body operate and even the action of the white "sperm" found in the head of the whale from which it gets it's name is not fully understood



After the trip we went out to the point so Sally could look for seals, and we found them, including one extremely cheeky one which had blocked the main beach access route. I filled my camera with photos, though most of them weren't very good, I've put the better ones up on Flikr

It was getting late as we headed for the inland route to Hammer via Mt Lyford, a way I'd never travelled before either. On the way a bunny so large that I thought it was a small faun bounced across the road in front of us.

The weight in the car caused Sally to misjudge the petrol requirements, so by the time we hit Waiau, as the sun disappeared completely, the petrol warning light was on, and we had to fill up at one of those one-pump country garages which was luckily still open. Even more luckily, they had EFTPOS! So we managed to escape the scary country town before night fell completely.

Then it was on to Hamner, where, after checking into the Heritage, we relaxed for an hour or so in an almost empty set of hot pools, which allowed us to be cuddly and slightly naughty as well. We'd already booked at one of our favourite restaurants, The Laurels, where we had the usual rich and lovely food served up by the sergeant-major and his wife.

The next day we drove thru Engineers camp and stopped off at the Japanese onsen at Maruia Springs . As no-one else was stupid enough to go out in the freezing weather, we briefly sat naked in an outdoor hot-pool in the rain looking at the hills and mountains, being covered in black algae, before being joined by South African Sally. Then we went to the interior baths where, because the management had failed to turn on the pumps, I couldn't rinse myself down afterwards while sitting on a little wooden stool like they do in all the animé. I did however get to relax naked in a huge hot bath with a wondrous view. It was peaceful and soothing and something special having it all to myself.

From there we travelled north to Sally's secret gold claim where I tried to remain warm even though standing in a freezing mountain stream. tried to avoid being bitten by sand-flies, and tried not to seem too suspicious to the locals. We did, however find gold. Even I could see it. Onwards we went to Nelson. managing to find the hotel we were booked into, and finding that a spa bath is not a spa pool. Out to the lovely Café Laffaire, where we had a very bouncy blonde and back to collapse in sleep.

Up on Saturday for brekkie at the same café, and then chocolate mousse at Zatori before rushing off to catch the ferry. On the road from Nelson I was reminded strongly of ancient history. Sadly the Rai Valley Cheesery was gone. But as we passed Pelorus Bridge I remembered a trip there with my RNZAF recruit course (R8/80) over a long weekend, when Ele came down to visit, and I was given a special dispensation to ride in her sports car rather than in the bus with the other recruits. Then we passed Canvas Town, where I remembered my first experience of gold mining and a much earlier love

   

We arrived at Kaikoura with plenty of time to spare, and boarded the ferry, my first time on one of "new" large ferries (though I suspect they were actually new over ten years ago). seraphs_folly had the wonderful idea to pay an extra $40 each to get into the deluxe lounge, which was sort of like an airline lounge, in that it had free (though slightly patchy) internet and free food and drinks. Damn good idea, meant we spent there trip in comfort with snacks, coffee and other drinks, and the time didn;t drag as I had the opportunity to play with my laptop and take the opportunity to Twitter from the middle of Cook Strait. I reckon I definitely got my $40 worth in snacks and drinks!


Sally Arrives In Wellington!
All the way to the boat we'd been getting warnings of gale force winds and rough crossings but the trip was relatively smooth with the stormiest weather not occurring until after we got inside Wellington heads, as you can see above. Of course a day later the ferry crossings were all cancelled as the southerly hit hard and temperatures dropped, so once again my lady's luck held.


Phew that'll do me for now, I still haven't covered our adventures looking for houses while seraphs_folly house-sat for tyellas, or Conscription last weekend!

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