Road trip to Akaroa.

So I promised to update on any mad missions I've been getting up to... but it's mostly been the general ticking over of outdoors fun and bits of work.

The only major mission was a trip up to the Banks Peninsula, just to the East of Christchurch. I have a friend from Scotland, Pete, who's headed there with his kiwi girlfriend Hannah. He's managed to get one of the sweetest jobs I've heard of - taking tourists to swim with the world's smallest and rareist dolphins, the Hector's Dolphin (or Heckie Ds as Pete affectionately calls them). Since he opened up an invite to come visit and get a free swim, I thought I'd take him up on it.

Both Si and Monica decided that they were up for a bit of a road trip and with just under a week to spare inbetween work off we went. The route we took was a little convoluted, a mixture of my innability to grasp the 3 roads that leave Queenstown and some interesting route decisions by Simon. We did however have plenty of good tunes - I'd managed to fix up the sound system in my van to combat the possibility of us singing the entire journey. Have you ever heard groups of kayakers singing? It'd probably be one of the last things you would hear...

Our route up started by winding our way out of the mountains around Queenstown. We then hit the plains. This was a particularly boring part to drive, although some of the views were fairly fantastic. We were blessed with some splendifarous weather (which luckily for me mostly toasted the passenger side.. unluckily for Si's arm) and super clear views. The became apparent when the mountains reared up again, in the form of Mount Cook from lake Takapu. Although the pictures can't quite convey it - the "blueness" which suddenly hit you after hours of withered grasslands and fields was astounding. Needless to say we all wanted to stop and took a thousand pictures.

The journey itself ended up taking us around 9 hours, which wasn't too bad. After dropping Monica with a friend in Christchurch, Si and me carried on to meet Pete in the pub in Akaroa. No surprises there! A few cool pints put the journey easily behind me and we headed back to Pete's place.

The next few days were a blur of good food, dolphins and sea. I've never eaten so much in my life, mostly thanks to the fact that Hannah's folks own a magnificent delhi in Akaroa, and the fresh fish sandwiches cooked on the wharf by the fisherman's wife, and the BBQs etc. etc. It has to be said that a fair amount of beer may also have been consumed, but this is no surprise when you meet up with your Scottish friends!

A big thanks must be passed onto Pete and Hannah. Not only did we get to follow hundreds of Heckie Ds as they followed behind the local fisherman (although they weren't up for playing), but we also got to go water-skiiing in the bay. Unfortunatley Pete tore some ligaments in his foot, but everyone else had a laugh - even Si, who gave the best impression of an anchor I've seen! We visited a variety of small bays dotted around the place (the Banks Peninsula is dotted with them) and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. When the time came, we were sore to leave, and it wasn't just the hangovers from the night before, or the vague memories of a trampoline...

On the trip back we headed a little further East so that we could drop by some boulders we had heard about near Duntroon, called Elephant Rocks. These are some great examples of the surprises that geology here in New Zealand can throw at you. In the middle of what appears to be relatively rolling hills, you can come accross something like this. Amazing limestone boulders rising seamlessly from the rolling grass. Sculptured by the wind they form all kinds of weird shapes, dotted with holds and the chalk of those that come to scale them. The 2 hours Si and me got to explore them was barely enough to scratch the surface of the innumerable problems (routes) there. But we did our best and left with sore limbs, finger-tips and bruised egos! It was a long drive back, as Simon's short cut took us over Danson's Pass, a 2 hours off-road mission. Luckily it turned out to be beautiful and dramatic to say the least. Work the following day was HARD.

Apart from that, training continues, work continues and our repertoire of friends increases.

Picures will be up soon - I just need a better connection...

For the moment, since I managed to forget the correct memory card and this damn computer won't recognise my hard-drive, here's a link to some pics up on facebook.