April and May

So i spent pretty much all of April and most of May working, but still did some stuff at the weekends.  I am just going to put some photos and captions up.

Nelson Cathedral

Moonset over Tahunanui Beach

Cable Bay

A Praying Mantis on my hand

Matakitaki River

Nelson had a really bad storm in April, lots of trees were felled.....

....and roads collapsed

AJ Hickling at Nelson Market- this guy is an amazing pianist and travels around NZ and OZ with his piano

Konstanze and I at the top of Mount Robert

My car!

at the top of Mount Robert

Cable Bay

Lambretta's Cafe - Lucy used to work her when she lived in Nelson.  3/4 of the Findlay Siblings have lived in Nelson at some point.

Lud Valley.  Cable Bay is on the right side of the hill in the background

Work and Christchurch

After recovering from the tramp i continued to look for work and explore more of the area

 Coppermine Saddle

Kiateriteri Beach, its as nice as it looks

Ingrid had a race near Christchurch on Sat 15th March and Josh, Ingrid, Konstanze (housemate) and I were due to travel down on Thursday, however i had struck lucky and was offered a job the previous week and they wanted me to start on the Thursday.  I decided to take the job and catch a flight down to Christchurch on Friday after work.  if you book in advance you can normally get flights for about $60, but as it was only a few days before i flew i ended up paying $180!

View from the plane

The flight was only about 40 minutes so it was not long before i was at the campground we hat rented a hut in to stay.  On the Saturday we headed towards Mount Hutt, where the Oceania MTB Championships Ingrid was competing in was being held.  Ingrid and Josh dropped Konstanze and I off at the bottom of Mount Hutt and we were going to do a hike before heading to the race to meet Josh and Ingrid.  We walked up Scott Saddle

Konstanze and I at Scotts Saddle, altitude 1140m

We continued up the road towards Mount Hutt Ski Field, but shortly had to turn back as Ingrid was finishing her race.  We got to the race at about 3pm and Ingrid had finished so we went into Methven for a coffee before returning to the race village for Ingrid to step up on the podium for 5th place

Ingrid (far right (not politically)) on the podium

On the way back to the campground we stopped at Rakaia Gorge

Rakaika Gorge, the water was so blue i wanted to dive in.

we found this cool tree, a good place for a group photo.  Josh was asleep in the van.

Not much else happened for the rest of the day, and we set of early on Sunday morning for the long drive home.  We stopped of at Maruia Falls on the way

Maruia Falls - actually more impressive than this photo lets on

Monday 17th March was to be the start of my first full week of work since finishing work in Nottingham at the end of January, and i wasn't really looking forward to it.  I was working in an apple packing warehouse, doing jobs where i was needed such as packing apples into cardboard boxes, stacking cardboard boxes full of apples on a pallet, making sure the packers had enough cardboard boxes to pack apples, making cardboard boxes to make sure the people who made sure the packers had enough boxes had enough boxes.  Basically if it involved cardboard boxes and apples i did it. 

 Apples in cardboard boxes

Cardboard boxes yet to have apples packed inside

we packed all sorts of apples - braeburn, granny smith, pink lady, braeburn, pacific rose, mahana red, braeburn, even some pears (that was an exciting day).  I can honestly say that the apples here (and in NZ generally) are the nicest i have ever had.  We were allowed to take home a carrier bag of rejects for $2 which is why our fridge looks like this

To get to work I had to leave the house at about 6.50am and cycle 10km to Stoke to get a lift with Malcolm and Debora who insisted on getting to work at 7.45 and stand around for 15 minutes before stating work.  I was grateful for the lift as it would have been a 70km round trip each day, so they saved me quite a bit of money on petrol and i cycled to their house most days.  Malcolm is an incredibly tedious man, who insists on explaining everything in minute detail - especially his jokes.  He started at least 3 conversations with some variation of 'i'm not racist but...' and then went off on a rant about the islanders coming over and taking their jobs.  not sure if NZ has a political party like UKIP, but i reckon he would vote for them.  Also on a few occasions he used the well known phrase 'its a catch 2 situation'.  the first time he said it i presumed he said it wrong by mistake, but by the third time i was convinced this what he thought the saying.  I managed to say it incorrectly to him twice, to see if would correct me but he didn't.  His wife, however, was very nice.

The pay was OK, as the minimum wage here is quite high i was taking home about $500/week which works out at about  8 pounds/hour.  The job was supposed to finish in the middle of June, but due to low crop yields and the owner coming across like he has no idea what is going on it finished last week (Fri 16th May)

Bonus Photos

 View from Scotts Saddle - Ingrid was racing somewhere down there

Sunrise in Stoke

Tramping

Tramping

 I planned a 50km route and bought some Hut passes from DOC (department of conservation) which would allow me to sleep in huts along the route.  Ingrid dropped me off at Hackett car park at about 10 am and my first day was supposed to be a 16km hike to Roebuck Hut.  As this is the first time I had done anything like this and as I was on my own I was a bit nervous, but after the first couple of kilometers the track was really good and i was making good progress, so i decided to take a detour to look at a disused chrome mine, which was supposed to be about 1km off the track. After about 1.5km of walking I had not come across anything that looked like a disused mine, so i decided to turn back and head back to the main track.  About an 1.5 hours after setting off i arrived at Hackett hut, which had a nice stream running by it and i decided to have a break.

Having a paddle in Weka Creek

A Weka in Weka Creek.  

These are a protected species of flightless bird, but are not particularly shy around Humans and this one kept pecking my bag to get food.

After a short break i continued on, but here the track started to get harder and i was no longer walking along a well formed path but along a tramping track, which is less formed and a lot harder to walk along as it is quite uneven and there are a lot of roots and loose rocks to walk over and it was not long before i was regretting taking the 3km detour to not see the disused mine.  I also did not take into account any ascending on the route (so thats what contour lines are for.....) and the highest point today was at about 700m (not that much really, but there was going to be alot more climbing over the next 2 days).  About 8 hours, and 19.5km after setting off i arrived at a wire bridge and i could see the hut i was going to be staying in.

Roebuck Hut

Roebuck Hut is a 6 bed standard hut, which means it just has beds and a wood burner.  When i arrived there was a couple already in the hut, and although i was hoping to have the hut to myself it was nice to see somebody as i had only seen two other people all day.  I went down to the river to collect some water, and after managing not to slip over all day i slipped on a rock and ended up getting both my shoes soaking wet.  By the time i had had my re-hydrated meal (yummy....) it was starting to get dark so i went to bed and started talking to the couple i was sharing the hut with.  The couple were in their late 60's/early 70's and they had plenty of tips and advice to pass on about tramping as they had been doing it for the last 45 years.  In each hut there is a 'book of intentions' in which you are supposed to fill in your details and intentions and can be used if you go missing.  The book in this hut had only just been completed and it had been here since 2004, and it was interesting to see how people from all over the world had stayed in this hut.

The couple had gone before i woke up in the morning and after having some porridge i packed up, put on my still wet shoes and started day 2.  Today was going to be a shorter day - about 12km to Rocks Hut, including a 2km detour to Middy Creek Hut.  The first 6km was fairly hard going along the river Pelorus, again the track was not well defined and there were lots of exposed roots, loose rocks and sidling up hill but i only slipped/tripped over 3 times. At about the 6km mark the track split and i had planned to go right to Middy Creek Hut and then come back to the junction and on to Rocks Hut, but i decided against it as i had now remembered how to use contour lines and the last 3.5km had over 600m of climbing - which works out at an average gradient of about 17%!  After what felt like an eternity climbing up hill the ground levelled out and i was only about 500m away from the hut.  It had taken me the best part of 6 hours to walk just under 10km.  It was 3.30pm so i had plenty of daylight and time to relax and recuperate.  I started to gather some firewood to light the fire and i hung my clothes out to dry (it rained briefly earlier).

Rocks Hut, a 16 bed standard hut

Inside Rocks Hut - note my shoes on top of the wood burner.

View from the Hut, Mount Richmond in the background

After lighting the fire and hanging my clothes out to dry and putting my shoes on top of the wood burner to dry i had a lie down on one of the benches and drifted off to sleep.......only to be woken up to the smell of burning rubber!  My shoes had started to melt on top of the wood burner, i quickly took them off and assessed the damage.  The sole had started to come away from the shoe, so while they were still warm i stood on them to try and keep them stuck together while the glue cooled down.  it sort of worked, but they did not look to good and i was unsure how long they would last the next day.  After another re-hydrated meal and some scroggin it started to get dark again, and it looked like i would be sleeping alone in the hut. In the middle of nowhere.  Near the top of a mountain.  Maybe i was wrong to want the hut to myself!  During the night none of the following woke me up and scared me - the wind, wekas running about under the hut and honking loudly, wild boar fighting and/or mating. After a brilliant nights sleep i had breakfast and packed up and set off on the final, and longest, leg of the trip - 21km to home.  Today was the easiest going terrain wise - mostly downhill and mostly on well formed paths.  After about 4km i reached Coppermine Saddle and i had the choice to take a detour up the the peak of Dun Mountian, i wanted to but my feet said no.

Coppermine Saddle

From here it was all downhill along the Dunn Mountain Trail, which follows the route of NZ's first railway line.  The only thing of any note that happened on the way home is that i had been saving the chocolate pieces of my scroggin for the end of the trip, but ended up dropping them when i stumbled on a rock.  i am sure i learned a lesson from this, but i am not sure what it was.  Over all it was a very enjoyable trip (although sometimes did not feel like it) and i felt that i had accomplished something.

**this site doesnt automatically change lower case i into capital I and i cant be bothered to go through and change them all.  Take that grammar.

Rotorua to Nelson

It has been a while since i last posted, so i will be doing a few updates.
Rotorua

For the remainder of the week in Rotorua, along with doing some more mountainbiking, i went to visit some of the surrounding area.

Lake Tikitapu (aka blue lake)

Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland.  calling this place a 'wonderland' is a bit over the top, and the $35 entry is a bit much to look at some thermal lakes, but it was nice to see some boiling mud pools and some of the colours created by the various chemicals in the water were pretty amazing.  And I did see a pair of pied stilts fighting a hawk in the air, which was probably worth the $35 on its own.

Josh doing what he does best

This actually almost luminous yellow, but the camera didnt pick the colour up very well

Nelson bound

After 8 days in Rotorua it was time to head down south to Wellington to catch the ferry to the south island and then on to Josh and Ingrids house, where I would be staying for the next 3 months.

I only had about an hour in Wellington before boarding the ferry, so i just had a quick walk along the port.

The ferry ride was good, the weather was amazing and the views were spectacular.

Leaving Wellington

View of the Queen Charlotte Sound, arriving in the south island.

Nelson

Now I had arrived in Nelson it was time to start planning what I was going to do, I started looking for a job but it seemed I had just missed the start of the apple season, and most of the orchards were no longer taking on staff.  I started to explore the area, mainly on my bike.

Maitai Dam, provides Nelson with its water

Tahunanui Beach, about 10 minutes ride from Nelson

After a week or so of looking for work and exploring i decided to plan a 3 day tramp into the Mount Richmond Ranges outside Nelson (to be continued......)

Bonus Photos