She Screams Down The Line

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't care how gay you say I am, I enjoyed the movie The Lake House. Once I managed to get past the whole time travel thing that was never explained, there was something about it. Sure it was kind of transparent, sure it could never happen. But there was something about it. It was delightful. Maybe it was Sandra Bullock. Who knows? Anyways, I know that I have seen worse movies, and I know that I will see less enjoyable ones in the future. I don't care what you say. I liked it. Maybe I am in love.

So I saw that movie last night. Before that though, I had a picnic at Kangaroo Point cliffs. It was lovely. Salmon patties. Pumpkin salad. Brain Juice. Hot chips. I liked it. Sometimes it's nice to do things that are out of the ordinary, but still in the everyday. Or something.

So if this isn't making as much sense as it could, I apologise. I've had more than 8 beers tonight. I had them while I was down at the local bowls club. Apparently this club has recently been purchased by the local leagues club. I had a roast dinner. It was massive. By the time I'd managed to get it all in I wasn't interested in eating any more food. It was only 9 dollars. Another plus for the venue was that schooners were only 3 dollars. And you could play bowls until 11pm under the lights. I don't think that my game would have improved at all even if I had continued up until that point.

I'm getting on a plane tomorrow. I'm going to Rockhampton. It's going to be a blast. I'm going to be in town for Ria's mum's 50th. I don't quite know what to expect, but I'm going to be a good boy scout. I'm going to Be Prepared. I'll have some trusty pants. I'll have some pyjamas. I'l have a t-shirt and another shirt. I'll even have a jumper. Toothbrush, deoderant, cologne. I think that I've got it covered. I'm flying Virgin Blue. I'm going to make it on time.

There's not too much else to tell. I'm tired. Things have been hectic recently. I'm thinking about going to the coast on Sunday. I want to swim in the ocean. Clear my head. My mother is unwell.

Endlessly She Said

Last night I was made to feel utterly helpless, and I really didn't like it. I think the feeling of being unable to make any change to a situation is one of the worst. You feel powerless, impotent. Sitting, watching as life unfolds before you, and having no control over the outcome. It sucks. Unfortunately there are some things in life that force you to be a passenger, or worse, an observer. Knowing what will happen, but being unable to influence the events, to change the course, to avoid the catastrophe. Just waiting.

Thankfully, though, there are many things in my life that I do have some capacity over. To lose that freedom of choice, to have your options continuously limited to one would make for a soul crushing existence.

Cheerful, huh?

Anyways, that was then, this is now. Today was a pretty fun day. We had Old MacDonald's Farm come and visit the centre. There was a calf, a piglet, a couple of lambs, some kids, chickens and ducks. It was fun. The carpark kind of smells like manure now though, so I'm hoping we get a bit of rain soon. The children really enjoyed having the animals at the centre. The youngest guys were having a great time with the animals while there were some older children with them, but once the bigger guys left, all the little kids started to back into one corner, intimidated by the animals. I think that I liked the pig the most. He was cool. He wasn't pink, more of a brown colour. He would run around and around the pen. He didn't squeal too often, but he was cool.

Over the weekend I watched a few movies. I saw Some Kind Of Monster which is the documentary about Metallica. It was interesting to see the different egos within the band, and also the changes in them as the film progressed. On the Sunday I watched Phar Lap which was a terrific movie about the iconic horse. I was hoping that there would be something about how he was poisoned by the Americans, but there was nothing about that. I guess it would have been too controversial, killing it's chance with the bigger cinema market. Or something. Maybe they just didn't want to taint his memory with what may have happened. Apparently farlap means lightning a language other than English.

The final movie I saw on the weekend was Pretty Woman. It was surprisingly enjoyable. I guess I didn't really know what it was all about before, but having watched it, I can say that I'm glad that I did. Julia Roberts wore some very 80's clothes. Some of them were revealing. I didn't mind.

Even though the weekend had ended, my movie viewing hadn't as I finally made it to the Blue Room to watch Factotum. I enjoyed it. I had a pad thai with my meal, I enjoyed that as well.

I am tired.

SNUFF! SNUFF! SNUFF!

It had been building up inside of me for a while. I'd been thinking about it for a while, and last night was the time. I hadn't been feeing to crash hot, visiting my mum up in the hospital wasn't a whole lot of fun, so I had decided that I was going to get drunk. I guess reading Bukowski probably doesn't help. So last night I did it.

It started off fairly sedate at Mrs Martell's 50th. I had a nice time. Had some interesting conversations. Mr Martell's mother was telling me how she believes in reincarnation and that she's got 14 years of life left and her husband only has ten. She also told me that she isn't a conservative. It was surprising. I spoke to another old guy, Harry, who was telling me about how last weekend he was playing poker with some friends when somebody brought out a hash cake. Apparently it was tasty.

After I left the party, I got changed and then Dad drove me into the Valley. I went up to the Zoo to see Elephant Mojo play. It was better than last time, quite a few people seemed to be having a great time bouncing around. At the bar I had shots of tequila with beer chasers.

After the show finished I crossed the road to the GPO. I had some Jaegermeister there and a vodka. I think that I had some more tequila too. The people in that place were depressing me though, so I left.

I was in a strange sort of mood, and I felt that I didn't really want to see anybody I knew. Plus I thought about maybe trying to score so I went to the Wickham. When I say score, I don't mean with a dude. So I went to the Wickham and had some more shots and more vodka. I think that they were doubles by this point. I contemplated buying some cigarettes, but decided against it. The Wickham was full of guys of all ages. They were having a good time. I tried to use the bathroom, but those mirrors they have in there were freaking me out, and I got stage fright. So I stood there for a couple of minutes with my dick in my hands, but nothing coming out. Some dude was talking to me. I don't remember what he said. I thought that if I was unable to go to the bathroom then there probably wasn't much point in continuing to drink there, plus I was beginning to feel slightly unwell. I left the Wickham.

As I left the bar I crossed the road and flipped off and swore at a car that was coming down the road. Turns out that Caron was in the car with her boyfriend, Pete. Pete is the guy who sings in Elephant Mojo. They kindly drove me home. I told them not to ask me what I was doing in the Wickham.

I am feeling unwell today, but better for having gotten that necessarily unpleasant night out of the way.

Form Expressions On Their Stupid Faces

I'm pretty keen to see Factotum soon. I don't think that I'll see it tonight. It's almost 20 dollars on Friday and Saturday nights, and that's too much to pay. It's not right.

I went to Coles last night. I bought some of this. It tastes good.

So it's a Friday night, and I'm not too sure what I'm going to be getting up to. I know that tomorrow night I'm going to a 50th. That should be fun. I might get drunk. I don't think that I'll get properly drunk. Real loose. It would be unseemly, but then again, you never know. My mum is in intensive care at the moment, and that could mean something.

I ate a hamburger last night. Two of them actually. They had some of the biggest patties on them that I've ever had. They were delicious, but I could feel them sitting in my stomach afterwards, all the way up until this morning, and then I couldn't feel them anymore.

I saw my friend Adam Williams yesterday afternoon. He's taller than the last time I saw him. He's almost a chiroprator. He looked pretty well, it's been a while since I've seen him and he looked well. It's always a pleasure. Adam is a great story teller, he enjoys telling them and I like listening to them. Sometimes it's hard to figure out what the point of his story is.

Last Sunday I entered into a Texas Hold 'Em Poker tournament at the Brunswick St hotel. I had a steak before the game, it was a t-bone. It was good. When it came time to play, I didn't go so well. I was out after the second hand. Going all in with a pair of tens isn't a great idea. I know that now.

After I was run out of the tournament I went and sat in the park for a while. It had a great view of the Story Bridge. It was nice. I was starting to come down with my cold though.

I spoke to one of the dads at the centre about Splendour today. He's going down for the weekend. He's really looking forward to seeing Sonic Youth and Mogwai. He's the only person I know that is excited about the Saturday, everyone else is keen on Sunday.

I wonder what I will have for dinner tonight?

Hard To Beat

I've been feeling a bit out of sorts recently. Both physically and emotionally. I guess there's probably things going on that I'm trying to ignore still. It can wear you down.

Being sick kind of sucks. I'd forgotten how unenjoyable it is. My nose was running like a faucet. My skin was like a topographical map with red lines and blotches. My head felt stuffed like a teddy bears. It wasn't very pleasant. I couldn't lie, didn't want to sit. Wanted to read, but didn't have the concentration. Didn't want to watch tv. I don't think that I would have been much fun. Thankfully I am feeling almost 100 per cent again, and so will be back in action pretty soon.

Oh dear. I just recieved a phone call from my mate Coco. Apparently there's a spare ticket to Splendour in the Grass if anyone is interested.

Crap. It's been a while, and this is really short, but I gotta go. See you round like a record.

You Killed My Father

I'll pick up where I left off, with the Fergburger. Ria and I were intending on watching the rugby at one of the many establishments around town that would be showing the game. We ended up having to hit a couple of different bars, because, who'd have thought it, but those Kiwis like watching the All Blacks play. Eventually we were able to find a spot in a bar where we could see the screen and settled in. We were doing kind of okay, until Rocky got sent off. But what can you do? After that being so close to so many Kiwis started to grate on my nerves, so we left. Not before we saw one cave man stumble out of the pub slurring some sounds at a guy in a Wallaby jersey.

Next day Ria and I got up pretty early, especially for a Sunday, got our gear on and headed out to the bus that would take us up to the Remarkables. We had Grant the busdriver again, but I didn't ask about how his day with Samantha went. I hope that he had a good time. He certainly was a good bus driver. Some of those roads were very scary. People in New Zealand don't seem to like their roads to have barriers on them, especially when there is a 500 foot drop off one side. Who needs them?

So yeah, we got up the mountain to the ski field, Grant warned that there was alot of rocks on the runs off one of the chairs, I really should have listened. Ria and I were some of the first up the mountain, which would normally be a good thing, but unfortunately it was really windy and icy which is never a great thing. So we didn't do too much riding. We were in fact contemplating hitching back into town because it just wasn't enjoyable. I decided to do a run over where all the rocks were, and this was a good idea to start off with. The chair was pretty much abandoned, but it was definately the pick of them as the bowls and runs off that chair were protected from the wind by the a chunk of mountain. There was lots of really nice snow in there and a huge bowl as well. I did a run down there and had a fantastic time. It was great. It wasn't so great when I ran over some rocks though and tore some grooves into my board. I've never carved out chunks like these ones, and I was fairly upset. I needed to be consoled. Thankfully Ria was able to convince me that they were reasonably superficial and that the repairs dude wouldn't have any trouble fixing it up. Which he didn't. So two hours later we were back riding again. It was awesome. Unfortunately a few other people had found our hidden valley, but that was okay. One dude even managed to disturb the snow enough to create an avalanche which was pretty wild because I've never seen one of those before. It was full on. I thought that the guy was going to get caught in it and then carried off a cliff. Luckily for him, he wasn't. Still, I had a couple of really fantastic runs over there, that is until I destroyed my board again. I almost cried.

Seeing as I kept on trying to hurt myself and my board it was decided that we would retire for the bus for the rest of the afternoon, as waiting in the lodge was impossible as there was a guy singing terrible covers in there.

Back in Queenstown I can remember what we did in the afternoon. It's still very vivid in my memory, but what we had for dinner is a bit vague. I think that we went to Pog Mahone's (which apparently means Kiss My Arse in Gaelic) where I had a steak and Guinness pie. I wasn't feeling too crash hot at this point though, I put it down to the 2 minute noodles I ate earlier in the day.

After Ria and I had gone to bed there was a fire alarm. We had to get out of bed. I wasn't very happy. Nor was Ria. We both forgot our shoes. We had to stand on the cold drive way for 20 minutes. It was cold. It was a false alarm.

The next day was Monday and our last day on the mountain. Ria and I elected to go back to Cardrona as it was the place that we'd had the most fun. So off we went. I tried to get my board repaired again, but the guy in the shop wasn't interested in doing any work that day and told me that it'd be hours before he could repair it. The tear in the bottom didn't end up slowing me down too much. As far as last days go, it was fun. The weather was beautiful. There were a few too many people, meaning we had to wait in line a little bit too long, but it was cool. Ria saw some dude she knew in the queue. Did I say how I saw Adrian Lep at the airport? If I didn't, well, I'll tell you now. He was on his way to Fiji to do some work. With his church. Whoa.

That was it. The trip was just about over. That night we had a pizza for dinner which was pretty good. Went for a final stroll through town. I rang up the bus company to confirm our trip for the next day.

Next morning we were up early, packing our bags and making sure we had all our shit. Ria was really disorganised. We waited for the bus, it arrived, we got on and off we went. Bye Bye Queenstown.

The bus trip was pretty uneventful. I bought some fart bombs in a town somewhere and a raspberry coke. Ria bought some chilli and lime peanuts. The bus trip went for a few hours. I read my book. Again, New Zealand's South Island is very picturesque.

Eventually our bus arrived at Dunedin airport. This was our destination. This was where we were going to get off so that we could get on a plane back to Australia. That was the plan anyway. Unfortunately the bus driver had other ideas.

I shall describe her for you. She was approximately 60 years old with dull grey hair pulled into a tight bun. She was wearing black rimmed glasses, a navy blue track suit with her jumper tucked into her pants. By my calculations, her pants were pulled much higher than her navel. Around her neck there was a hideous purple scarf. I believe that she was wearing this to hide her turkey chin. Her skin was pale and wrinkly, her cheeks were full, but sagging. Little eyes, set back in her head with unfortunate teeth and an unfortunate demeanour. She was wearing very sensible footwear.

Two other people hopped off the bus before us, the driver retrieved their bags from under the bus. When it was our turn she looked at us. She wondered what we were doing. I said how this was our stop. She said that it wasn't. I said that yes, this was our stop, and this was where we would like to get off. She said no, that she had us down for Dunedin, and so that is where we would be getting off. I said no, this is where I want to get off the bus. She said no, we were down as getting off in Dunedin and that would be where we would be getting off. I said that we would be getting off here as that is what our ticket had said. She said that her piece of paper said that we would be getting off in Dunedin, not the airport, that there was only two people getting off at the airport, and they had already gotten off. I said that I would like to get off the bus now, and that she should look at our ticket to see that this was where we were scheduled to get off. She said that it would be impossible for us to get off here, as our bags were under a pile of other people's bags under the bus. I said that I would like to get off the bus here, and if she would open the bays under the bus, I would be able to get our bags out with a minimum of fuss. She said that this would be impossible as they would be under a pile of bags. I said that I would get the bags off. She said that we had to make a connecting bus in Dunedin. I said that I wanted to get off the bus now, and I would be happy to get the bags off from underneath the bus and that it would take only two minutes. She said that we had to leave to get to Dunedin to make the connecting bus. I told her that she should look at our ticket to see that this was where we would like to get off the bus, and that this would be where I would be getting off the bus. She said no. I was extremely unhappy. We still had some time, and Ria said that we shouldn't worry about and that we should just get back on the bus. Eventually I agreed. This driver wasn't listening to me. I was still extremely unhappy.

Dunedin airport is approximately 30 kilometres out of town. It takes about half an hour to get into town from there. I was extremely unhappy the whole way. Once we arrived at the bus depot all the bags came off the bus. It took about two minutes. The connecting bus was still there. I spoke to the lady, apologising for being short with, saying that I hoped she could understand that I had confirmed the trip the night before, and that my ticket had said that I would be getting off at the airport and that was why I was shocked to find I was unable to get off there. She didn't apologise and say that there must have been a mistake. She inferred that it was my problem. I was extremely unhappy.

Ria and I called a cab and he came and picked us up. The connecting bus that we had to hurry for was still there after we left in the cab. This was twenty minutes later.

Thankfully the cab driver was exceptionally nice. He was telling us about how the Chocolate Festival was on and that that day they were racing jaffas down the steepest street in the Southern Hemisphere. He was a very nice man. All the people that I had spoken to in New Zealand had been like him. Very nice. Very friendly. Ridiculously so. Except for that one unaccomodating bitch. Fuck her.

The cab cost me sixty five dollars. The air had a very perculiar scent on it. I was told that it was the smell of turnips after they had been passed through one of the many dairy cows in the region. Mmmm.

At the airport I attempted to ring to complain about how the situation with the bus driver was handled. Everyone I spoke to at Inter-city Buslines said that it wasn't their problem and they would pass me on to somebody else. The last person I spoke to said that I should ring the travel agent. I don't want to though. I'm going to write a letter to these bastards. I haven't been this angry in a long fucking time. My blood still boils when I think about it. Fuck them. I did everything I was required. This is not my fault and I will not let them try and blame me for it. These fuckers have demeaned me and left a sour taste in my mouth. They have tainted what was otherwise a fantastic trip. It's not the money, it's the way that I was treated. Dealt with. I am still extremely unhappy.

My Name Is Inigo Montoya

I'm back in Australia now. I had a great trip.

Wanaka = Beautiful

Treble Cone = Beautiful

Cardrona = Fun

Queenstown = Tourist Destination

Nevis Bungee = Intense

The Remarkables = Rocky


Actually, this is a really lazy way of doing things, so I am going to stop. I'll try and write down a bit of what has happened since I last posted, in the hopes of saving some of these memories for prosperity.

After picking up my board from the tuning shop I saw some trout in a stream that was running through Wanaka which was pretty exciting. At least I thought that it was. Apparently Ria doesn't get as excited by seeing fish in streams, but that's her loss. After this it was time to get some groceries and then head back to the hotel. We ate some cheese and biscuits and caviar and jelly beans and I drank some beers which was a nice mix. I don't think that we did much else that night. I'm pretty sure we crashed.

Next morning we packed up and checked out. We were off to Cardrona and were picked up by one dude, dropped off somewhere in town and left there. We waited around for a while and then jumped on another bus. I'm pretty sure that it was the wrong bus, from the wrong company, but we got to the right mountain in the end. The drive out to Cardrona took a little bit longer, and there was some angry young dude on the bus with us. I'm pretty sure that he was angry because he couldn't quite get his gear to match. He had urban camouflage outer wear on his body, but on his head he had a jungle camouflage helmet and goggles. I would have been angry too. How dare Mum and Dad make me look like a dork on the mountain! We also passed about a hundred metres of fence where there were numerous bras hung on the wires. Most of them looked a little bit worse for wear, and I worry that if anyone were to try one on, they would need to have a tetanus shot in case they were stabbed by the underwire.

Cardrona was a fantastic mountain. Plenty of terrain, a good variety of runs, not too busy, great views and just a lot of fun. I really like riding there, but eventually it all came to an end and it was time to get onto the bus with Grant (it rhymed with Aunt). He was a funny dude. At the end of the ride he told us how he was looking forward to spending time with his girlfriend, Samantha. He took us down to Queenstown which was about an hour and a half away. The drive was pretty spectacular, but I guess that's New Zealand for you.

It's been five years since I was last in New Zealand, and it has certainly grown out a lot. I seem to recall it being nowhere near as big or developed as it now. I guess it really has become a destination with a lot of money coming in from overseas. Anyways.

We checked into Rydges in Queenstown and showered then headed out onto the town. It was a Friday night, and everywhere was pretty busy, but none probably more so than the Lonestar, which is where Ria and I had decided to chow down. Undaunted by the 40 minute wait we grabbed a seat at the bar where we were continually jostled by all the people cramped in waiting for a table to open up. Whilst there we spoke a bit of shit to some old Kiwi about the rugby match the following night and he told us that he was going to the game and that we'd need good luck. Fortunately because there was only the two of us a table opened up in a lot less than the time forecast, and we were able to slot into a table reasonably quickly. Our waiter for the evening was a crazy Maori dude in some sort of Hawiian shirt who wrote down nothing, but got everything right. He acted a little bit like what I imagine an acid casualty Kamikaze pilot would be like. I don't know why. I think that it had something to do with the look in his eye and his need to shout everything in short sharp phrases. It was interesting. Anyways, we both had a steak and it was phenomenal. It had a tomato with it that tasted unlike any other tomato I've ever tasted, if every tomato tasted like this one I think that they would be my favourite fruit/vegetable (whichever it is). The whole meal and experience was tops. Afterwards we waddled back to the room for the night.

It had been decided the night before that we weren't going to go riding that day, and were going to go bungee jumping that day instead. I'd said to Ria that I was only going to go bungee jumping if we did the biggest one, and, like a trouper, she agreed. So, the next day we organised that and then headed out to kill some time until the bus left to take us to the launch site a 2 o'clock. We found a nice little cafe down by the lake that had a fantastic mural painted on the roof. There we ordered a "Big Daddy" breakfast. This was a bit of a mistake. I don't think that I've ever seen a breakfast as large come from a cafe before. It was like the big breakfast from Fatboy's doubled. It was huge. Sausages, half a pig in bacon, tomato, mushrooms and onion, two eggs all lying on a bed of fries. Actually, I'm pretty sure that I've left something out, because it was way huge. I managed to get it all in after a bit of a struggle, but that was to be all I ate until much later that night. It really was big.

I can't exactly recall what happened after that. I think that my body was too busy trying to digest everything in my stomach that it was unable to store any memories from what occurred over the next few hours. I don't think that there was anything exciting.

Anyways, it soon came to be that we were on a bus and heading up a goat track to the place where we'd do the jump. The bus was playing some reggae funk type stuff and was driven by a dude who had a nametag that said Moo. Weird. We got there, got fitted into a harness and then shipped out by cable car to the "pod" that was suspended over the gorge by wire. It was pretty intense. The ride out was scary, the pod was scary, the glass floor of the pod was scarier. Inside the pod the music was blaring, the guys were getting the leg straps confused and chatting away. They told us to dive out, and not down and that we should be fine because we're Australians. We went in order of weight, and I ended up going third. I don't mind admitting that I was a little nervous, but mainly excited. Looking down through the floor was fun, but I wasn't game to walk on the glass bits. Not yet anyway. So my turn came around, I sat in the chair, they strapped me in and I waved to the camera. Then it was time to shuffle out to the little stage from where I would leap. This was probably the most nerve wracking part, because the dude has his hand on your back and keeps telling you to scuffle forward until your toes are over the edge. I don't know why, but at this point I was kind of worried about falling, even though everything was attached. I guess it's just a comfort thing, wanting to do things on your own terms, not tripping and falling out of the pod. I got to the edge, took a look down, brought my eyes back up, gripped my harness with my right hand (I was told to do this because of my sore shoulder), took a deep breath and then dove out. It feels like flying. You see the ground rushing towards you, you feel the bungee begin to slow you down and then you feel yourself stop. Then you start going back up again. At this point I found it to be very peaceful and it was nice to look around and take in what had just happened, what I had just done and where I now was. On your second bounce they get you to release the line attached to your feet, and they haul you back up in the upright position in your original harness. Good times.

There was sixteen of us jumping. Most went through it without a hassle. One Korean guy sort of fell out, he went to jump, but didn't and then his knees gave way. It looked pretty bad. One other Korean guy was psyching himself up by slapping himself in the face. He was full on, I guess he didn't have the option of chickening out, because his girlfriend did it before him. Ria eventually got up to give it a go. She was cool as a cucumber. The only thing that she was concerned about was that she wouldn't be able to release the leg line and would have to be hauled up feet first. Watching her jump I was actually a little bit nervous. I was kind of thinking to myself what if something does go wrong? This was my idea, I paid for it, and now I'll have to tell her parents. Oh shit. But she was fine. Although she was right to be concerned about being able to release the tie, and was brought up feet first. Watching her, I couldn't help but be reminded of those chickens you see hanging up by their feet in shop windows in Chinatown. I don't think that she appreciates the analogy.

Afterwards we were both pretty pumped and the Bledisloe was on that night, so we decided to grab something to eat and then watch the footy in a pub somewhere. I'd been dying to have a Fergburger from the moment we arrived in New Zealand. So we had one. I had my first Fergburger at about 5 am on a chilly September morning in 2001. I was thorougly intoxicated at the time having drunk a lot in a nearby hole in the wall bar. Back then Fergburger was just a hole in the wall establishment itself, hidden away down an alleyway in the back streets of Queenstown. Using a drunken man's innate ability to find food I tracked it down and was astounded as to the quality of the burger. It was some of the most satisfying booze food I have ever had, and to this day there is not much that tops it. So you can understand why I was keen to get back. Fergburger has grown in the past five years, much in the same way as Queenstown, in fact you could say that the changes are parallel to that of the city. Fergburger has now become an icon with a new address on the mainstreet. It had 8 employees working when I was there and a 15 minute wait on all burgers. You were able to purchase beers and fries with aioli to enjoy with your burger. Thankfully the quality of the burger was still there, and it was extremely satisfying. I reccommend it.

I'm kind of getting bored with writing now, so I'll continue this saga later. There was an incident that happened right at the end of the trip that I am still angry about, and it takes a lot to get me cranky. Last night I lay in bed thinking about the incident, and I could feel the heat rising in me again. In fact, it's happening now.

The Deltones

Here I am in beautiful Wanaka. And I mean Beautiful. It is absolutely stunning here. Everytime I look out over the lake and then up to the mountains I am again astounded by the natural beauty of the area. It's fantastic.

So yeah, I'm here in New Zealand and am having a great time. The trip over was uneventful and pretty boring. Unfortunately while I was in the toilet at Brisbane airport my backpack dropped off it's hook, breaking the screen on my ipod. I read a bit of a book called Marching Powder which was pretty standard sort of airport fare. Sitting next to Ria wasn't at all painful and we ate a fair bit of crap. We flew with Freedom Air which is a discount carrier, which means that we had to be self sufficient in relation to food and entertainment. We made do.

Once we arrived in Dunedin we breezed through Customs and then waited for an hour for our transfer to Wanaka. The bus finally arrived and we jumped on. It was more of a maxi taxi than a bus, and the other travellers were pretty relaxed, apart from one twelve year old that Ria wanted to beat up. Travelling though the countryside was interesting, lots of rolling hills, mountains, mud, sheep, little houses and winding roads. It was interesting. I somehow managed to find the Shuffle button on the iPod so that made the trip more bearable.

Eventually we arrived in Wanaka. It was very dark and very cold. Initially we headed to the wrong place of accomodation. We were at the Mt Aspiring Motel and we wanted the Mt Aspiring Hotel, not to be confused with the Mt Aspiring Lodge, of course. We eventually found the hotel which is about 2 kilometres out of town. We checked in then headed back out for some pizza. The pizza was crap. Once we'd returned from the pizza it was time for bed. I was happy to turn in.

The next day was time for snowboarding. I sometimes forget how much I love being up the mountains. We went up to Treble Cone, and some of the views from up there are just amazing. It seems that world is just spread out below you, with Lake Wanaka in the foreground and more mountains in the back. It didn't take me too long to get back into the swing of things. Making turns, tumbling down, hurtling down the mountain. Good times. I took one reasonable crash and I kind of hurt my upper arm. The deltoid region. In the afternoon the sun went behind a ridge line making the conditions a little icy. It was still sweet though.

I saw a bird called a Kea, or Kia, I'm not sure. Apparently they eat rubber.

After we came back down from the hill we had a shower and then headed down to Shooter's for happy hour. $5.50 jugs. It was great. Even though the jugs and glasses aren't the biggest, they are just right. It was nice to sit down in front of the fire with a cold beer. After some refreshments we went to the Speights Ale House for dinner where started off on a bucket of mussels which were terrific, and then I had some lamb shanks while Ria had some sort of chicken parcel type thing. After the beers and the riding and the food it was time for bed again.

This morning Ria and I both slept in. We were both in a bit of pain from yesterday's riding. My shoulder has been giving me a bit of grief, but it's nothing that some Nurofen can't cure. Ria's problems are more fitness related, so there's not much we can do about that.

Today has been spent walking around Wanaka, along the banks of the lake and through the streets of the town. We found a fantastic playground where if you tried hard you could make yourself sick on some spinning things.

It's been a great trip so far, we hit up Cardrona tomorrow so I'm excited about that. My board has been tuned today so it should rip the mountain to shreds tomorrow. It's going to be super dope.

Queenslander!

Kitsune Maison

I really am a lame-o sometimes. In the end on Saturday night I stayed at home. I didn't go out anywhere. I didn't get drunk. I didn't even walk up to the service station to buy a chocolate milk. It was very disappointing and sympomatic of something. What? I don't know, but it's very unlike me to do nothing two Saturdays in a row. I can't remember the last time that happened.

Even though I was disappointed with myself for my lack of action on Saturday night I must say that waking up and feeling good on a Sunday is always nice. It makes you want to take advantage of the day and the beautiful weather, which I did. For the first part of the morning I did some washing, making sure that everything will be ready for my trip. I've washed a heap of underpants because they are really the only thing that I'm concerned about. I'll quite happily wear other clothes that are a little unclean, but I try to stay fresh down there.

After I'd hung up a couple of loads I went with Stuart to Denim which is a cafe down near Southbank. I can reccomend it very highly to anybody who wants a nice place to sit down and watch the world walk by. Especially males. Stuart and I had 4 coffees each and were joined by a a couple of other people. These people were Dean (who had the biggest coffee I have ever seen), Will and Caroline. It was very nice, although after the 4 coffees I had quaffed I was feeling pretty speedy and wanted to do something, anything, it's just that I didn't know what. Because the weather was so fine Stuart and decided to go down the coast, which we did.

Before we could go down the coast though there were a couple of things that needed attending to. One of them was the picking up of provisions (boardshorts, towels, girlfriend) and the other was the filling up of the car. Unfortunately when I was filling the car up I managed to spurt petrol everywhere, dousing myself and the car in the foul smelling liquid. I now had to drive with the windows down or be in danger of passing out from the noxious fumes. Anways.

We all went down the coast. It was beautiful. Not a whole lot of surf, but the water was really warm, I think that Stuart and I were in for about an hour, which is ridiculous because it is the middle of winter. The water was clear and there was quite a few people about. After the swim Stuart and I found Ria and Jay-lee and went to the Sushi Train station. It wasn't the best, but it certainly filled the hole. Then it was time to come back.

Once Stuart and I had arrived home that was pretty much it for the day. Mum and Dad had returned from Stanthorpe where they had bought a whole heap of apples and pears. They had also bought some other things. It seems they had a good time, although Mum's leg had swollen up to three times its normal size which was weird. That's about it really.

I stayed over at Ria's last night and I'm really tired today. Only one more sleep to go!

I Got So Many Reasons

Aah, fuck. It's 5 past 5, and I needed to be somewhere like two hours ago. What's going on with me? Why can't I get to where I want to be in the afternoon? Why can't I get to where I want to be in the morning too, while I'm at it? This has happened two weeks in a row now. I thought that I could put last week down to being hung over. This week? No excuse. I'm just lame. It's pissing me off.

The place that I was meant to be at a couple of hours ago is just around the corner, I think. I know that it's in the same suburb. There's a ping pong tournament going on. I'm not the world's greatest ping pong player, but I can hit the ball sometimes. There's also going to be drinking and a barbecue, and I'm pretty good at those. Sometimes I lose track of the ball though.

What has my weekend consisted of so far? Last night I went to Ballymore for the first of what would be 3 games of rugby at which I would be a spectator. Last night it was Brothers versus Easts, and seeing as I played for Easts in my youth, I was kind of bummed when they lost. Although I knew a guy on the Brothers team, and didn't like one of the Easts players, so maybe that kind of evens that out. I dunno. The rest of the night consisted of eating boogers and ice cream. The boogers weren't as green as they have been in the past, but they were still tasty.

This morning I got up before the sun and took Ria to work. After that I came home and did a whole heap of nothing for two hours before it was time for me to leave again to head over to Nudgee College where I was to spectate the second game of rugby for the weekend. This time it was the Under 13 Brisbane Central team. They were playing some team from up North, and they won convincingly. I'm still not sure what I was doing out at this game. A husband of one the lady's at work was the manager for the team, but I don't know how I got roped into watching them play. I don't mind, it just seems strange, even now. I knew one of the boys on the Brisbane Central team, and he played well, although he had a corked thigh for the last little bit.

After the rugby I headed into town where I was searching for a pair of goggles to take away with me. I think that I ended up with a pair of Smith Phenoms or something like that. It was pretty stupid actually. The dude wasn't too interested in selling them to me, and I didn't really care which ones I got, so I don't know how the transaction was made. Anyways.

After that I went up to Borders and bought some books. I don't know if they count as light reading, because they aren't very thick books, but I don't think that they are going to be light hearted. Maybe they will. Who knows?

After that I headed back to Easts Rugby to watch Richard play. Sitting there watching the team warm up, and then when they headed out onto the pitch, it certainly brought back alot of memories. I would be lying if I said that I didn't momentarily consider a return to the game. It would certainly be a fun. It's good to have a hobby. I just don't think that I would last though, I reckon that I would get snapped pretty quickly, and I've had enough of hobbling around to last me a life time. But watching the boys out there today, it was exciting. The real camraderie of the team mates. The enemy. The contact. It would certainly help wake you of the drudgery that can be a 9 to 5 existence. Richard even won in the end!

After the game I bought some Red Rooster, then I came home. I should have done a couple of loads of washing, but instead I started reading some Bukowski and then I fell asleep. I gotta get out of here. I gotta go to this tournament. I gotta start living and stop sleeping. These Nanna naps are killing me.