I'm Still Alive

Ok, I know I have kinda neglected the blog over the last couple of months. There is really no excuse and I'm going to try and get back on the ball though I don't have much time left here, It's crazy how time has flown only really a month left wow! But luckly I may be comming back, who knows what life may bring!

Finally Some Traveling

Well after 2 months of adventure coming to me without even leaving Auckland, I finally feel I'm ready to head out and seek an adventure of my own choosing. Having clients and coworkers around for the last couple of weeks have kept things lively and interesting at work but I was defiantly ready to head out for something a little different.

So to maximize my useful travel time I decide to build my first week away around the Easter long weekend. And as usual given the opportunity to climb outside I will, more often than not will jump and the opportunity. So Alan, mike and I head out early Friday morning to get to Froggatt ledge the same places just outside of Cambridge that I went to the first weekend I was in NZ. Well actually not that early . . . I wanted to be on the road by 7:00 but I couldn't convince my friends that it was worth the early start. The I told you so's started coming soon after we got on the motorway and promptly got slowed to a crawl stuck in the Easter weekend traffic. So finally at about 12 noon we finally arrive and the climbing site ready to pull down . . . um sorry that's a climbing term meaning to crank hard or send big or . . . . well you know, I was excited. So eagerly I hop out of the van and take a quick scan of the other people at the crag not expecting to recognize any faces I was however surprised when I did. Now you wouldn't expect to run into a friend from your home town randomly in the middle of some country on the other side of the world but here I did, not more that 5 meters from where I stood was Graham former employee of The Boulders Climbing gym and climbing partner of times past. I was dumbfounded and I still can't believe how crazily random it was that we ran into each other in the middle of NZ. So he joined our little climbing troop for the weekend and subsequently has been traveling with me since.

After a great 3 straight day of hard cranking I came out of the weekend with a new personal best and feeling stronger than ever, a great way to start a road trip. And start it I did, with my new tag along from my home town we left the crag at about 5:30pm and headed south to Taupo. With grand designs for the following day. After about 2 hours of driving we arrive at Taupo just as dusk was starting to fall. Unfortunately due to some poor navigating by yours truly and a little bum luck we didn't end up finding our campsite till well after dark. Fortunately it was a free campsite and it still plenty of space left despite the long weekend crowds.

The next morning we were awakened but the joyous sounds of children at play (Read: screeches of little devils wreaking havoc) ok both are a bit of a hyperbole but I think you get the picture. After packing up our site we decide to head to the Waikato River falls which we found were only 2 min's from out campsite at Riches farm. The Waikato River drains Lake Taupo and hosts many of the tourist activities such as Jet boat touring and bungie jumping off a cliff in to the river. After a short self guided tour of the falls we headed across the Highway to the "Craters of the moon" a walk that takes you through a highly active geothermal area with many craters and sinkholes. We then head back into town for a bite of lunch, mmm meat pie! From there we went to find a hot spring that flows into the Waikato just between the bunjie zone and the falls, it was good timing because after a weekend of hard climbing and no showers . . . well you could imagine. FeeIing refreshed by a little natural bath and hot/cold treatment we headed back into town where I headed down to the harbor to take a little boat tour on the lake that takes you out to the Maori rock carvings. There are a few boats do this run but the one I chose was the Sailing Ketch Barbary, (apparently famed as once belonging to famous actor Errol Flynn) this proved to be a good choice as there was a bit of a breeze and so we actually got to do some sailing and the atmosphere was very personable not very touristy like the other 2 companies seemed to be. Our tour guide was Skipper Dave, who offered to have anyone who wanted to try their hand at sailing to take the helm and help him sail, no one was very keen so I ended up spending most of the trip either trimming sails or at the helm, super fun! After about a hour and a quarter we arrived at the carvings, they were quite impressive, even if they were done with modern conveniences such as scaffolding and modern tools. The Carvings were completed over the course of 2 summers by I think 7 different Maori artists with the intention of raising the Maori profile in the area. Little did they know it would prove to be huge tourist attraction that is has become today. About 3 and a half hours after we left the dock we returned slightly more tanned and a little friendlier, after catching up with Graham we jumped back in the car for a short 1.5 hour drive north to Rotorua.

Stay tuned for more NZ travel adventures! In the next episode, Birds with soft beaks?! And Zorbing!

Waikato River falls from the bridge
And from the Observation Point

Steam comming from the ground at Craters of the moon.
Crazy coloured soil and more steam.

Crazy coloured plants . . . and more steam.

Mmmm, mud soup anyone?

A little over view of Craters of the moon, you can see the walking path that we followed . . . through the steam.

Hot Springs . . . really, it was pretty hot . . . look more steam!
I'll never bunjie, but I have no problem watching others do it!

Maori rock carvings!

And to give a sence of scale.
Ah, what a lovely day on Lake Taupo.

A Little Sprinkle

Well I'm moved in to my new apartment, but life is not by any means becoming routine or "normal". A week after moving in my boss Greg Marshall came down to NZ to talk with a potential new client who is looking to build a new 42.5m yacht. Though I have been working for Greg for almost 6 years now and often do a lot of work in preparing proposals for Greg to take into these meetings this was the closest I have ever been to the actual deal making, and I must say it's pretty exciting. With the work that we do, we are not just trying to sell a product, we are trying to sell a experience. When your product is another person's dream you have to get them excited about what you can deliver, not just prove that you can deliver it, it's quite an art and Greg really knows how to paint it. Because privacy is VERY important for many of our extremely wealthy I will refer to this client as simply PC and if you can find out any more from that I will be quite impressed as this person seems to be able to keep under the radar quite well. No one can even seem to tell me how he managed to acquire his wealth other than high level real-estate development. It's not important anyhow, what is important is that he is does have a lot of money and that he wants to spend some of it with us.

A couple of days after Greg arrived, Matt Delay, our systems engineer designer also came down to Auckland to spend a week here helping wrap up the PC deal and sort out a few issues with the current project. Greg being close friends with the Porters (owners of McMullen and Wing) has been staying with David Porter for the duration of his stay thus leaving the spare bedroom at my place for Matt. Little did I know that the day Matt arrived would be the most unfortunate day for anyone to pay me a visit. Early Friday Morning (5:00am) I head down to Auckland International Airport to collect my Canadian comrade, after a short stop at the apartment to clean up and drop off his stuff we head off to the ship yard. At 3:00 that same day I get a message from the property management informing me that there has been some minor flooding at my apartment and to contact them when I see the situation for myself. My first thought was "how do you get flooding on the 10^th floor of an apartment building? When we arrived back at the apartment I found out, the fire sprinkler system had been set off my bathroom and was left on long enough to flood the entire apartment and spill out my front door and seep into the two floors below me as well. Walking down the hall towards my room I have to avoid a bustle of activity as workers set up fan driers and dehumidifiers in my apartment to dry it out. I quickly sourced out the building manager and asked him what happened, apparently the painter (who was supposed to come an paint my bathroom ceiling 2 weeks ago) came to finally do the job, he started by plastering the ceiling and then to expedite the process put 2 driers in the bathroom and shut the door. This however did not help dry the plaster because the 2 driers in the enclosed space quickly raised the room temperature beyond the 60 deg C that is takes to activate the fire sprinkler and instead of drying, the plaster got wetter along with the rest of my apartment.

Fortunately most of Matt's and my stuff was up off the ground and so little damage was done to any personal possessions however Matt and I found ourselves with no place to live for the next couple of days, while the apartment was drying out. After a bite of dinner we proceeded to try and find a hotel to stay at for the weekend, this proved to be difficult because not only was the NZ Ironman on that weekend but the Auckland Boat show was scheduled to start the following week and both brought in a large amount of clientele for the hospitality industry in Auckland. After about an hour of wandering around down town Auckland we finally found an available room at the Sky City Hotel, it wasn't the cheapest but it was available and that's what mattered.

Some pics from the last couple of weeks

View Looking straight out from my balcony.
Looking slighty to the left.
Light Lines!
No more world wide floods.
Jazz and Blues Fest in Mission Bay.
6 String Bass!
My Fav. of the evening, funk jazz quartet.
Fire Poi!
Heart Fire Poi.
The theme for Michelle's 21st was gardin party.
Cutie!
The B-day Girl
Michelle, Sophie, and Melody play some strings.
My short term boarders were with the NZ mob.

Home Shopping

Well it's been a little while since I've posted but though I have been quite busy there hasn't been too much to write home about. After I got my car I immediately put my energies towards finding accommodation. I had one week left in the motel that my company had put me up in but I still had no idea where I was going live when that time was up but in my naivety I figured It wouldn't be too much trouble. How wrong I was, as it would turn out like Victoria housing costs in Auckland have just been through a bit of a rapid increase and I realized pretty quickly that I would have to up my budget to get into something reasonable. Also because I'm only here for a relatively short time I decided that is would be easier to just get a furnished place instead of having to spend the time and money to go out and buy all the furnishings I would need for my time here. The problem with furnished places is that, 1 they are more expensive, and 2 they're not very common anywhere but in the down town core where all the high-rise apartments are and where property is the most expensive. And if that was not enough trouble I was also trying to find a place right in the middle of the student rush when students are coming back from their summer vacation and trying to sort out their own accommodation for their next year of school. There were many occasions when I would find something that I liked and by the next day it was taken, frustrating! So after a week of fruitless searching I was at a loss, and a little stressed as to where I would stay after my time at the motel was up. After on less ditch effort to find something on Saturday I gave up and decided to try and enjoy the rest of my weekend.

Sunday was defiantly enjoyable, after a morning service at HCCC (Howick Christian Community Church) I headed off to my firsts gig as a photographer. Michelle Griffiths 21^st birthday party. Having met Michelle 2 weeks ago through her boyfriend Martin, I felt pretty privileged to be invited to apparently one of the biggest birthdays of a young kiwi's life. Having found out I was a little into photography she asked me If I would be willing to help document the day with some photos. Giving me a chance to meet many of her family and friends and be useful and the same time, needless to say I was more than happy to.

During the party I was invited to stay at a few different people's homes when they found out that I was going to be out on the street the next day, and one of those offers came from Graeme and Alison Wilcox, Martins parents, after giving them fair warning and trying my best to dissuade them I finally accepted their offer to stay in their spare room until I could find accommodation of my own.

After the party I stuck around to help clean up and then was invited back to Michelle's parents house for some snacks, gift opening and some reminiscing of Michelle's last 21 years including some junior school drama video's. At a hour slightly to late for a Sunday night I thanked my hosts and headed home for my last night in the Aarangi Motel in Kohimarama.

The following week was much more promising on the home front, no longer having the stress of having no place to stay allowed me to relax and not have to jump into anything that I may have regretted later. On Wednesday I looked at an apartment downtown that looked like it would fit the bill but the realtor assigned to it was being quite flakey and ended up being half an hour late to the showing. He rarely answered phone calls or emails and even when you did get to talk to him he was quite hard to understand having a VERY thick Chinese accent mixed with Kiwi English. I found out later that it just so happened that his computer and his phone decided to pack it in that week, and when I finally signed on the deal he gave me one week of free rent for the inconvenience YAY! So now I have a place but there's no power or hot water, and because I moved in at the end of the day on Friday I won't be able to hook that up until next week but at least I have a place! It's on the 10^th floor of the C-Vu (Sea View) Apartment complex and its situated about a 15 min walk from the downtown core and has a great view over the city and out into the harbor. It is a 2 bedroom place, so if any of you find yourself in Auckland give me a ring and I can put you up, as long as none of my co-workers or boss are in town.

I was also able to enjoy some local indie music last week, Marty, Michelle, Sophie (A good friend of Michelle) and I went to a little pub to see a double bill with 2 Kiwi bands Mercury Crow and Glory Sea. Both bands were quite enjoyable but I think my favorite was defiantly Mercury Crow; they were a bit of a rock/blues mix reminiscent of Canada's own Wide Mouth Mason but of course wouldn't be able to hold a candle to Shaun Verreault and the boys. Still a good show none the less.

Once again thanks for all your comments and well wishes and Much Love!

P.S. I promise to post some more pictures soon!

Becoming a local

So it's been 2 weeks since I first set foot on New Zealand soil and I am only starting to get a sense of even just the small portion of Auckland I am currently living in, well that and where I'm working and some of the space in between. After my long weekend getaway I focused in on getting myself settled into Auckland before planning any more out trips, (pouty face here) but once I'm settled than I can more easily focus on planning my travels.

I have also managed to meet a few more people, I know, surprise surprise. Last week I met up with Martin and John, also known as Marty and Jono. (for those of you don't know Marty and Jono, they are a couple of Kiwis who spent a little time in BC and came out to the place a few times, great guys!) and was introduced to a few of their friends here at a BBQ, no shrimp where involved that's an Aussie thing. For the record don't call a Kiwi an Aussie, it's kinda like calling a Canadian an American. Later that week Marty also invited me to a friendly poker game with some more of his friends but I don't know if I made any friends after the night was over and I was 50 bucks richer. . . I have also been making a few friends at work, Brent the fella who works beside me invited me out to his place for dinner with his Italian fiancée Alessandria. That was more wonderful for me than they probably know, because it was the first and only home cooked meal I have had in the time that I have been here. Brent also let me sample some of his home made ginger beer which I'm taking quite a liking to. (No it's not alcoholic!).

Blue!

They have some of the nicest public washrooms I have ever seen!
I didn't leave the city this weekend, I focused my efforts on trying to find a car to help me get around this very tough to navigate city and to aid me in my future travels. Lucky for me and anyone else looking for a cheap car NZ has had a major influx of inexpensive yet reasonably dependable cars from Japan and that has driven prices in the used car market way down. My search found me down town Auckland on Saturday, and I was soon distracted by the other sites and sounds of a city in the height of tourist season. While wondering along the waterfront my mom and little sister Crystal called me using Dads Skype account (4 cents a min!) while talking to them I found myself wondering into the Team New Zealand Americas Cup boat yard. I wasn't sure if I was even allowed there as there was no one else around but as the same time no one was asking me to leave so I took a few pictures and wondered out again. After that I headed to the more public waterfront and enjoyed a few buskers and sights before heading back home for a swim and some time on the beach.

This guy was funny!
Very Funny!

Just like Victoria in the summer!
Bus and Train Central Station

The final big news is that I finally do have my own set of wheels! After a bunch of shopping around I have picked up a 1994 Subaru legacy at the Sunday car fair for a mere 2300 bucks. Pretty good I thought especially since the guy selling it was originally asking 2900. It's one of those classic looks good from afar but is far from good, not to say it's a bad car, it just as a few nicks dings and scratches but is got brand new tires and it runs well and that's all I need. I don't have a name for it yet, but I feel like it should have one so if any of you have any Ideas, let me know.

The fuzzy dice were a big selling point!