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Published: September 10th 2006
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Make a note, never move into your new residence under cover of the night
Awakened by a 2-stroke roar at 3am in the morning, I should have but two and two together, but it was only when I walked to work in the revealing light of day that I noted that I actually live 3 doors down from the Auckland Chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. That’s just great. ‘Nevermind’ I was told,, “At least its not The Mongrel Mob” ( a notorious kiwi gang), Er ok that’s alright then…phew that was a lucky escape.
It was only when further examining the house noticeboard, that I saw the letter from our 2 wheeled guardians dated June, regarding there intention to host a 43rd Anniversary Party, that must have been fun, they seemed quite civil though, there signatures weren’t signed in blood, and they had apparently even mastered the use of a word processor, which is more than I can say for the awthur.
So, Ive been busy continuing to get to grips with the complexity of the NZ planning system, but as a tonic have been continuing my adventures to Mt Ruapehu with the Auckland Tramping Club
Snowcraft Course.
Last weekend was rather hectic, as I’d wisely left all my packing until Friday morning at 6am which had been proceeded by a heavy night drinking german lager after being forcefully ejected from the inaugural Auckland young planners meeting. I thought I’d be alright I’d had stopped for a kebab on the way home, but seemingly theres only so much a quarter pound of shaved elephants leg can do to stave off the effects of 8 pints of HofBrauhaus on a Thursday night. Needless to say, Friday was a bit dull. But. We had lots of fun on Saturday learning how to place ice anchors so that we were not garrotted by half a metre of aluminium when the ice anchor pulled out
But..the snow cave, it took 5 men 6hrs in Shifts to dig it, this is starting to sound like one of my grandads stories. Its perhaps obvious to some, but not to me, having not remembered GCSE Geography and that snow turns to ice quite quickly when it is buried below the surface, whilst snow is light and fluffy, ice is heavy and hard and Bloody freezing! So I emerged 6hrs later with an upper body resembling Geoff Capes on Steroids, or so I thought, the sun had set in the meantime and there’s only so much you can make out under the light of the Southern Cross.
It was a cold damp night, and I learnt that if you ever get caught out in the cold, forget survival blankets, the first thing you should remember to pack is your nokia, coverage permitting. It is also handy when trying to arrange your social life from mountain tops (see the last posting). Come the morning, all talk of making breakfast was abandoned, and we all legged it back to the hut in the morning for hot soup, and I spent the rest of the day trying to prussic up a length of rope in the cosy confines of the club hut.
The big ‘news’ in town this week has been the “Boobs on Bikes” parade down Queen Street on Wednesday lunchtime. This event has led to the virtual eclipse of all other news stories for the past fortnight, (well that’s the impression you’d get from watching the evening news), and the spectacle, 20 topless women riding through he middle of town on Harley Davison motorcycles to advertise this coming weekends “Erotica Expo”. 100,000 reportedly lined the streets, sadly I was on my site visits in Remuera at the time, where theres a good-a-chance as anywhere of unexpectedly catching someone in the buff wandering around their house, whilst you’re assessing their application for the removal of a Pohutukawa Tree.
So, this weekend I’m ‘off’, but I’m actually off to Whangamata on the Coromandel Peninsula, with my accommodation being kindly provided by a work colleague, so it’ll be my first weekend in a proper Kiwi “Bach”, and I’m really looking forward to getting a bit of sleep!. Next weekend we are making our first assault on Mt Ngauruhoe, so keep the international news page of the BBC website bookmarked, because theres a good chance I’ll get a mention!!
I’ll just leave you with a news story that had me chuckling a few weeks back, enjoy…
Take Care Guys, See you soon
Train driver’s Pie Halts Traffic
Whilst the European World worries about sustainable transport solutions, and Britain’s operators are pushed ever harder to compete with a de-regularised airline industry, things continue to tick a long at a agricultural rate down under.
Not content with cancelling the North Islands last Auckland -Wellington “Express” train (express as in not expressly quick) from the end of September. The Wanganui Chronicle led with a story last month in which the driver of a freight train had stopped his train to go for a pie, across the road at the local bakery, good on him!. Unfortunately he had parked his locomotive across the switch which had activated the level crossing down the road, the result of which was, it wasn’t just him which had a lunch break, even if for others it was an ‘unscheduled’ one. Needless to to say, NZ operators Toll Rail are investigating.
Ive said it before, I love this country!
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al
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boobs on bikes
i can only imagine...