Shona

Here is a little vid of when a few of my  mates (some english, some irish, and one welsh-ish) went over to Martinborough to celebrate my tirtyith birthday. The perfect birthday. Lunch in a winery, few more bottles of the good stuff during the day and then a concert by a Ukelele Orchestra. What more could an old man want?

If you are going to watch this turn the volume up, grab a glass of wine and enjoy.

Looking Good (and not wearing blue hoodie for a change)

The bank holiday weekend started in the usual British fashion, which of course means I spent the whole build up to going away fretting about what the traffic was going to be like getting out of Wellington on the Friday night.  I think I consulted the whole of the 29^th floor of the office block that I work in as to their opinion of when would be the best time to leave. “Hello John, listen, I know we haven’t spoken since I joined 6 months ago but I was wondering, what would be the best time to leave when planning to travel on the Friday before Labour Day?………. Hi I am Paul by the way!” You see my concern comes from the fact that there is only 2 roads out of Wellington; 1 going the way we wanted to go and the other going over the Rimutakas to Martinborough (This is slightly worrying of course when you consider that we are on a major fault line and you begin asking yourself the question what if they both disappear/crack in a earthquake and we need to evacuate. Saying that I am not sure how much of a relief it would be if they announced they were going to build a 3rd).  Anyway, as it turns out I needn’t have worried, because I had overlooked the fact that very few people actually live in New Zealand and of course the roads were largely fine.

As mentioned in my earlier blog entry this Labour weekend was going to be spent in the Rangitikei region of New Zealand.  I have driven through this region several times before and largely ignored it as I had been travelling to the more ‘well known’ areas of the North Island.  However, as I have said before on many an occasion and will probably again many times, “This part of New Zealand is simply stunning”. Rolling hills, unspoiled landscape, endless supplies of fresh air and the impressive Rangitikei River carving its way through the land takes your breath away and leaves myself asking the question ‘Why did I ignore all this on those other times?”

Walk to the waterfall

We arrived at the Bach (cottage) we were staying at around 8.30pm after we had stopped at the Kebab house in Bulls (as mentioned in early blog entry). The rest of our group was already there and had been greeted by the owner before we arrived. Apparently the owner had laughed when one of the group had asked whether we might be getting a key to lock the house when we were out. Apparently you just leave the doors unlocked round here. The Bach was great and we spent most of Friday evening drinking and playing “Apples 2 Apples”, a game in which I managed to repeatedly make people laugh just by giving the answer ‘Danny De Vito’ to every question. Some crowds are easier than others.

So on to Saturday and the start of our planned activities. We were headed for River Valley where some people were planning to go white water rafting. OK so the following is going to require some explanation. River Valley offers 2 different types of rafting, a Grade 5 White Water Rafting experience and a Grade 2/3 rafting experience.

Here is the description of a grade 5 Rafting experience from the River Valley website.

Grade 5: “Very powerful rapids with very confused and broken water, large drops, violent and fast currents, abrupt turns, difficult powerful stoppers and fast boiling eddies; with numerous obstacles in the main current. Complex, precise and powerful sequential manoeuvring is required. A definite risk to personal safety exists.”

Bit frightening but not that bad until you consider the only grade above it is Grade 6 and this is its description from Wikipedia.

Grade 6: Class 6 rapids are considered to be so dangerous as to be effectively unnavigable on a reliably safe basis. Rafters can expect to encounter substantial whitewater, huge waves, huge rocks and hazards, and/or substantial drops that will impart severe impacts beyond the structural capacities and impact ratings of almost all rafting equipment. Traversing a Class 6 rapid has a dramatically increased likelihood of ending in serious injury or death compared to lesser classes. (Skill Level: Successful completion of a Class 6 rapid without serious injury or death is widely considered to be a matter of great luck or extreme skill)

Ok, then. Next one up equals death. Being the daredevil/courageous character that I am, there was clearly only one option for me. The Grade 2/3 scenic raft it was.

Not for one second do I regret not doing the grade 5. The scenic rafting was superb. Between 6/7 hours was spent on the river, climbing up waterfalls or trying to cross strong currents on foot (something Shona was pathetic at!). The rapids weren’t very fierce at all, and for most of the day Rick and I shared a 2 man Kayak separate from the rest of the group who were in larger rafts accompanied by a River guide. I am not skilled enough to do justice to describing the scenery and how picturesque it was. If you want to know what it is like watch the end of the first Lord of the rings film, where Frodo and Samwise are in a canoe, and you will know because it was filmed on the same stretch of river. It was a really good day, topped by Rick getting stung up his nose by something which he had never heard of before, which makes him feel even more like Ray Mears. It was an Onga Onga which apparently, if it stings you enough, will kill you – see here.

View from the 12th tee

Day 2 was spent at Rangitira Golf Club, which is set next to the Rangitikei River and the last 12 holes are probably the most scenic I have played. Fun day had by all, the manager wasn’t too worried about us carrying a crate of beer round with us all day which made for a very relaxing time. The round was interrupted by Rupert as he averaged more than one piss a hole. Rick and I won the match play 2 & 1 and I shot a 14 over Par 86. We liked it so much that we went back on the way home on Monday and this time let the girls play, who had been horse riding the day before and missed out on a trip round the course. Definitely recommend this course to any golf fans, once you get past the first 6 holes which are pretty ordinary the rest of the course is magnificent. Highlight is getting a cable car from the 18^th to the clubhouse.

Tomorrow will see another first for me as I am competing in a triathlon. You did read that right it said triathlon. If I make it through, I will put up some pictures.

So the Ashes is finally over. Thank goodnes for that, I can finally turn up for work without looking like a Zombie. So in an effort to fill the massive gap left in my sport viewing life we headed off to the TSB Arena to watch some basketball. This was the first time I had ever been to watch a professional basketball game. The Tall Blacks were playing their local rivals Austrailia (also known by their nickname the ‘Boomers’) in the second part of the two match Oceania series. The Boomers had won the first game by 7 points, so for the Tall Blacks to take the series they would need to beat the Boomers by a greater margin.

After mustering all of my self control to refrain myself from standing up and singing Jerusalem during the Austrailian national anthem, the Tall Blacks treated us to a Haka (recently voted the number one pop culture icon in NZ, see here). Not quite as impressive as when the All Blacks performed it but still good to see.

Photo Courtesy of Rick Astley

As anyone who has read my blog before will know, I have now been to many sporting events during our time in New Zealand. The one thing I will never get used to is the selling of items of food which vendors have the audacity to call a hot dog but which is really deep fried pork on a lollipop stick with a layer of batter around the outside. This was the worst so far. In a classic Catherine Tate style, “Listen to this, it was a sausage! On a stick! With batter! And they had the audacity to call it a Hot Dog! A Hot Dog, well I said to Shona, the dirty b***ards.”

Anyway, what a sporting week the Australians have had. Not only did the Wallabies lose to the All Blacks at the weekend in the Rubgy, then the Baggy Greens lose the Ashes to the mighty England cricket team, but now they also lost here at the Basketball as well. This was all the more remarkable as it was not only by the highest ever margin (100 – 78) between the two teams, but the Tall Blacks hadn’t beaten them for the 7 years previous.

Let’s spare a thought for the Aussies.

Thoroughly enjoyed the game and would definitely do it again. Below is a small highlights package of the game (weirdly in Russian).

Paul should not have shown me how to use the blog….enjoy, Shona.

I’d hate to let you all know this, but Paul is in bed before midnight on his birthday (despite his previous post). A big happy birthday to him… a year til it really counts…. but a big thank you from me for making our trip so very entertaining. Lots of love, Shona.