Staglands

Just a couple of pics after our visit to Staglands, a wildlife park north of Wellington. I wasn't expecting too much, but it's actually a well-set up place. There a lot of birds, including the very cheeky kea and their rare cousins the kaka parrots, as well as a lot of Aussie imports, as seen in the photos! Also some kune pigs (with a face only a mother could love!), a few shetland ponies for the kiddies to ride, a couple of donkeys, a massive Scottish Clydesdale horse, lots of ducks/geese/chickens/pheasants/turkeys/peacocks (!), rabbits and guinea pigs and of course a couple of sheep...needless to say, Ben was there for the trout pond! See me here with my new-found friend in one of the aviaries - scratch cocky! Note also I had a hair cut last week! While I'm here, I'd like to welcome Sarah (http://phototas.blogspot.com) and Lauren (http://laurenhelgen.blogspot.com) to the wonderful world of blogging! Also go to http://mick.keira.fotopic.net to see my cousin Mick and his lovely wife Keira's new baby Natalie.

My new friend in one of the aviaries at Staglands...

Scraaatch, cocky!

Just a quick hello!

Hey everyone, sorry I've been slack, had a lot happening so the blog has taken a backseat. Have posted a photo of Mt Ruapehu as we're driving up from Wellington and one of me at the snow (which I e-mailed to a lot of you). Apologies for the quality, they were taken on my mobile!
For those of you hadn't heard, my second weekend on the mountain was not as successful as my first. While they had a fair bit of snow meaning some powder on the upper mountain, it turned quite icey and therefore lethal on the lower slopes, particularly the beginner's area. That combined with a completely different board that caught an "edge" all the time meant I spent a lot of time on my arse, and did some pretty spectacular but unfortunately not deliberate mickey flips. I ended up hurting my shoulder, so it didn't end up being a very good day. Haven't completely given up, but with season ending in 2 weeks (some fields have already closed down South), I will have to wait till next season to improve my skills. The best thing about the day was the weather - it was so clear and you could see all the way to Mt Taranaki, very spectacular!

What else?

So apart from visiting Rotorua/Taupo, what else have I been doing? Well, I hooked up with a volleyball team fairly soon after arriving, but it's been pretty tough-going. Court volleyball is completely different to rebound beach volleyball, and I've been playing A-grade as if I needed things to get any harder!!! The team I've been playing with are excellent, and I'm surprised they've kept me on to be honest, as they'd do just as well without me. Now you're probably thinking I'm just being overly modest, but I hardly get to touch the ball except to serve, and tend to get more in the way than anything else. They play with A-grade Men's nets which are really HIGH so you really do have to jump to spike. And there aren't that many other females, which makes me wonder if I've stumbled in on a men's comp who have a few crazy girls playing to make up the numbers? The opposition have no qualms about spiking it straight into your face, and I think I'm lucky not to have had my nose broken or a blackeye yet. Certainly improves your reaction time! Also the court is great for your knees - have the lovely bruises to show for it - so I'll have to get knee pads or something. So why have I kept playing? well, I'm hoping I'll meet some more people and find a lower grade team to take me on. I still like volleyball, but I need to find a more social team to play in.

I also had my first game of indoor netball on Thursday night. I had never set foot on a court before so it was a steep learning curve for me!! Got a team together from work, most others had played before, so at least they knew the rules!! anyway, we lost of course but it was good fun and a good laugh so I'm looking forward to it being a regular thing. If I really get into it I'll probably drop volleyball altogether, save me driving across town as well, as the indoor sports centre is literally just down the road.

OK I'm procastinating from going through the reviewers' comments on my paper so I better go!

:-)

Birds of a feather...

Well, I was playing around with my new mobile phone (well new as in since I moved to NZ) and I wanted to put a unique ringtone on it. scrolled through my service provider's list of dowloads, but at $4.95 a pop I wasn't too keen on paying for something probably a thousand others had themselves. Now the person that sits in the office next to me at work has a cricket chirp as his ringtone - yeah not that original, but not too annoying (better than a cheesy action movie theme!!!). Anyway, got me thinking I wanted something along those lines, and I struck upon getting a Mopoke Owl (aka boobook, morepork or Ninox sp if you really wanted to get technical!). With a bit of searching, I was able to download a mopoke, whipbird and kookaburra - and all for free!! So I set the mopoke as my general ringtone and the whipbird as a text message tone. The kookaburra I saved for when my family calls me - which isn't very often, otherwise I'm sure the good ole laughing would start to grate on everyone's nerves after a while...

Orakei geothermal reserve

Above: Champagne Pond
Above: one of the Devil's inkpots (note eery steam drifting around!)
Above: weird green lake where all of it flows into...
Above: Inferno crater: the birth of a sinkhole?!

Above: The Hulk's equivalent to "little blue"?!

Hello everyone!

Finally, here are some images from NZ as requested/promised. I put them in a Bebo folder, but to save people having to sign up to (yet another) account, I thought I'd post some here as well. These photos are from Orakei geothermal wonderland. Cave divers - could this have been the Limestone Coast 1000's of years ago?! Note sinkholes - and the steam coming out of them!! the Champagne pool (it has the bright orange rim) is apparently 150deg at depth. And it's full of gold. So if you can invent an exposure suit that will protect you from the heat (?!?!), could be a great fundraising excercise for the club?

Anyway, feel free to leave comments etc. Miss you all!

PS weather is great here today - 11deg but yes there is SUN! :-)

Huka Falls and the Buried Village

Above: Huka Falls. The river narrow to this gorge and 1000's of cubic metres of water are forced through this narrowing (about 10m wide). This on the Waikato River, where all the hydro power plants are built. Hydro powers contributes to 60% of the North Island's power supply!

Above: Upstream from Huka Falls

Above: Bridge across the gorge upstream from Huka Falls.

Above: "Whare" (house) excavated and restored at the Buried Village, near Rotorua. This was once Te Wairoa Village, in a valley above Lake Tarawera, established by a Christian Missionary. It was abandoned during the land wars of the 1860's, then reborn a few years later as tourist town and gateway to the`magnificent Pink and White Terraces. People would travel to visit the Terraces and bathe in the geothermal pools. Mt Tarawera violently and unexpected erupted in June 1886, destroying this village and two others and burying them and the Pink & White Terraces in ash and mud. 150 lives were lost.

Above: Beautiful waterfall in the valley just below the Buried Village. It was very unexpected detour but well worth the steep descent and stairs! A stream is full of big rainbow trout.

less than 2 weeks...

Well another weekend has come and gone, and now I have less than 2 weeks left in Adelaide. I can feel the panic rising a little, I'm pretty sure my BP is elevated right now!! Despite my dwindling time still went diving on the weekend, probably my last in SA for a while since almost the entire club is going away next weekend. Felt sad washing my gear out and packing it away. Also found out it will cost A LOT of money to send the Dub back to QLD. I got here on backloading so was quite affordable, but I didn't think of the car manufacturers here so to go back the other way, I have to pay full price. Since my little car isn't worth that much to anyone but me, I don't know what's going to happen to it. I am going to ring my VW mechanic and see if he has any ideas. Dad is pretty disappointed too, he was looking forward to tinkering with it I know.

hello :-)

I started blogging a while ago (introduced to it by my good friend Rundave), but haven't been active for a while. I thought it would be a good way to keep in touch with some of you after I've moved to Land of the Long White Cloud. That way, rather than writing long and impersonal group e-mails, those of you who are interested can choose to visit and read my blog when you feel like it, and find out how I'm going and what I've been up to. At least that's the idea.

At the moment I'm still in Adelaide and frantically trying to get it all done before I go. Ben has got a nice unit lined up for us in Petone, right near the beach and close to shops, cafe's etc, so at least that is one thing less to do. I just changed the date that the removalist people are coming to collect my furniture to a a week later so I have a little more breathing room.

Anyway, I still have lots to do at uni, so I better get back to it!